Road Trip

My family and I recently got back from a road trip to California and New Mexico. We had 5 days of non stop driving, which meant lots of uninterrupted knitting time! First I finished off a pair of mittens for my sister for Christmas.

The pattern is Yellow Harvest from Vogue Knitting's Fall 2008 magazine. I used the recommended Manos del Uruguay yarn, and loved it!! I really enjoyed using the handspun, single ply yarn, and ended up buying more after I had finished these for an upcoming project! I really liked this pattern, (even though I'm not crazy about bobbles) and I found that it knit up quite quickly!

After those mittens I completed mittens for my other sister, also a Christmas gift. The pattern for these is Green Autumn (Druid Mittens) by Jared Flood and can also be found in Vogue Knitting's Fall issue.

For these mittens I used Jamieson's Shetland Spindrift, which was okay, I wasn't crazy about the yarn. I found that it broke quite easily, there were a couple of times that it broke while I was looping the yarn around my needle. The other thing that I found about this yarn was that the first skein I used didn't quite complete the first mitten. I was halfway through the thumb and had to break into the next skein. The second skein finished the first mitten, and the entire second mitten, with a little left over at the end. I'm not sure about the length difference, the tension was the same throughout, and I undid and used my sample guage... Despite my not being crazy about the yarn I love the pattern, and am very happy with the finished product!

2 Christmas gifts down, many left to go!