This past spring, I bought my first yarn of the year at Hill Country Weaver’s annual “yard sale”. The pink Araucania Limari spoke to me and I thought of my fabulous SIL. Then, I ran across the Cherry Garcia cowl pattern on ravelry and things started to come together. She opened this up on Christmas morning:

…and because I’m slightly OCD about things matching (I’ve been known to change backpacks to match an outfit), I concocted mitts to match. I had some help from a ravelry friend from across the pond who provided me with her Pit Stop Mittens pattern.

It seems that no matter how lovely something is, if I see a pattern that I can add a cable to, I think there should be cables. I recently mentioned to Lisa that I was thinking of making a cowl, mittens, and a hat with cables, and her response was um, do you think that might be cable overload? She’s usually right about such things, but my cable obsession will not be swayed. So, after making the Pit Stop Mittens, I altered the pattern to add a cable to each mitt.

I was trying to figure out what to do for a certain Christmas gift which shall remain namelss and ran across a pair of mittens that looked promising. The knitter had crafted three sets, so evidently, her giftees like them. Joining her admirers, I sent her a message, she wrote up the pattern for me and I gave it a test drive.
It is surprisingly fun to be a test knitter. She did a lovely job writing up the pattern, which made it just like knitting normally, but I am giddy nonetheless. This is my first project to finish within a day and I learned a new technique – magic loop. I’m not in love with it, but it seems like a handy thing to know.

and the fact that the mittens are reversible just makes taking pictures of them that much easier.