Materials: Knit Picks Telemark (100% Peruvian Highland Wool): two skeins each of Reindeer Heather and Drift; one skein each of Cardinal and Passion Heather.  Size 0 (!) needles.  Pattern: Squirrelly Swedish Mittens.

Time: A month.

Cost: $13

“Squirrel” has to be one of my favorite English words to say out loud. You can pronounce it all British-like and with two clear syllables: “squee-rel.” Or, you can go all marble-mouthed and American with it, and transform it into a monosyllabic mumble: “skurl.” Either way, it’s fun.

These mittens are part of my cunning plan for rendering handknits functional in a Canadian-grade winter. Once you drop below a certain temperature, you must necessarily trade dexterity for extra warmth; this winter, I decided to try mixing a hand-knit outer mitten with a commercial liner mitten.

More specifically, these mittens were designed to fit over a pair of double-fleece mittens that I picked up at MEC. (I know that one can sew fleece liners, but I figured that even a pair of modestly-priced commercial mittens would be worth the time and frustration saved trying to sew a pair at home.)

To make the covers even more winter-proof, I used a simple equation: bigger yarn, smaller needle. One minor product of this was more hand-cramping, but I eventually got my tension issues sorted out. I duplicated a popular color combination that I’d seen on Ravelry, and ended up leaving the bottom (red) cuff unfolded — this way, they perfectly match the length of the liners.

They layer perfectly. And: cozy and puffy!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 5th, 2010 at 9:27 am and is filed under diy, projects. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.