friends and family mittens

This is 3/4 of a pair of mittens made for Bitchin' Mittens Summer Knitting. Even though they're not turning out quite like we hoped, enough time and effort (and learning!) has gone into them that we decided to submit them anyway.

The friends part of their name is derived from the fact that the wool was given to Leah by Carolyn Holt at a Nutmeg Spinners Guild meeting, and the dye was given to us as a tie-dye kit from a friend of my mom's. I blogged about the tie-dye kit twice in the archives, but for some reason I can't link directly to those entries.

The family part of the name comes from the fact that Leah, age 8, spun the yarn; Jesse, age 11, dyed it; Scott plied it, and I knit it! Unfortunately, our newness at dyeing is really obvious here, as some of the yarn is cheerful and bright, but some became very muddy. We were hoping to have enough of the bright stuff to finish both mittens, but no such luck. I'm not sure if these will ever get finished, but the process sure was fun nonetheless. Thanks to Dave Daniels for coming up with the Bitchin' Mittens idea and the impetus for Leah and me to each knit our first pair of mittens prior to these!