more mittens, mom!

These are the Mad River Mittens from Knitty. The main part is knit with Burly Spun from a Vermont trip. I knit the cuffs in superwash sock yarn so that part would stay stretchy, as illustrated by Techknitter. The idea was to make felted mittens for Leah. The whole idea of knitting something you're going to intentionally shrink and hope it'll fit properly in the end is a serious leap of faith. We're game, though, so off we go. The first step is to make normally sized cuffs and gigantic mitts. Check.

Next, close them in a fabric bag (to keep fuzzies from strangling your washing machine) and wash in hot water for a few cycles as they felt down to size. I found that the fuzz of this Burly Spun yarn felted into the yarn of the cuffs, so the superwash cuffs are not nearly as stretchy as I had hoped, but that's okay.

They're still a bit big on Leah, so we might run wash them in hot water some more. They are wonderfully thick and warm, though, and they fit my hands and Jesse's fine, so Leah said she'd share them with us.

Given how much a certain someone seems to like them, I just might need to make another pair for him!