Grand Passion

It's official. I have been seized by mitten mania. They are such wonderful, small projects, the perfect place to experiment with new techniques, to be playful with colours and delicious yarns. The most sober of winter outfits can be livened up with a flash of multicoloured mitt. The significant advantage over socks being that they can be surreptitiously admired by the wearer at all times without the need to make obvious contortions or shed footwear.

The Marvelous Mittens are finished. I can't speak highly enough of this pattern and would recommend it to anyone planning to take the plunge with stranded colour work. Using only two colours at once and letting the yarn do all the work gives an effect way more complex than might be expected. The variegation, particularly in the Strange Harvest colourway of the Smooshy has added a really attractive dimension to the appearance of the pattern. Can you tell I'm chuffed to pieces with these mitts? I'll be quiet now...

They have inspired me to take a further step...

... working with on more than two colours in a project! These are the Latvian Mittens from Veronik Avery's new book Knitting Classic Style . As I didn't have the yarn called for, I substituted Jamieson's Spindrift from my stash. I think I did a much better job than my previous attempts at choosing and placing colours as I am happy with the way the mitten looks. The colors are distinct but none of them is elbowing the others out of the way in a bid to be noticed.This mitten is complete apart from edging the thumb and turning up the hem. I made it slightly longer than the pattern suggests and work a row of decreases into the cast off to stop the edge flaring which seems to have done the trick.

We're expecting a cold snap at the weekend - which mitts shall I wear first?