They DO Suck:

Both the weather and the design concept, that is.

Behold the horror:

Isn't it frightening? My knitting basket is sitting on my freshly-shoveled sidewalk.

Can't argue with the weather but the damned mitten idea is so-so-SO a "what WAS she thinking*?!" moment. See?


Imagine the completed left mitten. Don't worry, your eyeballs won't bleed (right away, anyhow.) Awful, ain't it?

The really scary thing is that I saw it coming and forged ahead anyhow. It wasn't enough warning that my first thought after the second round of ribbing was "this thing is gonna be huge; I hope I can shrink it" even though I hate deliberate felting even more than I hate two-alike. (Oh no, I'm not listening to that alarm, not this time. I like this.) Nor was it even warning enough that my mental response was "shit, despite all that rinsing those blues might still bleed."

I thought "but they'll be so cu-u-u-te!" and sewed the joining seam together.

(Knitting Veterans may freely laugh.)

Even as I was stitching the Still Small Voice of Calm said "y'know, that's gonna make it a real bitch if you've got to unravel it..."

Yeah. It will. Did I listen?

No, but I sure should have--here's another shot of the carnage:

Mitten pattern? Great.
Yarns? Great.
Using any two of the three together? Probably okay.
All three? DISASTER.

The snow isn't swell either.


On the "up" side I've learned that I do indeed want to try that mitten pattern (two different! Hooray!) but that I'll need finer-gauge yarn and smaller needles. Also a less...painful...color scheme. I've also learned that the Easter Egg Yarn definitely needs to incubate longer; it hasn't declared itself yet.

My Plow Guy hasn't come yet but I'm reasonably sure that's a blessing in disguise.



* Hormones. Two days too early. Horrible killer (like late pregnancy) PMS is my middle-aged payback for having not believed in the entity in my twenties. I surely believe now. Hand me that box of Kleenex and the nine-mil, would you please?