Let’s take a break from the Terrorsocks. I finished some mittens!

The Stuff
Manly Mitts by Elizabeth Morrison, on Knitty. (I followed the smaller instructions with smaller needles to make ‘em lady-sized.)
Yarn: Misti International Alpaca Suri DK: half a skein of orange, 1.5 of raspberry
Size 2 needles

I really like this pattern. It has clever use of simple colorwork, and the instructions were crystal clear. Most of the ones I’ve seen online look plenty classy, in any pair of colors. (For example, Joanna’s mittens were the ones that inspired me to cast on.)

OK, but the orange and red? I was going for Sgt. Pepper, and instead they really remind me of one of my great-grandmothers. The one who covered her chenille furniture in plastic slipcovers. I really don’t know what it is about these colors that evoke tha… Oh yes. Housedress. Orange and red housedress. Which she wore while making her famous orangey red pizza. Mystery solved.

Aside from colors that reminded me of my dearly departed relatives and their lost recipes, the mittens are pretty OK. Soft and warm. A little narrow. If I had to do it all again, I’d have cast on according to the numbers for the wider mittens.

As a sidenote, I decided to make mittens because the pair of mittens that I’ve had since high school somehow became a single. Not ten minutes after finishing the last stitch on the Manly Mitts, I found the match: