Monday, September 24, 2007

Mitten Marathon Update


The Mitten Marathon is continuing here at Chaos Central. A weekend of stomach distress resulted in some unexpected knitting time, which brought the total to 5 completed mittens by last night.

This morning saw the start of mitten 6. By now, I've got the whole thrum manufacturing process down to a science and have modified the mitten pattern to include a thumb gusset and a slightly different way of knitting the thrums into the body of the fabric.
I have to admit that I'm much happier with the shape of the mitten with the gusseted thumb (the lavender mitten), although sacrifices of symmetry needed to be made. If you look closely, you will see that the thrums line up on the same wale up the thumb, instead of being staggered. However, I decided that since these mittens are completely utilitarian and meant to be used in the snow, the likelihood of anyone noticing the variation in thrum placement was remote. If they are paying that close of attention while my kids are building snowmen and throwing snowballs, I'm going to have to call the police, because that kind of behavior would be downright creepy.

I added cords to the mittens for the two younger girls. I've debated adding them to the older kids' mittens as well but fear an all out boycott of the mittens if I do. These teenagers of mine are a bit finicky (go figure). Then again, there is nothing worse than orphaned hand-knit mittens. Any other suggestions for preventing the loss of mittens that would meet with teen approval?

After all, the goal here is to keep the kidlet digits warm long enough for a decent winter recess - long enough for them to burn off excess energy . . . and to give Mommy a well-deserved coffee break.

4 comments:

Sheepish Annie said...

I think the only way to keep mittens on a teenager is through the time-honored tradition of bribery. Cash for keeping mittens...or chores for losing mittens.

I've seen many, many mittens living in the Lost And Found bucket at school. It is always so sad. Thankfully, none of them were quite so lovely as yours, though.

Guinifer said...

Mittens? My teenager sneers at jackets. A sweatshirt/hoodie - maybe, but that's the most he'll do.

livnletlrn said...

If there are any buttons on their winter coat, you can crochet a little chain loop off the cuff of each mitten so the loop is just barely big enough to hook over a button.

My kids' coats only have zippers, though, so that won't work. Luckily, they have zippers on big coat pockets, so the deal is that they put their gloves/mittens in the pockets (1 each side so not too bulky) and zip them up for safe keeping.

Rani said...

Teenagers can go without hats, wet hair, no jacket, but one MUST have mittens as cool as those!

WOW!!