January morasse

I was looking forward to turning to projects for myself in January, now that Christmas knitting was all done. But unfortunately, grad school pressures and other daily responsibilities have elbowed out most of my knitting time.


I have just one project I'm working on at the moment: some stranded knitting therapy in the form of another Latvian mitten adaptation. I have some lovely leftover sock yarn from my various socks and berets that was just begging to be combined in gorgeous jewel-toned patterns. It's mostly Dream in Color Smooshy in "Good Luck Jade" and Arucania Ranco in rust, with additional pattern bands of Dream in Color Smooshy in "Gothic Rose" and some scraps of Koigu KPPPM in shades of navy blue and only the yellow stripes from my leftover Knitpicks Felici in "Patina." I'm particularly pleased with the way the Good Luck Jade and rust colors work together; both are semi-solid or mildly variegated, and the combined effect is like an antique piece of fabric.


As with my previous Latvian-style mittens, these have patterns adapted from the mittens on the Riga Summit website. They have a non-traditional thumb gusset, just because I really don't like peasant thumbs; this one is adapted from the Komi mittens in Knitting Marvelous Mittens. Colorwork mittens go so quickly! I had this one knitted up to the thumb, then had to rip it back and make it bigger, and it's still almost finished a week later. Watching those bands of pattern stack up just makes you want to knit one more row... then one more...

It's been freakin' cold here in New York City, so I wish I had more free time to finish these up! Alas, Chaucer and the First Crusade and Literary Theory take priority in the next few weeks...