I'm always thankful for things that keep me warm.

Like these mittens. I love how these turned out. They have such a refined, old school look to them.

The details:
Yarn: Bartlett Yarns sport-weight fisherman's wool
Color: Blue Heather
Gauge: About six stitches per inch
Pattern: Mitten from Ann Budd's The Knitter's Handy Book of Patterns (with a few accidental variations in the first mitten that I duplicated in the second mitten so that the "variations" would be the same in both)
Notes: I think that the top decreases were supposed to be done at four points around the mitten. I did the decreases at three points and so I wasn't decreasing fast enough. To compensate, towards the top I did a double decrease at each of the three points. I'm happy with the nice, round shape of the decrease.

Based on a pair of gloves that I knit from the same book, I knew that I wanted a little bit of extra length in the stockinette between the ribbing and the start of the thumb. I knit about five rows of plain stockinette to get that extra length.

The pattern calls for gathering the stitches at the end and pulling them together. This makes for a pointed end on the thumb. I don't like this as well as I like the kitchener stitch for finishing off the top.