mittens managed

I took my parents and nieces over to Half Moon Bay on their visit earlier this month. A visit to the coast obviously demands a stop in the yarn store, so we meandered into Fengari so I could show the girls all the yarny fun. While I'm sure we all would have liked to take home everything, I let my nieces each pick out a skein of Malabrigo Mecha to take home and suggested I could make them mittens from their pick. Bonus, I also got to show them how my ball winder and swift work. Fun!

Samara is super into rainbows and dragons right now. It was really hard for her to pick out a color, but I showed her this variegated one because somehow the sooty overtones to the rainbow also suggested 'dragon' to me. She agreed, and I found a simple mitten pattern with some details that remind me of the spikes along a dragon's tail. There is a central knit stitch that is flanked by seed stitch triangles along the back of the hand. I REALLY like how these turned out and am bookmarking this pattern for future reference! The color worked up fabulously and I think they look funky and awesome. 

Pattern: Tolten Mittens (my Ravelry page)

Needle: US 9 dpns

Yarn: Malabrigo Mecha in 'aniversario'

On the other hand (no pun intended), Jasmine wanted a solid color and was positive she wanted teal. Teal, turquoise, blue-green, green-blue, whatever I call it she's into it. It was harder for me to pick out a pattern for her, but I settled on this cool swirly rib. The pattern calls it a "cross stitch 2x1 rib" but it's really just 1x1 cables going up the mitten. They look a little strange off of a hand, but once you put it on the rib stretches out and you can see the whole pattern better. I think the chunky yarn is shown off really well and the semi-solid color makes it not too busy. This one was fun to knit and easy to memorize. I had Mom measure her hand and text me measurements, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed I got it right. 

Pattern: Shelburne Mittens (my Ravelry page)

Needles: US 9 dpns

Yarn: Malabrigo Mecha in 'teal feather'

My original plan was to whip these up while they were still out in California, but that didn't happen because we packed a bunch of other things into our evenings. Still, these only took me a couple days each and I'll be able to pack them up with some hot chocolate packets and bookstore gift cards so the girls will be ready for the colder weather when it comes to Chicago.