Ok knitters – who out there has fallen victim to the dreaded “Second Sock Syndrome?”  For those not in the know, this occurs after knitting one sock (or mitten) and then finding that you can’t bring yourself to knit the other one.  Well next time you find  yourself guilt-stricken and motivation-less over that sock or mitten you can’t seem to start, read this post.  It may just get you over the hump.

Two years ago I decided to knit the gorgeous Deep In The Forest mittens for my mom.  And about a month later I had this one.  Isn’t it nice?  Well let me tell you about this pattern.  While lovely, it is a bit of a chore because there is no pattern to the chart.  You have to look at the chart for every stitch!  So I was totally dreading going through all that again, even though I made the mistake of showing the finished mitten to my mom, who was SO excited about them.

This year I decided my poor mother should finally have her mittens.  So I dusted off my old project and began.  And this is what I ended up with :

Go ahead.  Snicker.  Laugh at my pain.  Never mind the fact that no matter WHAT I did I couldn’t get the braid to work on the second mitten.  That early irritation was totally forgotten when I realized I was going to have one tiny, pre-teen mitten and one huge oven mitt.  I used the same yarn, the same needles – how could this happen?  Why???  No problem – I thought.  I am now a full believer in the power of felting after the smashing success of my Snowbird mittens.  Felting will save me!  I will simply shrink the oven mitt to a pre-teen size and mom can have two tiny mittens.  After 5 rounds through the washing machine it became clear that this crazy mitten was not going to felt. ( I have read that it is difficult or impossible to felt light colored yarn)

In the end, I gave my mom her circus freak mittens and she swears she loves them and that you can hardly tell when they’re on.  But I will never be able to look her in the eye while she’s wearing them.

So, dear friends, next time you suffer from Second Sock (or mitten) Syndrome, remember my sad Christmas tale of gauge or tension or something gone wrong and do not wait 2 years to knit the other!  A lot can change in 2 years apparently.

I have been wanting to make the Snowbird Mittens out of Vogue Knitting’s Mittens and Gloves FOREVER.  And finally, I decided this was the year I should have my mittens!

I used Brooklyn Tweed LOFT in a deep red and a soft grey.  They turned out too big so I bravely threw them in the washing machine in my first attempt at felting.  2 cycles later they were perfect!  You can see on one of them I somehow got off from the chart on one of the trees without noticing until they were finished, but I think it’s little mistakes like this that give handmade items soul, don’t you?  My great grandmother made a quilt with a sailboat in each square and on one of those sailboats the sail is upside down.  I’m sure it drove her nuts, but everyone in the family adores that quilt because of that small mistake.

Anyway, I adore these mittens y’all!  Now we just need to break 70 degrees here in Austin so I can wear them!