Knittin' Mittens

I wasn't going to post about this because it was supposed to be a secret, but secrets can't be kept long in this house. I think I got an afternoon worth of work done on them before Martin realized that the fingerless mittens I was making were for him. Doesn't help that they are practically camoflauge. They were supposed to be green with just a brown snowflake, but the yarn wasn't bulky enough. I had gone to the yarn store by myself after my mom read my Facebook status and offered to watch the girls so I could go alone, so when the yarn wasn't right, I tried to go back, WITH the girls, to exchange it for something bulkier. Not only was the trip disasterous, but they didn't have any colors I liked in the bulky wool, so I just left. When I got home I realized I could double up the yarn so now the mittens are brown and green and I think the snowflake will be an oatmeal color... or maybe I won't make the snowflake, I haven't decided yet if that's too girly. Anyway, I thought I'd knit these for Martin since last winter he left his "homeless person" gloves on the bus and looked around for a day and never was able to track them down... probably because a real live homeless person picked them up and kept them. I think if these turn out big enough I'm going to line them with fleece. That's the plan, anyway.

I also need to send my brother and sister-in-law their Christmas/New Year/Epiphany box of presents, but I am making something for my sister-in-law.... and my nieces.... so it might be awhile. Worth the wait though, I hope.

And speaking of my sister-in-law, when they were visiting this past October she was clearing out some stuff and gave me a lot of clothes and fabric. Many of the clothes I kept to cut up because the fabric was so cute. One of the things was a really cute Gap dress that didn't fit me. Well, at the beginning of Advent we moved our big huge CD player to the front room and tucked it away underneath our white table and we realized it's really nice to have it up there. Not only does it get it out from underneath the kitchen table, but it's nice to be able to play music up in the front of the house! However, it is kind of an eyesore, and I didn't know what to do about that.... until tonight, when I remembered this Gap dress, immediately found it and cut it up and now the CD player is covered by a very cute and room-brightening floral curtain! I LOVE IT!! It really does a lot for the room while it's covering up the ugly "boom box."

Okay, I'm freezing. I just wanted to post about my current crafts. Oh, my point about the mittens is that this is the first time I'm trying something like this (something with a thumb!) and it's going REALLY WELL so far. I am learning a lot, taking it slow, and have only had to rip out very small portions at a time, although I made the thumb abnormally long so I think I'm going to have to go back and shorten it somehow, but I'm pretty sure I can do it fairly easily.

Okay, seriously, I think I have frostbite on my nose....