Cold hands, warm heart.

My hands are always cold, and if I had a dollar for every time somebody said to me,
 "Cold hands, warm heart."
 I'd be a rich woman!

We're into week 2 or 3 of a subzero cold spell.  It's been bitterly cold so long I can't be sure.

It's too cold to paint in the kitchen, so I've been keeping my hands busy

and warm by knitting wool mittens.

I started this pair before Christmas, but set them aside
to concentrate on the holiday season.

 These mittens fit my hands perfectly, so I knit up another pair in gray.
You can find the free pattern "Norwegian Mittens for Mimi"
 by Anna Mazzarella here.

I only knit one mitten in the pattern shown above.   My hands are long and narrow,

and this pattern knits up short and wide.  It was a very labor intensive pattern,

so unless I find myself with absolutely nothing to do (will never happen)

I'm not going to waste my time knitting the other one.

Do you see the fleur de lis pattern on the palm side?

You can find a free pattern for the Fair Isle heart at The Counted Sheep.

  It would make a nice sachet filled with dried lavender,

 but the only thing growing in our back yard right now is snow,

 so I filled mine with fiberfill and hung it from my armoire door latch.

It's cold outside, but at least the sun is shining to brighten up our house.

The mittens above are knit from a vintage pattern out of the same
wool roving I used for my snowball garland.  Because of the
inconsistency in the thickness of the yarn, the mittens have a nice
homespun look.  They are knit on size 10 needles, so each
mitten takes just a few hours to knit as opposed to the Norwegian
mittens which take me weeks (or months) to finish.

In fact, I finished one during our drive to Minneapolis just the other day.
I tried on the second mitten for size, but something wasn't right.

I don't like to look ahead at the last chapter of a book, but it would serve me well
to read through the entire pattern before I start the second mitten.

If you're happy and you know it clap your.......right hands?

The cold weather isn't leaving us any time soon, so I guess I've got
plenty of time to work on two left mittens.

(The pattern can be found at Free Vintage Knitting.)

Keep calm and knit on.
Vickie

*I'm joining the parties at:
Share Your Cup Thursday  Have a Daily Cup of Mrs.Olson
Tweak it Tuesday   Cozy Little House
Sundays at Home   Thoughts from Alice