The recent season premiere of Mad Men had many people buzzing. It’s such a popular show that Newsweek celebrated the return of the series with an issue chock full of 1960’s style advertising. As I flipped through the pages, enjoying the ads and all of the photos accompanying the articles I had to smile. That issue took a lot of planning.
As knitters we understand advance planning. It takes weeks and sometimes months to knit a project. (Some would say years but let’s not talk about languishing projects, okay?) While it may seem odd to the non-knitter that I’m releasing a new mitten pattern in late spring, we knitters know that if we want to have new warm mittens to wear at the first cold wind of autumn we need to knit those mittens well ahead of time – like in spring or summer. As with socks, mittens are a good small portable project. If you have the yarn balls in a project bag or in a simple bowl at your feet then nothing hot is resting on your lap because the mittens are small.
With that in mind we’re pleased to offer a new pattern and kit! The Climbing Rose Mitten Kit includes two skeins of our new Local Alpaca Llama Fingering Yarn in natural colorways (80% alpaca/llama blended with 20% wool). The sample here is knit using cream and gray. And I’ve also knit the pattern in cinnamon and black. The skeins are good sized at 300yds each and you’ll have enough yarn to knit two pairs of mittens! Someone is likely to see you knitting these and ask for a Christmas gift, and you’ll have enough for that second pair without worrying about buying more.
This stranded colorwork mitten depicts an heirloom rose and a chain link fence typical of neighborhoods in the 1960ʼs. One of my earliest memories is of digging in the ground beneath one of my motherʼs fragrant climbing rose bushes. I hope youʼll find digging your needles into the stitches of these roses as enjoyable as my memory of digging around the roses of my youth.
IT’s very pretty – I love the flowers on the front.