The weather here has been really crazy! We got a bunch of snow and really cold temperatures, which we haven’t seen in a while. I realized during the taking care of the chickens part of all of this that I had no warm hand wear. I’ve got plenty of choices for sweaters and I made myself a hat and scarf already so I’m covered there. The hat and scarf were amazing for this super cold weather, I am really glad I had them available. The only hand coverings I have currently are one holey pair of thin wool gloves I got at a thrift store and a pair of (of course white) cashmere gloves I got from an estate sale once upon a time. Those cashmere gloves are amazing, but who wants to wear your nice cashmere gloves to the barn? I mean, I did, but who wants to? They really weren’t up to the task, although better then the nothing I would have been wearing otherwise!

I’ve decided that I want to make myself some mittens. I don’t remember ever having a pair of mittens, even as a child, but I can’t imagine I haven’t. They seem like the perfect compromise between warm and flexible for going out to the barn. I made myself up some rolags from the brown mini Cheviot I have and spun myself about 110 yards of yarn for some mittens. I have no idea if this is going to be enough. I swear with my yarn that I make I do the calculations for the yardage then I don’t actually have that much yarn, so far I always have a whole lot more, which makes me think I’m probably doing something wrong. I need to get myself a yarn counter, but that’s for another day. These days it’s more fly by the seat of the pants learning as I go along. It’s been fun though.

I spun the rolags up on my Electric Eel Wheel 6.0 with a z twist and plyed them on that wheel as well, with an s twist. This is a 3-ply yarn. I tried chain plying the ends of the bobbins but that was just a whole mess so that part of the yarn I just set aside for the next time I need a dye mop to see what it looks like over the brown.

I am realizing that I underspin my yarn, this yarn I was really trying to put more twist into but ended up with a looser fluffy yarn once again. I love that kind of yarn, but I’m not sure it is actually going to make mittens that last a super long time, since the yarn will pill easily. I am planning on making some oversized mittens and felting them down to a smaller size, that should help with the wear and tear on them.

I used my EEW Cone Winder to put it on a cone, I’ve found I prefer the cones to balls. The center pull ball never works out for me and it’s irritating to use it from the outside. I can just set the cone on the floor and it unravels as I craft.

Probably going to do this up on one of my knitting looms, not sure which yet. Looking forward to it warming up, but in the meantime, gonna suffer ‘till I get these done!

To all y’all out there not enjoying this cold: Just one more week left until there is just one more week left of this weather, and I feel your pain.

-Fin