FO: Susie Rogers Reading Mitts

One of my cousins saw these mitts when I knit them for myself before Christmas and asked if I could knit her a pair in grey. Of course it's always a pleasure to make something for someone who has chosen it and who is sure to appreciate it. My only dilemma was about the grey yarn. I didn't have anything suitable in my stash.

A couple of weeks ago Dutch Hollow Acres posted about some yarn that she was spinning. In thanks for helping her local humane society find a new home for alpaca they gave her several bags of wool sheared from their sheep. She skirted the fleeces and then sent the wool to be processed at a nearby wool. Once the yarn was returned she rewound it into skeins, dyed it, dryed it and put it up for sale with the profits going back to the humane society. Now that's pretty generous on her part even before you learn that's she's allergic to wool and suffered weeks of allergies, rashes and hives from handling the fiber!

Would she dye a skein to a light dove grey for these fingerless mitts? I enquired. She agreed without hesitation and within a week or so the yarn arrived. It's a rustic yarn - lots of lanolin and the occasional bit of vegetable matter - but it's lovely to work with. And the colour is exactly what I had hoped! The only thing is the knitted fabric is a bit stiff and not very soft; I think I'm going to give the mitts a hot wash and then a soak in hair conditioner to soften them up a bit.

Now, slightly more than a week after receiving the yarn I finished the mitts. These are the medium size of the updated pattern posted by the designer Susie Rogers and I've knit them exactly as written without modification. They fit perfectly! I couldn't be more pleased.