It's what's on the inside that counts

It all started with wonderful Fleece artist kit that I purchased from my LYS last month to make a pair of Thrummed mittens.
The kit has a great handpainted worsted weight yarn and kid roving dyed to coordinate.

Thrummed mitts are actually a Canadian thing. They have been around for a few hundred years in Northern Newfoundland and Labrador. Bits of fleece were added to the inside of knitted items to add warmth.

After several false starts (a.k.a. frogging), I finally settled on a technique to make the thrums and to thrum a stitch by following the instructions from Biscotte and Cie.
Another great tutorial can be found on Hello Yarn but I did not follow that technique to knit the thrums.

I found that it's best to make a few dozens of thrums at a time.

After knitting a 2 ½ inch cuff, I started to insert thrums every fourth stitch and every fourth row. 

Even the thumb is thrummed.(try saying that three times in a row!) Looks really great on the outside, wait till you see what's on the inside!

How crazy is that? 

Over time, the thrums will felt to eah other and to the knitted mitt to form a warm felted layer on the inside of the mitten. But to help things along, I intend to wet the mitt and start the felting process by gently rubbing with a bit of soap and hot water, just to make sure that the thrums are lined up properly and don't felt in lumps...I would hate lumps on the inside of any mitts.

I intend to make more of these. Too much fun.

Friends

For the past 22 years, three girlfriends and I have been meeting twice a year for girl's weekends. All of us lived in the same city back then but one by one, they moved to other parts of Ontario and I am the only one left here. But even the distance that seperated us could not keep us apart.
Over the years, we have shared beautiful moments together and supported each other through some very difficult times as well.
We usually meet at a Bed & Breakfast, a cottage, or each other's houses (kicking the hubby out, of course!). For our 25th year anniversary, we are planning a major trip involving a flight and passport...destination yet to be determined! All four of us should be retired by then...it will be a great time!

My January knitting was all about them. I made three pairs of fingerless mittens from the Fetching pattern, available on Knitty.com

The red mitts are knitted without any modifications. They fit a very small hand. I knew I would have to modify the pattern to lengthen it a bit for the purplish blue mitt for a medium hand. The black mitt are the longest, made for a hand with long fingers like mine. We all met last weekend and I was happy to see that they all fit.

I love fingerless mitts. You can wear them when the weather gets warmer, when you are shopping and they look nice over a pair of thin gloves as well when extra warmth is needed.

Cables are at the wrist and also near the fingers.
A 4 X 1 rib all over the hand part makes this mitt really snug fitting.

Tomorrow, I take a course to make thrummed mitts...more on that next week.
Enjoy your weekend