Remember when knitters used to blog their works in progress? I kind of miss that. So here’s a good old-fashioned snapshot of what’s on my needles right now. These are a modification of Katya Frankel’s Side by Side Mitts — my third go at this pattern, which tells you that it really ticks my boxes. This time I added length to the cuff, working ten repetitions of the wee cable motif before the thumb gusset. And I decided to pretty up the finger end with an eyelet row sandwiched into the garter and a picot bind-off. I realized afterward that this makes sort of a frankenpattern of Side by Side and the popular Susie Rogers’ Reading Mitts. I think it’s quite a successful monster, anyway! I’ll call them Bookend Mitts… at least until I devise an original mitt with similar qualities for publication and steal that name from myself. I’m using the scrummy Swan’s Island Merino, their worsted weight (it’s light enough to sub for the DK this pattern requires), in the Sky Blue color. It’s dyed with indigo, so it does turn your fingers blue when you’re knitting, but I don’t mind. It’s butter soft and I love it to bits. I wish these were for me, but they’re not. I’m sending them to a friend who used to be the librarian at my school but is now teaching Beowulf and other great English literature to some very lucky high schoolers. She used to be in charge of directing carpool for 190 elementary schoolers, out there in the circular driveway in all weather with her red megaphone and uncanny memory for ever-shifting constellations of kids and drivers and vehicles. I used to lend her the wooly mittens I always kept in my backpack. I thought about giving them to her in remembrance when she left us last June, but then I thought she might well be reveling in having shed that particular aspect of her job and would therefore appreciate something a little more refined for indoor use. Miss you, Maureen!