Winter is Here

It has finally snowed for real, and it's gonna get pretty cold, too, if you believe the forecasts. I honour of that, here are some snowy pictures of my new mittens, that are made from my grandmother's book printed in 1946. The book is called "Kirjokintaita ja muita kansanomaisia neuletöitä" that is "stranded mittens and other traditional knitting patterns". I think my grandma knit almost all the mittens in the book (there are a hundred or so) and some many times over. These are my first ones, so I have some catching up to do!

One day I was on the bus and saw a woman with mittens knitted in similar colours and liked them so much that I decided to conquer my fear or suspicion towards knitting stranded mittens, especially traditional Finnish ones. It's not that I don't like them, I love so many patterns from the book but stranded knitting it not really my strong suit, and given how good my grandmother used to be, I have had kind of unrealistic aspirations when it comes to stranded knitting, i.e. that everything must be perfect, like hers were. But now I think I'm over this "problem" of mine. The mittens I knit aren't perfect, there's a visible mistake in the middle of the left mitten, but I am not letting that upset me, I am not going to do anything about it. And it's actually quite liberating. I already have plans to knit at least two other patterns from the same book, but at the meantime I have these to enjoy. I knit from Gjestal Maija, in colours 204 and 237. I used 2.25 needles and I really like the result. The fabric is thick and warm, and it keeps the wind out surprisingly well.

Now I am partaking in my knitting circle's charity project, we are knitting Mother Theresa quilts for the Red Cross. At the moment I've knit 15 18cmx18cm squares, one blanket uses 30. My goal is to get one blanket done by myself, I plan to crochet the squares together, too. I'm knitting garter stitch, from corner to corner. It's very easy, and I get to use some of my stash I have no other use for. And at the same time I get to help someone in need. I really feel it's very important that out knitting circle does charity work. Here are my finished squares so far:

The one colour dark gray and dark red  plus the light gray are Gjestal Raggegarn, the dark gray multicolour is Novita 7 Veljestä Nostalgia and the pink-gray multicolour yarn is Novita 7 Veljestä Raita.