Olympic Gold: Northman Mittens

I finished my Northman Mittens on February 26, the final Friday of the Olympics. Which was actually my finish line, since I knew for a fact that I had exactly zero knitting time available that final weekend.

The mittens were worn almost constantly on our Virginia Adventure (two more days of Travel/Roaming Tigger to come). I can say with confidence that they are warm and comfortable. And to quote Mary Poppins, “practically perfect in every way!”



I took a ton of pictures of these mittens and had an incredibly difficult time narrowing down to a reasonable number for this blog post. Hence the mosaic. Full-sized photos are available on my Flickr stream.



Yes, I love all shades of blue, which is part of why I chose the colors I did for this project. The other reason? These mittens match my favorite winter coat perfectly, as you can see above.



These mittens have a thumb gusset, and the colorwork pattern flows perfectly around the increases



The Blue Sky Alpacas liner is already felting a little bit, but I don’t care. The liner is what takes this pair of mittens “over the top” and makes them just about perfect.



As with most projects that come in pairs, I figured out a few details on the first mitten and refined techniques on the second mitten. My right mitten was knit first, and the tips of both the palm and thumb on that first mitten have slight “issues” that nobody but me would recognize. And the liner is a little bigger and has a little extra fabric to smoosh around, but I can’t figure out why (same stitch counts and needles, etc. Weird.). But the left mitten? Perfection.

Oh, and because I love you guys? Here’s a photo of the guts, before I put in the liner. Almost forgot to take that photo!



I feel like I picked a project that was the perfect level of difficulty and needed the perfect amount of time for what I had available during the Olympics. It’s certainly a win for me!

Northman Mittens

Pattern: Northman Mittens by David Schulz
Yarn: Berroco Ultra Alpaca in Navy and Light Blue
Blue Sky Alpacas Sport Weight in Royal Blue
Yardage: One skein in each color of the Ultra Alpaca, two skeins of the Blue Sky
Needles: US 4/3.5mm for outer mittens. US 6/4.0mm for liners.
Entire project magic looped with KnitPicks Options circs.
Started: 12 February 2010
Finished: 26 February 2010
Mods: Not a one. The pattern is perfect.