mittens for small people

Well, life happened and my carefully-laid plans for postings through Advent and Christmas Day were waylaid by illness and my inability to judge just how long it will ACTUALLY take me to knit things (and bake things, and pack things, and... you get the idea.)  But it is still Christmas for another eight days here, and since most people have received their gifts by now I think it's a good time to start posting about all the things I've made in the last month or so.  There may also be some Christmas music, just because.

I've been nannying a pair of 4-year-old twins since the early autumn and after several struggles with their existing cold-weather hand coverings, decided they needed mittens for Christmas.  The pattern is the Spiral Mittens from "Homespun, Handknit", which my mum used to knit for us when we were kids.  It's so, so easy to make, and the mittens are both durable and work for either hand, so they'll wear evenly.  The strings are important so you don't lose a mitten if you take it off.

The day I took them over was entertaining.  I get the kids from noon until their dad gets home; they discovered that there were PRESENTS at about 4:30, and I spent the rest of the afternoon fending off requests to open them NOW!  When I finally let them, they were delighted; L. tore around the kitchen declaring they were the BEST PRESENT EVER and their mother texted me later that evening to say that E.J. loved hers so much that she wore them to bed.  So I think they were a success :)

(The pictures are sub-par because the light was failing and it was my last chance to photograph them.  But you get the idea.)