Contemplating a Stalled WIP Mitten

Yesterday I mentioned my upcycled linen bag.  For more weeks than I'd like to contemplate, that bag has been holding some of my handspun yarn with the yarn knit into the beginning of a mitten cuff, knit in the round with some very sharp needles.  Imagine the needles sticking through the cloth, looking horrid.  (Did you know that the word horrid means bristling, like an army bristling with spears?)

I needed to find a larger size needle for the mitten cuff.  The needles weren't in the usual box.  I had already swatched more sizes of needles than I care to, trying to find that Goldilocks spot where the fabric comes out just right.

I forced myself to locate the needles and go again.  What you see pictured above has been knit and ripped back to the cuff, where I inserted some decreases and reknit.  I think I need to rip it out again, undoing part of the cuff this time, and make even more decreases to get rid of the extra fabric.  It's not a mitten made for giant sloths, by any means, but it is not quite right as it stands now.

There were the Useful Presents: engulfing mufflers of the old coach days, and mittens made for giant sloths; zebra scarfs of a substance like silky gum that could be tug-o-warred down to the galoshes; blinding tam-o'-shanters like patchwork tea cozies and bunny-suited busbies and balaclavas for victims of head-shrinking tribes; from aunts who always wore wool next to the skin there were mustached and rasping vests that made you wonder why the aunts had any skin left at all; and once I had a little crocheted nose bag from an aunt now, alas, no longer whinnying with us.

Dylan Thomas, A Child's Christmas in Wales

A Child's Christmas in Wales is available in audio form on the National Public Radio website, read by the author.