it's mitten season

When I was sixteen, my cat died five days before Christmas. Around New Year's we started looking for a new cat. (I know, so soon, we're heartless etc.--but the house seemed so empty without a cat.) Multiple pet stores and the SPCA told us "It's not kitten season." Which we thought was ridiculous the first time, but after the fourth or fifth time, you start to doubt yourself, like maybe cat fertility is seasonal after all, and you'll just have to wait until spring or something. When the cats come out of hibernation and start pollinating. Or something. Finally my older sister bought a kitten on the spur of the moment, out of pity, from a dirty, ill-kept pet shop. She was so skinny that petting her was like playing the xylophone and she had mange and all kinds of gastrointestinal issues. She had been a Christmas kitten who'd been taken from her mother too young and given to a family with small children who didn't know how to treat a pet. So that's why it wasn't kitten season. All the kittens, regardless of age, had been sold for Christmas presents. (We named her Amelia, and she is now an old lady, even if she doesn't know it.)

All that was to explain the title. Mitten season, kitten season. Yeah. Give me a break, I'm having a tough semester.

I took my mittens and my friend Candice hiking yesterday. We took a bajillion pictures of the changing leaves, some of which actually came out, and complained about school. It was awesome.

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

That visual squeal of excitement translates to: they're done, they're done, they're done! My Anemois are finished! I can't believe I knit something a) so complicated b) in such a short time--less than a month, even less if you subtract the two weeks in the middle when I didn't work on them at all c) during such a difficult semester d) without going insane.

(In case you're wondering, the answer is ALL OF THE ABOVE. I rock!)

The only problems I had were curbing my to-hell-with-the-pattern tendencies enough to make sure everything was done right, and my tension. I loosened up a lot as I got better at fair isle. The second mitten turned out MUCH bigger than the first, and floppy. You know how I hate floppy knits, so I was sad. Then I decided to try to shrink the mitten in the dryer to make it match the first, which is a little long but perfect width. This sounds like the beginning of a tale of woe, doesn't it? But it isn't!!! It actually worked! And, bonus, the mitten is now dry (hence the name "dryer") from its blocking and ready to wear when I go hiking with my friend Candice this evening! Cue Preston Myers: "It was like everything was falling into place... as if it were fate!"

Naturally, my camera battery just died, so I'll leave you with this tiny snippet of an Endpaper mitt, which I cast on for last night as soon as I broke the yarns at the tip of the second Anemoi thumb. (I am voracious for fair isle. Fair isle is my anti-drug. Ooh, that's good, I should've saved that for a post title.)