So the deal is, now that I’m into stranded knitting, I’m making mittens for my sister who lives in London, UK, where she doesn’t really need them often, but oh well, that’s not my problem, I need to knit something. :)

I’m taking pictures drawn by her toddler son and daughter and translating them into a chart. The drawing will be the main motif, with elements of the kids’ “signatures” as filler. BTW, the last photo with my nephew’s signature is supposed to be Spiderman, not some scary guy with a slashed-up face.

The cuff and palms will be striped, with a traditional girl and boy motif on the thumbs of each mitten like this pattern.

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Geez, designing is hard (duh!). I’ll make the left-hand mitten first, with a picture drawn by the older child, the boy. If it looks like garbage, I can try again with that design. If it looks okay, I’ll chart the drawing by the younger child, the girl. The boy gets to go first, and on the left mitten, because he’s older, so when my sister “reads” the mittens from left to right, it follows the birth order.

I had to add short lines and rectangular blocks to break up the long rows of white space. Not crazy about having an 8-stitch float in the face, but it’s necessary for clarity. I placed the letters of the boy’s name (as drawn by him) randomly around the picture. Call me paranoid, but I don’t want my sister to be out with her kids, and for some stranger to see the mittens and call out, “Ethan, come over here.”

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For the cuffs, I purled the first round, then knit the next to add in the second colour. On the next 4 rounds, the light grey was purled while the navy blue was knitted. After that, the rest is all knitted.

Changed to 3.0 mm circs on round 15.

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One mitten done and blocking overnight. Charted the other mitten and cast on. Thus concludes Day 1 of this project.

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Day 2: Even after blocking, the thumb on the mitten is too tight. It needs to be re-knit today. Changed thumb to 24 sts, from 18 in the template pattern. I crocheted the end of the cut-off thumb, and now it’s a little finger puppet!
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The thumb has been re-knit, and work on the second mitten continues. For the second mitten, I put 10 sts on waste yarn for the thumb, then when I got to that part, I picked up 2 sts at each edge for a total of 24 sts.
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Second mitten finished!

By the way, can you read my niece’s name from her signature? It’s Jasmine.
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December 18, 2022: Knitting this again.