new york handwarmers

While we were visiting California, my sister asked for a pair of fingerless handwarmers for her New Years trip to New York; though I actually suspect these won't be warm enough for New York's insanely cold winters,  I do think they'll suit her life in slightly-less-cold San Francisco. She chose the yarn herself - Cascade 220 in Palm - and I bought it for her as a thank for letting us use her car for the week. The pattern itself is improvised, mostly because my mom's printer wasn't working* and I couldn't be bothered to go on the internet and find an existing pattern to print. They're not the most shockingly original things (just a K2P1 rib all around) and unfortunately I've since lost the notes I scribbled (along with my entire knitting notebook!) but she seemed happy enough:

above: modeling her Marian cowl and new hand-warmers.

* later, it was determined that the printer wasn't working because no one had removed that little orange sticker over the new cartridge that says 'remove before printing.' Heh, oops. 

Simple Things

Finished! This is a beautiful pattern that looks even nicer when worn, though it did come out quite small, even with an extra repeat of the garter stitch eyelets - very much a shawlette rather than a shawl. Still, I think my mom will like it - this was my first time using yarn from the Sanguine Gryphon, and the color -  Bog Fritillary - is absolutely gorgeous.

With this shawl done, I am quite close to being done with the meager amount of Christmas knitting I set out to do this year - I don't gift a lot of knitted objects, mostly because I'm too self conscious and want them to be absolutely perfect. But my perpetually cold mother always makes a point of wearing whatever I give her (she models them for me whenever we have Skype conversations!) so she's most definitely on the list :-)