My box of Yarn for the Latvian Mittens

OK, so it all started by my fabulous husband taking me away for a weekend. We stayed at The Candlelight Inn, in Red Wing MN. Great idea!!

www.candlelightinn-redwing.com

When we were visiting with our host Lynnette at breakfast, we started to talk of knitting. She asked me if I had ever heard of Latvian mittens. I had not and was very excited to see what they were. Well, they were beautifully knit mittens with a very intricate pattern. The part I liked the most was the braiding that was incorporated into the cuff. The needles were so tiny, I think they were 0's!!

I came home and bought the ultimate Latvian Mitten book...

Then I looked through the book and decided this would be my State Fair Project for the year. There were so many beautiful patterns. My daughter #1, who has decided she would like a blog name, and not be referred to as daughter #1 anymore (but has yet to decide on her blog name), is also knitting herself a pair of Latvian mittens.

So, we looked through the Knit Picks catalog, that we love to browse through, and selected some great color combinations. When the box arrived we first just looked at it with great anticipation.

We waited, daughter #1 and I, until most of the people in our house were asleep.

Then we carefully opened the box...

And there they were, our Latvian mittens in their raw form. We each ordered a set of double pointed needles. I went for the wood, and Daughter #1 went for the bamboo.. 

Then it was time to do a swatch. Since this was a serious project I decided I should not skip the swatch step. Really, I don't do this for every project!!

So here is the swatch...

No, I did not do the full four inches of pattern because I could tell after one inch that I had way too many stitches to the inch. So, I tried the same pattern on size 3's, since I had size 3 dps (double pointeds) in my collection. This came out with to little stitches to the inch. Since then I have been to my LYS and purchased size 2's.

and here is the opened and explored version of the yarn box...

Since I am a bit dismayed with myself, but not too much, about having too many projects going at once, I am going to finish the prayer shawl before starting the next....and PLEASE GOD!!...be the final swatch before knitting the mittens.

This weekend is looking fairly quite, so perhaps I will find many hours of peaceful knitting:)