Standard Holiday Warning: If you are a member of my family, I love you, but if you read any further do so knowing that you will ruin Christmas.

So, I made the hard decision. I went into the stash, assessed the Louet Gems colourways I had in there, chose two that approximated the colours I really wanted to be using, and then sat down to start again. Then I started thinking about the pattern, and how much recharting and fiddling the Dancing Grannies mittens were going to require (and then realized these need to be done by the 20th) and decided to start over again – new yarn, new pattern, new mitts. I’ve abandoned the plan, and while I know it was the right thing to do, I’m feeling a little time crunched and nervous about it.

I’m knitting these Lily mittens instead. They’re from the same book, and did require recharting (I’m adding a fourth layer of blossoms and an extra set of thumb increases, as well as borders), but it was pretty straightforward. Also, I realized that part of the trouble with the Dancing Grannies was that the floats were too long to allow for maximum stretchiness. That, combined with such a fine yarn made for mittens that were likely to end up too tight to be comfortable. The Louet is gorgeous and springy and has amazing stitch definition, so while it isn’t as fancy as the Road to China, it is still going to produce some pretty lovely mittens.

The colour is weird here, but it’s a sort of light, leafy green with navy blue.

(In case you were wondering, I didn’t actually rip out the other ones. I was going to, but I know someone with narrow hands who would probably love them, so they’re sitting on waste yarn and will one day be finished.)