Without fail, there are a few weeks every fall and every spring when I wish I had fingerless mitts. I kick myself for not knitting them sooner, I swear that next time it will be different, I plan for them to be the next article I cast on, and then the weather either gets cold enough for full-on mittens or warm enough to forego them entirely and they never get knit.

Last year I whipped up a speedy pair of Camp Out Fingerless Mitts, wore them camping, where they got very dirty and slightly felted, and swore to myself I’d replace them (I mean, the whole pair only took a few hours to knit, so no big deal, right?). Yeah, I never replaced them, even though I thought about it over the winter, and then again in the spring, and once or twice in the summer. A few weeks ago, though, the temperature here dropped and my hands were cold, and I was in a restless place with my knitting, and I decided it was was time. I looked through my many knitting books, and through my many (many) favourited patterns, trying to decide on a pair. It’s fall, so the weather is getting colder (unlike spring, when it’s getting warmer), so I decided that the mitts I’d been planning to knit probably weren’t the best choice right now (in March, though, I swear I’m going to knit them and be ready for spring!).

Then I remembered that last year, when I reviewed Audry’s book, I did so with the full intention of casting on the Motoring Madness mitts more-or-less immediately. I even had the right yarn (The Fibre Company’s Acadia) in my stash, all wound up and ready to go! That pretty much settled it. I finished the first mitt in an afternoon (minus the thumb), and even though it took me the rest of the week to knit the other mitt and two thumbs, they’ve been seeing lots of wear since finished them (a little over a week ago now).

I modified the pattern a little (you can see all the details here on Ravelry), but really only for length, since I wanted a longer cuff and I also have long hands (and, lets face it, probably knit these at a tighter gauge than written, despite going up a needle size). I love how well this colour goes with my array of navy blue jackets, and also that the pattern is interesting and pretty without being too loud/likely to snag on things. I’m also really impressed by how well the yarn is holding up. I thought the alpaca might cause pilling or fuzzing (you should see the state of my Hodgepodge mittens, which are very warm, but also absurdly fuzzy), but I haven’t had any problems at all, which makes me really want to knit something larger with Acadia. I have two more skeins in this colourway, so I was thinking of knitting a matching cowl or something — what to do you think?