Cats and Birds

The tale of two mittens:  One originally knitted two years ago.  Birds (Fly, fly) designed by Jorid, an inspiring young woman in Northern Norway.  She has a wonderful collection of mittens and hats in many animal patterns.  I wouldn't mind knitting all of them... but I chose her first free pattern to give it a go.

Did I mention that, ahem... I didn't knit the thumb two years ago, just the hand.  And then I thought, I don't need mittens.  But this year, I decided I DO need mittens.  Well, I need them in the evenings, when I take the dog out for walks... so I pulled the one mitten out and before I knew it, I was back at Jorid's shop and purchased a companion:  Cats!  My cats love birds...  Her patterns are in Norwegian and English.

I finished up the new mitten, with thumb, and knitted the other thumb, and discovered that the first one was shorter in the cuff.  I picked up stitches at the bottom and knitted a cuff and now:

 Not a tight fit in the cuff, but they are super long...10 1/2" long so they cover a great deal.  I used Rauma 100% wool (fin ull) making them lovely warm.

 Honestly, I just checked them... the above picture makes it appear that the right hand thumb is way too high, but they are exactly the same.  It's an illusion!  The thumb starts a third of the way up the fish.

I think Jorid is extremely clever with her designs.  Who wouldn't like cat paws in the snow!  (You can find Jorid in my right side column under "Blogs I Read":  Muffins Verden which translates to "Muffin's World", and she writes solely in Norwegian.  Her pictures tell quite a story.)