Warm fuzzies

I have been knitting a bit that I can show off, but it's not terribly interesting: new mittens for the aforementioned partner, to replace the pair that vanished at the end of last winter. The shells are the dullest fabric you've ever imagined—vast expanses of black stockinette—but the linings are a brightly-coloured secret.



The yarn is Blue Sky Alpacas Brushed Suri, and it's soft like fuzzy kitten tummies. I don't think I'd want to wear it on its own as the outside of a hand covering, but mittens lined with it will be absurdly warm.

It might be a little idiosyncratic to knit mitten liners separately from the mittens they will line (actually, I knitted them first!), but I am doing it this way for a couple of reasons. First, the liner alone is much lighter than a liner being knit from stitches picked up from its mitten shell, and the lighter the better so far as my wrists are concerned. Second, since my partner is quite fussy about how things fit, I wanted him to be able to try on a mitten shell with liner already inside while the shell was still in progress, to ensure that they had the right amount of ease and to minimize the number of corrections I'll have to make after they're finished. I think this would be less of an issue with a finer liner (heh) or a stretchier shell, but these liners are thick and the shells are a wool/cotton blend knitted up at a bulletproof gauge.