Knit Homestay Fair Isle Mitts

As promised, my very special project is finally complete!  This is a very important milestone for me because almost a year ago to this date, I had only just learned how to knit a pair of Fair Isle mitts in a class I took at the 2019 Webs Spring Retreat.  Needless to say, I've made a lot of progress since then.

These Homestay Fair Isle Mitts are a free pattern designed by Julia Farwell-Clay.  She was one of my instructors at the aforementioned retreat and since then I've been following her on IG.  She was a great teacher and she seems to possess an endless supply of deep knitting knowledge which she kindly shares (online).   

I used size 2 and 3 needles and although this isn't an ad for Valley Yarns, it could be because I used some leftover Valley SW Biscuit (from my Yuzu cardi) as the MC and 60% SWM/40% acrylic Haydenville Pompeii as the CC.  I don't have the ball band for the rusty color yarn I used to duplicate stitch the centers in my snowflakes but it's just some cheap, random acrylic yarn.

Similar to my feet, I also have really tiny hands; most teenagers have way bigger hands than I.  These mitts fit fine but ideally, if I knit this pattern again, I would do it on size one needles with even lighter yarn.  

I used magic loop instead of DPNs because it's my totally tubular preference. I followed the pattern exactly except for the thumb increases and shaping.  When it comes to mitts, I prefer to use only M1's for the increases and I pick up and decrease the stitches a little differently when rejoining the thumb because it just suits me better when using magic loop.  

Unfortunately, it never gets cold enough in NorCal for this Buffalonian to require the use of any mitts but I look forward to busting them out whenever we can travel somewhere wintery again.

While I am really anxious to knit another color work sweater, I'm still working out which colors and pattern I plan to try next so it was nice to get a little Fair Isle action going in the meantime.

I didn't block these mitts but I will probably throw them in the sink the next time I soak a batch of socks.