Handspun Alpaca Mittens
These are "flip top" mittens that I knit using a pattern I found in "Stitch n Bit@# Nation." Be warned though, I changed the pattern quite a bit to make it work and also to make them look at little better (in my opinion.) It seemed to me and to at least 3 of my friends that the numbers in the pattern did not add up correctly. If they did, which is entirely possible, we couldn't figure out how.
Still, I love the idea of flip tops and the mittens are super warm! Yarn hand spun from my guy Beowulf (a gelding alpaca) and my famous pink alpaca, Pinka.
I wore these mittens for a couple of winters almost every time I rode or cared for my horse, and they never wore out or even looked pilly! They were far warmer than any insulated, synthetic gloves or mittens I could find, including my Thinsulate ski gloves that made me feel like I had baseball mitts on my hands.
Ok, the horsey smell did get kind of strong on the alpaca mittens, but I washed them in cold and hung them on the towel rack and they were as good as new.
Before I moved to Florida, I gave the alpaca mittens pictured above to a friend that I used to know from the horsey girls club. This person is an amazing rider and knows all about horses, but she is also skinny and tends to feel cold a lot. When I told the other gals at the horse farm next door that I was moving to Florida, this person right away said, "What are you planning to do with all those alpaca hats, mittens and socks?" Ask and....
