The Owl & The Pussycat Wore Some Mittens

At the weekend I posted about the lovely things I received from Sian Lile Makes as part of the blog swap organised by Faith, Hope & Charity Shopping. I wanted to share the mittens I made for Sian, as I was really pleased with how they turned out. They pattern I used was Owl Mittens by Julia Temiseva.

The pattern was quite simple, knit in the round and using cables to form the shape of the owl, just like Kate Davies' Owl Jumper. I decided to make one of the owls into a cat, by adding a tail and omitting the cables at the top of the head to form pointy ears. I wasn't 100% convinced that this was going to look sufficiently cat-like until I sewed on the facial features. In the end I was really chuffed with the mittens, not to mention pleased with myself about thinking of 'Owl & Pussycat Mittens'.

As Sian is vegan and was a bit concerned about the practise of wool farming, I used Rowan Purelife Wool DK, which is organic and dyed using natural dyes. The colour I used was Alder Buckthorn, which is a bit more mustardy than it looks here. The label said that the colour might bleed when washed, but I found it was fine when blocking and did not run much at all. I would definitely use Purelife wool again, the wool I used was really soft and although the colour range is muted because they are dyed naturally, there are some lovely colours.

For the rest of the swap I sent an apple print lunch bag made of recycled bottles, a felt snowflake Christmas Tree decoration (Sian's Christmas colour scheme is brown and pink), a wood and plastic bracelet and a piece of fabric.

The swap was really fun, and I enjoyed trying to work out things that I thought Sian might like. I'd definitely participate in another swap. Thanks for organising Lakota! :)

K x