More than any other season, I think, autumn invites me (drives me!) to prepare.  I don’t really prepare for summer – I just sort of anticipate it, wait for it, wish for it sometimes.  But aside from purchasing a few new tank tops or a swimsuit and making reservations for summertime travel (if any), there is not much to do.

But autumn verily explodes with preparations – beginning with the late summer “school shopping” and the freezing/drying/canning of summer fruits.  September and October finds us hauling out winter clothes, ordering Christmas cards, stacking newly delivered firewood, packing up the deck furniture, giving the front yard a “once over” (in the blessed knowledge that the areas we clear of weeds and the shrubbery we hack back will stay tidy for months now!).

AND, of course, there is the autumn/winter knitting to begin. 

So, if I went a little “mitten mad” this week, well, blame it on the weather!

I first succumbed to Lene Alve’s Katrilli Mittens when I read her blog.  The traditional Finnish colorwork technique intrigued me, of course (my Finnish heritage!). And they are lovely.  I confess that the pincushion pattern that is included as a practice/swatch project bewitched me entirely and the next thing I knew I was gleefully downloading it from her Ravelry store (by the way, it is written up with impressively clear, concise and complete directions for all aspects of the mitten – thank you, Lene!).

Now, I admit that I do not usually wear mittens.  Our winters are mild and a pair of gloves for driving or walking outside are nice, but not the necessity that they are in other parts of the world.  But certainly I could use a pretty pair of Finnish mittens anyway.

But then the Knit Picks catalog came and I fell head-over-heels (or should I say palms-over-thumbs) for the Woodland Winter Mittens Kits.  They are stunning!  Stranded colorwork scenes, for heavens sake!  Each of the six patterns portraying a month from October to March – autumn leaves to sprouting seeds!  And the two colorways are both fabulous: “Original” being cool, luminescent, “Bright” being dramatic, vibrant.  I could not decide…. 

Okay, I ordered both!  Well, the kit includes 4 balls of the dark background color and a single ball each of the 10 colors that are used in all 6 patterns – such a small amount of each color is used that one can knit all 6 pairs from the single balls of color.  You would, in fact, have to buy a whole ball of each color just to knit a single pair.  So, why not have options?

And so here I sit at the beginning of October, all good-to-go with the pattern for my Finnish mittens and (on the way) the makings for, er, 12 more pairs of mittens.

Well, Finnish genetics, primeval yearnings, ancient survival instincts…what are ya gonna do?