Super Quick Knitted Gift Idea: Hot Chocolate Mittens

You know how you think that you are going to get SO MUCH DONE because the holidays are coming and you are on top of it, with all your lofty plans? Yeah, I thought that too… and then I got a stomach bug, followed by the flu, and was basically sick for the last two weeks of November. So much for all that productivity!

Not only are there a bunch of blog posts I meant to write (sigh- knitter’s gift ideas, November’s book reviews….), I really wanted to knit a few ornaments this year. The idea I had in mind were to knit little fiddly mice, on teensy tiny needles, and require half-knitting, half-spending two days weaving in ends and seaming tiny mice completely with tiny ears and tiny tails and tiny limbs. Now it’s December and that seems crazy, so I decided that what I really needed was a super quick gift knit idea…. And then I remembered I already have the perfect one!

Last winter I put out a free pattern for some of the fastest mittens you’ll ever knit – the Hot Chocolate Mittens. The Hot Chocolate Mittens are a perfect single skein project that knit up in a weekend, making them ideal for some holiday gift giving. So I thought I’d remind you that they exist, are still free, and have last-minute-knit written all over them. Figuratively, of course.

I knit a new pair in Bernat Wool Up Bulky as part of my recent experiments with affordable yarns. I was really surprised at the yardage in the skein, and the stitch definition- Perfect for that center cable (which is super easy even if you haven’t cabled before, by the way). The yarn perfectly suits the pattern- the acrylic and wool blend two-ply has a nice twist that is perfect for something as hard-wearing as mittens to keep looking good through the whole season.

I especially love how strong the Wool Up Bulky is… I pull my yarn really hard when I knit on dpns, and the yarn had no trouble with that at all. A lighter, airer single-ply would have ripped apart while I work to keep the stitches at the end of each dpn nice and tight, so a sturdy yarn like this really suited this project and the way I knit mittens in general. Plus it’s still super soft, and these mittens are so cozy. So warm! If you live in Arizona, these probably aren’t for you. But if you live somewhere with real winter… then hello mittens!

Another quick knit idea? That cabled headband I’m wearing. It’s the Bulky Braided Headband pattern (free), and knit in Patons Shetland Tweed Chunky in the Pewter colourway. This headband takes so little yarn, you could probably knit 3-4 headbands with a single skein of the Patons Shetland Tweed Chunky. Or maybe use some of your leftover Bernat Wool Up Bulky! I should have thought of that, but I knit the headband first (you can see it in progress in this post here), and then thought about the mittens… oh well. They still look really good together, even if they aren’t the exact same yarn!