Stash Diving

When my daughter asked me to make her a pair of mittens, I was excited because this meant I could knit something out of Favorite Mittens but not have to decide which wonderful pattern to knit first. I was surprised by her choice: she did not pick one of the many two-or-more-coloured patterns, but rather she selected the double-rolled mittens, because she was attracted to the shaggy cuff. Then I asked her what colour she wanted her mittens, and you know I was thinking, "Yay! An iron-clad excuse to go yarn shopping!" But she surprised me again and said, "Show me what you have." I took her on a tour of what stash yarns were mitten-appropriate, and she picked out a skein of Peace Fleece that's been waiting a project for more than 3 years. I even had thrums from Spinderella (purchased those back in the days when I didn't work full time and wasn't in graduate school, and was toying with spindling...), and contrasting Peace Fleece yarn waiting for the shag. No yarn shopping for me!

One of my confusions about this pattern was her insistence that it requires smaller-than-you-would-think needles. I tried that, and got all the way to the spot where you put the thumb stitches on waste yarn, and decided it was totally bogus and ripped it out. I stepped up to a size 7 needle. Still smaller than I would think. With all that lining and shag, wouldn't it make sense to use larger-than-normal needles? Because the lining and shag would make it warm. With this gauge, I'm knitting using the stitch numbers for a size 2, and the measurements for a size 8.