After the overland slog on the Mystery Project, I felt the need for some instant gratification. I did a couple of pairs of booties (already distributed to the deserving, and not available for photographs). Then I took that beautiful hand-dyed sock yarn I mentioned the other day and started in on another pair of halfie mittens. I started (more or less) with the Fingerless Whatever pattern written up here earlier, but went free-form pretty early on.

To
start, I’m using a traveling twisted stitch instead of ribbing. It
goes all the way around the cuff portion, but when the thing gets to
the heel of the hand, the palm side switches to plain stockinette.

After the heel of the hand transition, the twisted traveling stitch
pattern drops a half-repeat at each cable crossing, and ends up forming
a slave bracelet sort of triangle on the back of the hand. The thumb
gusset is worked in the plain stockinette part, and is exactly the same
as the one on Fingerless Whatevers. The hand and thumb bit end off with
a bit of plain old K2, P2 rib.

Yes, the patterning would be
shown to greater advantage were I not using hand-dyed yarn. But I like
the seaweed-like effect of the mottled greens and blues, and the way
the colors play with the highly embossed texture vs. the flat
stockinette part. I’m pleased with my minor diversion, and as
this yarn was a gift, thank yous are in order. (Plus I’m sure the
giver would be curious to see what her offspring ended up becoming.)

Another postscript

Strange intersections of my professional employment and personal avocation keep cropping up elsewhere. I will soon be forced to knit my own robot.