A year and a half's promise fulfilled

A year and a half ago, on a wintry walk in the countryside with our friends and Godsons, I made a flippant offer to my youngest Godson, JJ, to make him a pair of mittens. I'd just made his mother a pair to match my own. I made the offer without thinking, he said yes, we carried on our walk and I thought no more of it. 

Every single time I've seen him since, in the last year and a half (so, on average once a week), he has asked me "How are my mittens coming along?" He asks with such optimism and expectation in his voice - every time! Even when I squirm and pull a face and laugh and say, "Er, not very well." And then change the subject. The very next time I see him he has defaulted back to complete HOPE. 

I had tried re-drafting the pattern of my own mittens in a smaller size, but having not much patience for this I quickly abandoned the project. Then there was a breakthrough. About four months ago he said, "They don't have to have stars on, they could be stripy or have squares or circles." So I made a conscious effort to go looking for children's mitten patterns (I wanted them to have the Norwegian shaping at the top) and I found Norwegian Mittens and Gloves and thanks to Amazon I was able to look inside the book online and I saw they had child's mitten patterns. I asked if he would like reindeers on his mittens, he said yes, et voila! In a relatively short space of time, the mittens are now knitted. He wanted them in the same colour as my mittens. I think they've turned out really well. Now I want reindeer mittens for myself (luckily there is an adult reindeer pattern in the book).

I'm planning to wrap them up, take them round and then WAIT until he asks, "How are my mittens coming along?" And I'll be able to say, "THEY'RE FINISHED!!!"

And this is a sweet photo of our hens, and Turkey, out of my upstairs window. I love when they all hang out together. They're a great bunch, all with their individual personalities.