Beginning The Mitts

The yarn is red.  Bright freaking cheerful red.  It's soft to the touch and a dream to work with.  It's hard wearing and won't pill or felt.  It's perfect for Mum's mitts.

Red is her signature color.  It's her favorite.  She wears a lot of it.  She's always the red token when we play board games.  And whenever I see red, I think of her.  Her mitts can be no other color.

I scrapped the yuck that I had started for her months ago.  It got tossed in the trash with a triumphant "take that!"  Then I cast on and began anew.  This time, I'm working them in the round, which means I have to work a thumb gusset but that's no big deal.  I have yet to decide on a pattern for body of the mitt, but I'm thinking moss stitch would work perfectly.  Now, normally, moss stitch annoys the piss out of me.  I think it's gorgeous, but it's a pain to work.  At least for me.  And I think that's because it takes too much concentration and I'm constantly double checking myself.  But see, that's when you work it flat.  I'm constantly having to look and second guess and say "Now, is this a row I start with knits? Or is it purls?"  And then I invariably cock it up and throw the whole thing off, get frustrated, and, usually, scream.  But in the round?  Oh, in the round it's a whole other thing. So very much easier to keep track of what your doing when you aren't constantly turning the work!

That being said, increasing for the thumb gusset would sort of be a bitch in pattern.  I'm going to spend some time contemplating that.  Because you do increase two stitches on the increase rows, it might not be so bad.  But the gusset could be in stockinette, the pattern on the body of the mitt, with ribbing at both ends, and that would work just fine.  
Or I could just stick a cable running up the middle.

We shall see.