With all the busyness of the holiday season and #XmasAudio this past month, I haven’t written any posts about knitting. Another contributing factor is that I haven’t finished anything – I’ve done that scattershot thing again of starting too many projects at once. That always happens when I’m working hard to finish a book. This time, it was The Crusader’s Kiss.

I still thought I’d show you some in-progress shots.

First up, I started a pair of fair isle mittens. The pattern is called The Gates of Moria, and it’s from the image Tolkien drew of those gates. If you remember that bit in The Lord of the Rings, the etching on these dwarf-made doors was visible only when they were touched by moonlight. The inscription is “Speak Friend and Enter”, which meant that the word to make the doors open was “friend”. (ha)I’m knitting mine with doubled yarn, holding a matching strand of Kidsilk Haze with each of the sock yarns I’m using. The result is wonderfully squishy, soft and warm – and I like that it obscures the pattern a little bit in some kinds of light. Here are the mitts before they got thumbs:

Here they are in the snow, with thumbs:And here they are in different light, so you can see the pattern better:There was an idea when I started these that I might give them away as a Christmas gift, but they didn’t get done in time – and I admit I stalled on that because I want to keep them myself. 🙂 The pattern is very straightforward and well-written, and it looks like I’ll have enough yarn left to knit a second pair.