Christmas Mitten

It's pretty much Christmas time and I have to say that I am not even remotely ready for this. This year simply whooshed by and I had to slow down a lot to enjoy the small moments of everyday life, enjoy my Little One being little and needing me all the time, enjoy my Big Boy being a young man and not needing me as much as before. I even had to make sure that I enjoyed the mess and the little time I had for sewing.

So the house has not been decorated, menus have not been planned, gifts have not been organised, but I managed to make one single Christmas Mitten. Yay! I was planning to make one for each of us, but it seems that life and my Little Man had other plans for me and kept me busy with walks, games, books and all other messy and not so inspiring things day after day. But anyway, one mitten is better than none. Right?

A simple mitten, pretty much like an oven one, with enough room for small surprises for our Little One and decorated with some embroidery and sequence.

I used my Mushroom paper pieced pattern for this mitten that you can find here. It's a quick and easy pattern that is great for those tiny precious scraps of fabric you have hidden away. I love adding some hand embroidery to my mushrooms to give that extra special touch to the finished piece. So here I simply enhanced the flowers in the pot and the snow on the pinecones, and added the Christmas tree. The French Knots snow was so much fun to make! I just wish I knew about Colonial Knots before I stitched this. I uploaded two videos on how to make French Knots and Colonial Knots on my account of Instagram if you are not familiar with one of these yet. I only recently discovered the Colonial Knots and do like them more now than the French Knots. I also added some sequence to the lower part of the mitten to match the cuff. It sparkles in the light beautifully. 

I found this lonely tag that I made ages ago and it was a perfect match for this mitten. It says "For You" just in case it's hard to read. It's done in one strand of dark brown DMC embroidery floss using tiny running stitches.

A dear friend of mine makes wedding dresses and a long time ago she kindly brought me a huge bag full of pretty delicate scraps of silk, chiffon, sequence and lace, all in pure white. This particular sequence fabric was just right for the cuff. It adds that festive magical touch of Christmas to the mitten. It was easy to sew through and very forgiving too.

For the back of the mitten I used this magical print called Starry Night by Timeless Treasures from Utopian Threads store. I left it plain without any patches or quilting for two reasons. Reason number one - I did not want any extra details to take over this really cute print and the reason number two (probably the main one) - I simply did not have enough time to work on this mitten. I was afraid that I won't finish it at all if I kept fiddling with all the stitches.

I discovered that getting older has its advantages, but I am still getting used to this new concept to me. I do not have enough energy for everything I used to do, but that's ok, because somehow I still manage to do most of the things planned, but it just takes longer and I have to simplify some of them. It does not matter if we have four or just one mitten this year. It does not matter if we have the house fully decorated or have just a few simple festive decorations, it does not even matter if we have a five course dinner or just a simple roast to share. What is important is the happy joyful atmosphere and my loved ones being healthy, it is important to be together and enjoy simple small things. So whatever I manage to do before this Christmas, I am just looking forward to spending some time with my three boys (dear Husband included) and my friends. Hope you have the most wonderful time before Christmas and enjoy doing whatever is on your to-do list as long as it makes you happy. Sending lots of love to all of you! Larisa xox