Now, by the demand of my little boy who wanted to have his oven mitts to take his cheesy toast out of the toaster oven, I decided to adjust the very popular Happy Stripes Oven Mitts to fit kids. Here is the same wide-thumb mitt for your little chef in the same happy stripes. The mitts are one-handed in three sizes. By one-handed, we mean that you can put these oven mitts on left or right hands, so you never have to worry about grabbing the correct one.

Like the larger versions that served as inspiration for these, the little chef oven mitts are designed to fit little people’s hands. Begin with the small, medium, or large size and take them out of the felting process frequently and try them on your little chef … when they fit, they are done.

The I-can-set-the-table-myself placemats are perfect for helping little folks learn how to set the table. Make one placemat for the wee one or make them for the whole family. We’ve got them at every place at the table so Soma (my little boy whom you see on the cover) can start participating in the table-setting process each night at supper time.

The placemats require intarsia, so if intarsia is new to you, this might be the perfect project because felt forgives some things that unfelted knitting does not. Make the mats in a solid color or happy stripes.

Fibers We Love to Use!

Use fine worsted weight yarns in your favorite colors. We like:

• Plymouth’s Galway (100% wool, 210 yds/ball) Warm color Little Chef Oven Mitts: 154 Apricot, 16 True Red, 44 Cherry Red, 125 Raspberry, 148 Ruby, 163 Magenta, 177 Honeysuckle, 173 Watermelon, 174 Strawberry, 755 Golden Heather, 742 Fired Brick Heather, 135 Bubblegum, 150 Tomato. Warm color placemats: 2 skeins of 174 Strawberry & 1 skein of 173 Watermelon and 2 skeins of 755 Golden Heather.

• Louet’s Riverstone (100% wool, 190 yds/skein) Works well in combination with Galway for an expanded color palette for both.

• Stonehedge Fiber Mill’s Shepherd’s Wool (100% Merino, 250 yds/skein) Cool color mitts (back cover) were made with: Lime, Green, Hunter Green, Lakeshore, Blue Spruce, Light Turquoise, Turquoise, Blue, Royal Blue, Lilac, and Purple. For the multi-color Set-the-Table Placemat (front cover), I got brave and made stripes in addition to the intarsia. I used Shepherd’s Wool in Midnight Lake for the cutlery, Sun Yellow for the napkin, and the following colors for the stripes: Garnet, Red, Christmas Red, Lime, Turquoise, Blue, Purple, Orange, Creamsicle, and Green.

See my blog entry Have No Fear! Striped Set-The-Table Placemats on how to make your placemats striped even if you’ve never done intarsia before — it’s a lot easier than you think and maybe easier than solid colors!

For a list of stores that carry this pattern (or can order for you), please visit NoniPatterns.com/store_locator.php.

For more information, see http://nonipatterns.com/collections.php.