Three things came together to inspire my Autumn Leaves Texting Mittens. The first was a trip with one of our daughters to New York City on a particularly cold December week. She had forgotten her mittens, so off we went to a LYS to remedy the situation. We came up with an idea to make the thumbs accessible for texting and taking photos, but we didn’t want those thumbs just hanging out in the cold when they weren’t busy. Thus, a prototype was cast on and a functional pair of mittens with turtleneck thumbs was finished.

The second thing was an Instagram post from Knitwith.me showing what she calls an Oak Leaf pattern. I changed it a bit, but a video from February 26, 2019, can be found on her YouTube channel called “knit with me.”

Third, my friend, Karista, from Sweet Mountain Crafts, created a beautiful hand-dyed fingering yarn called Indian Blanket. It is named after the wildflowers that inspired the colors. I really wanted to try it out and thought it might work for little autumn leaves. It was perfect, and Autumn Leaves Texting Mittens became a reality.