All About the Mittens

I've always liked the idea of Advent Calenders as a way to count down the days until Christmas, but I have rarely observed this tradition. Even when my own kids were small, and we had a Christmas tree and stockings and lights, and all the stuff of Christmas, we usually did not have an Advent Calender on our wall. But, now that I have a grand-Peanut...

Yes, that is the Wallaby she is wearing!

I can't get enough of the idea of Advent! Preparing for Christmas...Preparing for a trip to see Gramma and Pop Pop...Preparing for any winter/Christmas event with little goodies each day, and a fun decoration to hang each year. So, a few weeks ago, I started to search Ravelry for the perfect thing...I'm a knitter, it's what I do! This is what I've come up with...

I thought about putting nails in the wall to display and photograph the
garland, but all my toothpaste is blue, so I just laid it on the table.

Twenty-four tiny Mittens, ready to be filled with goodies and strung up to count down the days! I have not decided what goodies I will fill the mitts with yet, but I'd be happy to take your suggestions...Peanut is not quite two years old, so we need to watch the hard candy, and stuff like that. What do you think would be good gifties?

Apparently mittens and coffee go together!
Peanut is not a fan of coffee, tho.

The mittens are knit in various colors of Red Heart Super Saver yarn (look away, Trish!), most of which I had in my stash already. (I did purchase the yellow. How did I not have any yellow?) They are soooo cute, with a little loop at the top of each one for hanging!

Yeah, you can't really see the loop,
can you? Bad photog! Sorry!

I knew I wanted to crochet some kindof garland to hang the mittens from, and it took me a little while to figure that out, until I found these:

Snowflakes and trees and stars! Oh, my!

The cutest clothespins to hang the mittens from, I crocheted them right into the garland hanger. Then I numbered each pin, from 1-24, so the kids can decide what order to hang the mittens. I'll send this all together this year, and as they take down the mittens to see the goodies, they can either hang them back up OR use them as additional Christmas tree ornaments. I hope it becomes a fun tradition for them, especially since they don't live close...this makes me feel like I'm a little bit closer to them during this fun time of year!

All in all, this was a fabulously fun knit, and I know I have enough yarn leftover to make one (or two?) more of these, so maybe I'll have one at my house this year, too...we'll see... What do YOU think I should fill the mittens with???

Thanks for stopping by, and Knit in Good Health!