FO: Toasty for Tofte, and Florida!

As predicted, the last few days of the semester were a blur.  Between grading papers, packing for Florida, getting the cats up to Scott's Mom's house, and finishing all the end-of-semester chores I had, it was more than a little crazy.
I was luckily able to finish up these Christmas present mittens a few days before I had to wrap them up and present them to the recipient.  Scott's Mom was very excited to get them, and it seems like she really enjoyed them!  Behold, the Toasty for Tofte mittens!

Pattern: Northman Mittens by David Shulz.  Link goes to the Ravelry page.
Yarn: Cascade 220 in Blue Velvet and Cascade 220 Heathers in Natural (creamy white) for the colorwork outside, and the delicious Classic Elite Yarns Fresco in sport weight for the inside in a beautiful dark blue. I used about half the skein for each of the Cascade 220 colors, and was just short of one entire skein of the Fresco.

Timeframe: Started November 2, finished December 18!  Possibly one of the quickest pair of mittens I've ever knit for how much work I had to do.
Needles: size 4 for the outside, 3 for the lining.

Mods: For the Latvian braid on the edge, instead of repeating bringing the yarn under the second time around, I twisted the yarn over. This would unwind the twist put in by the first row of braid, and make my yarn much easier to deal with later.  

Worst Part: One mitten was slightly bigger than the other on the outside colorwork.  Slightly.  I noticed it, but Scott didn't, so maybe it seemed bigger in my head than what it really was.
Best Part: The last time I did Latvian braids was hell, so I was incredibly happy with how easy this particular jaunt with them was.  I also LOVE the construction of these mittens.  

So many awesome little details about them, such as the colors making a neat line up the side of the mitten.  SO cool how the pattern incorporates that!  It's details like that which really make me love these types of projects.  And, of course, Scott's Mom's face when she opened them up. :)

I also finished one more big Christmas knit that I can finally blog about, but I'll do that on the next post.
Scott and I got down to Florida on the 24th of December, and we've already had a bunch of exceedingly full days!
We got to walk around downtown Disney and meet some favorite characters (made out of legos):

We got to go on some nice long bike rides, while making sure to watch out for gators...

We got to go kayaking in mangroves, weaving through arches that we could barely squeeze through, and laughing when a baby manatee came right up to our kayak and pushed it around with its nose...

And, of course, we got to go to the beach.

After all, it's a trip to Florida.  No visit would be complete without at least one (or more) visits to the ocean!
Scott was dropped off at the airport this morning, since he works tomorrow.  I'll be down here for the rest of the week, and it's been a really nice break after a crazy semester.  
I've also been able to start two brand new knitting projects- the Narwhal mittens for my friend Brit, and a pair of striped mittens for myself!  Good projects for hanging out, and practical for when I travel from the lovely 70 degree weather back to -10.  
Such a good break. :)  More later...