My oldest sister has 8 grandchildren aged 9-3months so I thought having an advent calendar for her grandchildren would be cool. They can visit their grandmother and get a treat! Plus who doesn't love counting down to Xmas? So I searched Ravelry.com and fell in love with this pattern:Smitten (a holiday garland) It took me two months but I made 24 mini mittens-all unique (well 2 are the same color but you have to look very hard to see) and all handmade. I used embroidery (sp?) floss and added handmade tags to each one. My 6 year old great niece, Carmen, helped and she was so excited because 1.) she got to use a rubber stamp which she had never done before, and 2.) Grandma was going to put surprises in them! My sister hung them in her dining room on her built-in and everyday one or more of her grandchildren take the candy out of that days mitten and then moves them to my sisters tree (they double as ornaments!)
The yarn that I used for all of the mittens were bought months ago at the local Goodwill. I bought a HUGE bag for about $6-$8 and it was filled with Sugar & Cream Xmas yarn (100% cotton) and a couple of skeins of non-labeled acrylic Xmas yarn. Overall, I think there was close to 25 skeins (full-skeins!) in the bag....well worth the money I paid for it! My favorite mitten was the last one I made (and no, not because by the time I was done I was soooo sick of mitten making it wasn't even funny) but because it reminds me of a piece of peppermint candy.
