Baby, it'll be cold out there

Most of my knitting lately seems to be socks. They're familiar, safe, small, portable, necessary when you have cold feet all the time & easy to work on anywhere. My little project bag fits into the book bag I use as a purse these days, right next to the porta-cup with the straw, my Kobo full of Murder Mysteries & the wad of paper napkins I seem to collect.

I started that Magenta top-down Panel Sweater from Cabin Fever but I'm still following the pattern in the book so it's not portable. So, it always seems to be a sock that goes into my bag.

While having a late lunch on my patio yesterday, I noticed I could sit out there almost all afternoon. Since my patio faces west, for most of the summer it's unbearably hot out there between 3 & 7 in the afternoon. Yesterday, was the first day since June that I could do that. And that means that Fall & Winter aren't too far away. I've never been a hat, glove or scarf wearer, even in the dead of winter. Most of my outside time in winter is spent dashing to & from a building & the car except for coffee time sitting outside at Starbucks during menopause. The last couple of years though, sitting outside after October has been uncomfortable. And cold.

This year I've been thinking more & more about gloves & hats. My fingers burn anytime but tend to burn more in the damp. They don't seem to care whether it's hot or cold as long as it's DRY. If I can't be dry, then I have to be warm. A couple of years ago, I knit Spirogyra, a lace pair of mitts  from Knitty. I used grey hand spun to make the mitts warm & stretchy. But, it might be time to tackle gloves. I've had a real thing for Ringwood ever since I first saw the pattern in Knitty in 2010. I did a swatch once & just loved it's stretchy, nubbly texture. But Ringwood terrified me because it's GLOVES. Actual fingers attached to the mitt. EEEK

So what is a knitter to do???  So how hard can gloves actually be?