I’m pleased to announce that my first "cheater" bear mitten is completed!!

These things are BIG.  I happened to have my once-a-day can of Coke with me, so I included it in the picture for scale.

The only reason it is already completed is because, as I admitted in the previous post, I knit the midsection on a machine on Saturday evening — which by the time I got the 5th mitten midsection done, I had gotten the procedure down to a less-than-10-minute job.  Ah, the wonders of technology!!

Maybe it’s cheating using a machine, but I figured the bears won’t mind too much.  If you have a knitting machine gathering dust that you’ve always kind of thought you’d get around to using one day, perhaps today is the day.  Try a little stockinette – even if it’s not perfect, I bet it will make a fine bear mitten.

I knit the top of the mitten on Monday evening, and the cuff on Tuesday.  So all-in-all, not bad — for a mitten big enough to hold my smaller cat.  Here’s Mia, modeling her new sleeping bag.

(I only had one chance to get this photo, as you may imagine, and frankly I was surprised I got even one leg into the mitten, let alone most of the cat.  She’s such a jumpy little thing that I often can’t even pick her up – but this time I sneaked up on her while she was sleepy.)

The good news is, buzz about the bears is picking up:  on the KGW blog it says "Knitters Rock!" (which we knew that of course) and there is another photo of a completed mitten.  Apparently some sew-ers are getting into the act as well, with a fleece version.  Tracy Barry has promised to update the blog with info on how many mittens the zoo has received, and they may even do a follow-up story.  Absolutely fantastic!

And, I received this photo from Connie who’s obviously been busy, knitting TWO mittens.  She’s the first to receive a free Polar Bear Pattern — she chose #24, Simply Elegant Socks.  I hope she’s enjoying it!

In case you missed it on the first post, here it is again: 

As the CEO and general High Mucky-Muck of Polar Bear Patterns, I will offer a free Polar Bear Pattern of your choice to the first 25 people who knit even one bear mitten (and show me some kind of photographic evidence). Two free patterns if you make a whole set of 4 mittens.

 Click here to email me with your completed mitten picture, and preferred pattern choice & format: hardcopy or email.

I reserve the right to post the pics if I think they are funny or otherwise blog-worthy.

Because the mittens really are kind of big, and because unfortunately there is no official time limit on the project — there are thousands of bears that need rescuing — I’m dropping the end-of-March deadline. Free patterns to the first 25 people, however long it takes you to knit one.