dashing WIP's

Our family had its first Christmas celebration yesterday.  The kids were very excited for it, but I couldn't muster the same.  There's something about multiple Chrismases that wears on me, and it's not just that it creates multiple knitting deadlines.

I gifted the first round of handknits: one Birthday Cowl and pair of Toasty to my step-mother-in-law, and a Turn a Square and one-and-a-half* pair of Dashing for my father-in-law.  You've seen the others, but here is the Dashing:

I modified the Dashing by only knitting 12 rounds -- not 18 -- in the rib pattern from the last cable twist to the thumb opening. The husband (a small framed 5' 7", just like his dad) thought they were too long as it was. Imagine six more rounds between wrist and thumb.  The Dashing might have reached his elbow.  

I knit Dashing in Cascade 220, colorway 7821, to coordinate with the Turn a Square.  I like the pattern overall, but when I had holes at the thumb opening, I thought I must be an unskilled knitter.  After a hurried photo shot and harried post on flickr, I was comforted to know that some of you still get holes, too, and all you do is sew them shut with the tail end.  Phew!  I've knit mitts before, but always with a thumb gusset.  Guess I'm a gusset girl, with two more pairs of Dashing to knit.

*So I had the left-hand mitt of another pair of Dashing on a table near where the gift unwrapping was happening.  I think the father-in-law accidentally picked that one up, too.  I'd like to be a fly on the wall when he unpacks his loot and finds three mitts! ;-)