New Project- More Fair Isle

One of my goals for learning new knitting techniques is to work my way through the Malabrigo Book 4. I like the patterns and there are all sorts of little techniques that are new to me since I haven't done much pattern work, relatively speaking, in my knitting career so far.

I have completed the Abalorio shawl and the Taracea hat. Now it's time for the Tapia mittens. I like the color work pattern, and I thought it would be a nice small-ish project between bigger ones. Or at least, I could work each mitten between the bigger projects, hopefully that will help with the second sock syndrome, or in this case second mitten.

 

 

This is how far I got last night, well, I did most of the ribbing before that. I like the overall effect of the colors, but I'm not sure if I want to use the same colors on the second mitten. Of course that will be a while from now.

 

I am using Malabrigo Silky Merino in Redwood, Lettuce, Teal Feather, and Natural. The pattern calls for five colors, but I rearranged some things since I didn't like the red/yellow combo in the book.

 

On a different note, I found a "new" way to hold my yarn. I got these baskets to hold books when I was teaching elementary school, and now I have them laying around so I use them for holding yarn and homeschool books. My baskets have holes, and I figured I could string the yarn through them and keep them a bit more organized. It worked and it didn't.

 

You can see the yarn is nice and organized in the basket, but the tangle leading to mitten has proven quite difficult to untangle. I wasn't particularly careful about how I brought my yarn into the mitten, so maybe I could have prevented this issue.
So this is the current project until I get measurements from my brother-in-law to make his WWII vest. What are you working on? I'd love to hear your stories and see your pics!