No need to panic...

I found the pattern for these fingerless gloves with a mitten hood in the Lopi pattern book I'm using for my husband's sweater. They are knit up with Lopi on size 9's and consist of less than 40 stitches per round. Sound too good to be true? Well it isn't!
These can be knit up in 1 day! The glove part sounded tricky to me since I've never knit gloves before, but by the time I got to the fingers the pattern started to make sense to me and turned out great...the first time. No ripping here ladies. Stitches are then picked up at the back to make a mitten hood to keep those fingers warm when you don't need 'em.

Bonus: These mittens are actually so functional AND warm enough that I think even a GUY would wear them. I don't know about you, but all the men I know wear those leather gloves all winter long that are so not appropriate for Canadian winters. I think they wear them for the functionality. Well these glove/mitts are even more functional I think because you can easily pop the mitten hood off (you can do it with one hand) and there you have fingers to answer your phone, fumble for keys, open a Joe Louis, dig in your pockets for whatever it is you've got in there...when you're done pop the hood back on and there you go keeping your hands warm again! There is even a buttonhole in the thumb to pop out the tip. Seriously folks, these are the perfect man mitts!

And using up only 1 1/4 balls of Lopi, we're talking under $10 per pair. Needless to say, I've found that perfect Christmas knitting project for all the men on my list this year, and at a day each...I can breath! No more need to panic. It's going to be okay!

Phew!