The Black Mitten Club

Ah winter, the time when your need your warm clothes the most.  The toasty warmth of your puffy coat, your beanie hat, your favorite soft scarf and your mittens.  At least whatever mittens you can come up with.

Why is it that you will own the same three scarves for pretty much your whole life, you have hats, but they do wear out and you have to buy new ones and your mittens, well, there seems to be a requirement to buy multiple pairs of mittens each year.  

I’m not sure why, but mittens seem to be rebels.  One is ALWAYS running away - lost forever, to some salty pile of snowy mush, run over by car after car – or just sitting there, on the floor of some store – all alone, no partner to be found.  

Why do they do this?

Well, I cannot tell you why, but I have come up with a solution – I call it the Black Mitten Club. 

What is this club you ask?  Well, it’s an ingenious idea to only buy black gloves.  From there, the next idea is to “rescue” other black gloves from their lonely lives on the ice and snow and from the floors of buildings, where you often just find them lying there – still and quiet.

You are bound to come up with something close to a match if they are all black.   

Sure there are different kinds: knit, leather, fleece, waterproof – but really, there aren’t THAT many kinds.  Ok, Ok, they could all be the same hand or different sizes, but that’s not really what I have found – sizes are pretty steady – small or large (i.e. for me or my husband).

This is my collection so far this year and I want to say – right there in the front is a lovely PAIR of super duty Carhartt work gloves – VERY excited with that find – they came from the middle of the street.  Yes, I actually stopped my car and got out – wasn’t a busy road of course.  Some poor worker is missing those…

What else have I found that I can share with you?  Well, that Lands End has a lost mitten policy.  All their gloves are marked with year and style, so if you lose one you can contact them and get its buddy back – or in this case if you find one, you can get another.  Something I have also done this year and am very pleased with the results – lovely gloves. 

Oh and I found one that is iphone ready – see him with his little gray finger tips?  Yeah, it’s the right hand and everything – I wear him when I know I will be on the phone a lot – trying to meet up with friends.  Fabulous and free!

So yeah, I’m a bit of a recycler by nature anyway and I figure – those that we don’t keep I can donate to people I see walking along somewhere without a pair.  Its’ unfortunate, but in these last few weeks of below zero temps I have seen many people without gloves.  

So everything I have found this year has been washed and are all ready to wear.   I’m pulling the ones I mentioned above (that I’m excited about) and the rest will go off to those who need them at the time they need them.  When their hands are bare and the temperature is unforgiving.  

Please feel free to share my idea – there isn’t a city around that doesn’t have hundreds of lost gloves lying around in parking lots and on floors in the winter – you can collect all the colors if you want – who ever said gloves needed to match exactly anyway?