It’s Saturday night of our designated "Fun Day", and DH is out at a buddy’s house watching college tournament hockey, drinking beer and eating crap.

What am I doing?  I’m turning my studio into a bear mitten factory.

Yes, that IS my idea of fun.

We stopped by the OR Zoo today, and of course I went to see my beloved polar bears.  Right next door is where the Mayalan Sun Bears live.  None of them were out and about all the time we were there – but if they had been, I’d have told them about the mittens.  (And I’d have taken my own sun bear picture, instead of continuing to use one from the zoo’s site.  But no dice.)

In case you haven’t yet been convinced to knit a bear mitten or two by the free PBP pattern offer (it’s way at the end of the first post about the bears), here’s some more info I’ve collected about the bears’ plight:

Basically, the Malayan Sun Bear gets picked on because it’s easy to pick on.

…their cautious nature and small size make them, for man, the least dangerous of bears.

(http://www.pbase.com/dstearn/image/44787021)

You don’t see those people trying to get bile from a grizzly or a polar bear, now do you?

The trade in bear bile is based in greed, and it’s not even necessary.

The trade in bear gall in particular is so highly profitable that it has been likened to the heroin trade…

A more concentrated and effective synthetic version of one ingredient of bear gall is widely available and less expensive, but its availability has not reduced the demand for bear gall.

(http://www.bagheera.com/inthewild/van_anim_sunbear.htm)

…there are suitable herbal and synthetic alternatives to the use of bear bile already on the market in high quantities. Traditional Chinese Medical Practitioners even in China are using these alternatives.

(http://www.wspa-international.org/publicfiles/191102_110434_BearBileIntroduction.pdf)

We’re running out of bears!

 On the 12th of November [2007], sun bears were given a status of vulnerable animals.

(http://curiousanimals.net/animals/sun-bears-are-under-the-threat-of-extinction/)

 Only two bear species remain unthreatened by extinction… In total, there are eight bear species worldwide and the sun bear is the sixth to be classified as threatened with extinction to some degree…

• Giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) – endangered
• Sun bear (Helarctos malayanus) – vulnerable
• Asiatic black bear Ursus thibetanus) – vulnerable
• Sloth bear (Melursus ursinus) – vulnerable
• Andean or spectacled bear (Tremarctos ornatus) – vulnerable
• Polar bear (Ursus maritimus) – vulnerable
• Brown bear (Ursus arctos) – least concern
• American black bear (Ursus americanus) – least concern

(http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/endangered-species/dn12904-more-bear-species-threatened-with-extinction.html

Although, to be honest, perhaps there is another reason I’m so concerned about these little guys…

Left, a Malayan Sun Bear.  Right, Morgan the cat.  (Not shown to scale.)

So anyway — seems like there was something about knitting – hmmm — well, I spent part of my evening running all over town trying to find clear, square nylon snaps for the Nutcracker sweater (no dice on that either) and then I came home and set to work on some bear mittens.

Now, these mittens call for 10.5" of stockinette between the ribbing and the "toe".

It’s been mentioned before on this blog how easy it is to whip out a wad of stockinette on a machine…

…so I did.

 Here you see 5 bear mitten midsections, rolled up and "resting".  Machine knitting requires a lot of weight and tension to be put on the fabric, so once a piece is knitted, it has to be given time to relax back into its real shape and size. There is contrast-color waste yarn at the top and bottom of each mitten holding the live stitches, so later I can come back, pick them up and hand-knit the ribbing and the top.  (I left the balls of yarn attached to each mitten for this purpose.)

The cardboard box on the table contains about a dozen skeins of the pink, rose heather, and variegated synthetic/wool blend yarns pictured.  This yarn was donated to me by another knitter, and originally, I thought I’d use it for the kids’ knitting club.  It turns out that this stuff splits even on the machine!  I figured it would be kind of mean to hand it over to an innocent child trying to learn to knit.

And so, lots o’ bear mittens, coming up!