I admit up front that I know very little about Totoro other than he's cute, Japanese, my friend Jenny really likes him, and he translates really well into a Norwegian style mitten pattern. These mittens from Brella are adorable and a lot of fun to knit.Although the non-regular nature of the pattern does mean that (for me at least) you need to check the pattern on every row it also means that it doesn't get boring and there's a great sense of progress as you watch the cute little character emerge.
These are knitted from one ball of cream Shetland 4 ply and one ball of blended fibre in maroon from Blacker Yarns. They're a little on the snug side add I used 3.25mm needles rather than the recommended 3.5 but I think they'll relax a little bit with blocking. At any rate I'll block the first one and see how it goes.
The only other modification I've made is to knit the thumb plain and then embroider some diamonds onto it using duplicate stitch. I thought of doing the colourwork in the pattern but it was just a bit too fiddly in the end.
