Mood:
specialNow Playing: Duran Duran "Hungry Like The Wolf"
Topic: Knitting
Finally finished. The lack of a needle to weave in the ends delayed the final result by a day, but wah-lah! Here we are with my son modeling them.
O.k. So you're looking at them and saying "What is the big freaking deal? They're mittens, so?"
Ooooh, but it is a big deal. Mittens have evaded me for several years now. My first "real" project when I got back to knitting in 1997 was a sleeveless top made out of Egyptian cotton. It turned out just fine until I washed it, and it got W-I-D-E-R instead of growing length wise. Throwing it into the dryer didn't help. I had followed that pattern down to the last word, even using the suggested yarn (I was SUCH a blind follower then). ;-) My second project that summer were a pair of hand knit socks, with a short rowed heel, knit on 12" circulars. This began my love affair with circulars. The sock yarn was double stranded with alpaca yarn. They were stunning socks! The fit was perfect. I could try them on while knitting with those circulars, something I was sure would never have happened on DPNS. It took me three whole days of beach knitting to get those puppies done. They did have a nice (but short) career keeping my feet warm for a couple of winters until my husband put the first one into the washer on HOT water, followed by a trip through the dryer on HIGH heat. Poor socks were never the same again.
Various other projects followed. Hats, scarves, shawls, the occasional sweater. Mostly things that I could knit using circulars. Large things for adults. The kids hats I made only needed dpns at the very end. My friend Marcy even gave me several pairs of lovely short dpns one year. I knew that she was trying to make me jump off that cliff with the rest of the lemmings. I believe her chant at the time was "socks, Socks, SOCKS!" But I was not to be a lemming! I even tried making my mom a pair of mittens several years ago on 12" circulars, but never finished the first one, feeling a sort of superiority in thinking that mittens were really for kids, not adults. That thinking prevented me from having to knit the thumb using dpns.
But these blue mittens represented the final frontier for quick knit projects this past weekend. I saw the need, I bought the yarn, and I conquered DPNS and mittens!
I think I can hear Marcy laughing all the way over here. :)
