Watching and Waiting

On Monday my sister and I spent the day together. We planned to pick apples and share a picnic lunch. Although our apple picking wasn't the quintessential outing planned, we had a nice day. I had missed the notice on the orchard website stating they were closed on Mondays. Even so, the owners graciously let us pick and buy apples. The recent hot weather and above average rainfall made for abundant apples and mosquitoes. Although we dressed in long sleeves, long pants, and hats, they swarmed around us. I used a little insect repellant (I hate the stuff) on my neck and around the bottom of my pant legs but it didn't phase them at all. We picked as fast as we could and took our picnic lunch home to eat indoors. The apples are tart, crisp, and delicious. We escaped without bites. Thank goodness as West Nile Virus is reported in the area.

Mosquitoes or not, we chatted away about our knitting and our families. Naturally we talked about the baby my daughter will deliver any day. We are eager to welcome this new little child. Though there is no reason to expect anything but a safe delivery, I am a little anxious. My sister, who knows exactly what I need to hear, remarked, "We will knit this baby safely into the world." So we shall. I used to tell my son nearly the same thing when he went to school in Laramie, Wyoming. He thought nothing of setting off at 5:00 p.m. and driving home through the night. I usually talked to him before I went to bed and would tell him I was knitting him safely home. That winter I knit him a sweater. One winter evening, I knit so furiously I overshot the body length by ten inches.

My sister and I are knitting this week while watching and waiting for Baby Coconut. Last week I reknit the infamous mitten, managing to get the cable and thumb in the correct place. I ripped out the rose colored shawl and cast on in yet another pattern but will create Ravelry notes when I know it is a go. Yesterday I needed some easy knitting so I cast on a baby hat. I don't have a pattern. I adapted the color work from a free mitten pattern and am using a tape measure frequently. I plan to knit matching mittens.

I am thoroughly enjoying A Gentleman in Moscow. The story "shows instead of tells" as the main character creates an interesting life in spite of house arrest in a hotel. Call me old fashioned but the characters' good manners and courtesy are refreshing. The writing, dotted with sly humor and asides to the reader, is excellent.

Linking with Kat and the Unravelers today.  I am looking forward to see what others are knitting and reading.  Then I am off to make some applesauce.

New/Old Projects

This summer I've been knitting a few projects from yarn that has been marinating in storage bins. These mitts are one result of a new/old combination. Sometime in the 1990's, I knit a disaster of a sweater for my daughter. I combined several patterns to make a cabled pullover with set-in sleeves. I knew little about sleeve design but persevered with the sleeve caps several times. What was I thinking? I still couldn't design a sleeve cap anyone would want to wear. The sweater is long gone but the leftover yarn, a blend of merino and border leister, held up well.

Last month, I re-skeined and washed the yarn to remove the crimp from previous stitches. There was enough for two pairs of mitts and one pair of mittens. In my mitten file, I found an old Coats and Clark Book No.192, copyright 1969. The booklet sold for thirty-five cents and contained 39 patterns, most of them rather clunky looking. However, the mitten pattern is a classic and I was happy to rediscover it. The left leaning decrease at the top is a slip one, knit one, pass the slipped stitch over the knit stitch instead of the typical SSK (slip slip knit.) I did substitute the SSK decrease. No doubt, the pattern was written before Barbara Walker invented that decrease. These will be a gift or go to a charity.

Fingerless mitts are good for driving, reading in winter, and walking in Spring and Fall. They make great gifts. I knit a pair of Kindling Mitts, teaching myself how to cable without a needle. Why have I not tried to do this sooner? I also knit these Ribbed Mitts. The pattern is free and well written. This past weekend, I gave the Ribbed Mitts to my daughter on her birthday. Twenty years later, I thought she might like to have something knit from the yarn that is wearable. No puffy sleeves were involved.

Spring Irony

I've finished my version of the  Deephaven Cowl and mismatched mittens from Prairie Silk Yarn by Brown Sheep Company. I modified the cowl pattern so both edges are the same. Working late into several evenings while listening to an audio book, I lost track of rows knitted on the second mitten. Although I tried three times, I made mismatched mittens. The thumb construction, made by knitting a piece of waste yarn into the hand which are later unraveled and picked up to make the thumb, left holes which I cinched up with needle and yarn. This may or may not be due to the pattern design. Still, I felt like my workmanship on the mittens was inferior. I planned to wear both pieces next winter and then the temperature dropped and snow fell.

 After trying on the mittens, I took them off and looked at the way my thumb grows from the top of my wrist.  The curve of my hand tells me a gusset made by increasing stitches just above the cuff makes more sense than knitting the thumb from an opening created by knitting stitches with waste yarn. I think the mitten would fit better and it wouldn't pull the cable sideways. Many mitten patterns use the waste yarn method so adjusting the position of  thumb stitches might improve the fit. The cable design in this pattern is the same on both mittens. Since I prefer cables to mirror each other, I'll pay more attention to cable twists in the future. However the mittens are serviceable and warm and there are no knitting police, I declared the mittens finished and counted them as a lesson learned.    

     

Life is full of irony, including spring weather and knitting. While the cowl pattern, was designed to be asymmetrical, I modified the pattern to make it symmetrical. The mittens were intended to be symmetrical but due to my errors ended up asymmetrical. For now, this yarn and I are finished. The two leftover skeins are in the basket of yarn scraps waiting for another day. Perhaps because I went to a funeral last week, life seems too short to reknit a mitten four times.  Even though the daffodils are drooping after April cold and snow, the rhubarb is up. I have a baby sweater that needs buttons, and a lovely garter stitch shawl on the needles.  Forward into Spring!