Monday, October 19, 2009

Confession

Saturday lunchtime, as I waved H off for another afternoon of queuing on golf tees, I had a phone call. My mother, frozen to the bone after a morning of organ practice in an unheated church, petitioning for the early arrival of a requested Christmas present - a pair of fingerless mittens that would keep her hands warm but allow her to fully stretch to play the notes.

Always keen to chalk up a few points in the 'my daughter is angelic' column (rather than the 'my daughter is ferociously independent and this worries me' column occupied during my teens and early twenties), I fished out the remainder of the Manos wool silk used for Dolly's Mittens, and cast on another pair of slightly altered Maine Morning Mittens.

I knit while we visited a friend's new flat on Saturday, and settled down on Sunday afternoon with the Dr Who omnibus on the tv, the new quilt, and this snuggliest of yarns.

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To make sure that they were extra stretchy at the top for full range of movement I used the 'new' extra-stretchy cast off from the latest Knitty which looks great and does exactly what it says on the tin - I'm definitely using it again the next time I do toe up socks.

This is a wonderfully simple pattern, and a great quick knit, especially when you aren't adding buttonholes and so I zoomed around and around for several contented hours until it was dark, and I had a pair of finished mittens.

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Then this morning as we headed out the door to work I grabbed an envelope and the mittens with the full intention of posting them at lunchtime.

And here is where I must confess.

Outside at the moment (according to the BBC) it is about 12C and sunny (I can verify the sunny). That's about normal for this time of year, it's a nice day. In my office, our slightly dubious thermometer, filched from the wall on one of the other floors, suggests that it's somewhere around 18C.

Our building heating runs at two settings; off and on; and after a week of 'on' left many people gasping for fresh air and verging on heatstroke, the decision was made that we would be 'off' until the end of October. It's a perfectly logical decision because every floor apart from my one little section has a built in air con unit that can also provide heat.

Me, well I arrived wearing a cardigan, a shawl and my jacket and I'm still wearing them, and as my fingers cooled and chilled as the sedentary nature of my work took effect, I thought of the mittens in my bag and my own winter mittens, which currently look like this:
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If you look on Ravelry I christened the pink mittens 'Frozen Organist Mittens'. I'm going to have to change them to 'Frozen Lawyer Mittens'.

Started on Saturday.
Sewn up on Sunday.
Misappropriated on Monday.

Sorry Mum.

On the plus side I have remembered some yarn in the stash that may be your perfect combination of chocolate, lime and blue, and I know you weren't desperately keen on brilliant fushcia ...
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... I know, I know, I'll be casting on as soon as I get home, I promise. Just take a hottie bottle to organ practice in the meantime OK?

1 comment:

  1. Nice rationalization for stealing your mom's gift! :)

    ReplyDelete

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