Wishful Thinking

How silently they tumble down
And come to rest upon the ground
To lay a carpet, rich and rare,
Beneath the trees without a care,
Content to sleep, their work well done,
Colors gleaming in the sun.

At other times, they wildly fly
Until they nearly reach the sky.
Twisting, turning through the air
Till all the trees stand stark and bare.
Exhausted, drop to earth below
To wait, like children, for the snow. - Elsie N. Brady, Leaves

The leaves are all fallen, the temperature has dropped. Winter you ask? Pah! I'm ready. Bring it on:



I finished my mittens. A declaration of intent on the top side ...


... and eye-crossing stripyness on the palms!

These are the Snowbird mittens from last Autumn's Vogue Knitting, made out of some leftover sock yarn - both Regia I think.

The pattern suggests 2.25mm needles, and although my hands are smaller than the pattern measurements, I went up to a 2.5 after a bit of trial and error because my tension in fairisle is tighter. The only other amendment I made was to keep going on the thumbs for about another 7 or so rounds each - knit to pattern they only made it to the knuckle.

I'm really please with the end result of the fairisle - when I was knitting it it looked a bit lumpy and uneven but a good soak in eucalan and several days drying on the ironing board did wonders.

I quite like the insides too.

The palm sides are equally stripy, and this I want to call "Mittens in the Blizzard"


You can just about see the trees through the white-out!

Obsession

Obsess - verb - to haunt, fill the mind (Collins Dictionary)


Is it part of the make-up of every serious crafter, that ability to focus single-mindedly on one specific that resonates within them, calling out to their inner crafty soul until the need is sated (usually by casting on)? What else could explain casting-on-itis, or those black holes where you pick up the knitting on your newest and best ever project one sunny lunchtime, and suddenly it's dark, voices are mewling for their supper, and you aren't quite sure where the afternoon went, but you do have four inches of a jumper back that was a soft fluffy ball of yarn that morning.

For better or worse, I have this kind of compulsive focus in spades. The last time I spent a day quilting, H went out for a boys night supper and I entirely forgot about supper, and am still not sure whether I had lunch. I also have a mental list of books that I cannot start reading if I (a) need to go to sleep within the next hour or so or (b) have somewhere to go within a timescale that will not encompass the end of the novel. Robert Goddard's In Pale Battalions (a book I love and cannot recommend highly enough) is one that I know I cannot stop reading, even though I've read it time and time again. I daren't start reading it on the train to work, because I know I'd spend all day resisting the temptation to sneak a quick peak under the desk.

It's always been the same, and I bet I'm not the only one; if I see a film I like I have to check whether there's a book and read the book, and don't get me started on books in series - when I was at uni I once ended up with a substantial selection of teen-lit from one particular series just because the first book was given away on the cover of a magazine I bought to read on the train and I needed to find out what happened to all the characters - literary soap opera at its best!

And so it came to pass that I watched the Twilight film. And then downloaded the audio book with my Audible credit at the end of September. And then bought the audio books for New Moon, Eclipse and Breaking Dawn in fairly quick succession. That's 64 and three quarter hours of audio in rapid succession that I finished a week ago (and then started listening to the whole thing all over again).

But that's not all. I found the Twilight fan group on Ravelry, and there was a pair of mittens, a really pretty pair of chunky mittens, named for Bella and 'sight-knit' from a pair worn in the film. And then I remembered two balls of Rowan Cocoon in the stash, and that the gauge was about the same as the pattern, and well ....

I fell down a hole and became a Twilight fan-girl:



And I'm not ashamed to admit it.

These are Bella's Mittens, knit on 5mm DPNs from a ball and a third (ish) of Rowan Cocoon in Frost (which seemed rather appropriate). On most people these would be close to elbow length, on me they come to the middle of my forearm. They are soft and warm and just the thing you would need if you lived in one of the wettest and chilliest places around (which looking out of the window today would seem to be where I live).

I finished these mittens last week and spent ages trying to take a good picture with the timer on my camera - the biggest problem being that the auto focus locks down on the background before I can run round the camera to get in the frame - so these pictures were taken on the auto timer with the camera hung just under my chin.

I was trying to do the traditional fan girl shot (the cover from the Twilight novel) but if I flip the perspective it just looks really weird so this will have to do.

I also seem to be developing a side line obsession in mittens - in the last month or so I've made pair for Dolly, a pair that are now mine, a pair for Mum, the Bella mittens and on Saturday I spent much of the day turning this:


Into this:



(please ignore the fact that it desperately needs blocking!)

Is this the future? Has my sock drawer finally rebelled and started messing with my mind while I'm asleep? Are mittens the new socks? Answers on a postcard!