Michael's mittens

Tuesday went by in a flash!  Nancy came to visit in the morning (she is ripping out some quilting that she wasn’t satisfied with…what a yucky job, but made better if you can talk to a friend while you do it!), while I was working on swatches for the sleeves of my entrelac sweater.  After she left I had a quick lunch before Joanne picked me up for Stitch ‘n’ Chat at 1.  I pinned all of my sleeve swatch colors together, and Susie (a fellow knitter) tried on the sweater with the swatches pinned to her sleeve.  Several of us stood back and squinted to get the effect and decided that doing the same pattern of colors on the sleeves would be fine.  I was excited to finally have a direction to start in…now I just have to decide how wide to make my sleeves and I can once again move forward on this project.  I really want it to be ready by next winter…and I have to keep on working on it if that is to happen.  I was home by 3:30 and got to have a nice long chat with my friend Ginny.  She has recently been swept up in Indian cooking and told me about all of the things she is making…it sounds exciting…wish we lived closer so that I could pop over and sample things  J.  Jan and Walt arrived at 6 PM for cheesy potato soup and ‘thwock’ biscuits.  Jan brought a terrific, warm cherry pie for dessert, and we chatted for just a bit after dinner before they headed for home.

Several years ago I made thick, wool mittens for Michael to wear when he was golfing in cold weather.  At one point last December, they slid off of the golf cart….never to be found again  L.  It’s not surprising they weren’t found…they were a heathery olive color and blended right in with the scenery.  Anyway, my honey asked me for a new pair, and we agreed they should be in a non-vegetation color.  I knit like crazy on them, and gave a new pair to him about a month ago.  Now…I’m an experienced knitter who RARELY looks at her work while knitting (keep reading and you'll see why this is not the smartest idea in the book)…consequently the mittens were completed and all of the ends sewn in and finished before I really looked at them…that’s when I noticed that one mitten was perfect…long ribbing snug against his wrist, gradual increase in size up the bottom of his hand, a lovely thumb sticking out and then more straight knitting to almost the ends of his fingers before gently curving at the top.  Then there was the other… long ribbing snug against his wrist, a lovely thumb sticking out, gradual increase in size up the bottom of his hand, and then more straight knitting to almost the ends of his fingers before gently curving at the top.  Notice any difference in those 2 descriptions?!?!?!  One had the thumb where it belonged (after increasing over the bottom of the palm) and one had the thumb right at the top of the ribbing….you know….at the end of his wrist!  Well – he wore them like that for a month…and finally gave them back to me for fixing.  I’ve had to rip out a few things I’ve finished before and let me tell you it is no picnic….I hide the ends REALLY well…so I ended up just cutting off the top of the mitten to get started unraveling.  Finally on Tuesday night I finished putting the bad one back together and here they are:

After that it was off to bed!