Another excavated photo; I had completely forgotten knitting this elbow patch for my college roommate’s sweater. This could be a good solution for both my moth-damaged woolens and my unused box of knitted swatches.

I’ve had a considerable amount of dental work done over the past year. I go to a university dental school where the students are required to seek the approval of faculty before they do any thing, which makes for a lot of waiting. I usually bring a book, but yesterday I had my knitting.

There was a classic rock station playing, and here’s what I have to report: You’re The One That I Want from Grease makes for some serious speed-knitting. Roberta Flack’s Killing Me Softly With His Song, not so much.

I am ridiculously pleased with my fingerless mittens. This whole blocking the knitting properly was magical; they’re soft and smooth, and they fit well at my wrists, a bonus just when I had resigned myself to their slight saggyness.

This little bird is whispering, “Put on all your brightest clothes and dance around the room.”

I finished the first of my fingerless mittens last night. My cursory reading of the pattern led to the increases being in the wrong place, and offset instead of symmetrical, but I’m surprisingly un-bothered by this imperfection. Besides, there’s the second mitten in which to get it right.

Here’s the close-to-finished mitt:

and a close up of the flower pattern:

Stash is almost as good a word as swatch. It conjures squirrels, eccentrics, and tubs filled with yarn – all good things.

Liza sent me this article which argues that we should change the way we think about our stashes of craft supplies and consider them instead a collection. There must be something in the air because the Yarn Harlot had just posted about “pet skeins” of yarn, and The Next Stop Will Be was coming out about his accumulation of watches.

I love collections, like with like. As a young teenager I told my grandmother that I wanted to collect something, and soon afterwards she gave me three small boxes.

The silver one in the middle is from her time in India and still contains red pigment used for bindis.

Over the years those three boxes were joined by more, like this one from a friend who traveled to China:

and these four in my bathroom.

Good thing she didn’t get me started on something large!

I like that word. Swatch. Today I swatched. I shouldn’t have but I couldn’t help myself; once in a while this woman has to swatch.

The temperature has dropped to normal winter frostbite levels, and I find myself glove and mitten-less. I could buy a pair and be done but instead I’m lusting over the Endpaper Mitts from See Euny Knit!, which also look good over at Knitting Box. I could just knit them, but I can’t seem to leave a good pattern alone; I feel compelled to modify it. It’s not you, pattern, it’s me.

The flower and bird motifs are adapted from Knitting in the Nordic Tradition by Vibeke Lind. This book has a dull cover that looks out of date, but don’t pass it by if you’re a knitter, the content is juicy and inspiring.

Feel free to place bets on when my hands will be properly attired.

Some of my holiday ornaments are still up, I can’t bear to put away the snowflakes hanging on my windows just yet. They’re cotton crochet that has been blocked and sized to make a rigid ornament. In the daytime they look like ink drawings on the sky, and at night they reflect the light, white against the darkness outside.

Looking at them day after day has brought me back to drawing mandalas. There’s something so soothing about developing a pattern from the center out, and magical in the way I can’t anticipate what will happen as it grows.

I took another tumble down the internet rabbit hole, and look what I found:

A knitting pattern for a Balaclava Helmet – both practical AND handsome.

made with ear flaps to enable good hearing
during telephone operations

Of course. And here I was thinking I was short on gift ideas for my sweetie’s upcoming birthday. No longer! How could he not love it? Right, honey?

There are more where this beauty came from, the Victoria and Albert Museum website has the entire contents of Jaeger’s Hand-Knit Essentials for the Forces online, complete with your choice of downloadable patterns in Word or PDF.

Come to think of it my dad and brother have birthdays next month. Better get knitting…

It snowed here last night for the first time this winter. There was a light dusting on the roofs, the sun came out, and it’s gone. Kind of pathetic. I should really be grateful that there wasn’t enough to cause the huge slush lakes at every street corner which have me walking 15 feet down the sidewalk just to find a point where I can cross without drowning.

I thought I’d share another piece I made for circle play, this one a bizarre crochet lotus I made while on a camping trip in Michigan. Must have been going for my “crazy crafter” girl scout badge.