Happy New Year! After a good, long break (with a little bit of laziness thrown in), I'm back! I thought I'd share with you all one of the projects I've been working on this winter. From as way back as I can remember, my mom always had some knitting, sewing, or crochet project tucked away in her sewing basket. I used to dig into her basket eyeing the needles with care and examining all the little bits and pieces stuffed away in their separate nooks and crannies. I would recognize bits of fabric from when my mom had made me a Peter Cotton-Tail costume for a kindergarten play or my Halloween costume of 1984, 1985, and 1986. (Note, I used the singular in reference to my costume of three years. Apparently, I loved the satiny blue silkiness of my "angel" costume in 1984 that I decided to be a princess in the same costume the following year, and a fairy the year after, haha! Since it was much easier than making a new costume year after year, my mom was fully on board!)
When I got a bit older and started playing the piano, my mom worked on a beautiful crocheted piece that rested on top of my upright piano. She would tell me the story of how she managed to learn how to knit and crochet. Back in Korea, when she was in nursing school, she found a piece of knitting someone had accidentally left behind in the clinic waiting room. My mother painstakingly examined the stitches, undoing and redoing, undoing and redoing until she had it figured out. For those of you who knit, you'll share in my awe and amazement! All of this of course made me itch to learn how to knit, but inevitably my mother would give me a firm no and tell me to study. In my adult years, after graduate school, I finally decided to teach myself to knit (armed with books, knitting friends, and youtube videos). Knitting, as you may remember if you've been following my blog for a while, is an excellent activity for
relaxation and stress relief. Though of course it can also be a bit frustrating when a pattern doesn't appear to be working or you're under a gifting deadline. But for the most part, this repetitive, creative, and productive activity will likely give you a sense of peace and calm.
Well, getting back to the project I've just completed. I had decided to try out a beautiful pattern for fingerless mittens by Eunny Jang that can be found
here. These Endpaper Mitts, as they're called, were to be a gift for my boyfriend. He's from Pittsburgh so, of course, he asked that they be black and gold to represent (what else?) the Pittsburgh Steelers. After much trial and error and those ever-so-essential youtube videos, I finally figured out the Italian tubular cast-on, the Kitchener Bind-off, and a couple of other new knitting tricks. The pattern is beautiful and I have no doubt that there are a number of mistakes in the mittens I made but I like to think of them more as autographs than mistakes! Each little mistake says, "Handmade by Cindy." Ha! I like the idea of fingerless mittens because they keep your palms and wrists warm while still allowing for dexterity and use of fingers. I was thinking they'd be good for typing on computers in cold offices and playing
Angry Birds on the phone while waiting at the bus stop. He thinks they're also good for playing on the PS3 in a chilly house. So, without further ado, here are a few pictures of the beginning stages and the end product! (All taken with my phone so I apologize for the quality of the pictures.)
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| In the beginning |
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| My mom is the hand model here, halfway done with mitt one. |
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| And the final product on the b.f. |
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| Playing video games. |
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And now I'm onto my next project, a lace scarf for a colleague!
