Tuesday 31 January 2023

The thing About Knitwear

I have a lot of knitwear.  I have shawls and wraps and scarves and sweaters and socks and on and on.  If it can be made, I have or will soon be knitting it.  And I love it.  

When I started knitting, it was really for sweaters.  I wanted sweaters that fit me and I wanted warm.  Even if I hated knitting I would knit sweaters just to have something decent to wear that was warm.  I love my sweaters and among my stock of them, have favourites.  I love how some of the sweaters are workmanlike sturdy yarns and how some of them are so incredibly warm and light.  I love the heavy dense ones too.  They all get worn regularly.  

I love my scarves and shawls too.  I have been wearing a different one everyday to keep the chill off of my neck.  A good small shawl or large one, wrapped close a few times, is exactly the right note of cozy.  I have my small stash of fingerless mittens too and wear them all the time.  I used to just wear them to bed, but lately, I have been wearing them everyday.  My hands are chilly and the gloves make me so much more comfortable.  And then there are these.


These are usually in my car, coming into the house only in winter.  They normally hang out in my bag but some of my grandkids came overnight to keep my company when my boys were gone for my father in law's funeral.  It was a lovely warm night, a rare -4C and the kids wanted to play outside with the neighbour kids.  Marcus had forgotten his mittens so I gave him these and we tucked them into his coat sleeves so they would stay on.  His hands fit well, but the cuff was too big for him.  When they came in, the mittens were sopping wet.  Their coats and snow pants were dripping and needed to go into the dryer.  Mittens and hats went onto the registers to dry.

It was a few days till I remembered my mittens. I picked them up and put them on.  

I was so surprised.  The wet wool on Marcus' hot little hands and all the wet wool had caused the inside to felt just the smallest amount.  They are so delightfully cosy and fuzzy and soft.  They were already a really good warm pair of mittens, made as they are from Mule Spinner two ply from Custom Woolen Mills, but now they are even better.  Wonderful.  

Today was also laundry day.  Laundry included the first dishcloth I made on the larger of my two pin looms.  


After a good hot wash and dry with some towels, it is the perfect size.  I am really pleased with it and it makes me almost want to do dishes.  Maybe that is taking things too far.  I took a photo of it against the second dishcloth so you can see how it shrank and to show you the difference from the loom mounted cloth to the cloth ready for use.  


That is sort of what I ended up working on today.  A dishcloth.  To save my hand and to give it a good rest, I took lots of breaks and kept doing different things in short spurts. My hand is slowly feeling better and I would hate more than anything to hurt it again now.  

And that was my cozy warm day, hands in mittens, Ishbel close around my neck and a couple different sweaters worn through the day.  


And socks.  Always socks.


 

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