… sat for many days, lacking only half a thumb. Really. 40 minutes of work if I watched TV while I did it, and yet… no thumb. Now, this isn’t an urgent project since I won’t be able to wear them until January without my fingers melting off, but still… half a thumb? So last night I popped in an episode of Firefly, got a pile of fluff and the mittens, and finished them. Hooray for finishing something! It provides a much-needed counterpoint to the endless round of endless projects I’m otherwise engaged on at home and at work.
I turned one inside out so you could admire the small animal effect. The best part of finishing the mittens, though? This:
I have four yards of wool left. Four yards! For a while I though the second mitten be permanently thumbless, or without an end, or something else equally horrible. As I got closer and closer to the end, and the wool held out, the consequences got less severe – come on, who’d even notice if the second thumb were a bit short, or maybe finished with orange yarn or something? The thumb is full-size and no orange yarn in sight.
I did learn something doing this project. First I learned how to do thumbs, then I learned how to do thumbs correctly. Good thing these are for me, so nobody will be looking at the inside. Work the cuff, and up to where the thumb should start. Knit in colored scrap yarn for 10 stitches (or whatever is right for your wool and thumb). Start knitting with real yarn. Look at long float of real yarn on the back of the mitten, and say “Huh.” Keep going.
Really, you need to slide those scrap yarn stitches you just knit back onto the right needle, and knit them again with the real yarn. Takes care of the long float and all. Very clever – what will those knitters think of next?
Lest you think I’ve been neglecting the garden, here are some photos. (Oh wait – I have been neglecting the garden, but it keeps going pretty much on its own, as long as you like weeds.) The first little green cherry tomatos have appeared! Soon, there will be millions, and they will be ripe, and I can position my chaise next to the planter and Morgan and I can munch away. No, he doesn’t like tomatos, but he is very fond of the pinks growing adjacent. See them on the left?
The climbing rose outside the kitchen window is glorious. Or I think it is – I need to wash that window…
The rugosa roses out by the corner are going strong, and you can smell them from at least a block away. I love watching random pedestrians stop to smell the roses!
And now, lunch is over, and I must return to the endless round of endless projects…
