The Meeting Street Mittens

 

I'm having the best time sick with this infernal cold.  I've decided to make lemonade out of the lemons I've been handed, and get caught up with a variety of tasks I've procrastinated about for several months now.  If I were still on the mend, I'd probably spend next week writing Christmas cards, I'm that up-to-date.

I hemmed a pair of pants I bought in July.  The sewing machine's been set up on the dining room table since August.  Excuses were running out.  That thorn out of my side, I grabbed my shameful UFO knitting basket.

These mittens were inside, missing only the thumbs:

The Meeting Street Mittens, or MSM's as they've been dubbed in knitting-ese.  As the observant among you can tell, they're no longer missing requisite thumbs!  With my stuffy head, believe it or not, it took me the better part of a day to finish knitting up the thumbs, and weaving in all those pesky ends.  I might be slow with this cold, but I am steady.

It's not obvious, but the Berroco sock wool these mittens are knit with have a small Lurex thread in them.  They add just a touch of glamour, and element sorely lacking in my life.  If I ever write an autobiography, I'm calling it "Rubber Boots are My Life".  I need all the glitter I can lay my hands on.

I love pretty much everything about these mittens.  The colours are stunning, and the fact they're stranded will make them extra-warm during winter, plus I made them long enough to cover my boney little wrists.  As an added bonus, I've even got plenty of wool left to make another pair!

Also in the UFO basket is that infernal black kid-silk shawl (appropriately given the acronym BMF - B stands for Black, and the rest is up to your sordid imagination) that does not seem to want to go away.

I spent last weekend at a resort, courtesy of my company, and thought this would be the ideal opportunity to complete said shawl.  I packed it in my over-night bag, and started knitting while waiting for my co-workers to arrive.   The resort we were at features a HUGE, MASSIVE six-sided fire place in a dark, rustic environment, so I plunked myself down beside the best light I could find and started bashing away on the BMF.

To prove my point, here's a picture I took years ago, during the Christmas holidays.  This being Canada, it's not decorated with garlands yet, we're still reveling in fall at this point.  It's just to set the stage:

At some point, I spotted my boss at the other end of the lobby, so I picked up my knitting (or at least part of my knitting) and made my way around said HUGE, MASSIVE fireplace.  (I think every knitter's done this already, and if you knit, you can probably see where this is heading).  I managed to drop the super-light ball of precious kid-silk, and worked my way through throngs of weekend guests, trailing the delicate, fuzzy black yarn behind me.  It's like an unintentional and completely inconvenient yarn-bombing in the most inappropriate of locations.  Of course my mistake only dawned upon me as I made it clear across the lobby.

So this is how I came to find myself winding my ball frantically, weaving my way (literally), through L.L. Bean-clad tourists intent on making the best of our fall colours, eyeing me suspiciously as I followed my barely imperceptible black thread through the lobby, around furniture, and around the great stone fireplace in some sort of pantomime.

It's a good thing I am a constant source of amusement to myself, because it would have caused most knitters to wither in shame.   And to add insult to injury, it was at this moment, rewinding my skein furiously, that I started to have an inkling that I would not have enough yarn to finish the infernal BMF.

I showed it a lot of tough love that weekend, to the point that I have 4 rows left to knit, and so close to the finish line, I ran out of yarn.  That's pretty much how this entire ordeal has been - a slog-fest all the way.  One of my knitting friends is kindly donating a rest of one of her skeins so I can put this baby to bed without wasting any more money on it.

The sigh of relief I will breathe (if my cold permits) will be heard around the world.  Or at least around the fire place.