Er. Hi there. It’s been a while, hasn’t it? Life seems to have gotten the better of my knitblogging for, oh, many moons. Clearly, this updating thing needs a little work.
But it’s not like I wasn’t knitting during all that! Oh, no, lots of knitting going on. I’ve gotten a good chunk of my Christmas knitting done, a bunch of socks, and two beautiful baby sets for old co-workers of mine who are both expecting new arrivals this autumn. And there was some stash acquisition over the summer in DC, Philly, and Toronto — but now stashing is mostly on hold, because Rhinebeck is just around the corner! (Franklin, or the Harlot…I’m torn!)
But this past week, I knit a very simple project: a pair of Fetching:
My mom asked me, about a week and a half ago, if I could make her some sort of fingerless mitten-ey thing (her words) for her to wear in the mornings when she takes her walks. It was too cold first thing, she said, to go un-mittened, but not so cold as to need her fingers covered, and she wanted to be able to get to her keys easily. But — when you have time, she adds. (There is that small matter of a master’s thesis at the moment, you see.)
And I nodded, and mentally went through my stash, and said sure. I had some Knitpicks Wool of the Andes floating around, but she said no rush, so I pushed it to the back of my mind.
But we had a very bad day, last week, when a close relative was admitted to the hospital, and passed the following morning. It was a peaceful passing with family present, following a long and full life, but the next few days of wakes and funerals were difficult all the same, for my mom especially. And the brutal truth is that there’s really only so much you can do; each person has to work through their grief in their own way, and my mom did so by throwing herself into preparations and cleaning. I? I needed to keep my hands busy. So that day I cast on for some Fetching, with her request in mind.
In between running around, the visitations, seeing other relatives, I cabled and knit. I have a sock on the needles, but I’d been knitting it while visiting the hospital and it seemed too raw to work on that. The Fetching were safe and easy and didn’t require any thought. Monday we buried my relative, and my family gathered together for a few hours to share a meal and comfort one another before everyone scattered back to their lives. With nothing else to do and fingers itching to be busy, I picked up the second Fetching and finished it, and wove in my ends. And the next day, I gave them to Mom to try on, and they fit perfectly.
Pattern: Fetching
Yarn: Knit Picks Wool of the Andes Gold Kettle-dyed
Needles: US5 DPNs
Notes: I’ve heard varying reports about the new KP kettle-dyes, but the gold WotA I was very pleased with. It’s a subtle effect, and worked to highlight the cables instead of swallow them. I made a few modifications to this, based on prior iterations of this pattern. I cast on 50 stitches instead of 45 and worked one extra cable. I added a cable on both the top and bottom, making four cables beneath and two above. I also threw in a couple of extra rows before the thumb. I skipped the picot bindoff (I’ve found it curls and makes an unintentionally raggedy effect) and used the k2tog bindoff instead. The end result was much cleaner. There’s still a bit of curl happening, mostly on the first mitt I finished, but it won’t hurt anyone, and will be helped with a bit of a block. I’m really happy with how these came out.
