Pattern modifications: changed the ribbing to K1P1 and cast on 28 sts; did not do the decreases from the ribbing to stockinette.

1/18/09 - Mom asked me a little over a month ago if I could make a pair of mittens for a friend of hers from church. Ah, the curse of a knitter--once people know you knit, they’re constantly asking you to make things for this friend and that acquaintance…

I’ll give Mom this: she didn’t promise anything, and the friend was willing to pay. Would she have been willing to pay what the labor was worth? I don’t know; the conversation didn’t get that far. Mom also had trouble wrapping her mind around the concept that licensing restrictions mean I can’t take a free pattern that’s for personal use only and profit from it. But it was all moot because I had plenty of pre-Christmas knitting planned already, so I didn’t have time.

Now my knitting load has lightened, and an unexpected situation has arisen. Mom’s friend specifically wanted a pair of purple mittens for when she teaches ice skating, and I happened to have some extra purple bulky yarn. Initially it was intended to be for a hat and cowl for one of my sisters-in-law, but I ended up using part of it for an emergency hat for Steve. That meant I wouldn’t have enough in the right dye lot for the hat/cowl combo…so I’ve decided to go ahead and knit the mittens as a gift while I bought another 4 balls of the purple so they’d be in the same dyelot.

Of course, when the 4 balls showed up, they were the same dyelot…as the ones I already had! So I really only needed to buy 2 new ones to put with the 2 I had…but maybe this was a sign that a gift to someone was in order. :-)

2009