Starting Is More Enticing Than Finishing

February is over and my mittens are not finished. I till have one thumb and the blocking left to do. hopefully I can finish before next February. They would be excellent mittens to wear now in the late winter and in the early spring. The green and purple and black remind me of Blue Heron Tulips in my Spring garden.



I may not have finished in February but I did start projects. Starting is so much more enticing than finishing. My Habu lunch bag kit arrived in the mail. The yarn is multiple strands of coloured silk bound together with black silk. It creates a beautiful tapestry like effect. Blue and green roving is also in the kit, to make a felted handle. The instructions are a hoot. Very brief. You have to be an experienced crocheter to make sense of it, but the diagram is excellent.


Lunch Bag Kit

I also started the Anastasia socks, in red cotton/lycra Fixation. They are to be my March break travel project. I don't have wooden needles so I hope I don't have trouble taking them on the plane.


Anastasia

I finally photographed Curly Locks, the Fleece Artist mohair, and Flaxen, the Handmaiden silk/linen that I received before Christmas. Both of them are intended for Shirley Paden patterns. I have started swatching Curly Locks for a cardigan, but I probably won't knit that until next fall.


Curly Locks

The colour and feel were just so tempting that I couldn't resist swatching. How can yarn be so beautiful that I am happy to knit nothing but a swatch with it. The Flaxen is for the Ooh La La Lace dress and shawl, from Lace Style. I should start that some time in spring. But when will I finish?


Flaxen

Running from Temptation



Today I drove downtown to buy avocados. Why so far? As I explained to DH (after 20 years you would think he knew already) that I take my avocados seriously (heh I'm from the Caribbean) and I needed a half dozen to prepare for a picnic tomorrow. It was pointless to buy them at the local grocer rock hard or rotting. Downtown where there is a higher concentration of avocado afficianados you can buy them in varying states of ripeness within one greengrocer or amongst three on the same block. For some reason downtown also seemed to be twice as hot as my back yard -- like a concrete oven. Anyway to improve my stamina and disposition for the choosing of perfect avocados and guacamole ingredients I decided to dip into the air conditioned basement of a discount book seller. At one point I picked up a new copy of a baby knitting book that I have borrowed often from the library. I carried it for 10 minutes and put it back (haven't I memorized those patterns yet?). In the basement I was confronted with the ultimate temptation: a table loaded with vintage needlework books. There was a copy of the Simplicity sewing magazine (sewing for teens) that I used when I was learning to sew at the age of 12. There weres two stacks of "Golden Hands" books (I loved browsing through those books as a teen). They are like an encyclopedia of needlework techniques, but each volume contains a variety of techniques with no order that I have ever figured out. It looks like something that may have been sold as a series, issued one at a time, each containing something for everyone (who could hold a needle). There were macrame books and issues of Mccalls magazine. I already own many of these and I began to feel guilty even looking. I thought of my stacks of magazines and books at home, like the one pictured above. It was published in 1952, and still has its 15 cent price sticker from Woolworth's. I don't remember where I got it from but I was attracted by the crocheted "forget-me-not" spiral placemat set on the cover. I love for-get-me-nots. I love them so much that I let them cover the vegetable bed like a blue carpet every spring (I clear them when I am ready to plant but they seed so much that they come back again every year). The forget-me-nots on the magazine cover are crocheted as a braid that is applied to a spiral grid or "filet". Even the idea of a grid that is a spiral rather than a rectangle gives me a thrill of inspiration. Anyway I plan to make the forget-me-not braid and apply it to something this summer.