Tuesday, June 03, 2014

Robin's Egg Mitts

A little while back, I bought a copy of "Knits of a Feather" - these are all bird-themed patterns. (Shawls and scarves, sweaters, a few accessory things, a couple home decor things).

This was my favorite pattern in the book. (But I also like the Raven sweater, and the Starling cardigan, and the murmuration shawl). It's designed to resemble (American) robin's eggs: pale blue green with tan speckling. The pattern uses the neat trick of "blending" the tan into the blue by gradually shifting the balance of how many stitches are worked in each color:

robin's egg mitts

I'm not that great at colorwork; I tend to get too tight a tension so I used their suggestion of moving up a needle size for the colorwork part and then dropping back down for the body of the mitts.

It's kind of rare for me to do a pattern with EXACTLY the yarn called for, but I did here, wanting to get the speckled-robin's-egg effect.

MVC-029S

A couple years I remarked (specifically about "Knitting 24/7" but it also applies to this book:

how the knits are "staged."

Because really, it's not so much that I need another pair of armwarmers. What I want, when I see the armwarmers on the model, is the life she's modeling: a life where there's enough time to stop in a little coffee shop for a glass of orange juice and to do the morning crossword. Or, I like a particular hat in part because I wish I had the time to browse at the outdoor-sale-tables of a bookstore. (And I wish my town had more of a bookstore, and that it had outdoor sale tables.)

Like a lot of things, it's not so much the product that's what's seductive, it's how it's packaged. For me, especially for me right now, what draws my attention and fills me with longing is the idea of having free time - and more, having free time and interesting "third places" (not work, not home) in which to spend it.


The way these mitts were "staged," the young woman wearing them is sitting in front of a fireplace holding a guitar. As I said back there, it's not just the mitts I want; it's the possibility of that lifestyle, that I might have time to hang around somewhere with friends (maybe not playing the guitar, because I've never tried it), but the sort of cozy convivial setting that the photograph suggests. 

Of course, these will have to be tucked away until it cools down again.

***

Also, I harvested the first beans of the year:

beans

Not a huge amount, but enough for a serving. I harvest them very small - most grocery store beans, whether they are fresh or frozen, are harvested really too mature. (I don't like biting down and having the squeaky big bean seed in there, and the "pod" kind of starting to wither up a little).

***

Well, I wound up carrying the old set-top box back to the cable office. Because I wanted to ask them something - turns out I was no longer getting TCM, which is one of my favorite stations.

It's on a "movie package," which also comes with Hallmark Movies and with Cloo,, two other channels I'd watch sometimes. And the woman stated, "It's only a couple dollars more"

So I said yeah, I wanted it.

Except, for some reason, she turned off the "extended tier" of channels I had been getting - so I was getting the movies plus the basic stuff that everyone with cable gets. (Sigh.) Disney XD goes poof. Qubo goes poof. All the Discovery/Nat Geo channels gone. Worst of all - no more digital music channels.

So I had to call the head office (I wasn't running BACK out yet again, especially not if it might risk some other mess-up). Navigated their truly awful phone tree, got some gum-cracking person on the phone and finally managed to explain that YES I want the "movie" package, YES I want the "extended" package, but NO I do not want all the HBOs/Showtimes/Cinemaxes and  NO I do not want the mega-sports-fan package.

Finally got it all fixed. We'll see what next month's bill is like; I may have to rethink what all I get if it goes up a lot.

But, ugh. Everyone's perfectly friendly at the place but some of the people are just a wee bit cack-handed. I suppose I have to expect that, but it's a little aggravating. (I'm not sure if a perfectly competent but surly person would be better or worse.)

1 comment:

purlewe said...

I think the mitts are really beautiful!