Last September, we took up running through the Couch to 5K program. It was fun at first, then it was awful, but after a lot of sweat and suffering and a few minor injuries that meant it took me 15 weeks instead of 9, we both came out the other side able to run (or in my case shuffle slowly) for 30 minutes straight.
(yes I happened to graduate at our parkrun’s special festive event)
But then Winter kicked in, as it tends to do at that time of year, and whole new logistical problems emerged. It turns out despite being cold most of the time in normal life, I massively overheat while running, so wearing an actual coat of any kind is out of the question unless it’s VERY windy. I’ll go to parkrun and people are running in two or three layers and I’m just in my one long-sleeve very thin tshirt and still outsweating them by miles.
At one point I went out in well below freezing in just that tshirt, and a neighbour from over the road stopped me with actual concern to ask if I was ok!
But the one part of me that does seem to feel the cold if I stay out long enough is my hands, and the gloves I bought in November to fix that problem quickly fell to bits. So, naturally in my rage at having wasted money, I went stash diving for yarn and made my own!
Simple mittens don’t really need a pattern, but I really wasn’t in the mood to brain at all so five minutes of browsing led me to the Everyday Mittens pattern by mona.in.stitches, convertible mittens with a handy thumb hole.
The idea was that I need to be able to play Pikmin Bloom while out and about, or message Dave to confirm that I’ve just gone a different way to usual and not been kidnapped. But also mittens are generally warmer than gloves, so having convertible ones is perfect. And the addition of the thumb hole means I can do most stuff without having to open the flap on especially cold days.
Speaking of that flap, the pattern consistently refers to it as the “flop” and I don’t know if this is a non-native speaker mistake or if it’s on purpose but either way it’s adorable.
The stash dive turned up a few contenders but I decided on this very old and frankly abused orange Big Merino from Drops. Coincidentally the yarn recommended by the pattern, but it’s just been sitting around for a decade since being frogged about three times in a row and I wanted it to finally feel useful.
I mostly followed the pattern other than adding more rows, except for closing the “flop”. For this I wasn’t a fan of the method used, so did an extra decrease round and then grafted the ends together which gave a nice round mitteny shape.
I did also experiment with just grafting after the first decrease round, but decided that looked square and weird.
Now being the slow knitter I am, and being endlessly distracted by new shiny things, these did take me a few weeks to properly finish off. The weather is officially getting (slightly) milder now, and they probably won’t be needed much until next year. But they could’ve been done in a day or two if the cold was enough of a problem, and that’s where the title of this post comes in.
My hands were cold, and I had all the materials and skills needed to solve that problem for myself. Maybe not just by clicking my fingers and saying the magic word, but certainly by clicking the needles enough times and cursing when I kept forgetting to actually put in the thumb hole because I was too busy watching Stargate SG-1. Maybe I wasn’t wearing a billowing wizard robe, but I was wearing an oodie with pandas on it and that’s definitely in the same ballpark.
Knitting, and crochet, and sewing, and embroidery, and felting, and macrame, and 3d printing, and origami, and any other craft you care to name. They’re like magic to me! And I hope that never changes.
