A gift -- sort of

The parents of the intended recipient of this layette do not read this blog, so I thought I'd show off how quickly I can conjure a crocheting project in a pinch.

I very rarely give homemade gifts -- it's a rather dicey sort of proposition. I mean, they're always received graciously, but there is the taint of a "loving hands at home" look about them that is not often the style of the recipient.

I used to give any homemade gifts along with a long, drawn out disclaimer relieving the recipient from any obligation to wear, display or keep the item given, but then realized that, as a gift, that would be the rule with any item. You don't give a gift with strings attached -- otherwise it's not a gift. I'm not sure what it is, but it's not a gift.

Then there is my Puritan idea that in order for something to be a gift, I should have to have gone through some trouble to manifest it. I should have to spend money, go to a store, stand in a long check out line -- something horrible, or even slightly annoying. But the fact is, I love to knit and crochet, find it very relaxing and enjoyable. So it's more a gift to me, than to the recipient and that doesn't seem quite fair.

So I suppose the only gift in the case are the buttons, which I had to go to Joanne Fabrics to purchase. Then again, I'm always looking for an excuse to go to Joanne Fabrics, so having to buy buttons for a gift that was being mailed to someone on Dirtman's side of the family justified my at least entering the store and, if I happen to glance briefly at the bargain fabric, it was merely in the interest of getting to the button rack -- honest. Okay, not really. The buttons are in front of the store and the bargain fabric are as far in the back as you can get.

So I guess the real gift part of this is that I at least thought of a way to mail it to Maryland, though Dirtman actually packaged and mailed it.

I guess I really didn't do anything to make this a gift then. Which means I'll have to write a thank you note to Kim and Brad thanking them for giving me an excuse to crochet a baby layette.

Speaking of unfinished projects...

Some of you may recall this project started at The House That Shall No Longer Be Named (that we seem to be naming a lot lately -- I have a theory about that which I will share one of these days.). At the time I admitted to being the world's slowest knitter.

Well I'm not that slow -- Evening Breeze was finished well over a year ago and I've worn it several times. But, for the record, here's a brief jaunt down memory lane:

Inception

Winding the Yarn (not always easy around here, what with all the help)

Swatch

Finished Product

Curious knitters can read the particulars on Ravelry. For the rest of you: Behold! I have finished a wearable sweater!

Why I haven't been here

I'm without my computer this week and working with our laptop that Dark Garden revived from the dead.



Until I can dig up the camera software, I can't download photos and it seems everything I want to talk about requires a visual. I haven't figured out how to access our "network," so I can't even use my old photos, nor do I have any of my bookmarks.

The laptop is rather cumbersome to work with. You put the cursor somewhere to start typing and, with no warning, it will jump somewhere else; or it will lag behind and you're well into a sentence and it's just not showing up. So you start over and all of a sudden it shows up along with what you just retyped.



At least Pandora works off the laptop and that's what I've been doing: sewing a skirt I can't show you and knitting a lace scarf I can't show you while listening to 70-year-old music. It goes with my coffee pot.

It puts the gnome into the basket...

...or else it gets the hose again.

I hear something is going on this weekend...

I have been informed that tomorrow is the Super Bowl. Each year this weekend appears as a blip on my radar only if the Redskins are involved and the locals enter into a period of temporary insanity, saying things like "I hope we will win" as though they'll be rolling around on the field getting pummeled into the turf. In those years, the Super Bowl become a minor annoyance, rather like a coming snow "storm" of anything over 2 inches.

Since the Redskins are not in the playoffs, Super Bowl Sunday doesn't affect me. If we don't have anything going on, Dirtman will probably descend into the Man-Cave and watch the game in the little box in the corner of the screen while he surfs the other channels for some enigmatic program that has yet to be filmed. Or an old Gunsmoke episode.

Sometimes John Boy comes over for the Super Bowl, in which case Dirtman will use the full screen -- maybe -- and John Boy will recite a litany of interesting (to him) statistics. Dark Garden hates football, so never shows up for these events.

Me -- I steer clear of the television for the entire weekend because I can't stand all the ads selling me crap "for the big game," not to mention the programs about the ads during the Big Game and the "news" stories about the ads during the Big Game. Then there are the pre-game shows speculating about what may or may not happen during the Big Game, as if it makes a bit of difference.

So I'll spend the weekend drafting a pants pattern (yet again), knitting on Evening Breeze, considering making this my next sewing project and this my next knitting project and listening to Diana Krall.

Sorry -- no beans this weekend either.

In this House of Two Gables

There is something so very Dickensian about fingerless mitts. I feel like I should be hawking little knitted things for children on the streets of London, dropping my “h”s, and calling people “guv-nah.” Or, perhaps fast forward 40 years or so and I can be Eliza Doolittle dancing on a damp London street about “warm face, warm ‘ands, warm feet” being “luv-er-ly.”

But I should stick to my own continent, I suppose. In this house, when the heat pump is on, I wear my fingerless mitts just to read. But it must be something appropriate to the fashion, because you just know you’d never survive in the House of Seven Gables without the proper knitwear. (Don’t you just love the name Hepzibah? This is probably why God saw fit to give me only sons because I would so want to give my daughter the name Hepzibah, though what I would call her, I don’t know. Hep? Bah? Hepsy?)

I took a sabbatical from Evening Breeze to knit these up. They must be very quick for me to finish them in the same season I started them. But, then, I was highly motivated.

Heat pumps are energy efficient and I am grateful for the heat pump and the house it serves. I cannot say that loud enough to be sure the gods of fate hear me. I AM GRATEFUL FOR MY HOME AND ITS HEAT PUMP, DO YOU HEAR ME? NO NEED TO SMITE ME FOR LACK OF GRATITUDE.

But, between you and me, heat pumps will never make you toasty warm. And my extremities tend to be in a state of frostiness anyway. I can spend all my time sitting next to the fireplace (eating gruel or something. Isn’t that what you do when you sit next to a fireplace?), which would only work if the washer was right there also and all the dust and dog hair only accumulated there and I could cook there. But they don’t so I don’t. And so, the fingerless mitts.

Fortunately they are only needed when the temperature is above freezing. When the temperature outside dips below freezing, the imp in our heating system gets chilly and says, “Heck with this – I’m turning on the heat.” Then the real heater kicks on.

Let me reiterate that I am in no way complaining about this system. Nor am I complaining about cold weather because I love the extremes of each and every season and would go insane if I didn’t experience them. (I remember visiting a friend in Florida one January and, gazing out the window, we noted this one tiny tree with a red leaf on it. “Look,” she said. “The leaves are changing!” More like ‘the leaf is changing,’ but I digress.)

I considered embellishing the mitts with embroidery, but somehow that would be too much gilding for something with such Puritanical New England practicality.

Editor's Note: I just realized that, by some twist of fate, at this moment, all my nails are the same length and looking pretty good. Let's enjoy this rare occurrence, shall we? The mitts also make it look like my fingers start way below where the mitts stop, making my stubby hands look almost normal. So you'll understand if you see me wearing fingerless mitts in the dead of summer.