Thursday, November 25, 2010

the smell of damp wool mitts drying on radiators


When I was a kid, Mom was constantly knitting mittens from an old Patons booklet - Paton's Gifts and Accessories. At the old house on Paisley Avenue, a large assortment of hats and mittens were jammed between the balusters of the stairs in the front hallway from November to April. On winter days my sister, my three brothers and I would our select mitts and hats from between the stair railings. Or reclaim warm ones from where they were drying out on radiators.

When I started knitting for the Warm Hands Network, Mom offered to lend me her mitten pattern. I assumed that the pattern for Mitts knitted on 4 needles were the mittens, but she laughed. “Oh no, I knit them on two needles! Always have.” And then she ripped the page with the mittens knit in the round from the book for me. So now this is my pattern for knitted mittens - these for my nephew with Cascade 220 wool in his favourite colour, orange. Although for my next pair, I'm changing the top shaping to keep the decreases at the mitten sides and grafting at 12 sts remaining for a blunt top.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Some of those old pattern books are classics.

When I make two needle mittens it is from a 1940s book.

Wanderingcatstudio said...

My "go to" mitten pattern is from patons book from the 40s! Can't beat the classics!
Our mittens were always in a box on the mud porch - and the wet ones were arrayed on the cinder blocks around the wood stove