Mary Hawkins

I’m going by color on the blanket squares, and right now I’m almost out of red yarn. I think I have two more squares left in the skein I’m working on before it’s gone. I’ve also made two more hats over the last week in addition to the gloves I’m working on for my mom, so I feel good about my progress.

Here’s my question…

The next Afghans for Afghans appeal doesn’t want hats. Hats are hands down my favorite thing to make for them. I’ve probably already sent them twenty hats this year. There are other charities that take hats, but I like knitting for Afghans for Afghans. They’ve specifically asked for sweaters for youth. A sweater for a 14 year old is essentially the same size as a sweater for me and I usually budget a month for that sort of project. I don’t have the yarn for it and I just… I just don’t know if I want to make that sort of thing. I make hats by the dozens, but I don’t know if I can really make a full sweater or blanket for this one… I’ll think about it… I’ll also be disappointed if I can’t take part…

I’ve actually gotten up to the point where the thumb cleaves away from the hand on my mom’s gloves, but I don’t love the work that I’ve done so far. The cables start at the wrist when I wish they started further back, I turned one in the wrong direction and didn’t notice for 15 rows and my brilliant plan to make these gloves one size fits mom by adding in extra ribbing on the palm is weird because cashmere isn’t a stretchy yarn and it just looks like something that’s badly knit. When I try them on they’re loose, but I’m not sure if it’s the right type of loose… My mom is coming up here before her birthday and I think I should pester her to come up sooner rather than later just so she can try on this glove.

What’s really driving me crazy is that I’m just guessing on all of this. I’m using tiny yarn—the gauge is 9 sts x 15 rows to the inch, which is really close to fine gauge machine made gloves. I have no idea if they’ll fit her and they’re a lot of work and I’ve already messed a pair up. Then again, they haven’t taken long to knit. I started them a week ago and while I’ve had a good bit of quiet time to knit, I’ve also had time to work on my charity projects and noodle around the house this week. If I had to turn them out quickly, I would probably be fine…

I’m debating casting on for the second one and fixing some of the problems I have with the first even though I don’t know if these will fit. There’s a master diagram for the pattern and I may have her measure her hand in more places just to double check that everything really will fit. Math is my friend.

Happy holidays indeed!

July 4th totally snuck up on me. Until this morning, it didn’t really occur to me that not having to work on July 4th means “day off Friday!” I don’t have anything planned, I don’t have any errands to run and my boyfriend still has to work, so I can’t even fill up the day with things we should be doing. A lot of my to-dos are done, my major projects of late are out the door and I plan on spending my independence day sitting on my butt watching movies, knitting and playing with the cat.