Bella Mitts for my BFF

Having seen me knitting the Kelsey-bound Bella mitts this past summer (during an unseasonably cold and rainy weekend we had planned to spend wine-touring the Niagara region), Suze asked whether I might make her a pair for Christmas.

"Of course," I answered, "what colour?"

One long trip to Romni Wools in Toronto, and several colour consultation cellphone photos later, I had 200g/200m of wool in mustard (I have about 60g/60m left). It took a car drive from Montreal to Halifax to knit the left mitt. I started the right mitt on a labour day weekend away and finished it up during an afternoon with my knitting group later in September.

This was the first Christmas handknit I finished and Christmas was still over three months away. And so I stored them in a box in my closet; an end of September bff reunion and Suze's November birthday passed, and still I waited to give them to her. Then December came. Exams ended. A long drive back to Ontario was survived. Suze visited me at my parents' house on the 26th, and five minutes once in the door we exchanged gifts. And as the friend she is, she didn't take the mitts off for the better part of her overnight visit.

She also sent me photos of the mitts almost immediately after I asked for them, because I'd forgotten to take any myself.

Bowtie: or, how to throw your boyfriend off the scent of a handknit sweater

One weekend last spring, my roommate came home from her family's farmhouse with an armload of old knitting magazines. We spent Sunday afternoon looking at the patterns, but then stacked them under the coffee table and spent the rest of the semester focused on studying. At some point during the summer, I started thinking about the patterns in the books. And I formed the bold and ridiculous idea to risk the knitters superstition and knit my boyfriend a sweater for Christmas.
Because I needed to know what size would fit, I first tried tracing out a sweater he owned. I eventually thought better of relying on my quick highlighter-on-newspaper job and asked if I could take his measurements. I told him it was for a bowtie and vest combo I was going to make him. I have no idea if he believed me, but he didn't ask any questions. And I did end up making him a bowtie for his birthday, to match a shirt I bought to match the sweater.

Bowtie-making is seriously quick and easy work.

Bowtie pattern: http://www.burdastyle.com/projects/david
Bowtie tying instructions: http://josephhall.org/nqb2/media/bow_tie.jpg

Edward Street Apple Butter

I made Oxford Street Apple Butter last year and the compliments I received from the people I offered it to convinced me that I needed to make another batch this year. So, I have.

Get your toast buttered and ready; I'm bringing it home with me at Christmas.



(recipe can be found here: http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/000125.html)

Bella Mittens for KLC

It took a few months to finish these. Mostly because warming weather makes knitting with wool from Iceland a ridiculous pasttime. But, I did finish them, because the weather hasn't always been so balmy.

See here for pattern: http://subliminalrabbit.blogspot.com/2008/12/bellas-mittens-updated-pattern.html

Because I am Committed to Revisability

The very first thing I ever knit, and way back in 2003, was a scarf for my bff Suze. It was 15 feet long and very narrow. She graciously accepted it, and even wore it a few times (it is for reasons like this that Suze is my bff). Realising that it wasn't going to get much play and wasn't very useful, I thought it best to take the scarf back, tear it apart, and make something new to offer to her.

I made the Morningside Cowl for myself over the holidays. I wear mine all the time. I thought, what better than to make la Suze something already known to be useful? So, I've spent the past month's worth of Friday afternoons knitting it for her and, because I was so close to done, finished it last night.

Very soon she will be visiting and I will offer it to her then.


(Edited January 2010)

Suze modelling the cowl:

Reckless, or, This Could Have Gone Horribly Wrong

Despite many weeks spent thinking about the dress in advance of the event:
2 Days before - couldn't decide on a pattern. Bought two, picked one and cut it out.
Night before (and until 4am) - made bodice sans muslin.
Day of - drafted new skirt pattern, abandonned it. Added pockets to the original pattern, ripped them out. Sewed skirt, sans muslin.
8 pm that night - realised the bodice was far far too big and so made a last minute and temporary alteration.
9:30pm - made it to pre-party.

Although they're impractical when it's really cold out...

One night on a post-exam bar tour, I lost the first pair of Pearl's Topless Mitts that I knit. Although I called the many bars I'd stopped at several times in the weeks that followed, the mitts never turned up. I knit the second pair of Pearl's Topless Mitts for my sister. This is my third pair.