Scarf

This will be a gift, probably for my grandma, who loves the whole family of colors from fuschsia to purple and who this week sent me a birthday card with a photo of a cat on a bar stool licking the back of its paw as if preparing to do a tequila shot.

You’d think I wouldn’t have time to complete a knitting project, considering how whenever anyone asks for something useful out of me I go on breathlessly about how I’m lucky to get 45 minutes to myself every day. But, I don’t know: garter stitch. Knit, knit, knit, turn, knit, knit, knit. I can handle that.

Next I’m making mittens, which is a big jump. I’m intimidated by the thumbs, and I’m not convinced the pattern writer is in tune with what sorts of details I will need. For example, there’s this: “On next round, fold hem to inside at purl turning ridge and with left-hand needle, pick up 1 stitch from back of cast-on edge and knit it with one stitch from needle.” Which I will require some type of dictionary and possibly a YouTube video to decipher. But then she also specifies, after the heading “To Knit Mittens”: “(Make 2)”. Oh, right! Two! Thanks!

I'm going to use some fake Fair Isle yarn which I'm trying to convince myself isn't cheesy. I'll let you know how it goes.

That's a mouse. Can you tell? An expensive wooden lead-free organic free-range European-made mouse that I bought Iris for her first Christmas and that no one has ever played with. But I love it and I think I'm going to keep it. My displaying it on the nightstand years after the girls have grown up and moved out will be an early symptom of my dotage.