Facing the sad truth, and how it doesn’t always help

‘Your blog is getting a bit rusty, isn’t it?’ my husband asked about a week ago. And yes, it is. Or was – since I’m back in my virtual home again 🙂

The main reason for my being so quiet is an extremely boring one: it’s the ordinary everyday life that keeps me busy during the day and leaves me too exhausted in the evenings. Some people have high energy levels but I totally side with Teeps who loves to spend his winter days like this:

The fact that I’ve been silent on my blog doesn’t mean I haven’t been knitting. I have, take my word for it – but, as my dear husband observed one night, I have too many projects running at the same time, which means I don’t really get to finish anything. Or, as R puts it, ‘Face the truth: whenever you get stuck with something, you just start something new.’ As much as I hate to admit he’s right – well, I think there’s more than a grain of truth in his observation.

And the thing is: I may know that having several unfinished objects is not right (but then again – is there a knitting police?), but it doesn’t hold me from casting on for Waterlily. And I plan to start a pair of Latvian mittens. All because of this fantastic Latvian mitten workshop that I attended at the end of March.

It took place at Senā Klēts (if you’re interested in traditional crafts and all things Latvian, it’s really worth a visit), and the teacher was an elderly lady everyone called ‘Mrs Ilze’. It felt like I’ve met a version of Elizabeth Zimmerman who specializes in mittens! Mrs Ilze was amazingly humble claiming that ‘I wouldn’t call myself an expert… but I do know a thing or two about mittens’ – out of the mouth of someone who has knit hundreds of mittens, this sounded almost funny 🙂

Surrounded by more than a hundred beautiful mittens, we learned several types of edgings, and here’s one I plan to repeat on my own:

If you are interested in how it’s done, here you go: using colour A, cast on X stitches, do not join, start knitting, knit till the end of row. Turn the work and knit back, using the same colour. (Remember: knit on both sides!) Using colour B, you knit 2 rows. Using colour C, knit 2 rows. Then continue knitting with colour C, but after every 3–4 stitches, turn your left-hand needle clockwise, so that the work gets sort of twisted.

So, a few confessions and a knitting tip later, it’s almost Easter. I think I’ll stop here because we plan to go to an early mass tomorrow, but I hope to be back soon with a progress report on my neglected sweaters (yes, there’s more than one, and a cardigan, too. And to be honest, we must count an unfinished pair of socks as well…).

Happy Easter, dear blog readers!