In Which the Pirate Revisits the Past.

Bring the fortune and life of a past finished project up to the present. Document the current state and use of an object you have knitted or crocheted, whether it is the hat your sister wears to school almost every day, or a pair of socks you wore until they were full of holes. Or maybe that jumper that your did just didn’t like that much…

I think for this one I’m going to have to go with the Fleep-Top Mittens, my absolute favourite knitted object(s) ever. Every winter, I go to visit my sworn-sister, the Knitting Ninja, in Ottawa for Winterlude, and we go to a stew cook-off. Well, one year it was more cold than usual, and I couldn’t eat my stew with heavy winter gloves on, so I took them off. What a mistake! I didn’t get warm again for hours, and I swore to myself that I’d knit a pair of fingerless gloves with mitten tops before the next Winterlude.

I used Jo Sharp Silkroad DK Tweed, and a combination of the Gnomittens and Cigar patterns (both Ravelry links) to get the sizing right. They were finished in a month, and they were absolutely perfect for Canada in February. My hands stayed warm, even though it snowed into my stew. It’s possible that my hands only stayed warm because I had those little air-activated heatpacks in my pockets… and this led to near-disaster for my Fleeps. On the drive up to Canada, I’d stopped at a restaurant which offered Andes Chocolate Mints in a little bowl by the door. I took two and ate one, and put the other in my pocket for later. Then I forgot about it. Well, when you put chocolate and wool and heatpack together in a pocket, you end up with chocolate in your wool…

Fortunately, with some hot water, Eucalan, and very careful cleansing, the chocolate washed out and the Fleeps didn’t felt at all. And the next year, I went to Canada with no chocolate and no heatpacks, and was happily surprised that the Fleeps kept my hands warm enough even in -5C/23F weather. The Fleeps are so beloved that I bought the yarn to make another pair for myself and a pair for my sworn-brother Michael, who keeps eyeing mine with some envy. I just have to finish them before next year’s Winterlude.