Mittens..........................

Row 4 -- brings great memories back to me.  I spent 12 years of my life in Lachine, Quebec and our winters were fantastic.  We could skate in our backyard, build snowmen and head over to the golf course and tobaggon.  I could do that at my house too, but the golf course really gave us a long ride!  I would come home from school and out the door I would go.  Out after supper too to skate.  I loved those winters!

This row reminds me of my mitts.  I had lots of them -- I needed them.  I would go outside, make snowballs, snowmen, tobaggon, ski, shovel snow, skate -- everything imaginable and then come back in with one mitt missing.  The funny part was the missing one never did appear in the spring when the snow melted.  I guess I should have had the ones with cords!

I decided to practice what I preach with this row.  I ran the pattern off on cardstock and then cut out the patterns and traced around them.  If you decide to do it this way you won't need a light table and you won't have all that fuss and bother of moving things about while you trace.

Once I had the patterns run off on cardstock, I wrote on each piece exactly what I wanted to do with each one. 

I took some liberties with this row.  I made it mine.  As you will see from the original

the mitts are the same.......all facing the same direction.  I chose not to do that.  I decided that I wanted pairs of mitts and I wanted one missing.  Fortunately for me, Sindy of Fat Cat designed this row so I could accomplish what I wanted.  I opted to make one pair of mitts per block with -- in two blocks smaller mitts that eventually you will see are a pair.  In the centre block...............one mitt!  The other mitt?  Who knows?  In a snowbank quite possibly chewed up by a snowblower. I cut the background and then started to place the mitts on.  What I thought looked good to the eye, actually proved to be wrong.  I looked at Sindy's and the little mitt in the middle was at the same height as the larger mittens. 

Re-do.

I laid the block on the ironing board and laid the ruler -- THIS IS THE TOP -- 7/8" from the top edge.

From each side I measured in 1".  (sorry, that picture is a bit blurry, but its too late to re-photo now).  I then placed the smaller mitt so that it fell in the middle between the two larger mittens.  Then I fused with my steam iron.  I used a pressing cloth as I hadn't wiped my iron clean and it could have had lead on it from the pencil.  It has happened before.  Once I pressed from one side, I pressed from the other.  Once they were all done, I did the blanket stitch around them all. 

This was the quickest row I've done!  I started on Friday and worked until it was time to cook supper.  (My chef is not available at the moment so I must cook.  I'm having trouble getting my head round this.  I shall be glad when he is back in the kitchen.)  I finished up on Saturday afternoon.

This is my row!  Notice that centre mitt!  He lost his partner...............its somewhere in Lachine.

Here are my 4 rows.  I'm really pleased with the way this is turning out.  Someone is going to be lucky to get this one.  I'm thinking I may make tea-towels and put the penquins on for Christmas gifts.  I really like them.

Thanks, Sindy.  Another great row.

Okay, time for a coffee break. 

Talk to you tomorrow.