So I am back from my travels. After around 30 hours of traveling I made it back from Australia to my home. I was not excited at the prospect of returning to the working life (already thinking about the next escape). So a brief overview of the trip (got some practice): long flight, great weather, welcoming and helpful family members, time on beaches, dove the Great Barrier Reef, held a koala, met plenty of new people, ate some kangaroo, sunburn, exhausting, and took a surfing lesson. Now that list would bother me if I were to read it again because its not uniform, but I have decided to move on.
So I did not do much knitting when away, because no knitting needles allowed on Qantas flights and most of my downtime was when flying. I did pull it out a couple of times and got questioned about it. I remember when I was first in Melbourne I was finishing my cousin’s gloves on the train going into the city and a boy asked his father what the lady was doing. I also got asked a couple times if the yarn was Australian, and no it was not, except that it was 100% australian merino wool.
So why did my cousin get gloves. Well you see we are friends on facebook, and when he saw one of the messages I put up about the trip and knitting he told me I could make him gloves. I responded to that cheeky suggestion back asking him what colors he wanted, and he responded earthy tones. Then in what I see as amazing comment he said that he prefers alpaca to wool. I was so impressed with that, I shared it with other knitters who understood my awe.
So the next day I took a trip to Old Town, bought a ton of salt water taffy (which seemed to be appreciated by how quickly some of it was eaten), and went to Knit Happens. I first wandered the store, and then ended up in the Rowan area looking at the Baby Alpaca DK. It was so soft. I picked two colors (brown and pale blue) and the dithered trying to figure out if they were masculine enough. I finally asked an employee, and was told they would work.
So I had looked around for pattern, but there were not any for gloves that appealed to me and would be worn by a guy. So I improvised. And since it was for my cousin I just asked a coworker to hold up is hand and estimated how much bigger it was than mine. I feared I was going to run out of yarn, but had no time to get more. When I was finishing the second thumb and had about 10 stitches left to go, I did run out. So I just used the brown to finish that (you will see it if you look closely at the top one).
So I was hanging out with my cousin Michael and Matt called saying he would give us a ride to the family dinner. Once we get in the car he goes “So did you bring my gloves (I keep almost writing mittens) ,” and I tell him I did. I think he was a little surprised (which was part of what made it worth it). And then Mike wants to know why Matt got gloves, and when he saw them he said he wanted a pair, so I will make another set (different colors) Matt said he liked them so much he was going to wear them the whole night and put them on. I like when my gifts are appreciated.
1 Comment
June 5, 2009 at 1:01 pm
[...] as I shared when I was showed the gloves for Matt, Mike also wanted a pair. For measurements I held up my hand to Mike when visiting and made a [...]