Handmade Gifts are So Special

 Skip and I had a cozy, quiet Christmas. In keeping with my hygge and lagom mentality, we kept it pretty simple. (Note: in the Swedish language, lagom literally means not too much, not too little, the right amount, and is a philosophy that aims to balance, in every area and juncture of everyday life - the concept of 'just enough')

Some of my more amazing gifts were handmade ones. My stitching friends are so crafty. 

This ornament is breathtaking. Marilyn received one like this in our Christmas ornament exchange and I whined that she always gets Poppy's ornaments. So Poppy made me one, too!

Poppy also has recently learned to weave and gave me a set of beautiful woven napkins.

Marilyn  blew me away with this cleverly crafted floss caddy. She and her husband, Kevin, collaborated. Kevin has become a skilled wood craftsman and made these wooden pieces which Marilyn painted especially for each of us. This is one of her first ventures using acrylic paints. 

I didn't realize she had made it at first because the MK Designs and the logo on the back had me thinking she'd somehow found it on Etsy or at a craft show. When she explained that it represented Marilyn and Kevin and the logo was from a brass stencil she'd used over 25 years ago, it all made sense.

I was particularly impressed that she painted this scene from a flatfold piece I had stitched a couple of years ago.

So clever!

The last couple of days I've been pretty lazy and started a couple of projects.

The first is a pulled work band sampler. Conveniently, Kim had the banding on sale at her shop. On Sunday, I started it. 

Stitching white on white is a challenge without bright light and magnification. I struggled to get the first row of the Scotch stitching done while reclining in my stitching spot but now realize I need to sit at a table with my magnifying light to do it enjoyably.

I also started a pair of mittens from the 'Knit Like a Latvian' book I bought a couple of summers ago on our road trip to the US. 

I'm not sure what inspired me to start them. Of course, I had all the yarns I needed in my stash 

and decided to use 2.25mm needles - a size up from what the book suggests. 

This book is not for beginning knitters or folks who've never knit mittens like these before. The patterns refer to techniques in different areas of the book and are not very clear. I decided to modify my mittens by inserting Latvian braid above the 'notched' cuff. I will also put some above the cuff motifs before I start the palms. 

The thumb for this pattern is a peasant's thumb using waste yarn to hold the place, that is, one coming out of the palm rather than a thumb with a gusset that sticks out the side of the mitten. I'm going to review some of the other mittens I've knit and figure out a gusseted thumb that will work well for this pattern. If I can't figure one out, I'll resort to the peasant thumb as written. 

Most of the rounds with dots of red only use two colours in that round. However there are 4 rounds where all three colours are required. I haven't decided if I'll wrestle with all three colours or simply do the red dots in duplicate stitch after finishing the rest of the mitten.

Another flaw of the patterns in this book is they only show one mitten and simply give remind the knitter that one side is the palm and the other is the back of the mitt. The book also discourages using Magic Loop 'because the mitten patterns are specifically designed for knitting with five double-pointed needles and would therefore be almost impossible to follow using the magic loop technique'. Yet nowhere does it specifically cite the need to put the stitches on a particular one of the 4 working dpns.

My conclusion is, Ieva Ozolina wrote the book from her Latvian perspective and expects other knitters to adopt the authentic Latvian techniques. However, there are many ways to knit in the round, do stranded knitting, and modify patterns to the knitter's satisfaction. She does include a section explaining the symbolism of the different patterns and the importance of mittens in Latvian culture. Young women fill their hope chests with dozens of pairs of mittens. They were the most common traditional gift and were thought by some to have magical properties.

When doing stranded knitting in the round, I always knit the 'tube' inside out and knit along the far side. That way, the floats are at their maximum length and I don't have tension issues. I also knit with the contrast colour in my left hand (picking/Continental) and the main colour in my right (throwing/British). There is a debate about colour dominance - some, like myself, believe it exists, and others, like Arne and Carlos, don't believe it exists. They just chalk it up to bad knitting/tension. Regardless, my method works for me. 

Another reason I started a knitting project is it doesn't require me to look at every stitch as I knit it. I can look up more frequently at the TV compared to when I'm stitching and have to look down all the time.

Speaking of that, I did some more stitching on my Moonshine Cabin yesterday while on my Monday morning chat but again, really do need bright light and magnification to do a good job on the dark 36ct fabric. I may end up having to pick out some of the work as the stitches aren't looking as even as I would like.