MY Blog

sadly no longer exists.  Mabel’s was a gift shop on Madison Ave on the UES.  Mabel was the name of the cat of the old lady owner, and everything in the shop had some sort of Mabel rendition on it.  Mabel’s was one of my dad’s first clients when he started is direct mail consulting business.  I remember being slightly mortified that Christmas (my freshman year in high school), when I opened a giftbox from Mabel’s.  Inside:

Long purple gloves with this odd stuffed cat head the hands.  Needless to say, they did not get worn much. Or even ever. I was a savvy enough 14 year old to understand these would earn me no social creds whatsoever in Waterville Maine in 1980. However, they were slightly kitschy enough that I did keep them. Unlike my sister whose bright kelly green Mabels promptly disappeared without ever getting worn.

I must have kept them in a reasonable spot, because 8 years later when I was experiencing my first not-really-cold-temps-but-bone-chilling-damp winter in Japan, I called home asking for mittens.  My mom sent my Mabels.  And they were good.  Good because I needed to wear gloves in my apartment that didn’t have central heating.  Good because they were so purple that I couldn’t ever misplace them.  Good because they sorta smelled like the room I had left behind.  Good because the funny cat head made me think all those Japanese people weren’t actually staring at me, but my gloves instead.

My Mabels continued to serve after my return to the US, through many a winter in NYC and NJ.  However, this must be said.  My Mabels were cool in more than one sense of the word: my Mabels were not warm.  They are ackrylic.  And several times, I had re-sewn the fingers.  Poorly I may add. And with white thread.

Last winter, having burst through yet another finger, I came to the conclusion that the Mabels needed to be put down.  They were just limping along.  But then either Kristen or Christina suggested removing the Mabels from the ugly purple glove and repurposing them onto new gloves.

An excellent idea.  Except that I don’t knit gloves.  Until now!

Meet my prototype of the Knotty Glove (rav link).   Talk about fun!  Gloves are fun!  Even funner than socks.  And easy-peasy!  Even the fingers!  I have conquered my fear of gloves, and along the way, I figured out how to modify the gloves to fit my hand better!  Now I can give Mabel a better home!

My yarn of choice?

Zitron’s Lifestyle in a lovely vibrant pink. It’s head and shoulders above the purple.  It’s wool.  And superwash.  And wool.  And not acrylic.  And wool.  So already we’re one better than the old  Mabels.

Now, I’ve just got to move along the other crap in my knitting queue so I can get to these.

First and foremost, a big shout out to Kirsten Kapur of Through the Loops!  The past three Mondays, Kirsten was in the house leading a stranded knitting mitten class. The pattern: Reykjavik.  And then she treated us to a matching hat.  Lots of fun was had by all!  A note to all: we will definitely be having Kirsten back.  She’s a great teacher, and she put up with my calling her Kristen numerous times!

Notice the goodies on the table?   Well, the last class was also Carol’s birthday, so we celebrated!

As it gets cooler and cooler, more and more folk are heading in looking for cowl patterns.  And not to toot my own horn, but read about Erin’s success with our Too Cool Cowl! Kudos to Erin–she did a lovely job!  We’ve got several more folk finishing up theirs.  I’ll post photos if they’re amenable.  Xtina at the shop too found a great cowl to use with the lovely new Twist from Malabrigo.

And to whet your appetite. . .some new misti alpaca in the shop:

think again.

(thing 3 sharing the love while cooling the sushi rice).  Thing 3 has since been banned from food prep.

The next best thing:

Yes, the malabrigo has finally flown north for the winter.  Thank god.  We’ve been waitin far too long for this.  In addition to some of the awesome merino worsted, we’ve got a nice supply of malabrigo sock, and their new Twist.

Twist is just as sumptuous as the worsted, but has a slight twist to the ply.  It’s just amazing.

But I’m holding back; I’ve got some projects in the queue that need to be dealt with now that BobKatz is done.  Some mittens:

and more that I haven’t had the chance to photograph yet.

I have been released from stockinette island.  BobKatz is now complete. 

Yes, I know.  Another craptastic photo.  But wait there’re more.  See the messy bit at the top.  That’s this:

A wee bit of argyle intarsia.  To break up the monotony of the navy blue, I added golf-ish lime green and light blue argyle. 

The icing on the cake:

a fuzzy image of my “handknit by Paige” label.  The ultimate in kitsch.  Just so everyone remembers.

Now onto more, more, more.