Tales of Fetching Mittens

Wow, Ann and Kay really outdid themselves with their recipe box photo contest at Mason Dixon Knitting!  Discovered a really fun cookbook I had never heard of before, and discovered links to so many wonderful knitting bloggers who love to cook!  The blogosphere is alive with recipe box love this week, with hundreds of posts and stories of old family favorite recipes including my personal favorite, 1-2-3 jello (cool recipe discovered here)!  (There was a lot of love put into those jello creations!)  The apron (below) was a big hit with grandma/mom, she loved the apron!  (yay!).  I wasn’t sure as she came from the generation who rebelled against apron culture.  (When I got my barbie house she made sure I could put it together with just us strong independent minded women.  She also made it really clear to me from a young age the importance of finding a profession that would never require me to be dependent on a man!  She wasn’t as militant a woman’s libber as that may sound, but the message was very powerful in my college days.)  I had some long, wonderful, poetic sounding story to share about my love affair with this knitting project, but Ann and Kay’s story just eclipsed everything and now all I can think of is the joys of all those jello recipes I had long forgotten (some were really good, but I could never stand the cubes of plain jello with canned fruit inside…ugghh).  In case you are into swapping jello recipes, here is my favorite from my mom’s recipe files (in her own words). 

Molded Apple Walnut Salad

Ingredients: 2 pkgs. lemon-lime jello (1 each/I presume the small kind), 2 cups boiling water, 1 1/2-2 cups Verner’s gingerale, 1 can crushed pineapple, 2 bananas cut up/fine, 1 apple/cut up/fine, crumpled walnuts or pecans.  Mold this in a tall mold, or whatever. 

Topping (the best part that really makes this dish a zinger): In sauce pan combine 1/2 cup sugar, 2 tablespoons flour.  Add 1 cup pineapple juice and 1 egg slightly beaten.  Cook until thick and then add 2 tablespoons butter.  Chill and then fold in 1 cup whipped cream (or Cool Whip). 

In case you are in the process of or planning stages for making these Fetching Mitts (also discovered through Mason Dixon Knitting), here are a few notes to share:

• Yarn: I used Classic Elite “Lush” (50% angora, 50% wool), color # 4420 (bought originally for another project…one of those ribbon scarves, which I ended up not liking so much but fell in love with the yarn).
• Needles: US Size 6 (6″) ebony double pointed needles (why ebony?  slip,slip,slip…no tugging, smooth sailing on the hands and wrists for us carpal tunnel syndrome knitters;  I found cable knitting was harder on the hands.)
• Technical Notes: Requires “cable cast on” (directions found in Knitter’s Handbook by Montse Stanley - great technical documentation for a huge variety of various cast on techniques.)  Sounds difficult in name, but turned out to be easier than I thought.  I discovered just how cool this book was from Mari.  I figured, if that book helped her make this sweater, I gotta have that book! And it just goes to show you, never judge a book by the cover, because I passed that book up so many times before when I saw it in the bookstore, wondering what Reader’s Digest knew about knitting!  Boy was I wrong!  My impression is that the author had a voracious appetite for technical knitting knowledge and a deep passion to share it in the most easy to understand way possible, for the pure love of it all.
• Mood Enhancing Qualities:  Wasn’t sure about this cable business at first.  I started out with Colonial rosewood needles (dpns) that were not in good shape.  I duked it out for about 12 rows and was frustrated but determined.  Then I switched to H&S ebony dpns and everything became dreamy (ok, I splurged, but this is cheaper than therapy, powerful medicine kind of stuff and unlike what you might have heard, you can buy them here in the US.  I found them here.  One of the owners is German and they get H&S shipments from time to time, most recently, ebony dpns in a good range of sizes.).  By comparison, the Colonial rosewoods created too much friction and drag; the H&S ebony dpn’s grabbed the yarn but the drag was eliminated, finally giving me that gliding feeling that hits my knitting nirvana sweet spot and makes me feel all giddy inside, the kind of feeling that powers you up after feeling depleted from a week of work.
• Final Thoughts: It was very uplifting and refreshing giving my hands a new experience, both the soft caress of this lovely yarn, and a happy-happy joy-joy love thyself experience from learning something new, fun, and interesting (if you are new to cable knitting), plus the extra special treat of getting to wear these when they are done (soft and warm…like holding a bunny in your hands all day long!)  The total cost for needles, yarn and pattern came to less than the price of store bought cashmere gloves with the added bonus of getting to use the needles over and over again to make more pairs (Kay made a pair for a teacher’s gift, how nice!).