Icy Wool

As you know (or at least you should by now. Unless you've been in a coma and only just woke up. Or you're from the future and haven't had a chance to look at a calendar), we just finished a three day holiday weekend. And not just for us Americans and our Memorial Day, but also for other countries as well (why is that? I've never learned). This is the first time I can remember having Memorial Day off. Usually I have school (those pesky "snow" days must be made up) or I'm working a combination of several insane part-time jobs (current record stands at four simultaneous three summers ago).

But this year it really did feel like time off. (though it signals the end of my multi-week vacation that is supposed to keep me sane and rested for the next year?) This might have been helped by the fact that many law firms in the state took Monday off and so we had a special visitor. Now, this special visitor is a very patient individual. He's put up with craziness not only in the admirable completion of his first year of law school, but also in my regularly scheduled insanity (with a few surprise episodes thrown in for good measure). He has also only ever asked for one knitted item in the year and a half that I've known him. And of course this is the one knitted item that I absolutely detest working on. But I've been on a completion kick and it was one of the only WIPs I had left before I could cast on a decadent number of projects to serve my every mood during summer school nuttiness.

And so, on Monday or so, I had decided that I was going to work on nothing else until I finished this item. It wasn't like I was going to see this individual any time soon. Not till the end of June, actually. But this way I'd be inspired to at least work on a few inches of this item before I wanted to throw it across the room. Surely I could finish this in a month or so, I was almost halfway done and it really wasn't a large project.

But then suddenly this person calls to ask if he could visit on his holiday. I couldn't say no. I was pretty excited to see him, as was my family. But then suddenly everything in me screamed "oh no, I have to finish the gloves!"

That's right. The dreaded hockey gloves (Ravelry project link). Many false starts leading to one completed glove at Christmas with the promise of a second sometime soon. Well here it is almost the end of May, I'm finally deciding to complete the second glove, and suddenly there's this looming deadline. Just what I needed to make me really want to work on a sock or a sweater or anything. Anything other than that stupid glove.

I finally resigned myself to my fate and was working along, only to realize that everything I had done on the second glove (about 2 hours worth?) was on the wrong needles. I mean, it looked a little small, but this was about 5 US sizes too small. Somehow I managed to hold it together as I ripped back and started over.

And I made it! I hate them, I'm never knitting them again (at least not this decade. Sorry, dear). I may also never knit with Lion Brand wool again. Or in a slate blue colorway. But they're done!

These photos are a little odd because it is, after all, summer, but he called yesterday to reassure me that they fit under the actual padded gloves and he will be trying them out on the ice rink Friday. I'm hoping to get a photo of them in action. I think I've earned it.

Sam wanted to be a model too, but wool is not for puppy ingestion.