Clara's Purple Mittens
In
my never-ending quest to make socks for every member of my
family, I made a pair of purple microspun socks for my niece
Clara. Since I'd always wanted to use it, I added multicolored
eyelash yarn on the cuffs to give them a fuzzy look, and mailed
them off in December 2004.
Around Christmas, I called Stacy to find out if Clara liked the socks (sometimes autistic people have really strong reactions to a texture or color, so if she didn't like them, that was fine).
"She loves them," Stacy said. "Except. . .she doesn't wear them as socks."
Turns out that my headstrong little niece refused to wear the socks on her feet, and used them out on the playground as mittens. The only problem was her confusion over why she couldn't fit her thumbs into the heels.
Well, hey, there's an easy way to fix THAT. I hunted down some more purple microspun yarn, sat down and tried making one mitten using a pattern I found on the web. Unfortunately, the decrease at the top was seriously screwed up and the thumb gasket wound up having a huge hole in it (although the fact that I actually made the damn thing is still pretty impressive).
I sighed and pitched it, then went back to the web for another pattern -- found a nice one, too, with a logical decrease pattern, and wound up cranking out the mittens in two and a half evenings. I think she's going to get a kick out of them, and the receptionist at work asked me if I'd be willing to make a pair for her niece come this Christmas. Hee.