I find that as I get older, winter’s icy fingers burrow farther into my bones and muscles and no matter how many wooly layers I wrap myself in, I just can’t get warm enough. So, before the holidays, my desire to steep myself in warmth gently nudged me to seek out one of my passions that was now buried in tote bags in the back of my closet.  Balls of yarn in colors rich as jewels – amethyst, carnelian and ruby – spilled out onto the floor all around me like found treasure as I rummaged through my bags. I sat down with my long metal crochet hook and my big round balls of yarn and created long strips of color blocks that I then wove together with a tapestry needle, one by one. As my blanket grew, it cocooned around me, warming my body and my heart with the rhythm of the colorful stitches.

I was happy when I finally finished my blanket but sad to give up the meditative state of the needles so I dug back into my bags to unearth another ball of yarn in a gentle sage green with silky flecks of brown, green and blue. I created a scarf and then when that was done, it was back to my yarn stash. Now a ball of shiny ruby red. Another scarf. Hey, this is as addicting as beading. I wrote about making the blanket and 2 scarves here.

Before I left for my annual holiday trek to Michigan, my Mom told me not to bring any art projects with me because she had gone to the knitting store and picked up something for us to do. Oh joy, another adventure in knitting!  As the fairy lights twinkled like stars on my parents’ Christmas tree, I made my first pair of mittens out in snowy Michigan. While I was happily knitting away, I thought that it would be so nice to be able to wear my mittens while I work on my computer. So, I studied the mitten pattern and adapted it to create a pair of open mittens, that is, with no tips on the fingers. I know that there are knitting patterns out there for a pair of fingerless gloves, in fact, Dave has a pair where the top of the mitten flaps back to reveal the fingerless glove. I just wanted something simple with an opening for my fingers so I could type unrestricted. I used a double strand of wooly yarn for thickness and warmth and was able to make them in one evening. This is a great project for using all of those bits and pieces of yarn left over from other projects. It’s fun to use 2 strands of different yarns to create interesting color and texture.

As we enter this last week of January, I feel a stirring in the inner chambers of my heart that whispers of thawing and melting. Perhaps it is just coming from the creative visualization that I’ve been doing for my frozen shoulder or just plain ol wishful thinking but I’d like to dream that spring is not too far away.