The experimental pair...

We had quite an eventful week last week. I turned a year older. Briefly toyed with the idea of never dying my grey out again, got a frightening response from E and banished that idea. She did mention that I'd need to be at least 90 before grey would look right for me. 45 years and counting. Note to self; add this one onto the long list of things to do when children leave home!

On said Birthday evening M, E and J went to see Ed Sheeran live at Nottingham. Wish I could have enjoyed something like that too. Say no more. I did enjoy the bottle of Pinot Grigio I had to myself not to mention the remote control. The latter was so unfamiliar to me I had to get my reading glasses on to examine what each button did. Am I a doormat for not putting my foot down and insisting we share the choice of tv or am I a candidate for UN peacekeeper?

We also had a wedding anniversary. Seventh. Wool. Happened to be passing a wool shop with M that day. Chose my own wedding anniversary present while M got comfy on the shop sofa and talked about all things crochet with the shop owner. I've trained him well.

And so half term began this week. We kicked off with a train ride to Nottingham. It's been a very long time since I took the children on a train ride, just me and them. When they were small we would make the odd journey specifically just to have a ride on a train. I would make sure they each had a small rucksack with colouring things, small games, a few matchbox cars, an apple and a box of raisins... Oh boy have we gone downhill since then! Jake packed his own rucksack yesterday which consisted of one iPad and one pair of headphones. That's all he needed to keep himself occupied for two hours.

I got out my wool and crochet hook and he mouthed, 'you are kidding aren't you?' To which I just shook my head with a mad woman's grin. He turned a lovely shade of red and looked out of the window, trying very hard to look as though he wasn't with me. He was, however, a superb shopping partner. Our main task was to buy him a winter coat/jacket/whatever. We found that in the first five minutes and bought it. Boys are sooo easy! I dragged him into the wool department in John Lewis and plonked him down at the patterns table while I browsed (it was seriously rubbish!). I then suggested a couple of charity shops and he was still game. He carried all our purchases without so much as a moan. Well ok, he did say it whiffed a bit in the British Heart foundation shop but he did have a point.

I finished off one of these mock cable fingerless gloves/wristwarmers on the train and started the second. I'm calling them the experimental pair because I really couldn't remember how to do raised stitches. For some reason I ended up slip stitching them and afterwards I realised that double crochet would have been much better. I'm tempted to rip that bit out and redo it, or just leave this pair with a more subtle cable detail and do the next pair properly.

They are extremely easy to make. I didn't even take the pattern with me on the train. Just rows of trebles interspersed with slip stitch rows, sewn up to leave a thumb hole which could be made into a proper thumb bit if you wanted to. The instructions suggested sewing up the glove before doing the raised stitches... very bad idea! Much easier to do the cable bit and then sew up. I used two balls of ALASKA by Drops (bought at the Knitting and Stitching Show). That's 100g of aran wool, a very economical project. The pattern lends itself to all kinds of modification.

If anyone would like the pattern it's a free pdf which I can email. I don't have the website link.