We’re snowed in again – which frankly, I love (or would if it didn’t feel like the flu has returned for an encore). Nevertheless, I’ve been having a blast. Today I wrote an article that I feel politically much in tune with. As a journalist, my job is to present information without expressing the merest shred of personal opinion, but when I get a chance to write about something I really believe in – which fortunately happens often – I feel particularly optimistic about life in general.

My friend June is in town, and brought some Seneca Santa mittens with her. We had an opportunity for a nice long visit and sort through the yarn bins. I’ve been doing a few hats now and then when I have time. The yellow ones, incidentally, were mostly made by my friend Jennifer, who knitted a long, tubular scarf that had no home. She gave it to me, and because I had some of the same yarn, through the magic of crochet turned the scarf into 8 hats on a different wintry morning. They matched well with many of June’s mittens.

We drank a lot of tea, she made a pair of mittens while I crocheted 7 more hats – hats go so much more quickly than mittens. And voila! We now have 14 finished sets. June, who every year makes dozens of mittens, stubbornly refuses to dedicate her entire life to this project – she really does have a life completely apart from knitting. I think I’m going to have to spend some time in the next weeks making some myself. I’m hoping that if I can do some on the knitting machine, maybe the Thursday knitting circle could sew them up. The idea is always to get the first batch of mittens out the door and into summer storage before the tatting conference and - yikes! It’s only four weeks away. I’d like to have a bit more than 14 sets to send off. Each year I pledge myself to make or facilitate at least 100 sets, so any way you look at it, I’m a bit behind.

Next on the agenda – look at the sage wool shawl whose ends you see behind the mittens. It began its life as a beautiful piece of wool whose remnant was given to me by a talented needlewoman who was purging her fabric stash. What it needs is an array of tatted hearts so it may be sent to a tatter who was the unlucky passenger in a car hit by another car and is now recovering from this serious accident. I hope to send this, too, on its way before our April tatting conference.

I’m also at work on a new tatting book, hinted at in the last Tatting Times. I’m really excited about these new patterns – I’ll show a few of the results when I’ve got more of them tatted… and after I tat a few hearts.