Mic Drop

I've been keeping secrets, but I'm sure you'll understand.

You see, there was no post last week because I was recuperating from wonderful short holiday of yarn, road trips, a hens night, finishing a knitted wedding/birthday present, and watching two amazing human beings get married. (Tip: click on the individual photos for a closer view.)

    

A little background….

I met Mel, the bride, at a speculative fiction convention a couple of years ago. I don’t remember who noticed who’s fibre project first - I’m sure one of us was stitching away and the other bounced up to excitedly ask about it (it’s something we’d both do unabashedly, so I’m confident in claiming it was one of us.) But I do remember deciding pretty much right on the spot that she was going to be a friend (with consent, of course!). 

We spent the rest of the convention amassing other stitchers to join us in the front row (we did so well at this that it became a running joke with the panelists not to piss off the people with needles and hooks) and geeking out over books, tv, movies, yarn, and so on. I convinced her to try a couple of my favourite authors and she got me hooked on the Galactic Suburbia podcast and the Land Down Under book club. Since then it’s been a delightful string (haha) of hangouts, craft days, tweets, books, and geek-a-thons. I’m so grateful that I was able to share in their special day. 

I've shared this photo before, but look at us all! Don't mess with the Fibre Fiends!

Now we come to the reason for my keeping secrets. I'm sure you'd agree that if celebrating the hitching of a fellow fibre fiende to their partner of choice (who I have it on good authority is very supportive of Mel's fibre, tea, and book obsessions) wasn't enough of a reason to cast on a special project, then the fact that their wedding was also a pre-milestone birthday for both of them certainly was.

So I cast on a very special pair of mukluks for Mel. I didn't say anything about them here because though I know Mel loves books, tea, crochet, has very good taste in tv, and is a Hufflepuff, I also know that she reads this blog. I do not know, however, how good she is at not peeking, and given she knew she was getting some form of sock (I asked her for her foot measurements, so I had to spill a few beans there) and she's a very proud Hufflepuff; I just decided to be hush-hush about it all over here until she'd opened her gift in person. 

In the week before the wedding I charted and stitched and crossed my toes (my fingers were obviously too busy knitting away to be bothered with superstition) that what I was envisioning in my head would translate to the finished project. I didn't have time to swatch once I'd finally settled on the design I wanted to make, so I did some very loose math in my head and my gut said it felt right...so I just plowed on ahead, confident in my gut's ability to predict a happy outcome without any practical planning.

Would you believe that there wasn't a single hiccup the ENTIRE project? Everything went smoothly, so smoothly that I kept expecting something to go horribly wrong just as I was weaving in the ends, but nothing did. This really only confirms my initial belief that these beauties were meant for Mel, and they wanted her to have them as much as I did. I even managed to block them in overnight in a hotel room that didn't have the greatest airflow.

Mel modelling mukluks

I'm so pleased with how they turned out. I used the badger chart from the Huffle & Puff Mittens by Marie Wall and took inspiration for how the lettering was laid out. Yes, it reads Hufflepuff both left to right across the cuffs, as well as AROUND the cuffs. I’m pretty chuffed with that. :o) (Please forgive the less than stellar photos below. I was trying to get them photographed the morning of the wedding. I hadn't had coffee yet and I swear they looked better then than they do now, lol.)

   

I've had requests for pairs in other houses, and I'm already on to the next pair. If people would like the colour charts for the other houses and the base mukluk pattern, let me know in the comments.

I have other projects to share with you, but I feel like they will need to be in a different post. It's hard to imagine anything following such an unveiling as these lovelies.

See you next week!

*Drops mic*

   

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