Confession time

I have a confession to make. I love my new Signature Needle Arts DPN's. I've been using my 3.25mm needles to knit a pair of wrist warmers for my Dad, and they are just the bee's knees, the cat's meow, the camel's toe ... I love the way they look, the way they feel when you knit with them, even the sound they make. I am in love.

Which brings me to my second confession. I bought yarn, but it's OK because it was for my Dad's wrist warmers that he asked me to knit, and that's one of the exceptions I allowed myself. It started with his asking me to knit him something to keep his arthritic wrists and thumbs warm in winter. So I hunted out a few free patterns for inspiration, and found one that he liked the look of. It was a World War One vintage pair of wrist warmers, so I re-jiggled the pattern to knit it in the round and eliminate the seam.

For once this modification was not motivated solely by my hatered of sewing up. My Dad has a scar from where he broke his arm and had a plate put in, and a seam would run right over the scar and rub it. So our interests coincided on that issue.

I also re-jigged the pattern to add a "thumblet" to keep his arthritic thumbs warm.

Anyway, naturally I asked him what colour he wanted, and in time-honoured irritating father manner he replied, "Aubergine". This prompted some spirited debate in the yarn shop as to which shade was Aubergine, but in the end I went with a nice squishy 8-ply that was a purple colour called "Luxe" and told my Dad that was as close as I could get to Aubergine in a non-scratchy machine washable wool. It is almost the colour of his favourite football team, so I think he is fine with the selection.

The good thing was that I had a legitimate reason to go and buy yarn, so the sales assistants at the yarn shop had no grounds to suspect I am a woman with a yarn stash so large that I think I can go a year without buying any new stuff.