Cold Hands Warm Heart

Spend .5 seconds with me between the months of September to May and you know I am always cold. (Spend .5 seconds with me between June -August inside an air-conditioned building and it becomes pretty clear as well). I have spent many a long winter night thinking about whether or not I have horrible circulation -- I weighed 25 lbs. more in college and was always cold then, too, so I know it is not an issue of my current figure -- or whether my tolerance for colder temperatures is embarassingly teeny tiny. I would like to think it is the fomer of the two, as I believe I am not a wimp. I would also like to find a way to explain to people that just because I spent every winter of my life until age 26 in New England or Upstate New York does not automatically make me love the cold. While I think Darwin was pretty much spot-on and Creationists are completely and totally certifiably insane, I am pretty sure geography does not biology make in a quarter century.

















In fact, I hate winter. I absolutely hate the cold. I would rather live in year round 90 degree 100% humidity than spend another winter in Vermont.

























When I am cold, it hurts. I can feel it in my bones and my back aches. I have stopped telling people I am looking forward to hot flashes, because usually someone gives me a death look (most recently my dear sweet mummer). I don't think much about having babies, but when I do, I will become pregnant in July so I will have one blessed happy winter of warmth. This thought pleases me more than I would sometimes like to admit.






















I have no idea where the expression Cold Hands, Warm Heart was first popularized, but my long-winded sad story of eternal ice cubeyness is somewhat related, I think. Better than "Brown Sweater with Fair Isle Hearts", yes?








































Along with being cold, I also somehow am unable to resist taking a seemingly sane traditional yoke sweater and turning it into a slightly rediculous knitted garment completely covered in fair isle hearts. And duplicate stitching a pink heart near my heart just for good measure.














Pattern: Based on EZ's EPS Sweater. Different gauge, waist shaping, knit back and forth, fewer decreases more often at yoke to follow fair isle pattern. Short row shaping in the back made the neck work way better than I could have imagined.
Yarn: Green Mountain Spinnery Alpaca Elegance, Cappuccino and Lt. Grey, and Fairthorn Farm Alpaca/Merino in Chocolate, Black, Natural and Dk. Heather Brown.
I Love Both of These Yarns.
Needles: KnitPicks size 3, 32" circs
Gauge: 22 sts = 4"
Start Date: Sometime November 2007
Finished: January 3rd-ish, 2008.

Some of you may remember, this sweater started out as a copy of the Yankee Knitter Sheep sweater. After about 4 swatches of the pattern with the yoke decreases it became obviously clear to me why the sheepers are not part of a yoke and belong straight across the front of a nice set-in sleeve. The sheepers are on the list and will be knit n 2008. Good thing I own a lot of naturally colored tightly spun dk-weightish yarn.

Many thanks to Maura The Photographer. I may also owe Bird The Photographer an apology, as demonstrated below:





















Thank goodness for Knitting. How else would I keep (slightly) warm?

(I wonder if yarn companies are overly worried about global warming. )