First, an Easter photo. My landlords’ children knocked on my door yesterday morning to present me with this:

So sweet to think that the Easter Bunny remembered me this year. I absolutely adore my landlord-family (I live in the house in their backyard), and I will miss them terribly when it comes time to leave here for the colder climes of New Home/grad school.

So it seems there are a lot of folks out there in internet-land who have questions about wearing legwarmers. I’ve noticed that several folks have used legwarmer and wearing legwarmer-related search terms to find my blog. I happen to have a few pictures of the legwarmers in action this week, as the weather is just changeable enough to warrant them. Mind you, I am no fashion plate, and tend to subscribe to the “If You Like It, You Should Wear It” school of clothing oneself. (Also known as the “Get Dressed in Five Minutes and Try Not to Wear Exactly What You Wore Yesterday” approach to dressing.) If it is legwarmer wearing confidence you need, a few ideas:

(Way above, and above): long underwear, twirly skirt and legwarmers. If you’re feeling particularly bold, you could wear a shorter skirt so that it looks like the second picture.

Option 2:

Legwarmers are also appropriate for Saturday morning, and perfect for pairing with cropped loungewear when the dog needs to go out.

Option 3 (not pictured): Most of the time, I wear legwarmers because I love flip-flops but my ankles get cold. I like to keep them tucked under my heels, and people rarely notice them when I wear them with jeans. I wear them for me! If you want to incorporate a tad more 80s flair (as I typed that, iTunes in shuffle mode selected “Runaway” by Bon Jovi. Go figure) cuff your jeans so that said legwarmers are more visible.

Alright — glad we’ve addressed that. I’d hate to think that there are people out there who’ve gone through all the trouble to either acquire or knit legwarmers, but are unsure about how to enjoy them!

Onward to my Nutkin conversion:

You may recall that I ran into a bit of a problem just before turning the heel on sock #1 of this pair: The cuff, which is knit and folded over to create something super cool, does not have the stretch of the rest of the sock, and I could not get it over the heel of my foot. I’m glad I thought to try this BEFORE turning the heel. I love the pattern — easy to remember and fun to knit — and the thought of ripping out 7 pattern repeats was a bit too much for me to bear.

So: I began an 8th pattern repeat, but in the middle of the first repeat in the first row, I bound off the middle 8 st to create a thumb hole, and then continued on in pattern, replacing those 8 st in the next row. After the full 10 row pattern repeat, I did one more repeat, for a total of 9. I then knit 5 rows of k2, p2 for stretchiness at the top of the mitt, and voila:

I think I finally understand why folks who don’t like knitting socks buy and use sock yarn. These are going to be perfect for spring: snug, subtly colorful, and thinner than the other worsted weight pairs I’ve been wearing all winter. I’ve cast on for my second mitt, and I’ve learned my lesson about gauge/sock cuffs…maybe.