Favorite things

The weekend was warm and sunny, I went for a walk to the park on Saturday and Sunday. The park has a pond some kind soul cleared the snow so kids could ice skate but no one was skating either day and there were no marks on the ice from skates.  My brothers and I got used skates for Christmas one year. Mom would pick us up from country school with skates in the car and warm cookies or bread and we would go to the skating rink in town and skate until suppertime. Then we would go home and eat and many nights we would go back to town and skate until they turned the lights off at 9pm.  All the kids from the east side of town skated everyday. It was wonderful and fun. That was back before organized hockey and figure skating lessons. Everyone skated for fun, everyone had used skates, every winter we took our outgrown skates and a few dollars to the hardware store and traded for a larger pair. The skates are long gone but I still have my mittens, my grandma knit the smallest red pair, I think I have had them since I was 12, the stitch pattern is a knit, purl row followed by 3 or 4 knit rows then the knit purl row again it has a nice texture. My mother knit the next red pair to the right they are a seed stitch, knit purl row then a purl knit row. I remember putting the mittens from Grandma inside the mittens Mom knit for extra warmth. The top pair of mittens were a gift from our Swedish exchange student. They are so cozy and warm.  Red is my favorite color.--Ann--