my mitten garland

Yes, that is my mitten garland featured on my new blog banner. I took that picture a few years ago and with each year I add more mittens to my ever growing collection of mittens. Last year the mittens were so packed they overlapped. It is still one of my favorite collections to get out each year.


My sister-in-law Carol got me started over ten years ago. She strung all the mittens her boys had worn over the years along the entryway to her home. It looked so cool. So I went home and gathered up all the mittens my Mom had knitted for me and my kids over the years, along with the pair that I had knitted while in high school and hung them over our large picture window. And every year the collection grows bigger and bigger.


All throughout the year I find the most unusual mittens at yard sales and thrift stores and then pack them away with the others till it's time to decorate for Christmas. I have more fun unpacking them and hanging them up according to their unique color, shapes and sizes. I even found a pair that says mitten. But I do prefer homemade over the mass produced mittens.


The blue variegated pair (far left) are the mittens I knitted one snowy, housebound weekend while in high school many, many years ago. I remember being so proud of myself, that I hardly wore them because I wanted to save them. Yes, even back then I was all about preserving sentimental mementoes.


I keep the mitten garland up through January. Reminds me of those snowy Wisconsin winters. A little piece of home in the Arizona desert.


This last picture is Pop pop showing our little granddaughter his N-Gage train for the very first time last Christmas... Emolyn's first Christmas. Makes me kinda sad, because those wall units and window bench seat are gone now because of the flood, but I have other plans on how to display my church village and Randy's beloved train set. I think it's going to be even better.


*** The Christmas concerts were wonderful, all that I had prayed for and more. My friend Nancy took a ton of pictures before, during and after Friday night's concert. I can't wait to share some of them with you later this week!