7 posts tagged “knitting”
I must confess, fellow Voxies, that I've been a bit preoccupied lately. I'm wading through that nebulous, disoriented state that goes along with stuffing your life into a bunch of Home Depot boxes. Or rather, trying to remove your life from said boxes and put it back into action.
Distractions abound, of course. In the process of trying to find the perfect new home for X, I'll end up cleaning A, reorganizing B (for the umpteenth time), and discovering somewhere along the way that I never finished dealing with C in the first place. Eventually, defeated and exhausted, I end up plunking X back into the box whence it came.Where is X? Where should X live in the new home?
Other major distractions include, but are not limited to:
- The Great Snape Debate, and Harry Potter in general (tomorrow, tomorrow!) -- you don't even want to know how much time and energy has been spent considering Snape lately, or which books I've pulled off the shelves in the course of my considerations
- Knitting, knitting, knitting
- Team PidgenDove Administrivia, like name changes and immigration paperwork
Off I go to turn more thoughts of anti-heros, tragedy, and all the books I've loved before.
7/12 Addendum:
How remiss of me not to post the pattern details. Sorry, knitsters!
The bunster's pattern came from Last-Minute Knitted Gifts by Joelle Hoverson. Note that at two weeks to complete there was nothing last-minute about it, but at least I made my deadline. This was in the 6 to 8 hour gift section of the book (divided by time...genius!), but with the Elaina frog factor and it took me more along the order of 14 hours to finish.
I substituted the altogether lovely but ridiculoualy expensive Blue Sky Alpaca sportweight (doubled!) with non-doubled Rowan Calmer that knit up to the same gauge. I used Calm for the main and Sugar for the ears. It wasn't so much the expense that drove me to choose another yarn as the fact that the recipient is an infant. If it turns out that this baby latches onto Bunster (e.g. drools and vomits on, drags around, etc.) I want it to be washable for mom & dad. Also, alpaca can be kinda itchy for some folks.
Other deviations: I knit most of this on a set of double-points rather than on two circulars like it suggests. This was only slightly more confusing during the increase and descrease rounds, but not too terrible. I also discovered that something I heard speculated on KnittingHelp.com is true: if one double-point is one size smaller or larger than the rest, it does not show up in the work. Neato, huh? Lastly, I stuffed the bunny with scrap yarn rather than getting filler. The consistency is great, but you can see the color of the yarn through the work. Keep that in mind if you're thinkng of doing something similar. I used a reddish-maroon yarn, and my husband quickly pointed out that it was "like guts". Which he thought was cool.
... and I want a comfy armchair in which to sit while I finish off the rest of my evening's work. Said chair should have a matching ottoman. Furthermore, I want our boxes to unpack themselves, and the weird mutant stitch in my current knitting project to stop haunting my thoughts. In conclusion, I want to have the whole week off from Wednesday onward, and for the new Harry Potter to magically appear on my doorstep when I wake up on Thursday at a leisurely 10:30am.
Is that so wrong?
Work is heating up again, and my mostly unpacked house is screaming for attention (we move on Saturday!). I haven't updated my blog with anything substantial in ages, and I've made no attempt to organize the detritus (to steal a lovely word from my husband... though I still slightly favor 'debris') from my wedding and honeymoon.
So what's been keeping me up past midnight every night for a week?
Knitting. Friggin' knitting. I currently have 3 projects running simultaneously, and I have a July 14th deadline for one of them. As a result, nothing else gets done. It's all I want to do, and it's all I can think about. Last night I spent a solid 2 hours (that I *should* have spent packing) knitting and seaming two bunny rabbit arms.
What has become of me?
The one skein wonder is finished! YAAAY!
It took me just under 3 weeks to do, but it could easily be a fun little weekend project for someone faster and less froggy. It's the oddest little garment, but sort of fetching in its way:
Nerdy knitting details are available on the Glampyre site. The pattern is $5, available for immediate download (for those with instant gratification issues similar to my own).
Those of you who are around my age may remember Benji, the "lovable mutt who had an uncanny knack for being in the right place at the right time, usually helping a person overcome a problem." Ah, Joe Camp. You creative genius, you.
I've had a stuffed animal in the likeness of Benji almost as long as I can remember. In fact, the acquisition of the Benji doll is the first time I can recall being reasonable.
If I had to guess, I'd say I was about 3 or 4 years old. I was with my mom at the Jersey Shore. We were walking the boardwalk and playing games. My favorite was the big spinning wheel, where you would put a quarter on a square with a particular symbol or word on it and hope that the spinning wheel stopped on the corresponding slot.
I distinctly remember putting a quarter on the 'Pop' square (because I loved my grandfather pretty much more than anything in the world), and holding my mom's hand as we watched the wheel spin. The ladies working the booth let me stand on the counter because I was so small. When it stopped on 'Pop', I jumped up and down and clapped. The lady told me that I could get a Smurfette doll or a Benji doll. I had no clue who or what Benji was, but (*enter staggering little kid logic*) I figured that I already had a Smurfette doll at home... so why would I want two of the same thing?
Thus began the longest friendship of my life. I slept with Benji that night, and nearly every night thereafter for 24 years. When I decided to run away from home at age 6, Benji and my Golden Books were the only things I packed. When I decided that it was time to be a grown-up at age 12, I threw away all of my stuffed animals but him. When I moved to California in 2000, Benji was tucked away in my carry-on. It wasn't until I met Richard that I was able to permanently station Benji in the hall closet. He gleefully peers out from a canvas shoulder bag, greeting me every time I grab a jacket.
Suffice it to say, the love mileage really shows. His body is limp, his fake fur is matted, and his beady little eyes are permanently obscured by a saggy brow. The fluff on his neck has completely worn away to reveal the stuffing underneath. All the print has faded off his tag, save the 'LAINA'S BENJI' that my mom wrote in permanent red ink when I took him to show-and-tell at age 5. At worst, I've lived in the fear that his head would pop clean off. At best, I've been saddened every time I look at his tattered body.
Enter my friend Adrienne, knitting goddess with a weakness for movies based on Jane Austen novels. When she hostessed a knitting-or-crinaline-required tea party, I had to come up with a project... and fast. What to do, what to do? I was a very jaded nascent knitter. The idea of another scarf depressed me, but I didn't feel ready to tackle something big and complicated. Moreover, I didn't want to knit something pointless that would sit on a shelf and collect dust.
But recall that Benji has an "uncanny knack for being in the right place at the right time, usually helping a person overcome a problem." And how! Check out my dapper little dog in his silly little sweater:
Just when you think I can't become any more of a loser, I go and pull something like this. Can't help it. Love my little guy... and see how smart he looks in his sweater?
... because once again, I'm about to eat mine. Mind you, these aren't words I've ever uttered to another soul -- just ones I've spoken to myself in my own head.
"I'll never post a picture of some crap knitting project on my blog."
This is not to say that all (or even most) of the ones I've seen are crap. These are just the exact words as they occurred to me. I chose to transcribe them verbatim here, as I'm about to eat them.
Yes... well.
I decided to get on the crazy train of knitting, mostly to have something to occupy my hands and my time on the flight home. I have many friends who knit, and a few who seem to knit very well. I just never thought of it as my thing.
When am I going to learn that I have no idea what "my thing" really is? I have the most useless sense of identity of any human being ever. Anyway.
My mother bought me an "I Taught Myself Knitting" kit for Christmas. I most definitely did not teach myself knitting with it, as I could barely understand what in God's name these women were on about. Instead, my grandmother stepped in and showed me how to do it.
Somehow or other, she got me going... and ever since she got me going,
I've been going nonstop. The tip of my left thumb is rubbed raw
from working and reworking my practice swatches.
Around 2:00 this afternoon, I decided I was going to try a super-simple scarf. The yarn is too thick, there probably isn't enough yarn to finish it, and the pattern is boring as all get-out. That said, it's my handiwork, and it's a damn sight better than the pile of tangled gray yarn I posted for some melodramatic flourish.
Thus, you have my meager beginnings... badly photographed with too-much, too-close flash. I never could get the hang of digital photography.
*feasts heartily on words*
I really, truly suck at knitting. I'll grant you that it was my first go, but I certainly don't have a natural aptitude for it. My grandmother and I could scarcely breathe through our laughter as she was trying to teach me to cast on.
"How can you be so smart and yet be so clueless at this? I can't send you back to California a failure at knitting. You're my granddaughter, after all."
One chick flick and countless unraveled rows later, the pads of my fingers hurt and I have something that vaguely resembles this:
