08.31.05
Posted in General at 8:45 am by Rachel
This post over on Amylovie’s blog prompted a guilt-ridden sob-story recollection that I blurted out all over her comments section. I pulled myself together before I started enumerating all my childhood sins (I lost my beautiful clarinet and hid that fact from my dad for years; I openly tried to steal my best friend’s boyfriend in junior high school; I used to tell my grandmother I’d written her letters but that they must have gotten lost in the mail…. Oh wait, there I go. I’ll try to stay on the topic sin from now on.)
When I was about 12, my stepfather knitted me a gorgeous sweater. To the best of my recollection, it was in very fine, subtly heathered, mossy green yarn and had a complicated, intricate pattern. It was carefully fitted. Knowing what I now know about knitting, I recognize that it must have taken him forever to make. It was 1989, though, and I was 12, and it didn’t conform to my vague understanding of fashion, so I tossed it in my closet and never once wore it and have no idea what happened to it.
When I got older I became a decent enough person to develop a twinge of guilt about my disregard for this beautiful handmade gift. But now that I have become an avid knitter myself, my degree of shame has increased a hundred fold. The very idea of wasting all that work and, quite frankly, all that love is nothing short of horrifying to me now. We (as knitters) all know the hours that go into knitting a sweater, and a huge part of the enjoyment that we find in those hours comes from anticipating the wearer’s pleasure and happiness. When I think of some of my knitted gifts being cast aside, unwanted and unrecognized for the one-of-a-kind, carefully handcrafted items that they are, it makes me do a full-body cringe.
I think the incident with my stepfather’s sweater has left me with a vague fear of this lack of appreciation, not so much for myself but for others. When my mom recently knitted several beautiful wool scarves for friends of hers that she was visiting in England, all I could think about was the possibility that the recipients wouldn’t recognize them as so much more than just any old scarf you can buy at the store, that all her hard work would be acknowledged with an, “Ooh, lovely, thank you Julie,” and then set aside. And then she’d have to leave the gifts behind, which is hard enough to do as it is (after all, we spend so much time with the gifts, petting them and admiring them, that it’s a bit sad to bid them goodbye). Fortunately, my worst fears did not come to pass, and her friends seemed to love her gifts.
It’s a frequent discussion among knitters that we will be perpetually disappointed by the level of appreciation shown by the recipients of our handmade gifts. I don’t know that we can blame those recipients — after all, would it even be possible to show gratitude in proportion to the amount of time, care, skill, and love that goes into a knitted gift? Even the most sincere, emphatic, drawn out thank-you upon opening the present seems insufficient compared to the (oftentimes) dozens of hours that the giver spent anticipating the giving of the gift while creating it. This must be particularly true with children. Even while I look forward to knitting for my own children one day, I know that the pleasure I derive from it will be from the knitting itself, and from seeing them in the knitted garments I force them to wear, rather than from their own enthusiasm about what I’ve made for them.
Still, this does not excuse my absolutely classless, mannerless response to the beautiful sweater my stepfather knit me. And so this is why people have blogs: to increase the impact of their statements by making them in a public forum. Given that, allow me to say: I’m sorry, Mark! Even though it came about 15 years late, you have my sincere appreciation and gratitude for that lovely sweater that I clearly didn’t deserve. THANK YOU.
Permalink
08.28.05
Posted in Works in Progress at 10:50 am by Rachel
I’m flying through this adorable little sweater from Last Minute Knitted Gifts using – surprise! – Knitpicks Crayon in green. I bought way too much of this stuff a couple months ago, and seeing as I’m in a strict stash-reduction period, I’ve been using it for almost everything. I really do love it, but I’m looking forward to a time when I am using it on a slightly smaller percentage of my projects.
I am very excited about how this sweater is going to come out. Carry (my former secret pal) knit one recently, also in Knitpicks Crayon, that looks adorable. I’m going to find some cute little froggy buttons for the neck and then all the viewers of my blog will risk death or serious injury from the force of the impact of the cuteness bursting forth from their computer screens. You have been warned.
Permalink
08.27.05
Posted in Works in Progress at 4:40 pm by Rachel
So, after no consensus whatsoever among those surveyed about the color/icon combination for the second baby sweater, I was forced to make a decision on my own. I went with the shared opinion of Matt and Carry (my SP4 secret pal) and began a red sweater with a pink star.
The good news is that the intarsia went very well this time. No cheating with stranded knitting and no weird holes that I sort of patched over later when I wove the ends in. It looks really good. The bad news is that the star is a little larger and, more importantly, a little squatter than I’d envisioned. When I charted the star I made my “graph paper” with squares slightly wider than they were tall, to mimic knit stitches, but I guess I didn’t do enough. (A smidgen of simple math would have done wonders here, but I was too lazy.) So the star is a little short and fat. The question is, do I restart and redo it? I welcome all input. Be honest! You won’t hurt my feelings, since I myself obviously think it’s a bit flawed. And if you could all be unanimous in your opinions this time, that would help.
The other big news is that I suddenly realized that the word is inTARsia, not inSTARsia, as I had previously thought. That’s the problem with words you read a zillion times but never hear/say out loud: it can take a loooong time for initial misreadings to become apparent. Slightly humiliated, I considered scouring the internet for places I’d written it incorrectly, but I’d rather spend my time knitting, so I simply corrected it in my post below and am now ready to move on with my life, happily a little more knowledgeable about knitting terms.
Permalink
08.21.05
Posted in Finished Objects at 5:40 pm by Rachel
Pattern: Sweetheart Pullover from Knitting for Baby
Yarn: Knitpicks Crayon in orange and yellow
Notes: So, I did a weird, unorthodox combination of intarsia and stranded colorwork here (my own misguided invention), and my results are mediocre at best. However, the Crayon yarn is very forgiving because it has a lot of unevenness built into it, so it hides irregularities well. It is light and soft and machine wash- and dryable. In the end I wound up liking the finished object better than I thought I would. Seaming, however, is a huge pain in the ass and takes forever in the best of circumstances, but on yarn with no stitch definition it’s nearly impossible. I don’t understand why everything isn’t knit in the round.
The sweater is the first of two for a coworker having twin girls this fall. The second one will be in red and pink. Question: Should the second have a flower as well, or something like a star or heart? And should the main color be red (with pink for the intarsia) or the other way around? I am very undecided. Advice?
Permalink
Posted in Knitty Secret Pal, Works in Progress at 5:25 pm by Rachel
I’m back! We were on vacation in the Pacific Northwest for 10 days, took a red-eye back Thursday night, arrived home to cat puke, stinky trash, and spoiled milk, and have continued to sleep on a west-coast schedule for three days. With all that, I am only just getting up the energy to return to knitting and blogging. However, for those same reasons, I can make no promises about the quality of the content.
I hope to recount the trip at length over on Shiny Green Apple, my non-knitting blog, but here I will just focus on one of the highlights: I got to meet my secret pal on my trip! Carry (from over at Fairie Knits) and I met up at 10 a.m. last Sunday and proceeded to talk incessantly for three and a half hours before I even thought to check my watch. I was so disappointed to realize that I was supposed to be meeting Matt almost immediately to move on to our next scheduled activity. I managed to eke out a few more minutes with Carry before I gave into my guilt about keeping Matt waiting. We spent those minutes fondling the goods at a nearby yarn store. I did not give into my yarn cravings, but I did make an impulse buy of a Debbie Bliss book of baby knitting designs. There was no justification for this whatsoever, especially since a) I just got Adorable Knits for Tots from my secret pal (I am having a hard time learning to call her by her name) and want to knit several things from that, and b) I don’t know very many people who are currently reproducing. Ah well. Knitting-related purchases aren’t always rational.
The lady at the yarn store was nice enough to take our picture:
Carry brought me several little Seattle-made treats, which Matt and I enjoyed throughout the rest of our trip. Here are the remnants. Some of those are actually empty packaging and wrappers that I have tried to make look more, um, substantial:
It is completely ludicrous that Carry brought me gifts after showering me with loot for four months as my secret pal. It made my little tokens for her look even more pitiful. I brought her two skeins of ultra-bulky Rhode-Island grown wool that is so unprocessed that I don’t think it could ever be made into a knitted garment. But I thought something from my home state might be a good idea…well, maybe she can felt it or something. I also made a little felted basket that was much cuter in my mind, but since I had one day to figure out a pattern, make it, and felt it, I figure it could have come out much worse:
Matt found an alternate use for the item. His punishment for disrespecting my knitting handiwork is that I will publish this ridiculous photo of him on the internet:
Anyway, Carry and I got along so fabulously that I was quite sad to accept that we probably won’t see each other again for a good long time. However, we have certainly proven that we can keep up a very robust email correspondence, so we’ll continue that until our next chance to meet in person. And when Matt and I move to Seattle (something we keep considering with varying degrees of seriousness), she can be my new best friend!
There was basically no other knitting activity during our vacation. I got to work on Cozy quite a bit during the plane ride out, but that was it until I got home. I brought nine balls of cotton for Cozy, perhaps overestimating how much I would get done on the trip…I only used one. Still, it’s coming along slowly but surely:
I can’t believe I’m back to work tomorrow! I hate how vacation flies by. We met a very nice couple from Belfast on one leg of our trip and they were telling us all about the 6 weeks of vacation they get a year (plus additional personal days, increased vacation after several years at a job, etc.). They couldn’t even get their minds around the idea of 3 weeks of “holiday” a year. Americans get a lot of things right, but that is not one of them.
Permalink
08.04.05
Posted in Knitty Secret Pal at 10:43 pm by Rachel
That secret pal of mine, she’s really outdone herself. Please feast your eyes on the panoply of goodies that awaited me when I arrived home from work this afternoon:
But I don’t want you to ruin your eyesight squinting at the many marvels in this photo. That would be so rude of me! Allow me to take you on a detailed tour of the delights that sprang from the unassuming Amazon box on my doorstep. Do give in to the temptation to click any thumbnail for a larger image.
First, the most directly knitting-relevant items. Once again I am forced into conspiracy theories based on my secret pal’s uncanny ability to read my every thought. Recently I have been wanting to expand my collection of children’s patterns; she supplies me with Adorable Knits for Tots by Zoe Mellor. I have heard so much about Blue Sky Organic Cotton that not long ago I was thinking I really wanted to give it a try once my yarn diet is over (in 40 years). Ho ho, what’s this? A skein of Blue Sky Organic Cotton so soft that any who shun cotton would be forced to reconsider. It’s really fantastic. I can’t wait to knit with it. Finally, just today I was thinking that I needed to get myself some wool wash, and that I was foolish for not doing so when I was at the LYS recently when my mom was buying some. My secret pal knew about this before I did, because she tucked a bottle of Eucalan wool wash into my package. Unbelievable!
The next set of gifts is a series of wonderful items that recognize knitting for the addiction it is, including such gems as a “Don’t Knit and Drive” bumper sticker, a card outlining the signs of a knitting addiction, a “While You Were Knitting” phone message pad, and a small pin that says “Friends don’t let friends knit drunk,” which absolutely cracks me up. I believe at least some of the items can be found at Knitters Anonymous. I can’t wait to adorn my car/knitting bag/etc. with these very funny things.
Treats for me, my sweetie, and our kitties! The Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans — one box for Matt and one for me — are in honor of the new Harry Potter, and the freeze-dried salmon is for our undeserving whiny cats. This was explained to me in the card, but I have to admit that by the time I got to them when unpacking the box, I forgot they were for the cats. I was sort of like, “Huh, freeze-dried salmon snacks…sounds a little unusual, but I’ll try anything once. Maybe it’s a Pacific Northwest thing.” Thank god I saw the “Treats for cats” printed on the packaging before I popped one into my mouth. The cats, however, loved them. When I wouldn’t give them more than two each, much whining ensued. As for Bertie Botts, well, I have to say I don’t know that I can bring myself to eat a jelly bean that I think is buttered popcorn when it just might be snot. I’ve risked it enough times before to know that those gross flavors are not a joke!
Next up, a wonderful array of loose tea and some fun tea accessories. I adore tea. My whole family is very into tea, and it must be said that we can be kind of snobby about not using tea bags. The flavors are wonderful — the cinnamon tea instantly made me think of Christmas — and the “fill your own teabag” bags are a wonderful idea! I can’t wait to experiment with that a bit. I’m also a big fan of the tea infuser.
Way back when we first filled out our questionnaires, I indicated that lavender is one of my favorite scents. Even though that was something like 4 months ago, my secret pal remembered and gifted me with divine lavender lotion, bath salts, and these little lavender tablets that you can put in drawers, knitting bags, or yarn stashes to keep them smelling wonderful. Isn’t that a great idea? And apparently they’re all locally made (in Seattle).
The lavender items came in this cute little cloth drawstring bag. The really, really cool thing is that this bag came with an identification number, and if you go to wrapsacks.com and enter the number, it tells you the history of where the bag has been. The idea is that when you gift it to the next person, you enter your information, theirs, and what was given. Isn’t that neat? Anyway, my SP revealed herself to me by having me look up this bag and find her information there. What a great idea! So after much waiting and refraining from guessing, I have learned that my outstanding, generous, funny, interesting, dedicated SP is carrym from the Knitty boards and can be found expounding upon knitting and life over at Fairie Knits! Now I can stalk her on her blog. Excellent.
And so my Secret Pal is secret no more. But that’s okay! Because next week I get to meet her, and we’ve forged such a great relationship over email that I know our friendship will continue. And that is certainly the best possible outcome of an internet game like this, don’t you think?
Thank you for everything, Carry! You’ve set the secret pal standard so high that I think I may never participate again for fear of certain disappointment! I can’t wait to meet you.
I almost forgot…there was one more item in my package (aside from the tissue paper and the funny card about doing yoga with cats). The problem is, I failed to include it in the pictures because I sort of was doing something else to it:
Permalink
08.01.05
Posted in Works in Progress at 10:12 am by Rachel
As regular readers of this blog know, I am on a strict yarn diet. I will be knitting down my stash until further notice. Fortunately, I have rather enjoyed searching out patterns that will work with my stash yarn. One such pattern, Knitty’s Cozy, I had been drawn to the very first day I discovered Knitty; however, I’d completely forgotten about it until recently. I rediscovered it when browsing the archives, and it turns out it calls for yarn of the precise gauge of some I had in my stash: Classic Elite’s “Spotlight” cotton.
This is a good pattern for me for several reasons. First, I have been hankering to try some lace knitting after following the doily explosion over at Fruitcakes Here a-Knittin’. This is a good beginner lace pattern because it is relatively easy and is done with yarn of a respectable thickness that you can actually see to knit with. Second, I have been wanting a shawl-type item with enough versatility to wear with a sleeveless dress at a wedding as well as more casually for extra warmth on a summer night. Finally, I have been feeling guilty about the 12 balls of Spotlight in my stash, which I bought for a project that I later decided I wasn’t so enthusiastic about. It’s a wonderfully soft cotton — not nearly as “hard” and twine-like as some 100% cottons. (And at $4.95 a ball, it’s not overly hard on the wallet, either.) So I’m glad finally to be working with it.
My only concerns so far are these: it’s not quite as wide as I expected. Well, it’s exactly as wide as the pattern says it should be, but it doesn’t look as wide as I’ve seen in a lot of the photos, including the one pictured with the pattern. Oh well, I’m sure it’ll be fine. The only other issue is that with this white cotton yarn, there’s a little something about it that says Granny’s Crochet Shawl to me. Actually, that impression has lessened as I’ve gotten more of the wrap done, but it’s still lingering in the back of my mind. I’m hoping the full shawl will just look delicately lacy and pretty, not dowdy and tacky. We shall see.
I was lucky enough to be able to do my favorite activity (knitting) in my favorite place in the world this weekend: Lake Winnipesaukee. Here is a bad picture of my knitting on the arm of the adirondack chair with the lake sort of in the background.
Permalink
Posted in Finished Objects at 9:56 am by Rachel
Pattern: Easy Eyelet Baby Blanket from Knitting for Baby
Yarn: Knitpicks Crayon in pink
Notes: I can’t imagine a better knitted fabric up against a baby’s skin.
I finally finished my second Project Linus baby blanket this weekend. I love it so much I don’t want to give it away. I mean, I have no use for a blanket this size, but it is just so wonderful to touch I don’t want to part with it. I can’t say enough good things about the fabric Knitpicks Crayon creates when knit up into garter stitch. I am thinking of making a larger one, maybe in blue, to keep up at our lake house as a nice light summer blanket.
On the other hand, I might not, because I must confess: this was a very, very boring knit. Aside from the joy of caressing the supersoft fabric, and the pleasure of draping it over myself as I was knitting the last quarter or so, I didn’t get much delight out of this pattern. I mean, I really like how it came out, but row after row after row after row of garter stitch — with only the promise of one yarnover at the end of each row to sustain me! — was a bit mind-numbing. Still, it was great for working on while watching TV or even reading, since I never had to look down. Maybe I’ll start a big one with the understanding that it’ll take a really long time and I’ll only knit it as “background knitting” and not feel any pressure to get it done quickly.
Anyway, I hope this blanket finds its way to a needy youngster for whom the soft cuddliness of the yarn will provide some measure of comfort.
Permalink
