09.25.06
Posted in Yarn and Tools at 10:20 pm by Rachel
What do you know? Amylovie has sent me a scarf! She had a little knitiversary contest that required entrants to demonstrate their skill at being selected by a random number generator. (If you skim through this post you’ll see that I actually seem to be quite talented in that way.) Anyway, my name came up, and Amylovie sent me my prize: a Waterfall Scarf by Pick Up Sticks. How does it look?
No, it didn’t look quite right to me, either. I dug through her package further and it turns out (you always have to read the fine print) that there’s some assembly required. (Matt attempted to capture my “realizing” this, but in each and every photo the expression I achieved was not that of someone figuring out the obvious (”Ohhhh”), but rather that of a member of the choir whose enthusiasm is not dampened by the fact that she is the only one who showed up to rehearsal (”Laaaaa!”). Frankly, it just didn’t look right, and even I have limits as to how contrived I’ll make my blog posts. (Shut up! I do too!))
Anyway, as I was saying, it seems that there is some assembly required — namely some knitting. Fortunately, I know how to knit! I even have all my own tools. Could Amylovie ever have guessed what a perfect gift this would turn out to be for me?
The yarn is Lamb’s Pride Worsted in gray and pink, and the pattern is this one. Nice, huh? I’m very grateful to Amylovie, whose generosity came at just the right moment: At the time my name was drawn I had only just finished mailing off all the Amazing Lace prizes to the deserving recipients, and quite frankly I had grown attached to them and was sorry to see them go. Apparently it earned me a small supply of knitting karma, though, which the universe (always seeking equilibrium) cashed in for me over at Amylovie’s contest. Hooray!
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09.19.06
Posted in Finished Objects at 9:37 pm by Rachel
Lately I’ve been thinking that I wish I had a baby. Wait, before my mom’s steady trickle of acquisitions for her as-yet unconceived grandchildren turns into a full-blown deluge, allow me to clarify: I don’t want a baby in a biological clock kind of way, with the conceiving and the bearing and the raising. I just would like to have a baby the way I would like to have a swift or a new set of the Knitpicks Options needles. You know, as a useful tool to keep with my other knitting supplies in the guest room closet.
I have gone to drastic measures to try to obtain models for my baby knits, but two months ago the penguin left the house for an open casting call for America’s Next Top Model and I haven’t seen him since. I don’t even need my own personal baby — I’d settle for a friend who has a baby but doesn’t have all those “protective instincts” that might interfere with my well-intentioned efforts to use the baby to its full potential.
Look, all I’m saying (and I know some of you aren’t reading anymore because you’ve gone to notify the authorities) is that super cute hand-knit baby clothes just don’t look nearly as darling when laid flat atop a rock or a piece of landscaping slate as they do when modeled by cherubic infants.* Case in point: this post. These two little sweaters are so darling in person, yet these photos leave me feeling fairly unmoved by the adorability I know they possess in real life.
Okay, before I dig myself in any deeper, let me finally meander around to the point of this post: actual finished objects!
Pattern: Garter Stitch Cardigan from Knitting for Baby by Melanie Fallick and…umm…someone else.
Yarn: Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran, six balls for both sweaters, five of which were left over from Tubey. Three balls per sweater (I made the smallest size) are actually not quite enough and required some aggravated fudging both times.
Notes: These are the third and fourth times I’ve made this cardigan. (I happen to like this cardigan.) However, apparently I’m not very good at knitting it. In fact, I think I’ve gotten progressively worse each time. It was the first sweater-shaped pattern I ever made, and I think I screwed up less that first time (threeish years ago) than I did these two times. While I think they both came out fine in the end, it was a little confidence rattling to be making multiple significant mistakes on such a simple, familiar pattern. Apparently my knitting talent peaked sometime last year and now I can look forward to a long descent down to garter stitch scarves (not that there’s anything wrong with that). This is part of the reason that I took refuge last week in stockinette socks (which, incidentally, are finished as long as I don’t mind that the legs are noticeably different heights (that’s the fashion now, right?) and that they severely restrict the blood flow to my feet).
But enough whining and digression (though without those defining characteristics, how would you recognize my blog?). The reason there are two sweaters is that I made them for a friend who is expecting a baby of undetermined sex. I don’t care whether she picks the pinkish one for a boy or the bluish one for a girl, but I wanted to be sure she had options in case she cares about that sort of thing. I’ll put the other one away for future inevitable procreation among my friends. I sort of hope this friend has surprise twins (does that still happen? ever? aside from on the Friends “worse series finale ever” finale?), though, because I think they’re cute as a pair. That’s a pretty serious thing to wish on someone, but it’s baby sweaters! A set! Sooo adorable!!
In other news, the Lickety Knit public affairs team has been busy receiving the vast crush of new readers from the greater Bangor, Maine, metropolitan area. Apparently last week this blog received a mention in the Bangor Daily News in a weekly column by Ardeana Hamlin. I first learned about this from reader Anne S., and I admit that when I still had very little information about the extent of the coverage I started imagining splashy color photos and multi-part feature stories about my scintillating life and deeply insightful blog. Anne then kindly set me straight by transcribing the relevant part of the column: “A reader from Winterport” — hi Auntie Deejee! — “e-mailed that her friend Rachel of Brown University writes a blog at http://www.licketyknit.com/ that knitters will enjoy.”
Well, I’ll take what I can get. And to make my new Maine readers feel welcome, I promise to try to make lots of references to moose and lobster. (Note to self: conduct research to confirm that these are the proper stereotypes for Maine.) I hope you stick around, Mainers (or whatever you’re called)! (Note to self: conduct research to determine what people from Maine call themselves.)
*The possible exception to this might be the precious bunting that Allison knit. I swear it has weapons-grade ovary-stimulating properties.
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09.10.06
Posted in Works in Progress at 7:15 pm by Rachel
Oh dear. You’re all going to be so disappointed in me. I haven’t posted in two and a half weeks. I haven’t posted anything of substance (defined loosely) in three and a half weeks. Those of you who don’t use Bloglines have had to suffer the inconvenience of checking my blog repeatedly only to see the same stale photos time after time. And this after I complained not a month ago that I was losing readers! Yes, please, readers, be loyal and devoted to me, but by no means expect anything in return!
And now on to the disappointment of specific individuals. First, Matt will be disappointed in me. I am in the middle of two projects for him: Ravenclaw socks (I have finished the first) and a sweater, ostensibly for our (now passed) anniversary. This weekend, however, instead of making progress on either, I set aside all good sense and went to Patternworks (the store is 10 minutes from my family’s camp on Lake Winnipesaukee) and bought two balls of Koigu in a colorway that I adored (it is terribly represented in this photo) and couldn’t help myself from casting on more or less immediately (well, I did wait until I got home after realizing that the invisible cast-on was too fiddly for behind the steering wheel).
Whose disappointment to detail next? How about Theresa’s? No doubt Theresa is shaking her head in wonder at the plain and pale colors to which I am forever drawn (I prefer to call them muted and nuanced), even after she has tried to impress upon me by example me the glory of color that isn’t ashamed of being colorful. Alternatively, I could acknowledge Laura’s likely disappointment, as I have betrayed her yet again with my unabashed (well, okay, I am mildly abashed) abandonment of the Apathetic Sock Knitters’ Club. Ooh, ohh, and then there are the multiple individuals who have expressed hope that I will eventually venture outside of plain stockinette stitch for socks; sorry to disappoint you, guys, but I’m just not going to make wee cables and lace that will, when used as directed, be completely obscured by other clothing.
Then there’s my disappointment in myself, of course, for failing to exercise even a modicum of discipline regarding my knitting projects. Buying yarn when I already have lots of yarn to use up! Starting projects when I already have lots of projects to work on! Using lots of exclamation points when there’s plenty of less melodramatic punctuation available to me!
Honestly, though, this impulse project is making me awfully happy. The cool nights and mornings are making this young(ish) woman’s fancy turn to thoughts of socks. The beautiful colors are providing some relief from the endless expanse of brown in Matt’s sweater. The compact, mindless project makes the prospect of this week’s bus commute almost enjoyable. Man, I can get a higher word count out of plain socks than just about anyone. I’m fairly certain this is not a skill worth putting on my résumé.
Something else that never fails to make me happy is bringing the gospel of knitting to others. This weekend Matt and his bandmates (and I, the band manager by virtue of repeatedly claiming that I am the band manager) went to my family’s lake house so they could work on recording their demo free from the distractions of home (how they resisted the distractions of a screened porch and placid waters and late-summer sunshine — as well as a pretty cool storm — is beyond me). There was some down time for each band member while individual parts were being recorded, so I seized on Stephanie’s mild interest in the little hats I’d been making recently and thrust needles and yarn into her hands. By the end of the weekend she was knitting almost as ceaselessly as I — and she nearly finished her hat! I was so proud. Also this brings me one step closer to free toaster I get from the American Knitters Association* once I document 25 recruits.
So in spite of my twinges of guilt about neglecting projects and betraying people who do not deserve to be neglected or betrayed, it was a pretty fantastic weekend. Knitting with beautiful yarn in a beautiful place with strains of beautiful music (two guitars, a fiddle, a mandolin, and male and female vocalists — the demo will be available soon and you can bet you’ll all hear about it) drifting to me on the breeze — let’s just say I have no regrets.
Happy new week!
*This is probably a real thing. The toaster nonsense is not.
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What do you know? Amylovie has sent me a scarf! She had a little knitiversary contest that required entrants to demonstrate their skill at being selected by a random number generator. (If you skim through this post you’ll see that I actually seem to be quite talented in that way.) Anyway, my name came up, and Amylovie sent me my prize: a Waterfall Scarf by Pick Up Sticks. How does it look?
The yarn is Lamb’s Pride Worsted in gray and pink, and the pattern is this one. Nice, huh? I’m very grateful to Amylovie, whose generosity came at just the right moment: At the time my name was drawn I had only just finished mailing off all the Amazing Lace prizes to the deserving recipients, and quite frankly I had grown attached to them and was sorry to see them go. Apparently it earned me a small supply of knitting karma, though, which the universe (always seeking equilibrium) cashed in for me over at Amylovie’s contest. Hooray!
