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March 21, 2007

Aunt's pants

When Tadpole was born, I received lots of wonderful, handmade gifts (some of which I never even got around to posting about, but which were greatly appreciated nonetheless). But my favorite thing of all was knit by someone I never met.

My dad's mom knit these pants for her daughter, my aunt, who gave them to me when Tadpole was born. How special to have a link like this to my grandmother... to someone I don't even know that much about. My mom doesn't knit, though she says she made some "pointy" mittens for my dad in college. Her mom doesn't knit either, though she made argyle socks way back in the day. I didn't know any (practicing) knitters when I took it up and I only learned that my paternal grandmother was a knitter a few years ago. Maybe it was in my blood. I wonder if she used a pattern or if she made them up herself. They are very well-made and beautifully finished. It makes me ashamed to think of Tadpole's sweater which has already lost a button and has ends poking through where I steeked sloppily. I've learned my lesson. If I want the things I make to be around for my great grandchildren, I'll have to finish and treat them better. I hope at least one project will outlive me and that a future knitter will be around to appreciate it. Do you ever try to knit heirlooms, or do you just knit?

Posted by kate at 01:54 PM | Comments (44)

March 19, 2007

No smoking, talking, knitting or cell phones

Last night I went to a movie for the first time since I left France. It was a bit dry and French people being dubbed into German, then being subtitled back into French, plus clips of plays that were all in German with no subtitles killed it for me, so wasn't I glad I had brought some knitting with me! I sat and knitted happily through about a third of the movie until the woman next to me (who on and off had been repeating things the narrator of the film said - "42 rejections before being published! Imagine that!") leaned over and told me my knitting was bothering her and asked me to stop. I did. My friend said she hadn't even noticed that I was knitting. I was knitting socks on a circular needle so there were no wild arm gestures and the seats were quite wide so I wasn't jostling her. We thought the woman in front of us who was constantly taking off and putting on her jacket and sweater and half getting up as if she was going to leave then sitting back down was much more bothersome than a little discreet knitting. So would you have stopped? Like I said, I did, but I nearly started knitting again when there were German and English people speaking at the same time as German subtitles covered with French subtitles so that you couldn't read or hear anything at all.

The nasty socks that prevented someone from fully enjoying unsubtitled clips of Warten auf Godot:

Posted by kate at 11:21 AM | Comments (53)

March 16, 2007

Seven discoveries

1) When you're making a toe-up sock and you don't like the toe but don't want to trash the big chunk of foot you've already done, it is possible to cut off the old toe and graft on a new one. It's not even as complicated as it feels with all of those needles everywhere.

2) When you think you are doing something kind of cool and that you should definitely blog it, you're about to get smacked down by your own stupidity because...

3) Double count your stitches before taking the time to cut off, knit and graft on a new toe. When you get to the last few stitches and realize you have 6 too many on the toe, there's not a damned thing you can do besides just start over again.

4) I like heel flaps better than short row heels, though I believe not all short rows are created equal. Because of this (as well as other problems) I started my sock over working top-down. I had already turned the heel and was part way up the leg, but I want to be happy with my work.

5) I like working toe-up better than top-down because I can't stand not knowing if I have enough yarn to finish the foot and I hate having extra yarn left over. I had tons and wanted to make the second sock toe-up again.

6) Sometimes my desire to sleep and lack of time actually wins over my desire for perfection. The top-down sock was finished and the toe-up abandoned.

7) (Courtesy of Tadpole) Mom wasn't kidding. Playdough isn't for eating.

Posted by kate at 12:39 AM | Comments (28)

March 08, 2007

Celebratory spinning

Whenever I finish a project, I try to give myself one evening of time to chill out and do whatever I want. Usually I end up knitting a sock in front of the TV, which is somehow so much more relaxing than what I do every other night - knit in front of the TV. Now that I have a wheel, sometimes I spin (not in front of the TV). When I finished a pair of mittens a couple of weeks ago, I spun up the Shetland roving that came with my wheel. The tag didn't lie. It was "a dream to spin" and it smelled incredibly woolly-yummy. I would spin a little and then walk around smelling my hands. That's not weird, is it? You understand, right? Now what can I make with 144 yd/131 m of sport/dk weight fluffiness?

Then, to blow off a little steam, I started spinning just a couple minutes (almost) every day. I would spin long enough that it was time to move the single to another hook* and then I would stop. I spun up some lovely superwash merino that I got from Mama E's shop. Yeah, ok. My spinning isn't so even. I don't care. The point for me was to spin and fool around with drafting, not to spin super evenly, though I hope that fooling around will bring me closer and closer to consistency. It's not super super thin (except in spots here and there) so I think I'll just make a two-ply and it will become socks. Frog would never wear orange and pink and Tadpole will just outgrow them before I can knit them so they will be mine mine mine. (evil laugh here)

*Is there a fancier name than "hook"? On a machine that has parts named things like "maidens" and "mother-of-all", shouldn't the hooks be called something like "ladyfingers" or... or....? I'm out of ideas. What's your best suggestion?

Posted by kate at 09:07 AM | Comments (18)

March 04, 2007

Handknits for everyone!

Check out the cute projects some of my students finished recently. They even look happy with their FOs, no? Helping someone else finish a project is actually as fun as finishing one of my own.