Friday, November 8, 2013

Random on a Friday



Wingspan. Also not mentioned, but again. Love it.
Whew. I went to Wordpress for a spell, and I really started to miss Blogger. It's a lot more user friendly. Also, I started my Wordpress blog when I was going through sort of a hard time and it's a little more emo and dark than I normally am. Who wants that? Not me! I want to rise above whatever pulled me down in the past and get back to what is important; and that is knitting. My works in progress have diminished since the last time we saw one another. In fact, some things are probably done that I hadn't even cast on before that time. Alas, looking in my knitting basket, I am pleased. Not everything is purple or one of it's various shades. I'm becoming more diverse in the types of fiber I create with. I'm still not opposed to a nicely dyed acrylic. I know I might even be deck out as a less than hardcore knitter because of it, but let's just be honest. If one is knitting for a child; one does not want to drive the child's parents batty with a hand wash only garment. And some acrylics are just SO soft. While I prefer Dolce Merino in most any knitting dilemma, I'm not above tossing some skeins of I Love This Yarn or Vanna's Choice into the cart at Hobby Lobby. (Loops and Threads if I'm at Michaels) Garments made from these yarns will be around after the apocalypse. And they might even survive being worn by my son for awhile.
This hat is not mentioned in this post, but I love it.

My son. My beautiful, amazing, inspiring, and wonderful son. He's going through a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles phase so I've been going through a lot of green and a little less orange, purple, red and blue. (Only need those colors for stripes.) First he wanted Leonardo. I knit him a green hat with a blue stripe and then I cut circles out of a piece of white felt, cut them in half, and those were the eyes. Super cute. Daniel loved it. For a little while. Then he wanted Michelangelo. Okay, no problem. This is why I bought every color all at once so I wouldn't find myself at the mercy of a temper tantrum at 9pm when he decided he wanted Raphael. I knit a Michelangelo and he went back to wearing the Leonardo. So we gave our good friend Noah Michelangelo and he was very appreciative and excited about his new turtle hat. That same day, Noah's big sister Kylee spotted the City Tweed lace hat that I had just finished. The City Tweed came from Knitpicks.com and the color way was Emerald Isle. Super pretty. I had posted a picture of the ball on Facebook asking my friends what they thought the yarn wanted to be. I got a few good suggestions (a few that just made me roll my eyes. Underwear knit from a high quality wool like City Tweed? Obviously you are not one of us.) In the end, I decided to make the pattern that came with the kit. I purchased the Luxe kit from knitpicks over a year ago. It also came with Capra, Andean Treasure, and Aloft. I had knit the cowl right away (and gave it to someone but I can't remember who) and still had the Andean Treasure and City Tweed. The hat got all goofed up. The lace border was fine. In fact I was in love with it. Then the body of the hat got offset somehow and ended up being more spiral-y than it was supposed to and after checking with other knitters on Ravelry.com, I saw that I was not the only one who had made this error. In spite of it, the hat ended up being gorgeous. I intended to give it to my yoga sister Michelle, but Kylee picked it up and the way her eyes lit up when she put it on and looked in the mirror....I couldn't stop myself. I let Kylee have it and promptly purchased two balls of Dolce Merino to knit a replacement for Michelle. Sending two kids off after a sleepover with warm heads and happy hearts is one of the hidden joys of being a knitter. I regularly am asked to knit specific things for people, and I'm always happy to do that. I have to admit though, when an unexpected treasure that at first I was unhappy with because of a mistake (and only I knew it was a mistake) finds it's way into the hands of someone who isn't expecting to take a hand knit away after time with you, it really makes me happy. I've made Kylee a hat each year since I met her and the other thing that brings a smile to my face is seeing her hats become worn and tattered, yet she won't give them up. I think it's very possible that the love I mentally put into each stitch of whatever I knit can really be felt by those who wear these things. And what good is knitting if it's not shared. If I kept everything I knit, you would see my house on the evening news, busting at the seems and my clogs sticking out like the wicked witch's feet after the house fell on her, only instead of a house, it would be a pile of yarn.

And probably yoga magazines.

No comments:

Post a Comment