From Grumperina:

10 knitterly things you might not know about me:

1. I love to knit in public and really, really hope that people will ask me about it.

2. I could talk about knitting for DAYS. Which is why I have this blog. My knitting friends aren't quite at the "yammering non-stop" stage of knitting. Yet.

3. It's very rare that I follow a patten exactly. I'm always changing lengths, yarns, stitch patterns. One of my first projects was an elaborate scarf for a friend of mine: it involved an intarsia biohazard symbol (representative of our college's Ultimate team) and his name, it was going to be lined and there were going to be pockets... Well, this was before I knew about gauge (it's huge), about how stockinette curls, about weaving in ends... I made it, oh, a solid 5/8 of the way through before he annoyed me and I didn't want to make him a scarf anymore. Also, that damn thing was HUGE.

4. I don't think I've ever used the recommended yarn for a project. In fact, I don't even bother to check what a project would cost: I just start looking around for my ideal project-fibre.

5. I hate paying full price for yarn and will shop around for an eternity, filling up post-it notes with comparitive prices. HOWEVER, I don't have a problem paying more for something good. Sounds contradictory, doesn't it? Like this: I would be more likely to pay $135 for a sweater's worth of silk cashmere on sale than I would be for $77 worth of baby cashmerino. Make sense? Not so much to me either. But who needs rules anyway?

6. I don't like the way that ball-winder balls of yarn look. I wrap my own centre-pull balls around a folded toilet paper tube. And soon around my own nostepinde, thanks to Elia! Yee haw.

7. No itchy yarn! I have sensitive skin and so I get really picky about the yarn I use. (Also never with the acrylic because -- OH the squeaking! *shudder shudder twitch*). (I've mentioned that before).

8. I huh-ate bobbles. I just do.

9. My grandma taught me to knit when I was in that vague haze of ages between 7 and 12. When she went back home I forgot what I was doing. I picked it up periodically, but couldn't figure it out. It wasn't until I worked at a summer camp and saw one of the cooks knitting that I re-learned and it stuck. I didn't finish much of anything then, as I recall. But when I started working here and had all sorts of time to read knitblogs I became... well, a ravenous knitter.

10. I'm, um, thinking about getting a spinning wheel. I have a drop spindle on long-term loan, but I just don't like it. I'm going to a fibre fair (heep! My first!!) in three weeks and I'll check them out then. I start thinking maybe not (esp. what with the taking away from knitting time and all), but then I start looking at roving, and... oh... so pretty! And besides, if I don't like it there's always eBay.

Just desserts

hu‧bris  [hyoo-bris, hoo-]
–noun excessive pride or self-confidence; arrogance.

Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear.

The mitten was frogged, and the pattern totally reworked with 8 fewer stitches, keeping in consideration the 6spi gauge, so sayeth Knitpicks, which I recalled was what I'd gotten when I did a swatch at some point, giving me a solid 8.6" circumference. Peachy keen!

Knitting recommenced, making sure to give a decent tug at the gaps between needles so as to avoid ladders. (Things that I know now were a tip-off to trouble #1: it took me an entire evening to cast on in an attractive and fully functional manner. Twice I'd get the cast on, start knitting, and then drop a stitch. I don't know how to re-cast-on a dropped cast-on stitch. Magic loop was attempted and failed). And even still the cast on doesn't look as good as the first one. Arg. Anyway, no ladders!

In fact, all the stitches were tighter. But still, pattern confidence! (Can you hear the chorus warning me yet?). Worked through the cuff and started the mitt. Felt smug at the speed of knitting. Worked the first bit of the thumb, which I'm fairly sure I'm doing correctly. Even tried it on, and felt only mild concern that it might be too tight now. It's not snug, but it's... tighter.

Put aside worry! Barrelled on with confidence! 6 spi! The Chorus moved into their dance number!

In the bleary, bleary morning I took a picture of the mitten progression in all its glory as I started flying closer to the sun showing how it was, indeed, smaller! Tape measure added for scale!¹ Observe!



(I apologize for the blur -- it's impossible to focus at 8am).

And then this morning, as my brain cells started to wake up a bit I realized that something seemed off about the measuring tape and the mitten configuration.

On a whim, I pulled up the picture and -- just for fun! -- counted my spi. You know, to confirm my inherent knitterly clever-itude. With the 6 spi. Beware the ides of pattern-making.

Count count count! And -- HEY!

It-- it... 7.5-8 spi? But that's WAY more than 6! And according to the tape measure it's a 6.5" circumference!

Oh, expletives and rage and SAD.

Well, it fits over my hand and mom's hands are smaller, so maybe it'll work... I hope... I guess I'll find out. I won't frog just yet.

Dear gods of knitting: I am sufficiently humbled, thank you. Never again, with the ego.

If you need me from now on I'll be the one rolling the giant ball of itchy, itchy wool up the mountain, or on alternate weekends I'll be strapped to a rock having my insides pecked out by addi turbos.

#27. Hubris isn't exclusive to the ancient Greeks.

#28. Don't base a whole pattern on the yarn band's spi. Caveat swatch-free knitter. (And the worst part? I knew that).

¹ Har!

Aw...

Before:


After:

Oops...

So Hello Yarn's mitten pattern suggests a women's small/medium mitten size is about 8" around. In 6 s/in that would be 48 stitches. Okay!

I checked my pattern, and, lalala, six stitches to the inch, and I have, let's see, one, two, three... doop de do,

eighteen, nineteen, twenty... dum te dum,

fourty-one, fourty-two, fourty-three... dee-tee-dee,

fifty-four, fifty-five, fifty six... I -- oh crap.

Sixty?! A ten inch circumference?! No wonder it feels huge!

But... how on earth did I decide on sixty? I don't even know!

Heep! How am I going to lose... carry the one... twelve stitches from the pattern?! Okay, less because of ease, but STILL!

Crap. I think the frogging has been confirmed... But at least now I can fix the ladders which are all "HERE WE ARE! LOOK AT US! UGLY UGLY UGLY!!"

At least they are to me.

That's right, my knitting talks to me. You be quiet.

#25. When planning mittens and accounting for gauge, and you happen to have a tape measure and, oh, I don't know, your hand, it's a good idea to measure your hand, dopus!

#26. Der.

#24. Fair aisle really is addicting. Knitting 2 blue, 1 white, 5 blue, etc. a bunch of times and watching a pattern grow is super neat.

I'm definitely enjoying knitting mom's mittens.

The back:


And the front:


The thing is, though, is that it's looking a little, um, big. In theory the alpaca lining will be tighter and therefore a looser outer mitt will be okay, but... well. I guess I'll find out. I'd be so sad if I had to frog the whole thing though. And also, I'm sort of making up the thumb pattern as I go along. Hee!

It's so pretty...



But there are two slightly-too-wide white ribs and ooh they're annoying. I guess they're ladders -- they were at the bit between the needles... How to fix?

In conclusion, I wish I knew CSS as well as I know knitting, because this formatting thing is driving me batty.

Conclusion addendum: yay beer.

Block, baby, block!

Knitter Inferno!



Well, thank god that's over. Now I can work on projects for me! Like mom's mittens!

...wait...

Not much progress to report. Tuesdays = nearly zero knitting since I leave the house about an hour after waking up and then get home ten minutes before I go to bed.

And yesterday I had to pack for Feet Retreat this weekend! Heep! Excitement! Three hours and fifteen minutes until departure! I brought the "halloween" sock and my purple sock that actually doesn't fit very well, but who knows how much time I'll have for knitting.

I had the "halloween" sock with me at Ihop on Tuesday night and hauled it out to show Kate, Andrea, and Tristan. Kate agreed that it is, indeed, ugly. Well, at least it's almost done.

It's good to have confirmation.

In other news, I am loving how many contests knitting blogs have. Seems like there's one a week. I never win, but I still enjoy entering. The latest is on January One's blog:

How to win: WRITE A HAIKU. But not just any haiku. YOU MUST USE AT LEAST THREE OF THE FOLLOWING WORDS IN YOUR HAIKU: january, one, rock(s), jet, fall, sheep, wool, feet (or foot), knit, yarn, pirate, fest, dude, fantastic, worm (that is WORM. With an O. My 5.5 yr old nephew gave me that one.) AND EVERY HAIKU MUST USE THE WORD SOCK. (So that means FOUR REQUIRED WORDS.)

Mine?

Some pirate gift thoughts:
One sock for foot, wool cozies
for peg leg and hook.

Which leads me to:

#23. When it comes to free yarn... well, let's just say I'm easy.

In other news, here is first sock:



I'm working the gusset decreases on sock: the two.

#22. The more projects you have going at once the longer it takes to finish any of them.

Because I'm thrilled I managed to figure this out:

How to do a Fisherman's rib!, a photo-tutorial by your very own Fibre Monkey.

Are you ready?

Cast on however many stitches, and knit one row.

Now begin ribbing! Purl stitches are as normal, but knit stitches are knit into the row below.

Observe!



To compare, this is how a normal knit stitch goes:



If you ever knit with a super soft, cushy yarn you must (must) use this stitch.

Incroyable, non?

I earned myself some craftster/knitterly karma this weekend. I'd written up the Rebecca Wrap with Sleeves not only for myself, but also for some craftsters that, I recalled, had some issues with the pattern as I did. Upon searching craftster I couldn't find the original thread. Indeed, no one had written about it in some time.

After some debate I posted it anyway, to the delight of two knitters. I felt all cool. I may not have cool designs, but dammit, I can decipher patterns like nobody's business.

Then one of those women asked me for some yarn substitution help, and I walked her through the magic of stitch/row ratio (I learned it from Stitch & Bitch Nation).

[your stitch gauge]/[pattern stitch gauge] = stitch ratio
[your row gauge]/[pattern row gauge] = row ratio

Multiply stitch ratio by all stitch numbers in pattern, ditto row ratio, rounding as needed.

Which brings me to an unrelated thing I've learned: When I've had a glass or two of wine and something good happens I giggle in a highly embarrassing way. Seriously. I sound like a little girl on helium.

#21. Knitterly karma is never a bad thing. Know that some knitter, somewhere, has helped you. Pay it back. Or forward! Sideways?

As I am (eternally) in need of clothes, I took one of my rare trips to the mall yesterday. And you know what are in? Bulky knits. And knits in general. (Okay, I know most everything is knit and therefore is always "in" in some manner or another, but I mean things that could, potentially, be hand-knit).

While I'm totally excited that fashion is turning towards knitterly things, it's also, um, kind of painful.

See, it hurts to think about buying something that I could knit myself. And also that all the knits are acrylic. Ick.

Example!



I could make this. I could make it not in acrylic. I could make it for a mere five six times the price. How could I, a knitter, an artist, buy something I could make?

I can't!

The thing is, though? I won't. I wouldn't make it. It doesn't Speak to me (see #4). I like it (wait -- since when do I like cardigans?), but it's not $120 and three months' work worth of like. It is, however, $20 and a reluctant concession of acrylic worth of like.

So I bought it.

But I feel ashamed! Like I need to slink home and hide it in a dark corner of my closet so my other knits don't see it! Like I need to put a tag on it: Not Hand Made. Like I'm a bad knitter!

I'm not. I'm a sensible, impatient knitter. Ergo, the purchase. Still, though, shame!

And what about inspiring knitters, both old and new? I'm all for inspiring new knitters, but I feel like the price of yarn and the allure of a $20 bulky knit sweater might scare them away from the agony and ecstacy of a asymmetrical first sweater filled with flaws of every variety. I guess it's all plausible. The ones who love it will stick with it.

#20. Knits in vogue are a mixed blessing.

I had a free weekend for the first time in a long time (and for the last time for a while), so I made some fierce kind of progress.

Let's explore!

I finished the first halloween/camo/mess of concerns sock. For some reason I neglected to take a picture of it. It looks like a sock. And the color... is okay. It's not so much "HEY, HALLOWEEN-STYLE!" as "Oh, you say this is halloween-themed? ...Okay, okay, I could see that."

I'm still a little concerned about the size. I didn't like the information about foot size I found on the internet, so I thought I'd find a size 7 and get a measurement. I asked a bunch of friends what size feet they had, and since I hadn't talked to most of them in ages it was a little awkward.

Me: Hi! How've you been for the past three years? Um! What size feet do you have?
My friends: ....?

But I got a decent estimate for sock length. However, look at the unfinished sock as compared to the sock for me (remember: camo sock = size 7, purple sock = size 9):



Yeah... Oh dear. Well, it's a little too small for me, length-wise, so it'll be okay, right? ...right?

I have to wonder, though, after all this work and worry, will the receiver of socks even appreciate a hand-knitted item? Will I even find out? Does it matter?

I cast on for the second sock at Scott's house last night, and it took me all of The Royal Tenenbaums (including the credits) to knit up just the picot edge (which included making a crochet chain by hand and praying that it was long enough). Still, though, I thought for sure I'd make it to the heel.

Don't have a picture of that either. Heh.

Hanyway. Because I am Single-Minded and Noble in the Gifting of Socks I definitely did not work on other projects, because I am Totally Unselfish and Need Not the Garments for Self. My only concern is the Woolifying of Others! Noble. Yes.

So you should realize that all the following pictures are hypothetical progress. You know, as if I were so Rude as to work on something other than the Socks this weekend. These are all Photoshopped. Yes, that's it. I am a master of Photoshop.

First up, a blur-tastic shot of my re-working of the hideous grafting start/end point:



It took me all of an episode of "Sex and the City" to figure that one out. It looks like I'm decreasing two stitches, not just one. And while it looks like a proper decrease now (without holes! This is a serious victory) it's still a decrease in the middle of stockinette and stands out like a black person at a republican convention (zing!). (Joke survey: Tasteless? Hilarious? Discuss).

So it's still ugly. I think what I'll do is drop the stitches all the way down to the ribbing, do the decrease there, and then chain all the way back up. I'm a little worried that the new, chained stitches will be loose, though. And that it'll pull the ribbing in a weird way. Well, only one way to find out.

I also wove a large number of ends in. It's possible I got a little lazy at the end and started wondering if anyone was really going to check the inside of my sweater for unwoven-in ends. I mean, I don't care if there are loose ends. And none of my real friends will care either. Ahem.

In similar news, here's how it looks these days:



(It was incredibly tilted on the hanger, so I tilted the camera. It's artistic. Shut up).

I also definitely did not work a few (and I mean a few -- like 2) rows on my purple sock, but if I had, it might look like this:



My first pair of socks (which are less "mistake rib" and more just "mistake;" see Thing I've Learned #12) got a hole in one of them, and now I'm desperate -- desperate! -- for socks.

I also didn't do more work on my mom's mittens.



But if I had, I might note that holy hell I love this texture:



(I found the super-macro button on my camera! Hellooo, super close-ups!)

And the last thing I would do, because this would be too slimy for words, is swatch with some scraps of Classic Elite Princess for the Rebecca Wrap With Sleeves.

.

Really, I would never do such a thing.



(Extreme close-up! Whoooooaaaaaa! Whoooooaaaaaaa!).

My grandparents sent me a very nice check for my birthday, and so while I am an Adult who does Mature, Responsible, Adult Things and plan to put some of it towards one of those Funds that will become Important Later, I also feel it's my duty to spend some of it on me towards awesome self-related things. Maybe to an Amazon gifting, or to a sweater's worth of Classic Elite Princess, because I love that yarn so hard it hurts. I don't know if it's Rebecca Wrap Sweater material, though. Hence, theoretical swatch.

Theoretical.

#19: When making socks, only measure feet when sock-receiver is standing. There's a giant difference between sitting feet and standing feet. Trust me.

Out of boredom I started looking up information on my birthday on Wikipedia (a website with which I have a GIANT GLARING issue, but that's another entry for a different blog), and I clicked on the link for BBC's on this day.

Violence, violence, death, and -- wait a second... YES!

1954: National trust buys remote island.

Turns out that on my birth day (not birthday) "The National Trust for Scotland has taken control of Fair Isle, famous for its bird life and knitted sweaters." HA! Hahahahaha!

Brilliant! Sweaters! Scotland! Me! September 3!

It's all connected. World cohesion! Or maybe just ego cohesion.

The yarn for Karen's comissioned halloween socks showed up. She'd requested orange and black stripey socks in a size seven, and I said sure!

Because I am delusional.

TURNS OUT, orange and black stripey sock yarn? Seriously hard to find. At all. Ever.

But I found this:


It seemed halloween...ish, and I sent the link to Karen, and she liked it, so I ordered a skein and waited.

I was finally able to pick up the yarn the other day, and set about casting on the picot edge and went for a while and... oh... there are some problems.

1. It's less "halloween" and more "autumn-ish." Karen was okay with this, so oaky.
2. It's not really "autumn-ish" so much as "hunter's camo colored." Lots of dark olive green which I'd thought was yellow.
3. It's only got 270 yards. The website says that'll give you a pair of socks on size 3 needles. I'm using size 1.
4. Size 1 needles gives a firmer fabric than I thought it would. I tried 2s, but it seemed a little loose.
5. I can only hope they fit. They fit ME, but I wear a size 9 and the swap buddy wears a 7. How much do ankle/heel sizes vary? Not much, right? Right?
6. Even though I'm getting refunded, it was kind of expensive.

But hey! On the plus side,
1. It's lovely yarn. Not so much the color, but the yarn itself is nice.
2. It's going pretty quickly.



It's more vibrant and there's more orange in it than this... But not much more.

Hoo boy. I think I'll just tell Karen that if she thinks they're too ugly for words she doesn't have to buy them.

And here's the progress on the purple picot socks for me, which are on hold until the camo halloween socks are done.



Oof.

Back in the days when I first started knitting I fell in love with a certain sweater:

The Rebecca Wrap with Sleeves (golly, I love that name):



Alas, the pattern (PDF) didn't... make a whole lot of sense. I knew how to do fisherman's rib (though not, technically, how it's described in the pattern, but hey -- I'm a rebel. And I'll take my victories where I can get them, thank you).

So! I did what I do whenever work is slow, I figured the pattern out. And now that I look at it, dag, it's simple.

Sizes: 10/12, 14/16
WP: Work pattern (fisherman's rib)

CO 75(79) sts and work in fisherman's rib to 84cm.

WP 33, CO 9(13) sts, WP 33

This is where you work one side at a time.

Since you will be working each side from the outside in, this will be the same for both sides:

WP 28, K2tog, K2tog, WP1
WP back to outside
WP 26, K2tog, K2tog, WP1
WP back to outside
WP 26, K2tog, WP1
WP back to outside
WP 25, K2tog, WP1
WP back to outside
WP 2 rows
WP 26, Inc1, WP1
WP back to outside
WP 27, Inc1, WP1
WP back to outside
WP 27, Inc1, Inc1, WP1
WP back to outside
WP 28, Inc1, Inc1, WP1
WP back to outside
Place stitches onto stitch holder, then repeat for other side!

WP 33, CO 9(13), grab stitches off stitch holder, WP 33

Work another 46(48)cm, then repeat the armhole. Feel smug.

When finished armhole 2, work another 84cm, then bind off. Ideally, your total height will be 222(224) cm.

SLEEVE, make 2

CO 34(38) sts, and work in stockinette, starting with a purl row.

Work to 29(23) cm, end with WS row

K1, Inc1, K to last 2 sts, Inc1, K1
Work 7 rows,
K1, Inc1, K to last 2 sts, Inc1, K1
Work 7 rows,
K1, Inc1, K to last 2 sts, Inc1, K1
Work 7 rows,
K1, Inc1, K to last 2 sts, Inc1, K1
Work 5 rows,
K1, Inc1, K to last 2 sts, Inc1, K1
Work 5 rows,
K1, Inc1, K to last 2 sts, Inc1, K1
Work 5 rows,
K1, Inc1, K to last 2 sts, Inc1, K1
Work 5 rows,
K1, Inc1, K to last 2 sts, Inc1, K1
Work 5 rows,
K1, Inc1, K to last 2 sts, Inc1, K1
Work 5 rows,
K1, Inc1, K to last 2 sts, Inc1, K1
Work 3 rows
K1, Inc1, K to last 2 sts, Inc1, K1
Work 3 rows
K1, Inc1, K to last 2 sts, Inc1, K1
Purl across
K1, Inc1, K to last 2 sts, Inc1, K1
Purl across
K1, Inc1, K to last 2 sts, Inc1, K1
Purl across
K1, Inc1, K to last 2 sts, Inc1, K1
Purl across
K1, Inc1, K to last 2 sts, Inc1, K1
Purl across
K1, Inc1, K to last 2 sts, Inc1, K1
Purl across
K1, Inc1, K to last 2 sts, Inc1, K1
66(74) sts.

When work measures 56cm, BO all sts.

Block, seam, wear!

(Since the green sweater has settled me firmly in denial I will ignore the fact that this sweater will likely ALSO not look good on me).

*UPDATE*
The ssks have been replaced with K2togs.

Thing I've learned
#16. It is never a bad idea to carry a knitting project with you.

Well! After ripping, re-knitting, knitting new and omg-I-hate-this-so-much grafting, the biggest pain in the ass sweater ever is closer to done!



So now I can weave in the remaining ends and maybe re-sew the sleeves and add a button and maybe re-block it and then I'm done, right?

FALSE!

Observe:


That is my poor, poor grafting start-and-end point. I don't EVEN know how to fix it. HOWEVER, it's right in the middle of a sea of stockinette and HI stands out so painfully much.

Maybe a tastefully placed pin?

(The other tragedy? It still doesn't look very good on me. It's cozy, though).

#17. There are professional finishers for a reason. And it's not just because people are lazy, Lazy McLazypants.

#18. As clever as it is normally, seaming with embroidery floss is NOT a good idea with bulky yarn.

9/12/06
Stories! Now in reverse chronological order!

Story the 1!

I had no inspiration this morning for a packed lunch. I had cereal, but there's no milk at the office. I had pasta, but didn't feel like making it. I had a frozen dinner-style lasagna, but that lost its appeal immediately after I purchased it approximately an eternity ago. No bread, not enough spinach for a salad, only one granola bar... So, even though I really ought to not take lunches because I have time to make up after leaving early to get poked in my most enthusiastic bits while wearing a short blue wrap jacket and NO pants, hello, my bottom!, I decided it was an order-food kind of day.

I re-packed my knitting (the second picot-edged sock) for easy removal, headed downstairs, and got a huge shock when I stepped outside.

It-- it was cool out!

It's always a surprise when I go outside after/during work. I'm stuck in a super air-conditioned nook (some people use space heaters in the summer. Seriously) where the only way I can find out what's going on outside, weather-wise, is if I somehow develop x-ray vision. I go outside, and surprise! It's been raining! Or snowing! Monsoon! Plague of frogs!

Lately, however, I step outside and am immediately crushed by the sweltering ick of beastly heat-and-humidity. This might be caused by living down south. Sources are being consulted. But you can see, then, why it was so exciting with the coolness and overcast-itude?

Immediately the knitting jumped into my cool(!!) little hands, and I re-commenced picking up gusset stitches. It was glorious, the walking with the knitting and the loveliness. That's right, I can walk and knit at the same time. Unless I drop a stitch.

And then I came back and had my croissant-turkey-lettuce-tomato-strawberry-cream-cheese sammich (actually kind of disappointing) and sweet potato fries (sweet, sweet manna).

Gorgeous. Makes me wish I had a chair on my porch. And that I wasn't going out dancing tonight so I could enjoy it. HAH! Skipping a dance! That's funny.

Right! On to Story the 2!

As mentioned in Story the 1 (you were taking notes, yes?), yesterday I went to have my excitable parts manipulated and checked. I'm all over leaving work early. Less so much for this. Especially when I remembered the part about peeing into a dixie cup. Oof.

ANYway, being well schooled in the art of sitting in waiting rooms, I made sure to be clever enough to bring picot edged sock 2 (see: Story the 1) with me. I worked the heel a bit in the waiting room. And a bit more. And a bit more. And I didn't have a measuring tape OR the other sock with me to check how much farther I needed to go (I would like to note here that I plan to have a ruler tattooed onto my body somewhere. But where?), so I just guessed. I seem to remember deciding that my thumb is 2 3/4".

I got a few curious looks from a wee boy of about 6 years accompanying his pregnant and exhausted mother. He clearly wanted to ask, but I didn't offer so as to not bug his mom. She'd clearly had a long day.

Finally I got called in (was it 30 or 40 minutes after my appointment was supposed to start?), peed in a cup, reported on the status of my monthly ovary parties, and then got to sit in a whole new spot to wait!

And lo, here came the curious wee gent and his mother. Sitting next to them was a mother and her daughter, looking miffed. As clearly as mom-of-wee-one was tired, so too were these women pissed about a long wait.

Continuing on my way to being solidly clever at least once a day I pulled out my knitting again. Young boy asked his mama what I was doing. She noted that his nana does that, doesn't she? Yeah, he said, his eyes never leaving my needles.

We talked for a while, he and I, about
-how many needles I have
-how the yarn changes color
-how there is green in the yarn
-how there is green on his shirt, but different green
-how his nana does that (turns out she crochets)
-how blankets are big and take a long time
-how my knitting will get bigger (this was a popular topic)

His mama asked if I was knitting baby booties. A generally reasonable question, given the location. I said no, they were for me. Then wee one asked about my baby. I told him I don't have one. His eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

"Not all women have babies," his mama told him. Brow furrowing. I could see his mind trying to wrap around that notion -- woman + baby doctor place ≠ woman with baby? Old lady without baby? (he's six -- or whatever -- everyone over 10 is old). It was totally charming. His mom wasn't convinced of that ("now you're never going to want kids") (which showed that her thinking wasn't too far off from her son's), but I enjoyed it.

While my needles didn't make it into his hands, as the Yarn Harlot suggests, it wouldn't surprise me if he asks his nana to show him some crochet when he sees her next.

Craft on, wee one. Craft on.

9/11
Hee! Polar bear scarf.

One of my favorite knitting stories from when I was fostering the wee beastie, who is now known as Master Featherbottom. The yarn under attack is the Tubey made with eBay alpaca.

6/11/06
The great yarn hunt: a story in six chapters.

Chapter 1: The wait, in which we see some domesticated feet. AND the approach of the wild knitting.



Chapter 2: The spotting of the great gray yarns.



Chapter 3: The stalkening.



Chapter 4: The attack.



Chapter 5: I'm glad I'm wearing jeans.



Chapter 6: Post-hunt belly rub.

Dang. My pronunciation would be way better if I spelled it right. It's Clapotis, not clapitois. Now how did I manage to get that so wrong?

I lower my needles in shame.