Category: Knitting

Waking up for school like any other day, I coudn’t help but wonder where could something as enormous as the sun possibly be hiding, Bleary eyed and half asleep, a furtive glance at the clock affirmed that it was 6:30 am, and it really was time to start making my way to the train station and fight off other semi-concious commuters to board. Suiting up to face a rude awakening via the blast of cold air that was certain to await me just beyond the back door, I regreted my unwavering focus on making stuffed animals as of late. With a hobby specifically originating from the need to make warm garments, it’s a wonder that I rarely make any clothing whatsoever.

Being so scatter-brained before my first cup of coffee kicks in, the freezing winds outside don’t often register in time for me to prepare. Besides, I often reason to myself, I’m hardly outside for any considerable time! Unfortunately, it’s just those days when the train is mysteriously running late, or my bus afterschool decides not to come at all. This is just one of those times when I wish I had listened to the insistant nagging of my mother to bundle up. She never lets the weather slow her down, arming herself with a heavy coat, gloves, and scarves – Yes, scarves. Not one, but two scarves that I knit for her a year ago. Happy to see her don my hardwork so frequently, I decided that perhaps I could help add some fresh accents to the rest of her winter wardobe, too.

Seizing my opportunity to try making my first pair of gloves, I was sad to discover a rather dismal selection of free patterns at my disposal online. Nothing looked quite right or fit the ideal image I had for the end product. After much hemming and hawing, I settled upon some instructions found through About.com. Almost as soon as I had cast on, I was already making alterations – A shorter cuff to ensure that the single skein of my mom’s favorite color would suffice, different proportions for the palm area, omission of the stripe, longer fingers… The whole enchilada, so to speak.

Pleased with the overall results, I only regret loosing the file containing my final alterations. I could always start again and take it from the top… But all this business of rewriting written patterns is truly exhausting! No gloves for me, atleast this winter.

The English language is a very strange thing to be sure, far harder to learn than almost any other for those born in different countries. Let’s face it – Half of the native born speakers can’t even use it correctly! Even putting regular grammar and spelling aside, I can only imagine how confusing it must be for foreigners to decipher the meaning of all our odd and seemingly random phrases. How many times have you thrown one of those old sayings into everyday conversation without truly contemplating their meaning? I myself am guilty of multiple counts of this particular offense, and it only just struck me as how not only out dated most of them are, but how ridiculous they must have been at any point in time. “Cat’s got your tongue?” I would first question why it would even care about your tongue in the least, but then I might also wonder how a cat would ever be in the position to take one’s tongue. …On second thought, maybe I don’t want to know.

I started thinking about this modern language crime after completing a very laborious and arduous project that just happened to be a knit piece of blueberry pie. Why was it decided that something could be “easy as pie,” when in fact real pie can also be a pain to make skillfully? Just knitting a single slice nearly pushed me over the edge into a raving madwoman, ready to smash windows at even the thought of another dropped stitch. Not to sound arrogant, but it had been a long time since tangling with a pattern that troubled me, and thinking that it would be “easy as pie,” I was not prepared for the difficulty that would ensue.

My yarn was flowing smoothly from the skein all through the filling and bottom crust, so I was thinking I would be able to finish up in no time. That was before I had moved on to attempt the lattice top… Maybe it wasn’t the chart that was so confusing, but the way that stitches were required to be slipped and then knit in a certain order… My stitches were so badly twisted by the end of a single row, I was surprised it didn’t form a small yarn-tornado right in my hands!

Somehow I was able to pull myself together enough to complete this challenge, but please, don’t ask me to make a second one. Even after the knitting itself was done with every loose end tied off, I still wasn’t “happy as a clam.” The pieces fit together so awkwardly, it no longer appeared to be anything remotely related to pie once assembled. Too lazy to redo anything entirely, I ended up folding over much of the filling to make it a more realist height and also to fit it comfortably from one side of the crust to the other.

Finally, after much manipulation, I’m proud to report that the over all look of my slice “floats my boat.” Maybe you could even go so far as to say that it “tickles my pickle,” but that might be pushing it a little.

Easy as pie? Certainly not. I was happy for a challenge though, so I think that the results justified the means, making the struggle absolutely worth it. Nonetheless, we should all stop “beating around the bush” with so many corny, obsolete sayings. Pie deserves much more respect than it is typically given due to that common misnomer.

Waterfalls can be such poignant imagery, symbolizing a range of emotions as greatly varied as the potential power of water itself. Whether it be viewed as rapids pounding down the end of the road to their destruction, or the quiet scene of serenity that their awesome beauty lends itself to, waterfalls are always an impressive sight to behold. Simple in concept, yet somehow their appearance never seems to become uninteresting. It takes a number of very specific albeit common conditions to occur at once, which could be one reason that large ones aren’t quite so typical of the average landscape here in the US in general. There are always crude man-made attempts at cheating nature, but it is hard to replicate something of that caliber that would truly do this phenomenon justice.

While those sad plastic landscapes evoke nothing but contempt and perhaps pity in my mind, there are many other ways to pay tribute to the magnificent waterfall without belittling its power. Fabric in particular seems to lend itself well to various incarnations of water due to the fluid, amorphous nature of thin fibers woven together. Thinking along the same vein as moving fibers, it was only a matter of time before some knitting needles were thrown into the equation.

Obvious but brilliant at the same time, I wish I could take credit for such a lovely pattern, but it I don’t yet have the confidence to attempt an unguided foray into knit lace yet. It was mere luck that I was aimlessly browsing through my exhaustive collection of pattern databases one lazy afternoon that I happened to stumble across this gem, since I haven’t had a need to make scarves since my first attempts to learn the craft… I knit up so many straight lengths of intertwined yarn trying to master the basic knit stitch, I could probably stuff a mattress quite comfortably. This finding was clearly fate, seeing as I had just bought myself a couple skeins of a deep navy blue cotton yarn with no particular project in mind before that.

Not having had the pleasure to create lace in a few months, it was amazing how satisfying it was to watch the delicate waves grow longer, and how instantly soothing it was just to knit for hours on end without worrying about the instructions changing at a certain row. I will admit that it would occasionally frustrate me how many repetitions were required to accumulate a decent length, but it only took a simple reminder that the process was what mattered, not the product to get me back on track.

Knitting in this piece public frequently, a number of people mistook this river of lace as cables. Seeing the photograph included with the original, I can see how it may appear so from a far, which can be somewhat of a nifty trick if you don’t feel like hunting down your cable needles for a similar look. Most of all though, I just love how versatile this scarf is; Understated for a formal evening out, but fun and eclectic for hanging out with friends. Just like the many states of water, this ‘falling water’ scarf can be anything you make it out to be.

In this case atleast, it can be considered a positive thing to be making waves!

According to the forecast only a night ago, I was under the impression that we were to expect flurries starting early in the AM, continuing through the morning commute, and later giving way to freezing winds. Excited as ever to witness the ephemeral fluffy stuff falling from the clouds, snapped awake early and tore away the covers at first light. Tripping over my own awkward feet, I rushed to the nearest window where I peered out and saw… Nothing. No snow. Not even clouds in the sky. What a complete disappointment!

This is already the second false alarm, but I really believed it would be different this time. It’s colder and well into the month of December, so the prospect of snow is entirely plausible. It would have been the perfect day for a delay or cancellation of school, since I was utterly unprepared for two tests that awaited me… I’m sure that alone influenced my rising hopes for a blizzard, but beyond that shallow motive, it’s seriously time for snow! What’s the hold up here?

Well, whenever the clouds finally decide to let loose its fine powder, atleast I know I’ll be prepared, along with my loved ones. Don’t tell, but this particular article of winter wear pictured above will become a holiday gift for a friend in a short couple of weeks. [Truly, it’s more like days at this point!] While it’s nothing fancy, this comfortable hat is sure to protect those sensitive ears from the harsh conditions outside.

My hands are itching to knit more lace objects, but sadly, that won’t create such a functional garment when you’re facing temperatures in the single digits. Accepting that fact, the next best thing would be cable work, which provides sufficient interest to hold my attention long enough to knit a project through to completion.

From Stitch and Bitch Nation, the Basic Cable pattern is exactly as the title implies – Easy enough for a beginning knitter, but still capable of producing an attractive little cap. I love how fast it was to finish the whole hat as well, because as the resident knitter in my circle of friends, I feel as though it is atleast partly my responsibility to provide warm accessories so that no body freezes to death. With this pattern in tow, I could probably complete a dozen before the snow finally decided to grace our lawns with its presence.

Until then, I’ll just be looking towards the sky with needles at hand, waiting…

When you use up all of the flour and sugar stored in your home, isn’t yarn the most appropriate alternate material?

Atleast that’s what I think. Neither the donut nor the cupcakes are new patterns to me, but I really don’t see how anyone could get tired of making them. Cute and easy, I could probably make two or three fuzzy pastries in a day, no problem. Although these weren’t knit up with anyone in particular in mind, they will still undoubtedly be distributed as holiday gifts within a few weeks. It never hurts to have spares, especially in case something falls through at the last minute, or unexpected people suddenly become a part of your holiday gift list.

Usually I bake up tons of sweets to hand out to these extra people, which is always graciously accepted, but I still would prefer to give out things that will last beyond the week so that they can [hopefully] be treasured, not just remembered.

With presents as sweet as these, I figure that at the very least, it would be pretty hard to forget!

Black Fridays has descended upon us once again, and I can barely contain my excitement. Such an American thing it is to go out and buy things to celebrate the season, cramming far too many bodies into confined spaces and battling it out with random strangers over another useless piece of plastic crap. I absolutely love it. If I could just sit in a packed store all day and video tape all of the aimless aggression needed to win something that nobody needs… Well, that would just about make my day off from school perfect.

I’m sorely tempted to exacerbate the problem further, because I really can’t leave well enough alone. It’s all I can do right now to restrain myself from marching into some random home appliance store and try to return a pair of socks, holding up the already lengthy lines while I argue quite seriously that their socks are completely unacceptable, and that of course I bought them here, look at the bag I brought them in! It matches doesn’t it? Therefore, it must be from this store!

I’m so sorry everyone, this particular celebration of consumerism simply brings out my vicious side, and while I find it plenty entertaining on its own, how could I not feel the urge to join in on the madness? I see the riot over some stupid trinket, and I want to join in for no good reason but to increase the chaos further. Maybe this is why I make all of my own gifts; Shopping makes me a tad… Crazy? This is the one day of the year where my juvenile scheming gets the best of my otherwise tame sensibility, so don’t worry, I’m almost never like this otherwise!

Anyways, it is now undeniably “Christmas time,” and I need to start putting the pedal to the metal in terms of my crafting activities. Anticipating the glorious incoming snow that can’t be too far off, I knitted up a quick pair of mini-mittens to accommodate cold little hands.

Newborns are popping up everywhere I turn, so it never hurts to knit up some baby items whenever a pattern strikes my fancy. These in particular are intended for a sweet little boy, born a mere handful of months ago. He’s probably still just getting used to the current environment, so it never hurts to bundle up early.

I still have tons of work to do to prepare for holidays that now loom ominously overhead like storm clouds ready to burst, so I’ll continue to occupy myself with that business. I promise you I’ll do my best to stay out of stores today… But the potential for mayhem is so tempting… Just be aware that the person ahead of you in line, raving at the cashier about a faulty product… You never know, it could be me.