'hold ya needles in the air, lemme see ya new mohair!'

http://mikebryant.coffeehouse.ca/coffeehouse/arts/mothership/artists/artist.asp?artistID=487&CityID=7

about 2/3 of the way down the page you'll be wanting to click the little 'play' button associated with 'knitta please'. beware! it's loud! and not very worksafe.
so it ain't the streets/ fiddy cent, but i got a giggle.
do you think i could get 'don't take no flack from the crochet bitches' put on a t-shirt?

I finally found my 'Knitted Garments For The Family' book. I knew I'd left it at my mum's, and every time I went round I'd scrabble furiously through the bookshleves looking for it. KGFTF cost me 50c at the Save the Children book sale last year. It is old enough not to have a publishing date, but I would hazard late 1940s (it doesn't look wartime, nor does it look like Dior's New Look has hit the silouhettes yet).
I love for a whole bunch of reasons. The little 'family' made of balls of yarn with needles stuck in for legs on the cover is only one reason.
The section on knitted homewares at the back (rugs are just like garments for your house. and isn't your house just like one of the family?)
It showcases many crazy stitch patterns otherwise lost in the vestiges of time and the middle of a Barbara Walker book. There are alternate stitch patterns (or necklines, or sleeves, or something) given for every garment so you can individualise. There are gorgeous classic cardigan aplenty.
Then, always good for a giggle, there's the false blouse front, to be worn under a jacket. It's like the front of a jumper, with a band to go round your neck and your waist to keep it on. It took motherly wisdom to explain the reason for the false blouse front was to give the appearance of clothing when one could not afford enough yarn to make a whole garment. Wouldn't want to have to take off your jacket though.
The editor seems to think it's totally reasonable that a woman would knit a long-sleeved, calf length dress entirely in three-ply yarn (that's finer than sock yarn...).
There's the shock and sense of relief that it's a different millenium one gets every time one looks at the 'neat and practical' men's cardigan knit in colours labelled as 'natural' and 'nigger' (no joke).
There's an entire section dedicated to knitted underwear. I can understand that a 'matron' may want a 'vest and pantees set' to keep her warm. But the 'French knickers' mystify me. French knickers sound brief and naughty (bearing in mind the 'sports briefs' cover anything between the the tops of your thighs and your waist). Yet the French knickers are not skimpy and delicious. They are scallop-edged, knitted shorts that go from the true waist to, well, the knee. I have no idea how clothes are supposed to go over the top of them. Not even the 'smart tailored dress for town or country wear' would prevent a terribly defined VPL (somewhere near your kneecaps).

I am queueing up for the opening of the save the children book sale this year in the hope of finding another gem like this.

I've been trying for the last half hour to write a halfway coherent post, but monsters ate my brain. Specifically, knitted monsters inspired by Maurice Sendak's "Where the Wild Things Are", for an art show/book launch taking place next Wednesday.

I promised at least three monsters, but so far I've only done one. Whoops, better get a move on. I ripped out all the work I'd done on the second monster last night, because I am using The Most Evil Yarn In The World— awful, but very appropriate, brown furry looking stuff which is impossible to knit with. There are no monsters in my nightmares, only that horrible brown acrylic that splits and clumps and tangles and unfortunately looks perfect for monster fur! Did I mention it was also cheap?!

I have a blister on my right index finger from when I was making the three legs for Monster #1 and decided to use DPNs. This has just confirmed my belief that furry, fluffy novelty yarns want to cause me pain.

On the plus side, it's fantastic to just make up what I'm knitting as I go, rather than sticking to any kind of plan or pattern. "Does this monster want three legs? Or will the two heads be scary enough?"... so they're a little haphazard, but I'm hoping by the time they're all finished, the dropped stitches and wonky seams will all just add to the monster-y charm.

anatolia, anatolia, anatolia (just so people find this entry when they google) :)
i finished the front of anatolia.
my significant other (Badly Coloured Boy, because that's what he's known by in my other blog; and he's known by that because he reminded a friend of badly drawn boy and he's colourblind) looked over at my precious knitting and said 'Ha! it has an alien face in it!'
'I beg your pardon? An ALIEN face?'
'Yeah! There! Where you messed up with the pattern' *points*


Ah. That would be one of the three geometric twisted very cool cross-shaped designs i carefully, painfully and certainly deliberately knitted in.
good to know that they look like a cockup to the untrained eye *sigh*

And here is a glampyre trio, one boobieholder and two one skein wonders. one of which i must have been drunk while knitting, because it certainly doesn't fit me. guess which one? two points if you guessed the navy blue patons cotton one.
i'd intended to embroider anchors on the front and a flaming heart with a dagger in on the back of it, like old-school tattoos, but there's no point if i can't wear it. not quite sure what to do with it. seems a waste to frog it.
the red is in some very soft superwash merino, and the green is the jo sharp silkroad aran tweed that i am attached to in the same way that some others here are to their kid silk.

well... anatolia is growing... i'm hoping that if i'm lazy enough to not study today i might finish the front by the weekend. of course, miserably repeating units because i was more interested in knitting is a relatively good discentive.

i will post pictures of finished objects when i have the time... i have a real nice one skein wonder made of jo sharp silkroad aran tweed. it's 'willow'. the really pale green between the charcoal and the mauve near the bottom. i love that yarn. really, if i could have a life supply of one yarn, it'd be silkroad aran tweed. even if it is the weirdest, most obscure gauge in the world.

Well, hello.

Okay, 'fess up time. I'm new at this blogging thing (relatively new at this knitting thing too, but that'll come up later). So be nice to the newbie, 'k? It means I am likely to ramble unnecessarily on minor details of little interest to others, so bear with me, slap me or take me aside for quiet words like "stop" and "now".

Anyway, I thought I would give an example of a proverb. I think it goes something like ...

"SMUGNESS COMETH BEFORE A FALL"

... at the SnB on Monday I was happily working away on my Lace Cardigan (VK Holiday 05 edition). Feeling terribly pleased with myself at the good progress I had made, and commented to a fellow knitter how proud of myself I was because I'd only had to frog four rows total since starting. (Note the smugness).

Since all had been going well and I was curious how far I was from needing to start the armhole shaping. I measure it... 31cm. About 2 cm from said shaping. I thought I should compare it to the other front of the cardigan already knitted.

Hmmm.

It seems, somehow, a bit narrow. I pull at the lace a bit ("Needs blocking" I thought). No. Still a problem.

...

I look more critically at it. Hmm. It seems awfully.. narrow when I hold it against the other one. (Deep dread has set in now.)

I ... count the stitches. 47. That sounds right... I read the pattern. Yeah, 47 stitches.

..

I stop. I read the pattern properly, rather than just scanning it.
And then .. the full weight of the fall becomes apparent.

You see?

57 stitches is what I should have. Fifty-seven.

So.. I have now ripped out the whole piece (which was about 2/3 of the entire front right side) ... and started over. It now looks like this after a couple of days of knitting at it (I was home sick)..

And this is the pile of yet-to-be-re-knitted yarn.

The end, now.. just looks that much further away...



It's still beautiful though...

Collars and cuffs may not match, but my scissors and knitting certainly do!

Collars and cuffs may not match, but my scissors and knitting certainly do!
Originally uploaded by indienial.

I'm making Candy from knitty.com, using something something Plum Kid (yeah, I forgot the name and I don't have the label with me) which is 80% Kid Mohair, 15% wool and 5% acrylic... or something like that anyway.

I had planned on finishing the Go Everywhere (renamed: Going Nowhere) cardigan from the Stitch'n'Bitch book, and there's also the small matter of the self-imposed yarn buying ban, but it was ON SALE at Crossways, in exactly the right amounts I will need, according to the pattern. And the colours match my scissors perfectly! So it was fate.

Never mind that I am already part way through three cardigans (this makes four), or that I always seem to use more yarn than the pattern calls for (what's with that?), I couldn't leave this yarn behind to languish in a sale bin! It's so soft and fluffy, I've taken to leaving it by my bed (along with the Kid Seta) so I can fondle it periodically through the night protect it from the cat.

Sorry for not posting in a while! Have a few things on the go at the moment.. knitting the Orangina top & Mini-sweater from Glampyre.. Still have to sew up To Dye For sweater, been really slack there!! My cousins lil girl, Bella has her Tigger cardy at last, pics above, she is so sweet. Looking forward to KIP this weekend!