Not Inadequate

So. He was going to let me knit him some socks! I interrogated him about what he wanted in a sock. Nay, what he needed in a sock. What color, how high, how tight, how thick…  I’m pretty sure he began to regret humoring me with this sock request. 

Number one on the list was machine washable. Obviously. I bought some nice charcoal gray Cascade 220 Superwash (having been warned what constitutes suitably masculine color) and consulted one of the best sock books ever, Sensational Knitted Socks. I measured and re-measured the feet in question (once even pausing the teevee to do it, much to the annoyance of Someone). I even – get this – swatched. 

I was so excited. Before I even cast on a single stitch I was having ridiculous fantasies of how much he would love the socks … He would start waxing poetic about the joys of a wool sock. I would have to go and buy tons of manly sock yarn. I would make boatloads more socks (a pair a month!  - no, a pair a month each for him and the kids! and me!) behind closed doors and present them to him next Christmas…. 

Then I was shocked out of my reverie by the kids fighting over one. single. Lego.  And that strange burny smell the fridge makes when I put too much hot food in it. And the fact that I can’t sit in front of my fireplace knitting like I am in a chapter of Little Women because if I take my eyes off these tiny people for a damn minute there will be a mutiny.

When I first took up knitting, I knit a lot of these fuzzy, multi-yarn scarves. A lot. Like maybe 35 fuzzy scarves.

Just plain garter stitch and a lot of novelty yarn. I didn’t even know how to purl. I refused to pay more than $1.99 for a ball of yarn (Mmmm, acrylic!). I inflicted them on gave them to everyone I knew. 

Then I decided to grow up and do some Real Knitting. You know, knitting that did not involve size 35 needles (I did still only buy 99 cent yarn. Let’s not get carried away). I decided to knit a scarf for my husband. I found a Mistake Rib scarf that looked nice and was a simple enough pattern for me to try. I learned to purl and everything. I was happy with how it turned out, and Jim seemed pleased to receive it. 

I was so excited about this, a successful project! I immediately began peppering him with questions about what else he wanted me to knit him.

Me: Yarn! Colors! Patterns!

Him: You already knit me a scarf.

Me: ?

Him: I only need one scarf.

Me: Dude, I have invested tens of dollars (heh) into this new hobby and you think you are going to escape with only one scarf? 

I mean, really. 

I didn’t argue, but secretly devised a Campaign of Conversion.

I took a sock class and began extolling the virtues of the hand-knit sock.

I took him to a football game on one of the coldest days of the year and heroically presented him with a fold-up-brim merino wool hat knit with team colors. I even made a matching one for myself, and I hate football.

I let him in on the mysteries of felting.

I made hats for the kids to look cute in.

And then….

Finally, after over a year of waiting, I heard the words I had been waiting for – 

“I might like you to knit me some socks”

Victory!

Thank goodness Fall is finally peeking around the corner. I love Fall. Fall feels like the beginning of a new year to me more than January does. Sweaters, boots, new school supplies…and finally the end of summer.

I’ve kept this to myself, so as not to appear overly Scrooge-like, but I HATE summer. I REALLY hate it. The bugs, the heat, the glaring sun, the boob sweat, the swarms of sullen teenagers that seem to clog up everything. Every September, I breathe a little sigh of relief that it’s over. I do have to put up with football season, but I can’t have it all.

Fall makes me excited to knit all over again. I didn’t do a lot of knitting over the summer because it was hot enough without putting a big pile of wool in my lap. But now, the air is crisping up, and my thoughts are turning to Christmas projects and playing in the snow. I want to pick something and cast on, but I have a big stack of unfinished projects and I should probably figure out what I am doing with those before I start yarn-ho-ing around.

In each one of these bags is an unfinished project, or a work-in-progress as the optimistic call them.

First up, we have an abandoned sock monkey and about an inch of Tunisian Crochet, both destined for the frog pond. I do want to learn how to do Tunisian Crochet, but that bit isn’t going to be anything decent, and all it’s doing is reminding me that I have NOT learned to crochet. The monkey…well, the monkey was going to be a baby gift, but it was really annoying to knit. The yarn looks cool though. Maybe I’ll call the governor and get a stay of execution. Poor thing.

This one isn’t going to be frogged, but I don’t know if I’ll ever knit it’s mate. I should frame it and pretend it’s art.

Next, two more things that were are supposed to be gifts. This is a blanket that was is supposed to go to the same baby as the sock monkey. I started it back when they were still in the Trying To Get Pregnant Stage. The baby is now 8 months old. If I manage to knit 1/4 of a blanket every two years, plus time for sewing it up…I might have it done by the time he’s in high school. I should shoot for 1st birthday, though. It would still be a nice pressie.

This is a felted vest that I started for my son about a year and a half ago. The thing about knitting for kids is that their stuff is small and goes quicker. On the other hand, they outgrow things in ten minutes – or, you know, in TWO YEARS. All I need to do here is finish up the i-cord around the edge and I’m done. This would be good football knitting, and maybe I can give it to him at Christmas.

And he can then save it for his son, because it will be too small.

I started a matching one for his sister, but I’m not going to keep embarassing myself by showing yet another project with only 3 inches knitted. Besides, it lives in the same project bag as the blue sweater, so it doesn’t count.

Finally, we have some projects that actually have a chance of getting finished.

A Noro Two-Row Scarf by Jared Flood. I love how this is turning out. It’s easy and it’s pretty. I usually take it to Knit Night because I can gossip and knit it at the same time.

A weird ribbed hat in Denver Broncos colors. I love this yarn. I use it all the time and I know the gauge, but for some reason it’s turning out gigantic. Oh well, we always need more hats around here, and it wasn’t a real pattern – I was just making it up in my head after I saw something similar online. They’ll probably use it to haul legos.

Lastly, a fingerless glove.

This yarn used to be unbearably hideous and was a gift from my mother-in-law. She went to Peru last year and when she said she’d brought me back some real Peruvian fiber, I was SO EXCITED. But then it turned out to be 20 skeins in a variegated shade of Cotton-Candy pink, Needs-to-Drink-More-Water yellow, and white.

It was maybe the ugliest thing I have ever seen. And it was 100% baby alpaca! Such a waste. I took it to knit night to get some sympathy from my buddies, and one of them suggested over-dying it. I told her she could have half if she did it, and she put some kind of purple-y color on it. It’s about a thousand times better now. These will eventually be a gift for the same mother-in-law that gave me the yarn. If she remembers that this is not the original color, I’ll just tell her that it was too ugly for human eyes and I had to fix it.

So there they are, all my half-assed unfinished projects, lying naked for the world three people to see. Maybe exposing myself like this will inspire me to Just Finish Something Already!

I love felted bags. The first one I made took forever and I wasn’t thrilled with it.  When I was ready to try again, I cast on Friday night and had it finished and ready to be felted by Saturday night. Super! Exciting! I gave that one away to my knitting proselytizee friend to use as part of my campaign to bring her over to the dark side a knitting bag. I loved it so much I immediately cast on another one for myself. And then I took a Fair Isle class and my felting got a little derailed. BUT THEN! Why not make a felted bag using Fair Isle techniques!  

I know! 

One of the biggest challenges for me in Fair Isle is keeping the tension loose enough. It kind of goes against my grain to stretch all my stitches out and have sloppy loops in the back of the work. But I figured that if I were making something to felt, then it would be no big deal if my floats were too tight because the whole thing would shrink anyway! Plus, I wanted to be able to Fair Isle by carrying one yarn in each hand and this way I could practice. It wouldn’t matter if my gauge was off because it would be felted! It would be perfect! I would love this bag so much; I would use it as a purse! Total strangers would ask me where I got it and I would smile modestly and say “I made it”, and they would be envious of my creative knitting prowess. It could be that mythical Life Changing Fashion Accessory. You know, like the Swatch watch in junior high that I never had but all the popular kids did and they were on ski team and sometimes had more than one Swatch to color coordinate with those polo shirts with the little alligator that I also never had but if I did it could have changed the course of my life.

Like that. 

I sketched a pattern of polka dots. I knew I wanted to have three rows of large-ish black polka dots on a background of gradually changing color. I scoped out the stash, and came up with some Brown Sheep Lamb’s Pride for the polka dots and found some Noro Silk Garden Chunky that I ripped back from a scarf I was attempting but didn’t like. The Silk Garden said “hand wash” on it. Why would someone want you to hand wash it unless it they were warning you against the possibility of felting? I don’t know about you, but I am not all about hand washing garments just for the fun of it. 

Perhaps you can see where this is going. 

I had a very specific picture of this bag in my head. I knit the base separately (more than once to get the shape and size I wanted), and picked up stitches all around to begin the body. I began my polka dot Fair Isle pattern, knit like mad and finished it in a couple of days. Unfortunately I ran out of the black, which I wanted to use for a stripe at the top and for the handle. But who cares? The polka dots were a-freaking-dorable and the Noro background was deliciously murky. 

I couldn’t wait, and threw it in the washer the minute I was done weaving in the ends. I have a front loading washer, which I love for laundry purposes, but felting in it is not a five minute process. When I took the bag out for a check, it was apparent that the Lamb’s Pride was felting much quicker than the Noro. No problem, the Noro will catch up. I threw it in for another cycle. Hmmm. The black Lamb’s Pride was felted to within an inch of its life. The Noro…was not. Imagine if you will, what happens when one part of the fabric shrinks and the other part does not. Puckers! The Noro was puckering in between the dots! Which was not entirely unpleasant when I thought about it more. But (why does there always have to be a “but”?), the puckering (obviously) only occurred where the dots were, and the dots were pretty much centered on the body of the bag. So the bottom and the top of the bag flared out, and the middle pulled in. It was hideous.

And also not the Life Changing Fashion Accessory it was supposed to be.

Ugly, Ugly, Non-Life Changing Bag

I know. For some reason, the shape of it reminds me of one of those wooden Dutch shoes. 

I have a plan to cut it open and seam it to eliminate the flare. And do something different for a handle since that little buttonhole is kind of sissy looking. This plan involves me acquiring a sewing machine and learning how to sew, so it might be a minute. On the other hand, maybe I’ll just cut it up and frame it as a random knitting art piece. Or maybe I’ll just run it through the washer until the Noro begs for mercy and felts. Or maybe I’ll cut it up into a really expensive and funky pot holder. Whatever. 

Now that I know about the puckering, I kind of want to do it deliberately on something. I don’t love failing at one of my first knit designs, but I don’t want to be a quitter either. I still love the polka dot purse idea, but next time I am going to do something more sensible, like knit it with the same yarn throughout (duh).  And maybe not use expensive silk yarn and then deliberately ruin it. (see also: duh).