knitting

Evie’s Cat

/ Shane / 1 Comment

Last Christmas, Evie decided that the only thing she really wanted was a little white kitten. Well, I have one cat, thank you very much, and I don’t. need. another. Instead we compromised: I gave Evie yarn and she helped me pick out a cat pattern.

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This is definitely the most complicated pattern I’ve ever tried. I’d start hyperventilating just looking at it. However, if I just focused on doing the next thing, one thing at a time, it actually wasn’t so bad. In fact, I think overall it gave me a lot less trouble then the hat I made for my brother.

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Evie named her cat Snowball and loved her intensely for at least 24 hours. In other words, she lasted about as long as Ollie’s monster Floob.

Evie, being Evie, is not completely satisfied with some of the imperfections. She’s not very keen on the face. As I told her, perhaps a bit too archly, “If you want a perfect cat, buy one from the store. But if you want one that’s made by your daddy with love, you can have this one.”

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Knitter’s Children

/ Shane / 1 Comment

When it’s muddy outside, Ollie likes to get right in. I don’t really mind it; I think it’s good for him, and even if I’m cringing a little bit on the inside, I try to hold my tongue. In any case, he comes home from school with a lot of very dirty outerwear.

The other day I was tossing his snow pants and coat in the washer, and I noticed his nice, knitted mittens were a little worse for the wear. I shrugged and tossed them in with everything else.

“Are you putting my mittens in the washer?” Ollie said doubtfully. “Yeah, I thought I’d wash them. They’re a little dirty.”

Evie was upstairs and heard our conversation through the dryer vent. “Daddy!” she screamed. “Daddy, don’t put them in the washer!” “It’s okay,” I replied, “I’m not going to put them in the dryer, just the washer.” “Noooo! No daddy!” she shouted, starting to sob. “You can’t put them in the washer!” Ollie was tugging on my arm, and he started screaming too. “Evie, they’re already in there! They’re already in the washer!!”

The two of them were screaming like I was putting a kitten in the washer; this was definitely a code red. The only thing we were missing was a revolving red light and blaring klaxons.

Of course I quickly took the mittens out, if only to restore order to the house. Afterwards, Ollie showed me how to wash them in the sink and then put them in a towel and stomp on them to dry them.

I have to admit that I was a little ashamed that, as a knitter, the kids knew more about this than I did. I mean, I knew better than to put them in the dryer, and I guess I knew somewhere in the back of my head that the agitation could felt them as well, but I just didn’t think it was a big deal. Hoo boy did the kids think it was a big deal. So I guess I didn’t know what I was talking about and I had to be schooled by children.

Sara, on the other hand, has never been prouder.

The Secret Tricks of Knitters

/ Shane / 1 Comment

One of the appeals of knitting is that there are thousands upon thousands of readily available knitting patterns. Once you master a few simple things, all you need to do is find a suitable pattern and follow the instructions. It’s almost exactly like finding guitar tab. Sure, some patterns are harder than others, but you start with the basics and build up.

However, as I delve further into the mysterious inner circles of knitting, I have discovered that there are a lot of unspoken little bits of arcane lore here and there. “Well sure it doesn’t say that in the pattern, you’re just supposed to know,” says Sara.

The pattern doesn’t tell you how to make your stripes joggless, otherwise how would the true knitters mark the posers? “Make one right” is different than “make one left” but the pattern just says M1 because who’s got the time to type out that extra ‘L’ or ‘R’? Oh, and you slipped a stitch around on your circular needles every few rows, right? I mean, what kind of idiot doesn’t know about rotating the stitch??

I’m a computer programmer. When you give the computer a set of instructions, it doesn’t care what your intentions were when you wrote the code. It’s a set of instructions and everything has to be there on the page. If it’s not there, it doesn’t get done. If you leave out a critical instruction, THAT IS CONSIDERED AN ERROR.

It really is similar to playing guitar. I watch youtube videos on how to play songs. The person in the video very calmly and clearly explains what you need to do to play the song. However, when the time comes to play a little bit, all of that goes out the window. If you watch carefully, what they actually play is practically nothing like what they told you to play; theirs is full of little extra hammers and pulls and “I just think it sounds nice if I leave the pinky off”. I don’t know if they do it without realizing it or what, but the net result is that what you’re playing, what they TOLD you to play, sounds nothing like what they’re playing.

My only conclusion is that, whatever the activity, the initiates to the higher orders like to keep all the arcane knowledge to themselves. Which means, now that I’m an initiate, you can pry my knitting secrets off my cold, dead needles.

In which I see a harlot

/ Shane / Leave a comment

There aren’t a lot of famous knitters, or at least not a lot of people who are famous for knitting (yes, I am aware that any celebrity who has ever held a pair of needles has been photographed with said needles and plastered all over the Internet). So paying to go see a knitter is certainly not something that a lot of people do, and something that I probably never thought I would do. However, that’s precisely what Sara and I did over Thanksgiving weekend, when we went to see Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, otherwise known as The Yarn Harlot.

Technically I am in this picture!

Sara is an avid reader of her blog, and it turns out that she happened to be in Fort Wayne while we were there. I was a little skeptical at first, suspicious that I wouldn’t fit in, but actually it was a pretty good time and an excellent date night! I struggled mightily before hand to get my current knitting project into a shape where it could be seen by others. However, I did manage it, and it was pretty fun to sit and knit with a ballroom full of people. It was predictably female-dominated, but there were more than a few other men in the room (although some of them were not actually knitting). I’d say we represented.

The talk itself was more of an inspirational knitting speech about why knitting is great, why it should be more respected, and most importantly, why knitters should respect themselves and their crafts. It was funny and it was perfectly fine, however, I felt Mrs. Pearl-McPhee really shown during the Q&A section. The “Bacon Powder” story and the one about getting locked out of her hotel room were absolutely hysterical, and worth the price of admission.

If I’m being totally honest, I was more interested in her as a story teller and blogger than as a knitter. She definitely has a gift for storytelling (which is not as easy as it might sound!), and I think that is what sets her apart. A lot of people are excellent knitters, but not all of them are cut out to be Yarn Harlots. If I’m being totally, totally, TOTALLY honest, I think it would be pretty damn cool if I could stand in front of people some day and tell stories, even if they’re stories about dumb things I’ve done. And Stephanie made it seem possible. She’s just a regular person who started a blog about something she loves (and, you know, wrote 9 books). On the other hand, the travel schedule sounds pretty brutal, so I’m sure it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.

Anyway, I’m really glad that I went, and I got a LOT of knitting done over the weekend!

Ollie Monster

/ Shane / 2 Comments

I finally finished knitting Ollie’s monster, just in time to give it to him for his birthday. It came out most magnificently, if I do say so myself.

I knew I wanted to knit something for Ollie for his birthday, and a monster seemed appropriate. I spent a long time looking at different patterns before finally settling on this one. Just before the big day, Sara asked Oliver what he wanted for his birthday and he said, “A monster”. Score!

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I really enjoyed this project. This is really the first significant thing that I’ve knit, so it was really fun to see it take shape. I’m so happy with how it came out. I love the way the mismatched eyes look. I love the way the red stitching adds a little color. I love the way the teeth look.

Ollie named him “Floobbooberbabbooberbubs” but we call him “Floob” for short. Ollie likes him, but I think not as much as I do. Unfortunately, Ollie’s baby has a firm hold on his heart, and there’s not too much room left over. Floob spent a few nights in his bed, but is now relegated to the floor.

Regardless, I enjoyed making it and giving it to him. So even if Floob never secures a place in heart, he will always be one of my favorite gifts. And if Ollie doesn’t play with him too much, that just means he’ll last that much longer. Maybe old Floob will be around for the next generation of little monsters.

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