Its Not A Race

Teachers and Mothers often tell children "Its not a race"  to encourage them.  Letting them know their slow pace in no way diminishes their effort.

I try to remember that sometimes often, in my knitting life.

Take the current cardi on the needles.

 

Started the evening of the KW Knitters Fair - that would be September 10 - it is still on my needles.  My excuse is - well, I guess I have no excuses but should you wish to feel empathy for me and my efforts, then know  I did take a vacation, knit a couple of projects for Knitfest and the yarn is teeny tiny. 

AND!  There was Hallowe'en.  In it's favour, the cardi is simple stockinet knitting.  No fancy stitches, no lace, no cables.
So Brenda said to herself   " I can knit on this simple stockinet cardi between door openings to serve the 200 plus  kids that rush our house every October 31."   Knitting towards the final colour change on the first sleeve and being only  one- half inch short of the required seven inches,

 

I saw those couple of candy-serving hours  as a chance to race towards the finish line. Which might have worked if those kids had been taught patience.

But little witches, goblins, princesses  and Harry Potters have no patience.  Apparently if the door is not opened within a nano second of the bell being rung, they think the idea is to ring the bell again.  And again.  I know that you know,  but those kids had no idea the havoc they wreaked on my little cardi. 

Hallowe'en landed me further behind, not ahead.  Several rows  had to be ripped out, picked up and re-knit.  Not normally an excruciating experience, but with two strands of teen, tiny, lace-weight yarn, I'm looking for a corneal transplant.

Four days later and I'm almost back on track with almost  all the dropped, single strands of the double- stranded stitches having been repaired.  And sure, I know it's not a race but there's great humiliation  - and no ribbon - in coming in last.

Thursdays Are For Knit Group

Sometimes, circumstances just allow for   laughter.  It happens often at knit group, but today was laughter to the 'max'.   

Perhpas it was the smaller crowd.  Wilma, as I write, is winging her way out west on a family visit.   Ingrid is driving to Victoria,  helping to relocate a loved one.   Sharon had to do an airport run to pick up her husband and Gail was caring for grand kids.  With only  eight knitters at knit group today perhaps some felt freer to tell their stories,   
 
Or perhaps it's the shorter days,  what was eaten at  lunch or the next full moon.  Whatever the reason, laughter reigned supreme today.  It started with Bonnie. 

She made a lovely scarf for her daughter's  Christmas gift.  Last night the daughter popped in for an un-expected  visit, spotted the scarf  and said " I hope you're not planning on giving that to me, Mom!"    She didn't like the scarf. At that point Bonnie turned to the grand daughters who had come along with Mom for the visit and asked them if they liked/wanted the scarf. They too turned it down!  This is how Bonnie feels today.

She's also made slippers. 

Who are you  giving these to Bonnie?  Likely, not family.

Ruth has made several squares to be sewn together for a baby blanket.  I tried to spread them out to better photograph them, but got  'spoken to'  by Ruth.   "They're in order!" she said.

 

Hmmm.  All six of them.  Okay.  Sorry, Ruth. 

Doreen, though, was the cause of the most laughter.  She is still knitting the big red sweater for a friend.  

 

She is sick and tired of it!  Sick and tired of not having any kntiting time for her own projects.  Sick and tired of the awkward yarn and difficult patern.  Just plain sick and tired of it!!   To top that, the friend is not responding with the amount/type of gratitude Doreen is/was expecting or that Doreen feels she deserves for such a favour.  And we heard all about it.  In detail.  With emotion.  Conversations repeated, verbatim.  More than once.  Hilarious to all but Doreen.  Really, Doreen - we're on your side.

It was fun to have Nell back from her month-long stay in South Carolina.  Looks like her crochet hook didn't take a vacation at all.  

 

Nice blanket, Nell.  Most days in South Carolina were 25'c   Nell says so I hope she' ready for winter because here, today, it was 9'c. 

See how nicely I worked that weather report in?  That's for  New Nan who is in the city  - down south  compared to Meaford -  for a few weeks and  emailed wondering if the weather is  warm enough for one last trip to her Meaford  summer home. 

If laughter does indeed have healing powers, then those at knit group today are dang healthy!

Crazy Ball Of Yarn

My own personal knitting took a backseat these last couple of weeks, as I prepared some samples for Knitfest 2011.

One of the fun things we  planned for the day was to give everyone a bag of 'bits and bobs' of colour coordinated yarn so they could create one giant ball of 'Crazy Yarn'.

Crazy Yarn came to my attention a couple of years ago while browsing in a not-so-local yarn store.  There, I saw a lovely scarf on display with  several  different yarns in it.  When I mumbled something about the cost of buying all those different yarns to knit the scarf, the store owner pointed me towards the one  - and only - ball of yarn used in the  scarf.

It was a ball of yarn created by tying several different yarns together.  Knots were left with ends hanging as part of the design feature.  My first thought was "What a great way for the mill to get rid of short pieces of yarn and still make a profit."   My second thought was  "I can do that."

My first Crazy Ball Of Yarn project was this Shape It Scarf from Sally Melville's 'Book 1 The Knit Stitch'.

Second was the same pattern in different yarns.

In preparing for Knitfest I knew that a ball of yarn would only do half the trick.  Knitters would want a pattern.  But, since I'm known in local  far-and-wide knitting circles as - The Copyright Queen Bitch - I couldn't bring myself to hand out Sally's pattern.  I would have to get to it and create my own. This is the result.  A little scarf with some shaping. 

At this point, it seemed to me that  the best use - and maybe the only use -  for Crazy Yarn was scarves.  But Knitfest 2011 was not about scarves. It was about sweaters - Top Down sweaters to be exact.  With the personal, designer touch of adding a cable,  some lace or the knitter's  favourite stitch pattern to the basic sweater.

Would  Crazy Yarn look good in a  sweater?  I decided to find out.  Using the Basic Cardigan pattern from the book  used at Knitfest - Need A Baby Cardigan?   I knit a one year size placing the Crazy Yarn in the yoke but using plain yarn for the rest of the sweater.

 

I couldn't decide if I liked the 'knotted' look in a garment and wondered whether I should take all knots to the inside.  In the end,  for demonstration purpose - and to delay my final decision -  I left the knots out on the back but took them to the inside on the front.

It's dang cute and received many  approving murmurs when displayed at Knitfest.  

There are two secrets to  creating a ball of Crazy yarn.  One - make the yarn first.  It seems obvious but some might think that you tie yarns together as you knit.  But no.  Create the entire ball first - it will give the garment a much more random appearance.

Secondly  - tie the colours together randomly and in varying lengths.  With the orange   scarf ,  I had much more of one yarn than any of the others.   To accommodate that, each time I was ready to put in the main yarn, I simply measured off  (using the Old King Cole method of  nose to finger tip)   much more of it than  any of the others yarns.   If I went nose-to-finger-tip ten times with the main yarn I might only do that once or twice with the others. 


And perhaps third - yarns do not have to be the same gauge.  Varying lengths, a variety of colours and gauges and knots that show and you have one Crazy Ball Of Yarn.





Since Knitfest 2011 was all about releasing your inner designer, the Crazy Yarn project fit right in.   And you can thank me for giving you one more reason to 'knot' throw out your little bits of leftover yarn.