knitwitzinc.com Blog

There are two *STYLE* books coming out this fall from Interweave that look to be gathering knitalongs right now.  They are Folk Style, due out October 2007, and the link is HERE.  The other is Bag Style, due out November 2007, and the link for that knitalong is HERE.

I know that some of you wanted to get in on the Lace Style knitalong so heads up on these two!

 I also found the Best of Interweave knitalong, due out October 2007, and that link is HERE.  This book features the Icarus shawl on the cover (second chance anyone?), and two sweaters I have actually completed inside – it really is a great collection of patterns.  Take a look at the slide show at all the men’s sweaters!

CROCHETERS UNITE!  There’s a crochetalong for crocheters at the Crochet Me, due out October 2007, site found HERE.  The wrap sweater on the cover is nice.

I hope some of you get in on these – let me know if you do!

I couldn’t think of a name for this post, but that was the answer given by the fairy godmother magic 8 ball, so there ya have it.  Foolproof methodology for solving all manner of difficult decisions!

Sign the guestbook!  Please.  Have I mentioned that there is a guestbook at the shop?  Yes, we have a guestbook!  Please feel free to sign it, it’s the blue book on the coffee table, and there’s usually a pen nearby.

This morning was soap felting at KnitWitz!  We took bars of soap, the ninety-nine-one-hundredths-percent-pure kind (wink), and covered them in a nest of wool.  The wool was white and different colors that started out in patterns but turned into surprises.  After the nesting, came the fun part.  Each disguised bar of soap had to be eaten by a knee-high:

Once encased in both wool and nylon… oh, the indignity for the noble soap… it was dunked.  And given a good rubdown.  Back and forth, around and around.  For a looooong time.  Too long, I was told!  Here’s a shot of the sudsy madness:

After the peeling, and rinsing, time, and much resting of tired arms, the finished products were ready to begin a long life (hopefully) of cleaning the kids who made them. 

The white bits are actually white wool!  It’s a fun activity, super for a hot day.  If you’d like to learn more, or are interested in setting up something like this for your kids, give me a call.  I would definitely do this again.

About the coolest thing – apart from the soaps and the air conditioning - that happened this week was a pair of socks.  I was gifted with handknit socks!  They are so very nice, and fit too:

Short row heels are amazing.  The one time I attempted it, the heel looked remarkably like a duck’s bill.  But these are perfect.  Thank you so much, Jim!

I’ve been knitting a long time, and there are still things I haven’t knit and techniques I haven’t tried.  All the newness of it still out there keeps me going.  I love to knit.  It’s not just the yarn, or the patterns, or the (overcoming of the) odd bits of patterns… I mean it IS those things, but it’s also the community.  Knitting is more than just the teensy loops at the end of my own needles.  It’s the people, no?  So when, last spring, a friend suggested that I join a knitting swap I didn’t think too much on it.  I joined.

It sounded like fun!  It was the first time I’d every participated in any kind of online interactive knitting community *event*.  I’ve never done secret pals, or exchanges, or swaps, and – apart from the Mystery Stole last year and this – had never wanted to try.  But this sounded different because it required knitting an entire pair of socks for someone who only had a love of Harry Potter – and of knitting and socks, presumably – in common with me. 

Yes, knitting for a stranger – and not charitable knitting.  What was I thinking?  I can knit socks.  But socks aren’t my favorite thing to knit (sweaters are).  And I’ve only ever made socks for myself, family, various babies, and the wall (of the shop).  In reality it hasn’t been a whole lot of socks – the wall socks don’t even come in pairs!  So for me to commit to knitting two socks for a complete stranger took something of a leap of faith.

For those same socks to be fair isle of my own design took a “letting go” that is vaguely foreign to me…  The diagonal stripes and fleur-de-lis motifs are from the Hufflepuff coat of arms, as I had drawn a Hufflepuff person for whom to knit.  I knit the sock three times because of a lack of Louet Gems in the proper colors, hence the prototype.  Hufflepuff colors are black and yellow.  The yarn arrived mere days before the deadline, which was the sale date of HP#7 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.  Knitting both socks at the same time magic loop was… interesting.  (I prefer DPNs.)  But I got through it.  I made the stitch markers that were to accompany the gift.

Don’t they look Hufflepuff badger-esque?  I ran out at 10 pm the night I wove in ends to get white vinegar, convinced the black would run into the yellow because aren’t such things supposed to happen when you finish at the last minute?  But the black remained true…

After blocking and drying, I put it all together with needles and a postal owl…

…and mailed it with two days to spare.  Then I waited.  I waited to hear my socks had been received, and I waited for the socks meant for me.  I even waited for my book from the UK (there’s a huge difference in the UK vs. US versions).  I got my book a week after everyone else did, and I heard the same day that my Hufflepuff socks had been received okay – and on time.  I read the book without being spoiled, even.  Success?  It does depend on your definition.  I think, yes.

So you might be wondering what I learned from Harry?  Or maybe you’re wanting to see the socks that were handknit for me?  Well, these are the socks I got in return:

Look familiar?  Right, these are the socks I gave away.  They remain the only socks in the Harry Potter Sock Swap with which I have an in-person familiarity.  I have been told that the socks intended for me were going to be sent (a week ago, one week after the deadline – and after I finished my week-late book).  I suppose it could still happen, right?  Anything’s possible.  If it does, well, I’ll post about it for sure.

Meantime, and despite what could have been a really crummy end to my first online knitting community event, if not for the joy I received making those black and yellow socks, I’ve signed up for the second Harry Potter Sock Swap.  This time will be different, as I’m knitting for the same person who’ll be knitting for me!

So, what I learned from Harry is that it doesn’t matter if I ever get socks out of the first exchange.  It was a hoot to knit the socks I did.  Even three of them.  It isn’t what you get, it’s what you give.  It isn’t always the little things, like your own loops, or socks that never arrived.  It’s the big things like sharing something that came out of your head and took shape in your hands.  It’s like magic.

Here, feel better by gazing at a supercute dog named Snoopy Van Gogh.  He came to visit me yesterday, and consented to pose - ever so briefly - with the Vegan Fox!