It is a fact, universally acknowleged, that spinners that offer their wares do not sell off everything they make, at least not right away. Oh no. They keep a stash of the best stuff for themselves, or they think a yarn works out better as a finished knitting project, and sell that instead. Many of my knitwear offerings started as handspun yarn I wanted to sell, but just couldn’t let go of, at least not at that stage.
For example, I had a scrumptious bit of a yarn all ready to go up in the shop. Pretty pictures. Flowers, even. But just as I was going to list it, I heard a tiny, woolly voice, squeaking at me from where I’d put the skein to admire it. “Noooooo, not yet. I want to be mitts! Warm, fuzzy mitts!’
Seriously, it was all ready to go…*siiiiiigh*
And You know what? Yarn doesn’t lie. If this yarn needs to become it’s best self and become mitts before they go into the shop, then so be it. But when I got out a pair of knitting needles, the skein wasn’t finished with me yet.”How about some black yarn to go with me? I’m lonely, I don’t want to be mitts without some company. Make me a friend!”
All right, fine… But this was turning into some woolly version of, “If You Give A Mouse a Cookie.” I had some Shetland wool that I had spun up into a single. I plied it on itself with a drop spindle, so there was enough thickness to match the other yarn. And that was exactly what was needed.
Okay, so the yarn totally had a point there…
Sometimes you just can’t resist the feel of a brand-new skein of yarn, fresh from a spinning wheel and a soak. Especially when the season’s starting to turn, and autumn starts to insinuate itself into the world. Sometimes it’s good to change a plan right in the middle of it’s execution, because something works out better. And sometimes the yarn talks to you. It’s not necessarily Pandemic-induced craziness, but possibly inspiration…
Hello, my dears! I hope everyone is alright. I hope wherever you are you’re safe and comfortable. And it can be okay if some days you just feel like a complete mess. I’m pretty sure that’s the new normal now. Recently I’ve been knitting up Gutmonsters again, because I knew so many people that seemed to need one. Gutmonsters, despite their monstery ways, are oddly soothing beasts, because there’s something completely delightful about pulling out a bunch of crocheted innards and stuffing them back in. They’ve become champions of being okay with messiness sometimes…
(It’s hard to keep a dignified facade when everybody can see your organs.)
They also help remind me that perfection is not a thing, especially these days. Sometimes its okay to just be enough to get the job done. My best Gutmonsters have a lot of randomness in them. Their guts aren’t proper guts, though there’s usually at least a recognizable brain in there somewhere. They’re mysteriously unidentifiable for the most part. And that’s the best thing about them, in my humble opinion…
So if you’re feeling a little scattered, a little spread out and messy, that’s okay. I think we all need to be, There’s a lot going on. And when you stuff your guts back in again, they don’t always end up in the same place they started. But they’re still useful, still doing the weirdo things they need doing.
Also, I make the worst analogies ever. And I’m totally okay with that…
No matter how good you are, no matter how long you’ve been working on making your fiber art of choice the best it can be, no matter how much time you can spend or classes you take or knack you may have…for many of us there’s always That Whisper…You know the one. “You suck. That pattern is lame. Other people are so much better at this than you. Why can’t you pick something more challenging, or get a better yarn? Is that approach really the right choice, or are you just being lazy? Gawd, why THAT color? What’s wrong with you, really?”
Even with the insulation of the Pandemic as the perfect excuse to play Keep Away with the rest of society, there are times that criticisms can sink their sharp teeth into your brain and stay there for a while. They can make you put a project down for a while. sometimes for a really long while. Sometimes it’s just your own inner voice bringing the doubt. Sometimes its other knitters. I’ll say it: Most knitters are the warmest, kindest, most generous of people, gleefully offering help and supplies and books and advice, and revelling in other people who Understand. Then there are knitters that are spiteful, horrible gatekeepers that let you know it if you can’t afford the right yarn or have a pattern they think is too simple or gaudy. The fights can be epic, especially for people who never see that side of the fiber community. But knitters are people, and people are terribly imperfect, and they can hurt. Especially if you’re new or have had bad experiences down your particular lonely road. Sometimes That Whisper comes from those people. “Wait, you do cables like THAT? and what’s up with those yarn overs? Humph. Clearly your way is not my way. ”
Even though I’ve been doing fiber arts for a while, I’m not immune to the sting of That Whisper. Not least since I really like handspun yarn, and use it all the time. Handspun yarn, especially the art yarns, tend to shine best when the stitching is fairly simple, as you can lose a lot of the more complex stitches in all those colors and textures. It also makes for gratifyingly fast projects that are fun and easy, so I tend to gravitate to them. Especially these days when there’s just so much to worry about…
Why oh why am I knitting winter wear in the summertime!
I had been hearing That Whisper while knitting up a red hood. It was supposed to be a Red Riding Hood sort of thing, with a little capelet, but I really wanted a scarf/hood combination instead. But the scarf would be warmer, and an easier fit for more people! And I didn’t have enough to make a capelet, not really. But doing a scarf instead? Cop out much? I can’t do better than that, huh? *siiiiiiiigh*
Hey Little Red Riding Hood, You sure are lookin’ good…you’re everything that a Big Bad Wolf could want…
It wasn’t until I talked to another knitterly friend of mine that I realized that the second guessing and running myself down wasn’t helping me or my project. I hadn’t worked on it for a few weeks since I kept looking at it and muttering to myself, “Capelet. Do a freaking capelet. A scarf is just cheating. You cheating knitter, you.” I realized that it was better to trust my instincts in the first place, and listen to what my hands wanted to knit. They wanted to knit a scarf. They wanted something snuggly that wrapped around a throat and kept a warm hood in place in really cold weather.
When you hear That Whisper, don’t listen to the voice. Listen to your hands. What do they want to do? Sometimes your muscle memory is telling you the right thing to do, and it’s good to listen to it. And those other voices? They don’t have to wear what you make, or make the decisions you do. And often That Whisper is hiding their own whisper, the one saying, “You’d better BE better than everybody! Every day! All the time! No matter how weird or inappropriate it is!” And that’s it’s own unhappy hell, no matter how good you are.
So while I do try more complicated knits here and there, it’s the simple ones that give me the most joy. I ignore That Whisper, because it doesn’t know happiness the way I do when I knit that way. Also, sometimes it makes other people warmer than they were before they met me…
My sweet husband: Kind, tolerant, heavily insulated by alpaca…
Keep making fun things, my fellow knitterly friends. Whatever your project is, I’m proud of it, and of you…
From time to time I take on a custom knitting project for someone. Maybe a friend, maybe someone online who needs something they just can’t get any other way. Recently a friend of a friend had a very interesting request for a project. He was a Freddy Krueger impersonator, and needed a custom sweater. A Freddy Krueger sweater?!? Really?!? How could I pass up a project like that?!
So we met at a coffeeshop, I took some basic measurements, as well as photos with a sweater he already had. There was a lady in Britain who made old-school Krueger sweaters in bright greens and reds, and it was a gorgeous bit of knitting. But this incarnation was from the TV series instead, and needed a more olive hue instead of the cheerful Christmas-y colors of the early films. So, ready with my measurements and the pattern I had written out in my notes, I was ready to tackle this thing…
But there was a snag, at first. The kind of colors I saw online for this particular project were, shall we say, kinda bright? Certainly not the slightly sinister tones I needed to make the sweater look right when it was finished. And the nice, dark olive I needed was unavailable in any of the online shops I checked until it occurred to me to try Amazon. Even then, a tea rinse would probably be a smart idea to sadden those bright hues a touch. I was using Plymouth Encore, an excellent acrylic/wool mix yarn that’s a decent pick for a sweater that may see a lot of wear and needed some easy washing. Did it have enough wool to pick up the tea? The answer, happily enough, was yes, and my samples had a slightly browner hue…
So, now that I had a strategy, it’s knitting time!
I am enjoying how the reverse stockingette for the red stripes adds extra dimension!
Greetings, fellow knitty-fiends! I realize it’s been a while since I put something up in this space, but I’ve been busy, in ways I didn’t intend to be. Quite a few things happened over the summer, but what really took up a lot of head space for me was losing my mother. She died in June, and I spent (and spend) a lot of time processing her death.
The hardest part is going through all of her things. Like me, she was artistic, and I’ve been going through her paints and projects, many unfinished. It’s the unfinished ones that really hurt the most to find. Some of it’s glorious, some of it’s awful, and it takes time to really sort everything out. There’s also huge tubs full of movies. so many movies. And mostly, except for the odd animated film, the kind of wonderfully grody, cheapy-budget horror films we both loved so much. I now have every Saw movie, however many they made so far. And other great movies I’m looking forward to watching, like, “Doll Graveyard” and “My Mom Was a Werewolf.” There’s also loads of books, also mostly scary horror or weirdo mystery or funky things Nostradamus said.
But the unfinished projects are the saddest.
At one point I couldn’t look at the unfinished crocheted farmer couple she had been working on any more, and busted out some of her yarns to crochet tentacles for the lady’s unfinished legs. Oddly enough, not only did it make me feel a little better, but the couple looked much more…interesting…
And while I have a photo to share of the couple, It’s not loading right at the moment, and the dolls themselves are in a huge stack of boxes by the china hutch… Yes people, we’re moving! To a larger house with a very nice attic space that will become my new craftroom. It’s a very bright spot after some very dark times.
But there’s still lots of packing to get through first. Le siiiigh…
Crochet needles, Acrylic yarn and Bad, bad super-bad horror movies. That’s how my mom rolled…,
Hello there! Yes, there’s more blathering about the perils of tip-toeing down the perfidous path of knitting! You poor darlings!…
Bunbun the Kitty insisted on helping me with my illustration. Stealing the pen and lying on the paper is not super helpful, Bunbun.
Chapter 6: The Gauge Swatch.
So now you’ve been knitting for a little while, and you’re feeling confident! You can cast on like a pro, you have stopped dropping stitches and your garter stitch is nice and even. So’s your stockingette. You can purl with the best of them. Your pot holders and scarves are wonders of knitting to behold. And you no longer have the new-knitter tight-clutch anymore. Not you! And you’ve become so confident with your knitting prowess that you look at helpful instructions about gauge swatches and are all, “Hah! I don’t need to do that! That’s for the noobs! Not me! My gauge is clearly 4 stitches to the inch on size 8 needles with worsted! Perfect!”
Oh, you poor doomed soul…
1: Start a fun sweater pattern with unfamiliar yarn you just brought home. Look at the gauge measurements and go, “Eh. That’s pretty much what I knit anyway. I don’t need to eat up time making a gauge swatch I don’t need.”
2: Snuggle the yarn. It such pretty yarn. It cries out to be a sweater! *your* sweater! Right now! Right this second!!
3: Cast on with wild abandon and start some ribbing. Stop two rows in and think, “Huh, these stitches are a little stretchy. But it’s ribbing, it should be fine. I think I need a glass of wine!”
4: Pour yourself half a bottle of wine and put on The Craft. Knit happily for several hours. Notice the yarn is sliding a bit loosely, but merrily knit on. Marvel on how the wine keeps your fingers nice and loose while you knit.
5: Finish off the wine and yell happily at the movie. Cheer on the magical catfight at the end. Then look down at the cosy knitting on your lap and realise it’s HUUUUUUGE…
6: Curse at your wine-sozzled fingers. Curse at the movie you were enjoying so much 5 seconds ago. Curse at the pretty, pretty yarn and the pretty, pretty circus tent you’ve been making all this time. Curse at the ghost of Elizabeth Zimmerman, who so sweetly kept reminding you to do that gauge swatch before you got all crazy with that yarn. Curse curse curse!
7: Should you rip it out? Should you rip it out? Should you? You should, you know. Frog that bastard and start over. All the way over. Correctly. Like the knitting badass you know you are. You can do it. Even though it’s hours out of your life. And that sweet magical catfight you watched. It’s there, right where the stitches got extra loose. You were laughing so hard, and that was the last glass of wine, too. Man, that was good stuff…
8: Keep knitting anyway. Decide instead of a shapely pullover it’s going to be a tunic. Keep hearing the psycho mom from Carrie chanting, “They’re all going to laugh at you…they’re all going to laugh at you…” Stubbornly plug on. Of course, now your gauge is too tight because you’re wound up. Try not to get too tight on the neck ribbing. Mutter evil things to yourself…
9: After much cursing, another couple of nights with wine and more horribly funny schlocky movies, you’re done! With your circus tent! That has bits that seem too tight!! Hear the sweet voice of Elizabeth Zimmerman in your head, reassuring you that blocking can fix a lot of things. Hope to hell she’s right, or you’re going to go find her grave and yell at it for a while. She’d understand. She was that kind of lady.
10: The tunic, after blocking, is…really not that bad, actually. Friends compliment it, and really appreciate that off-the-shoulder look you’ve got going there. Smile graciously. Smile nervously. Promise the ghost of Elizabeth Zimmerman a nice bottle of wine if she won’t tell the other knitters the truth. And for each and every new project, a gauge swatch shall be knit. Pinky swear…
My illustration of my sweater woes. It’s shaky because of the aforementioned cat-problems. Please don’t mind the extra cat hair. Bunbun helps the only ways he knows how.
As a lark recently, and to vent about a knitting project I was struggling with, I put up a little chapter in an imaginary book about knitting. It turned out to be a big, big hit, so I suspect I might actually have to *make* this book in the very near future. I should warn you; when you see chapters, they will be out of sequence. Because most knitters tend to jump around in handy guides to knitting, forward and back, to find that one helpful thing they need that now they absolutely cannot find. If you’re a knitter, you’ll definitely understand…
Mrs Mausi’s Guide to Knitting, Chapter 5: Hats…
Pick out several pretty yarns for your project, realise none of them go together. Swear under your breath.
Knit the band slightly too tightly, with nice bamboo needles. Curse a little, undo the stitches, start over. Repeat at least twice.
Question your choice of yarn. Question your choice of needles. Question your skills as a knitter. Switch over to slidey aluminum needles
Just as you’re getting into the zone, watch your stitches slide off your slidey needles. Swear like a sailor. Swear like an annoyed sailor. Swear like an annoyed sailor who picked the wrong bloody needles. Rearrange the whole yarny mess in your lap so it doesn’t slither away. Refuse to change needles, because you can make this work, right? Right? Right!?
Finally get to the decreases on the top. Feel like you’ve climbed Mount Everest with nothing but a salad fork. Hope like hell it won’t ladder much. Punch the air in victory…And remember you still have to embroider stuff on it. Arrrgh…
…The hat? Turned out great, actually. Never let anybody tell you that you can’t get anything done while swearing, because it just isn’t so…
See the expression on my face? You can see the inward cussing, even after it turned out pretty nicely, actually…
The darkest dark, the reddest red, the sparkliest sparkly!!
It started it’s dark and sparkly life in a basement of a museum, surrounded by coffee and polyester sweaters and noise. Lots and lots of noise…
Not pictured: a handheld radio, a cup of tea, gurgling pipes overhead and my frowny little face as I try to concentrate…
I usually bring knitting to my job, to help me unwind between breaks and to sneak a little time into my various projects. More often than not it’s something I spun up myself that demands to be made into something right this minute. Yarn can be pushy like that. So very pushy. This yarn was a dark black, red and white spiral-ply I spun up from one of the beautiful batts at Butterflygirl Designs on Etsy. I’ve bought from her for years, and her goods are always so good. One of the nice things about handspun yarn is that you can keep your stitches pretty simple and let the yarn do all the work of being pretty…
Workplace knitting has it’s own challenges. It’s noisier than home, of course. There’s lots of traffic, and the possibility of spills, crumbs, overcurious coworkers poking at your project, moving it or distracting you enough to drop a stitch or two. I’ve lost count of the times on a break where I answer a workplace question while my hands are moving, and when I look down…I messed up that yarn over. Again. Drat it all. And I mutter quietly to myself when I think nobody can hear me. (But of course my coworkers can totally hear me. I can tell by the snickering)
Then there are the usual jokes. Requests to knit whole sweaters for 20 bucks, or nothing. Various eyerolls, “only grandmas knit” or “knitting nerd” comments. The occasional vampire-slayer remarks. (I actually like these remarks because I get to brandish a knitting needle in a mildly threatening fashion.) But sometimes there are the people who sidle over and gently pet the yarn, or ask if I have time to crank out some wristwarmers for them, or can I make a goofy gutmonster for a birthday or something. I love these people.They get extra guts in their knitted gutmonsters.
Mostly I just like the peace. After I get into the groove a little bit, I can float right off into a nice soft realm of stitches and fluffy textures and away from the workaday life for a little while. I feel a little more rested on a break where I’m working on something. And when I’m finished, I just glow with a little well-earned pride. A moment in a gloomy basement redolent with the smell of burned coffee and old pizza can be the brightest part of my day when I bind off that last stitch…
Ah, the holiday season…where everybody, including me, starts to panic about presents for the loved ones in their life. Like anybody who knits, I get loads of requests for last minute speed-knitting of pretty, warming things. Some of them are very doable. Many are too time-crunching. A few are jaw-droppingly ludicrous. Sweaters. Elaborate socks. Entire blankets. Union suits. Alien face-hugger masks with bendable leggies. Huge Dwarf helmet-hats with horns and braided beards. While it’s extremely flattering to hear that people think I have magical knitterly skills, I have to turn the big projects down. I also start getting that hunted look on my face, where I’m expecting to sprint down the corridors at work with my coworkers chasing me, yelling, “No, wait, it’s just a last-minute thing, I know you can do it by Christmas!! Come Baaaack!”
But that said, I’ve cranked out a few pretty things, here and there…
Mochi Marshmallow wristwarmers, with mohair,merino and handspun angora…A skein of silver angora I plied with a soft silk thread for extra strength and shine…
Both of these lovely things have already been claimed. I should make more. When can I make more? So many things to make!! So many! Do I have enough yarn? The right kind? Do I have to make some? Why did I make this fussy, time-consuming thing that everybody wants now? I Must Make Many Many THIIIIIIIINGS!!
And then possibly ask Santa for a Time-Turner, or manybe a Margarita machine. It’s medicinal, I tellya…
Ah, Halloween…it was lovely, everything I hoped for, and now it’s just a happy memory.
But I did get a fun photo of Shamu the Bunny in a jaunty Steampunk hat… Shamu is a dapper little fellow when I put hats on his tiny, rabbity head…
And now it’s the season where everybody realizes they’ve lost their mitts or something’s eaten their scarf and they come running to me. I’ve been plotting and planning new mitts and hats to make, and today I’m just playing with colors, to see what seems to click. So far I’ve got a rose and caramel mix of mohair yarns I like a lot, as well as some black and deep purple sari silk for a Gothly scarf. I have to remind myself to play sometimes; it’s good to make custom stuff to order, but it’s even better to come up with something new…
