When the going gets tough, the tough make stuff.

Some times are meant more for creating, it seems, and others for talking about and documenting the creating. The last few months have been more of the former, less of the latter. I notice that the last couple entries are about losses. January and February were pretty arse-tastic in that respect, I suppose. My brain's response has been to prod me to make things - things to keep me and others warm and wrap us all up in comfort.

Makes sense to me.

I finished those mittens that I was working on in December, according to my notes, on January 10, and they have seen wear almost every day since. The pattern was for fingerless with the option of making them into mittens. I decided to make mittens with removable tops:

Mostly-Fingerless Malabrigo Flip-top Mittens

We also have another finished baby blanket for a friend. Little V, daughter of Vanessa, is nearly a year old now. This blanket has been on the go since before her arrival was imminent:

Crochet really can fix anything, it's true. Consistent sized squares? Bah, that's for wimps.

Truly a group project in every way, Lydia, Manami, Sarah, Chris, Tanya and myself worked out a layout, went shopping together in December 2008, divided up the yarn squares and got creative with picking our favourite stitch patterns for the squares. Several of us even took up hooks over the last couple months and learned (or re-learned, as the case may be) to crochet so that über-crocheter Liisa wasn't stuck putting it all together on her own. It was finally delivered last weekend, and pics of a happy Little V with her blankie landed in our inboxes earlier this week. Hurrah for finishing before she's ready to go to grad school herself, I say!

And then there are the cardigans. I recently decided there is an appalling lack of cardigans in my wardrobe. Enter the Liesl cardigan. I originally started it as the "Liesl de Manos", in a lovely light colour of Manos del Uruguay silk blend. Unfortunately, I needed size 15 needles to even come close to gauge, and I didn't like how it was looking, so it was frogged a few rounds into the yoke increases. I re-started using Malabrigo worsted, and redubbed it (in intentionally bad Spanish) the "Liesl de no Manos":

The Liesl of Not Manos, in Malabrigo worsted (Plena colourway), ready for some sleeves.

The left sleeve is done now, and I'm working on the right one. The back will be as long as the remaining wool allows.

It's going so well, and so quickly, that I've decided to make a second one, this time as a "concert black" cardigan for when I don't want to sweat my butt off under stage lights wearing the Shimmer shrug for band concerts. I love that shrug, it was a true learning experience. But it has its problems, not the least of which: it's heavy. Really freaking heavy. And despite all the re-engineering of the sleeves, they are still a little longer than I'm totally comfortable with when playing the horn. I really need a short-sleeve concert sweater.

Not to make it too easy, because what's the fun in that, I'm planning to spin some lightweight singles to knit together with the plain black yarn to give it a little shine. I found this marvelous roving last month:

Wool and Soysilk, Louet "Karaoke Black Tiger" roving

Spinning is underway. I'll need a good 800 yards of it at least, so it won't be an instant gratification kind of thing, but I'll have enough by the time I finish the "Liesl de no Manos" to be able to start knitting, and I'll continue to spin as-needed.

Finally, in a fit of crazy, I started a second cardigan. This one is a bigger project, definitely not for instant gratification. It's also intended to be another on-stage-appropriate cardigan for over the sleeveless black concert dress. I'm making a February Lady Sweater, or what I have dubbed my "February 'Hey Lady!' Sweater":

The neverending garter-stitch yoke increases on the "February 'Hey, Lady!' Sweater." Yarn is Cascade 200 wool.

I can't wait to separate off the sleeves so that it no longer takes me 15 minutes to knit a single row. The never-ending garter stitch is killing me here, I'm looking forward to the lace pattern. My friend Jean, who is a glass bead maker, offered to make me some buttons for this, because she is made of awesome. I can't wait - this sweater definitely needs special buttons, and what she has in mind sounds perfect.

When the Zombie Apocalypse comes, my friends and I will be ready. We'll have plenty of warm blankets, we'll be wearing sweaters, and we'll be kicking butt and taking names.

Born to work with fibre, I guess: An excavation of love

When Grandma Helen passed away over five years ago, my mother and uncle faced the herculean task of cleaning out her house and selling it. They could have called in help, boxed things up, sold things off and gotten it done and over with quickly, but they didn't. They decided to take their time. Gram was a firebrand, creative, a collector of quite a few things, and sorely missed by a lot of people. All the grandkids were allowed to come to the house when we wanted and set aside things we would like to have. Those things would be okayed by mom and uncle, and given to us. Mom gave away pieces of the glass collection to friends, anyone touched by Helen who wanted a keepsake. She still does it. It took them over a year to clean out the house and sell it, but it was worth it.

Early on, I offered to deal with all the fabric and fibre-related things. Gram was mostly a crocheter, but she also did a good amount of knitting and sewing (clothes for us, then later doll and puppet clothes). I asked Mom to check with uncle, his daughters and my sister (the other three grandkids) and see if anyone else wanted to join me while I sorted through the boxes, or split stuff with me. No one did. So one day four or so years ago, Mom and I spent the day at the house. We cried. We laughed. I swore at Gram when I was stabbed by rusty pins that she left in pieced-together pieces of fabric. Gram had far more WIPs and UFOs than I do, which is somehow reassuring. Take, for instance, this blue cardigan, found in a bag with a plenty more yarn, 80% finished and still on a circular needle:


I plan to finish it and give it to my older sister, who was very close to Gram and misses her terribly.

Most of the acrylic yarn (bags and bags of Red Heart) was given to a ladies' church auxiliary for making blankets. For the last five or so years of her life, Gram was far less mobile and spent a lot of time watching TV and making granny square afghans. Mom would buy 1 lb. balls of Red Heart by the bagful every so often and drop them off. Mom still has dozens of these afghans, which she occasionally gives away, and I have a couple:


The rust/mustard/white afghan is also crocheted by hand - by my great-grandmother K., Grandma Helen's mom. I've had it since my pre-teens and use it every day.

I also brought a big bag of acrylic home with me and sent most of it to my husband's home-bound grandmother. Most of the fabric stash, once I had removed all the rusty pins and updated my tetanus shot *rollseyes*, went to a family friend who is an avid quilter. I kept a few things, including all of Gram's knitting needles and crochet hooks. While I usually use my Denise interchangables for knitting, once in a while I use a set of her straight needles. I definitely use the crochet hooks.


She kept all her crochet hooks in that old alka-seltzer bottle for as long as Mom can remember.

Now that we're mostly settled into the house (it's been a year), I'm starting to delve into the boxes that were not meant to be unpacked for a while. One of those was the auxiliary knitting box: the sub-prime yarn stash, UFOs and things I don't use regularly but want to keep. And mementos. Here are a few tidbits, and their stories.


Several two-sided crochet samples, and a selection of crochet flowers.

The blue and white two-sided crochet sample in the picture above is special - Mom says this piece is exactly the same as a baby blanket that Gram made for me when I was born. Mom has the blanket. The crochet flowers are something that always make me think of Gram. In my teens, she began decorating sweatshirts with these in various colour combinations, also embroidering leaves and stems, and adding a crochet bit around the neckline. They became very popular at our church, and she made them for a lot of people. I think I still have a couple, but they don't fit any more. Mom definitely has some. I now have several bags of these flowers, apparently waiting for decades for their own sweatshirts.


The ladybug dress, with matching bag. All together now: "Aaaaaaaaw!"

This was also made for me as a child. I don't remember wearing it, but boy do I hope I did. That matching baggy is awesome. I think I need to make a bigger version, like, now.

As I said before, going through those boxes was a whirlwind of emotion. We laughed, we cried, I swore, we laughed some more. And then there were the things that stopped me dead in me tracks. Take, for example, the following:


An odd colour combination for granny squares.

Mom pulled out the bag with this yarn and four sample granny squares. It was all packed away together. I can think of only one good reason Gram would try fighting with fuzzy yarn to make matching orange and blue granny squares. I did my undergraduate at Syracuse University. It was my first time living away from home, and Gram was probably more worried about me than my mother. I would get cards and letters from her regularly, usually with a $20 bill tucked inside and a post-it note that said, "Get yourself a pizza. I love you, honey." But what does this have to do with the granny squares and yarn above?

The colours of Syracuse University - and a considerable amount of my wardrobe at that time, since I was in the marching and pep bands, were, and are, orange and blue.

We could be wrong - we're guessing about her intentions, of course. That yarn is pretty old (see label), but then, she was a frequent thrift store and yard sale shopper. But other things don't require conjecture:


Handwritten notes, and monogram initials.

There are hundreds of little pieces of paper just like this one, with notes scribbled on them - colour combinations, bits of patterns, sometimes mixed with bits of scripture. Tangible reminders, as if I need more, of her creativity, energy and faith. And the occasional tangible reminders of her love. Those monogram initials? They're mine, for my maiden name. Hard to say what project she bought them for specifically. It's probably in a note somewhere.

I come from a long line of women who worked with fibre. Even today, their work continues to add colour and warmth to the lives of many, not just mine. I know, without a doubt, with the assured knowledge of one who has experienced it, that with each stitch, they were thinking of the intended recipient of their work - very often me - and of those who came before them, those who taught them. Every night that I pull out that alka-seltzer bottle of crochet hooks, I honour her memory. Every time I cover myself or my husband with one of those blankets, I am wrapping myself in the love of my grandmothers.

Cheesy? Sappy? Youbetcha. But I will never go cold, and I will always feel their love.

I love it when a plan comes together

The super-secret joint knitting project that I last blogged about here was finished and delivered shortly before I went on vacation. All parties involved are (pick one or more:) pleased, surprised, happy, relieved, in recovery, totally into the bright colours.

A group of four knitters (me, Sarah, Lydia, Tanya) and a crocheter (Liisa) in my graduate department pooled our collective string-wrangling prowess together and made an afghan for another grad student (Christine), herself a knitter, who was having a baby. Er, make that had a baby, a few months ago, and a very cute one at that. I don't make a habit of putting pictures of other people's kids up on my blog, especially without explicit permission, so you'll just have to trust me.

I can, however, post some pictures of the finished blanket. Well, mostly finished. I think this was before the crochet ends were woven in. The "finished" pictures all feature a very cute infant, whose mother I will have to speak to in-person before I go posting his adorable mug willy-nilly all over the innernets.


Yarn: New Bernat Satin. Very light and soft, 100% Acrylic, 100% (the most important thing!) puke-washable

Each colour of square contains a different pattern. The patterns for the squares are from this book of knitted baby washcloths. We used six red rocking horses, ten orange butterflies, eight yellow duckies, six green bunnies, four blue sailboats, and two purple baby carriages.

Each of the knitters took a colour and pattern, according to how fast we thought we could knit and how much time we had over the next several weeks. I'm always looking for a good cause for procrastination, so I jumped on the ten orange butterflies that evening, while Lydia took the yellow duckies. Tanya took the red (and eventually also the blue), and Sarah took the green. I finished relatively quickly (yay, procrastination!) so later on I also did the 2 purple squares. For those who are interested in such things, we got almost exactly four squares out of a ball of yarn.

For yuks, here is the "napkin layout": After Liisa proposed the project and we all signed on, Lydia, Liisa and I made the initial covert field trip to Mary Maxim in late February to pick out yarn, look for some patterns, and then sit down somewhere with food and figure out the logistics. Finding the washcloth pattern book* was an inspirational lucky turn, and "somewhere with food" ended up being the foodcourt of the mall, so between bites of my A&W rootbeer and burger, I sketched out the general game plan and layout on a food court napkin.


All the best plans are drawn on a napkin.

We were, of course, hoping the squares would all turn out the same size... but realistically, four different knitters all getting exactly the same size squares? Not likely. Lydia did some blocking, which helped, but Liisa was the star who took all the squares and made them fit together using the wonderous power of crochet. She even managed to do it while keeping our original layout intact. Here's a closeup of her excellent crochet border.


All hail the magic of crochet!


*I'm not usually one for the simple washcloth patterns, but I think I might have to get this other booklet by the same designer.