Wimple

Can I share how disgusted I am to be back in my cube this week? I was just not ready. Foolishly, I scheduled a meeting for Friday otherwise I'd take a day off. Sigh. I haven't had a minute to myself and I certainly haven't had enough time to knit satisfactorily.

This is what I would've done on my non-existent day off. Wake up whenever. Knit. Eat. Knit. Work out. Knit. Shower. Go shopping. Knit and watch movies. Aah. Maybe I'll get my chance during those post-holiday clearances.

In the meantime, I have cast on for a wimple. What is a wimple? I have no idea. I think it's something between a cowl and a poncho-ette. I got it from my pattern a day calendar by Paulette Lane and friends.

I made a hat that I'm very happy with, but it doesn't match any of my other winter coordinates, thus the need for a wimple. This should be pretty straightforward, just a big stockinette tube, but of course no time, no time.

Knit Cap Finished

I finally finished my knit cap.

I'll indulge everyone with a shoddy brim pattern, I posted a shoddy hat pattern elsewhere.

I picked up 30 some stitches for a 6 inch brim.
I knit 5 rows of stockinette.
I increased 1 stitch on every row for 16 rows (increasing on both knit and purl rows.)
Then I decreased 1 stitch on every row for 16 rows (decreasing on both knit and purl rows.)
Then I knit 5 rows of stockinette.

I stuffed the plastic canvas into this brim knitting, folded the knitting in 1/2 over the brim and seamed the whole job shut.

How did I get this plastic canvas shaped right? Sigh. I drew a line 6 inches long on a sheet of paper and I marked a line 2 and 1/2 inches above. Then I busted out the compass and worked some dissecting madness. I ended up with curves that "looked right" and fit the 6 inch by 2.5 inch dimensions.

I traced the brim onto a piece of plastic canvas and cut it out. I end up trimming the corners so they're not pointy and drilling into my temples.

I haven't worn it out yet because it's been mercifully warm around here lately. We'll see how it goes. I went ahead and awarded myself a gold for knitting up a fad in the same season that I noticed it. Although the knitting itself, it does not qualify for any kind of Olympics.

Happy Thanksgiving

I made some food! :)
This was courtesy of the good people at Dulaan Chicago.
I'll find out if it's edible later.

DIY Trunk Show

This weekend I was privy to the DIY trunk show on Natalia's recommendation. I went in search of purple stitch markers and was not disappointed. I also walked away with another series of stitch markers. Call me easily amused, but they make me giggle every time I look at them.

There was another intriguing vendor with hand crafted needles. Unfortunately, they were too large for my purposes, but I LOVED THEM! Again, perhaps I'm a bit simple, but I think it's really funny to knit with a one-eyed alien needle, or a nice piece of shrimp sushi.

I talked my friend into buying some needles for her daughter. I said, "Nobody else will have anything like them". I was right. None of her friends had needles like them. Actually none of her friends had needles at all. The poor child can't knit! The scarves and hats she's been working on at school are made on some weaving thingy.

Imagine the child putting on a brave face and thanking her mom for the kind present of two wooden sticks with big purple Easter Island heads on them. I'm sure she ran back to her room and started dialing the community mental health hotline, "My mom bought me some big Polynesian skewers, is this normal?" Oh well, at least I might get another knitting convert out of the experience.

House Guest Trauma

I'll have to post the knitting news later. I'm thoroughly traumatized by some houseguests. On this day, Monday November 20, 2006 I decree the following houseguest rules.

Rule #1

I hereby declare that one should not invite unknown bodies into your host's house. If your host has never met your invitee, they should probably stay home.

Corollary #1

I hereby declare that if you have never met the invitee yourself, you should REALLY not invite them.

Corollary #2

I hereby declare that if you invite a body you and your host have never met, you should not decide to get pissed off at them and ignore them for 1/2 the day.

Rule #2

I hereby declare that if you snore, get a hotel room.

Corollary #1

I hereby declare that if your snore sounds you're filming Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3 get the hotel room in another county.

Once I pry the earplugs out, I'll recap the weekend knitting activity.

A Stitch In Time

Here's some historical knitting for you. I wonder what my politically active knitting would say.

Lost My Mojo

The knit cap prototype is complete. I gave it away as I was finishing it, so there's no photo. However, I may be able to abduct the hat later and get a photo after all. In the end, my brim was 2 1/2 inches deep and six inches wide. Anything deeper looked huge and awful. It took a lot of frogging and plastic canvas trimming to get it there.

In the meantime, some fashion unsavories were spotted wearing knit caps. Alas! The knit cap got common. Even though I cobbled together a pattern and a working prototype, my desire wanes.

Looking like Britney Spears is not even within the realm of possibility for me. Nobody's going to see me in my knit cap and say, "Hey look! It's Britney Spears!" Furthermore, I cannot accentuate my knit cap with silicone boobs.

I have the yarn, I have the cognitive dissonance. Maybe Britney knit up that hat herself. That would inspire my mojo to return. Unfortunately the hat is probably retail like the boobs.

Meryl Streep Knits Continental

This weekend I was procrastinating on cleaning and flipped on the TV. I caught "A Cry in the Dark" as it was beginning. Even though I found it a bit slow and started vacuuming anyway, Meryl Streep had me sobbing by the end of the movie as is her wont. There's nothing like sobbing and vacuuming.

The movie depicts the true story tribulations of an Australian couple whose baby is attacked by a dingo. The media frenzy surrounding the event ends by accusing the couple of murder.

In a few blink-and-you'll-miss-it shots, Meryl was knitting. At first I thought maybe it was staged, but in the second knitting scene Ms. Streep was knitting continental! This was no posed affair. Her index finger was moving yarn like it meant business. I was pleased.

Oops

I had the dubious pleasure of packing my knitting and forgetting my wallet the other day. That meant I could neither ride the bus nor buy food.

Where are my priorities? Clearly knitting is fun, but I can't eat it. I mean, it might be fibrous and heart-healthy, but it does nothing for the palate. And my knitting's not big enough to test drive for magic-carpet properties.

So there I was, stranded and hungry, but I had my knitting.

Why Can't I Knit with Guys Like This?

Dulaan in Retrospect

I knew the Dulaan thing would be happenin' when I realized that the host had indeed ordered pizza. Nevertheless, I tried to stay away from the food because it was a fat-in-a-flash fest. Noone made it out the door any lighter.

I had the dubious pleasure of leaving with more items than I arrived with. First of all, generous knitters donated most excellent stash for the day. I quickly swiped a ball of turquoise. Who would give away their turquoise?!? Anyway, that was my project for the day. I whipped up the blue hat. I want mittens for it eventually. At one point someone took a picture while I was frogging the stripes. My shame. Why take a photo of someone knitting under duress? (I guess they could keep it and snicker in the even of their own knitting mishap.) I also started a little vest with someone's lovely stash.

Then there was la piece de resistance. I won a prize! The heavens opened and angels sang. The prize of note was hand crafted knitting needles with amethyst caps and a lush case that was referred to as "suggestive". "I want that!" I thought as I worked my hat. Suddenly my name was called and I floated up to the knitting needles. We had chemistry, I could tell, it was meant to be. I'm still on a beautiful needle high. How can one have a bad day after that?


There was of course some lovely knitting including an incredible fair isle vest and an entrelac hat. Kudos and envy to those knitters.

A Potluck Eew!

I'm supposed to be going to the Dulaan potluck on Saturday. Let me just say that I hate potlucks! Why do I hate potlucks? The answer is simple. I can't cook. Why subject others to culinary attempts that I won't eat myself? There's also the issue of overconfidence. Someone's really proud of their Funyon casserole, you eat it to be polite and grapple with the heartburn for 2 days. I'm all about take-out. Let's order a pizza instead.

Unintentional Halloween Costume

The prototype phase of the knit cap is almost complete! I've ordered the yarn to start the real live thing. In the meantime, if anyone is interested I'm typing up a quick pattern for the cap.

I had worsted weight yarn with a gauge of about 5 stitches per inch.

I cast on 81 stitches and worked in k3 p1 for two inches.
Then I increased to k6 p1 for 5 inches.
From brim to decrease I had a 7 inches.
I worked this pattern inside out because I could not figure out how to increase on a purl stitch. If someone is more savvy, they could flip the knits and the purls. This inside out strategy also meant I wasn't purling much which might be appealing.

My 1st decrease row decreased to the original 81 sts. Then I knit a row.
I decreased some more so I got down to k1 and p1 and knit a row.
I kept decreasing taking care to preserve the line of knit on the other side of the cap and knitting a row in between decrease rows. Eventually I ran out of knit stitches. So at the end I was purling everything, again to preserve the knit line created by purling on the right side of the cap.
Once I decreased down to 5 stitches I closed the hat by pulling the yarn through the stitches and weaving in the end.



The brim is another story. I traced a brim from a regular baseball cap onto plastic canvas. I used 14 squares per inch. I'm not sure if the 10 squares per inch would've made a big difference. Let me just say that it was too big. I ended up with a duck-billed platypus converter as a hat. QUACK! Is that what the platypuses say?

The idea is to pick up stitches and knit up a brim cover that you fold in 1/2 over the plastic canvas. This all worked fine and well. It was the brim that wasn't happenin. I guess baseball caps serve different purposes than winter knit caps. Duh. At least now I can dress my kids up as duck billed platypuses for Halloween whenever these kids come to exist.

In the meantime I'm still working on a reasonable, fashionable brim, but I'm certainly optimistic. I could always wear the brimless hat as well.