DesigKnit

I’m still recovering from a solid week of holiday visiting, so this post will be short on words. (I seem to have run out.) I did want to get the Christmas crafting up before the end of the year, though, and that’s coming soon!

I don’t usually do much holiday crafting, since deadline crafting combined with the end of a semester is usually a really bad idea. This year there were a few projects tucked under the tree, though.

The bunny did end up with a dress (though, sadly, not a tutu).

She also got new ears, which were much floppier and more rabbit-like than the first ones. I’m much happier with the new set, though I bet my niece would have been happy with either. I sent Branden off on a last-minute trip to the fabric store looking for supplies, and he picked out the fabric and accents for the dress all on his own. Didn’t he do a good job? (You know you have a well-trained husband when he can be trusted to pick out fabric for you…)

My sister got a Tardis scarf:

She’s a big fan of Dr. Who and made a request. I had plans for a different way of making the squares, and switched to waffle weave at the last minute.  Turns out that it makes a great Tardis. Who knew?

I absolutely loved the fabric on this one. It was thick and squishy, and there will definitely be more waffle weave on my loom. Hopefully very soon.

My other sister scored a couple of skeins of handspun (about 450 yards in total). She’s been toying with knitting lately, and so I thought it was a good time to encourage that activity with some special supplies.

A couple of holiday scarves also made it off the loom, just in time for wrapping.

The color isn’t quite right here, but the bright, holiday red wasn’t playing nice with the camera. Both were woven from the same warp (red 10/2 bamboo at 30 epi), and had different wefts. The one on the left was plainweave with kind of a blue violet color for my aunt, and the one on the right was more of a deep plum in a point twill, which I kept for myself. This picture does a much better job of showing off the color:

Together with my first Briar Rose sweater, it made the perfect Christmas outfit.

And there you have it. An unusually crafty holiday for me, and a fun one. Maybe if I start planning now, I’ll be able to do it all again next year.

So that’s it for my Christmas crafting. Hope you all had a good holiday!

Here it is, Sunday night again already, and I haven’t posted yet. Fortunately, I have been crafting more than my blogging might suggest. (Mostly, I have been swamped by work.) Also fortunately, the semester ends next Saturday, so I’ll be able to switch to a planning-and-preparing mode rather than a constantly-on-demand mode, so I might actually be coherent and creative again. But anyway. Here’s what’s been going on behind the scenes.

1) A lot of stockinette.

I need something mindless when the semester is crazy, and this laceweight moebius has been just the thing. I ran out of yarn yesterday, and started the cast off in a contrasting color. On a whim, I also added some beads. I kind of love it.

2) A quick diversion.

This was last weekend’s project. I heard through the grapevine that my niece is in a stuffed animal phase. I grabbed some yarn leftovers and did some doodling. Not sure I’m 100% thrilled with the ears, but I like how the rest of it came out.  I think she may also need a dress, but we’ll see what happens before the holiday.

3) Another quick diversion.

We have somehow managed to misplace all 5 pairs of Branden’s handwarmers. This is mostly my fault: Branden is constantly losing his handwarmers around the house and can usually only find one of any given pair. Last spring, I forced him to collect them all in one place so that we could find them, which means that they have all disappeared together this time. It’s gotten to the time of year when the steering wheel is cold in the morning, so I whipped up an emergency pair from some handspun in the stash.

4) Playing with a new toy.

I finally caved and bought a floor loom. I’ve been wanting a wider loom forever, and the smaller loom was starting to limit my ability to produce the things I want to produce. So, we bit the bullet and upgraded to a 36″ weaving width. It also has four more shafts (total of 8), so I have some experimenting to do. First, though, I took advantage of the wider weaving area to make a color gamp.

A gamp is really just a fancy word for a sampler. I made a warp with about an inch of each color in my stash, and am now weaving an inch with each color in turn. You get one square where warp and weft are the same color along the diagonal, and the other squares show you that color mixed with all the others. It’s a great reference piece to have on hand, and I’ve needed some color recently. I wove one in plain weave and am about halfway through one in twill. I can’t wait to have these hanging on my wall!

I got an early-morning text message last Saturday to say that my grandmother had passed away suddenly. It’s hard to say that losing an 88-year old is ever unexpected, really, but it did take us all by surprise. She was healthy and active until the end, which came quickly and without pain. This has been a week of family: a wake, funeral, holiday, and then the cleaning out of her apartment, all in the space of 8 days. Among the things we brought home is this:

A piece of my grandmother’s knitting.

Grandma would have laughed at the idea of being identified as a “Knitter.” For her, knitting was just something you did, not an identity you took on. When you had someone close by to knit for, you knit for them. If you didn’t, you gave things to charity. In fact, most of her knitting was donated; she didn’t think anyone in the family would want it (despite protestations to the contrary). And yet, she knit unabated for decades and only gave it up when her hands couldn’t hold the needles. She made some beautiful things. She wasn’t a designer by any means (she loved to tell people that she wasn’t even the least bit “creative”), but she completed more projects than I can count, all beautifully executed and flawlessly finished. This is one of the few pieces that survived the downsizing of her house, and I’m happy to be one of the lucky ones who gets to keep a piece of her knitting. Honestly, this afghan probably didn’t mean a lot to her, but it does mean a lot to me…one small piece of a collection that represents one of the most consistent themes of her life.