stress knitting

A year ago, when I first endeavored into the wild and crazy world of sock knitting, I never would have guessed that it would now be known as my comfort knitting. Last night, while watching the US men's under 23 soccer team team play, and I tried to sort out who to invite to the rehearsal dinner while I emailed the wedding photographer, in between crocheting those freaking wedding shower dishcloths, I looked longingly at Nancy Bush's Knitting on the road : sock patterns for the traveling knitter as it sat sadly on my shelf. So, what did i do? i stayed up, with my frazzled nerves and attempted to knit the sock that looked like a whiskey cask until midnight. Well, gentle reader, it didn't. The vikkel braid is not to be trifled with past a certain hour in the evening, I'm afraid.

I did, however, through the glory of ravelry and its free pattern browse, find the Nutkin Sock and shall start on that this weekend. Even though my sage coworkers are advising me to keep on keepin' on with the dishcloths, they do not understand the soul-crushing power that working with that much cotton can bring. Also, there's some sort of peace and solace that concentrating on starting of on that first sock brings, before you get the pattern down. It's just really nice and calming, and just what this over-stressed, planned-to-the-max lady needs!

This + a cup of tea = heaven, this weekend

Golden Hands are the Devil's Playthings

After finding out from the lovely Marissa and Denyse about the sheer and vast publication glory that is Golden Hands, I spent the last of my money that was in my Paypal account and purchased this:

I think I might be addicted! I haven't done cross-stitch since I was 9, but that shouldn't stop me, right?

The Decline of Country and Western Civilization

This past weekend, my folks came down to visit and I am happy to say dishcloth creation was put on hold while wedding planning took over. We also went to the Grand Ole Opry at the Ryman Auditorium downtown, which was great, but I digress. When we weren't running around tasting cupcakes or discussing red Gerbera daisies, we thrift stored (hello, DIY center pieces) and hit Nashville's finest used bookstores. I scored bigtime!

I found this one book from 1973 called "Sew Exciting! Sew Simple!" that is right out of that era's vein of feminism that is sort of self-aware and apologetic, and is sort of like, "It's okay to want to sew your husband a terrycloth bathrobe! Women have been doing it for ages!" It's kind of hilarious. I will treasure it forever.


The other, "The Color Book of Embroidery" is sort of a hippy dippy 70s acid trip through embroidery. It does have a primer on smocking (yay!), but some of the projects are downright frightening (think weird elves) and there are creepy baby blankets that are kind of hilarious. This book was a whopping $2.00. The other was 25 cents. Yes. 25 cents. I picked up another for 2 bucks that is aptly titled and "Encyclopedia of Needlework" which I reckon will come in handy (no pun intended).

The peach colored pillowcases in the background were a gift from my aunt. The beautiful crocheted ends! The other was found thrifting this weekend for 69 cents. I intend to make and apron out of it.


Now this book is a certifiable doozy. It's called "Golden Hands : a comprehensive guides to knitting, dressmaking & needlecraft." Oh, the Kaftans! The owls! It has some utterly amazing things. While looking at some Russian Orthodox-esque tapestry designs in this book, my father told me a story of how he loved the movie"Dr. Zhivago" so much (who can blame him?) that he asked my grandmother to make him a tunic shirt much like Omar Shariff's shirt in the movie. Yeah, she did. WITH EMBROIDERY.

That, ladies and gentleman, is what's in my gene pool. I've just got to tap into that well some more.

(keep feeling) fascination

my book, The Crafter's Companion arrived in the mail yesterday, and i spent most of yesterday evening reading it! the introduction provided absolute sense to this entire craft world which a lot of us seem to be immersed in by choice, by habit, by compulsion, and by fun:

"As the back of this book wonders, why do we bothers to make things by hand when we live in a world where our every material desire can be fulfilled by ready-made, shop-bought items? On the large scale, I like to think the the 'craft wave' is a reaction to this world; we create because the mass produced just isn't special enough." (Torborg, 2006)

(I'm such a librarian)

Also, the book has great patterns, which I intend to start on ASAP!

Anyway, I couldn't agree with that any more. I've often wondered why I can never sit in front of the television without having something in my hands. My grandmother was the same way. As I've mentioned before, I come from a long line of crafty ladies, and my dad is quite talented in all sorts of woodworking pursuits. I love that the need to connect with what we create may be hereditary.




Works cited:

Torborg, Anna, ed. (2006). The Crafter's Companion. London: Snowbooks.