Knitting for others

I've been reading about the Mitten Ladies who knit hundreds of mittens each year for charity.  Also about someone's aunt who used to knit afghans and give them away - who gave everything away that she knitted, keeping nothing for herself.  And the people who knit for Preemies and blankets for the orphaned and the homeless, for shelters for battered wives [see www.simplyknitting.co.uk]

It made me realise how unutterably selfish I am.  I struggle to knit a single item for myself that might actually compliment my ancient wardrobe...me, me, me, that's me.  I knit for my daughter in an effort to replace the jerseys my mother might have knitted her had she still been alive.  I knit for her to replace the jerseys my mother knitted for me years ago, that I wore out and ended up giving away to charity when I should have kept them.  I seem to be fighting myself in that line:  but that's me.  A mass of contradictions.  How lovely to have the time and the ability to whip out a pair of mittens in an evening for someone who is freezing to death on the other side of the world.  Balm for the guilty soul.  When I think about the endless problems of my life that I can't deal with, I wonder if it wouldn't just be easier to think about other people's problems, to deal with them instead of with one's own life.

Is that how charity begins?  To make yourself feel better?  Or am I once again showing my selfishness, my inability to truly empathize with others, thinking only of myself and how I feel and the tears I cry, the victim inside me that won't take a brave step.

Today I will have a go at stuffing that owl.  It has to be easier than thinking about the world.

On the needles (4)

Here it is, the lovely Gedifra Fiorista bought on a sale at John Lewis - only got 6 balls, so not enough for anything!  I thought I'd knit a tank top, something fun to wear over rapidly aging T-shirts.  I knew at some point that I was going to run out of wool so I planned on 3 balls for the front, 3 for the back, the yoke in a lighter colour and the armhole and neck ribs in something bright.  Hunting about on the internet was no good - I couldn't be sure the colour was exact enough and choosing a substitute yarn that was going to have a similar tension was going to be hugely hit and miss!  By chance I found myself in Liberty's (I think I was having a miserable Sunday....not the best day to hit Oxford Street but it proved to be auspicious!) and with some help from the Rowan assistant, found some Belle Organic Aran by Amy Butler.  It's a wool/cotton while the Gedifra is cotton/acrylic, but they seem to work well together.  While the pinky colour seemed to blend in with the bright Gedifra shades, it looks a bit dull now that I'm knitting it.  However, it's not done yet!  The colour for the ribs is a bright orange and I think it'll all pull together well!

Even if it doesn't, it hardly matters....the stripes are so lovely, who's going to look at my mistakes!

Bad knitting saved by beauty!

Knit Kit

I'm still knitting away happily on my Gedifra tank top...fast running out of yarn too!  (Photos soon!)

In the meantime, here's something I made earlier....it's a very useful Knit Kit which keeps all my knitting bits and bobs tidy.  No more shouting WHERE'S MY CROCHET HOOK!! while frantically clutching a stitch I've just dropped.  Aside from the letters, which I'd never done before, it was quite easy.  The cleverest idea is using curtain tape on the inside for holding all those fiddly things.  I also like the pockets.  I made far too many ties for it, thinking that I was going to go off with my knitting bag and knit in public, but that never happened.  

The pattern was from Let's Knit Issue 31 June 2010 though I used different colours and yarn.  I think this is what they call a "stash buster."

Needless to say, this has MANY mistakes, not least of which the tension was too tight between the letters so that it pulls up slightly.  Also, I knitted one of the letters wrong and had to go over it with Swiss darning but at least I know where my rescue crochet hook is!

The Art of Knitting Badly

Here’s the best Bad Knitting mistake you could ever make:  using two different needles.  Yep, that’s me.  Can’t believe I did that!  I must have been grovelling for needles in the dark:  one was 4mm, the other 3 ¾.  Not too hard to mix up size-wise, but golly, you’d think I’d notice the numbers were different. 

Since I’ve embarked on an exercise guaranteed to be filled with mistakes, it only seems appropriate to begin with the wrong needles.  I’ve given up the banana jersey for now (FAR too hot to be knitting a winter jersey)  I really wanted to try out the fantastic Gedifra Fiorista I got on sale at John Lewis.  It makes its own stripes, but they are not perfect self-striping stripes...more like someone threw several cans of paint across the canvas and ran them into one another.  Looks utterly gorgeous.  (Several balls feature in the header photograph.)

I thought I’d go with every knitting mistake in the book:

• ·         Using the wrong wool for a pattern
• ·         Using the wrong needles for the wool*
• ·         Doing bad knitting maths on a tension square
• ·         Knowing there isn’t enough wool anyway
• ·         Ignoring the shaping

I will no doubt end up with a work of art.

(*)  The yarn information says to use 6mm.  Previous experience with Gedifra is that they use US needle sizes.  So when it says “6” (and nothing else), I have to presume they mean 4mm.  Which doesn’t explain why my tension square was so wildly off – it came up rather small, which is odd because I don’t knit that tightly.  A website selling Gedifra says to use 6mm.  I tried that too but it seemed hopelessly wrong. 

PS  the bolero from hell?  I strongly suspect I’m going to pull it all out and do something else.  Will have to build up the courage for that one.

On the needles (3)

I haven't begun sewing up the owl yet - my excuse is that I don't have a pair of tweezers!  In the meantime, I'm knitting something nice and easy:  a yellow jersey for my daughter.  The pattern is actually for a stripy jersey which I made last winter.  It has several mistakes, of course - otherwise this wouldn't be BAD knitting!  I didn't have 3mm needles for the rib and 3.5 needles for the body, so just used 3.25 needles instead for all of it.  Obviously the rib ended up with no definition AND it keeps folding up, much to the wearer's annoyance.  It's far too shallow.  I now have the right needles - progress! - and have made the rib 12 rows deep instead of just 4.  Also, it's bliss not having to knit stripes and change colours constantly.  I did that wrong as well.  I've since learnt how to change colours neatly.  Give me several decades and I might actually advance to "intermediate" knitter....!  But the biggest "mistake" was being forced to buy yarn on-line as the colours did NOT come up as pictured.  The orange was too pumpkin-like, the blue too deep, the pink not a soft orange-pink but rather loud....only the yellow was beautiful.  I'm not sure what anyone can do about internet ordering.  Living in the centre of London, I've got no choice.  John Lewis has about one millionth the yarn available and then generally only the expensive stuff.

Despite these mistakes, a photo of the jersey - worn by my daughter on a wintry day in the British Museum, where the light is very soft and ideal for photography - appeared in the Spring issue of Simply Knitting magazine, along with the matching scarf I made, decorated with my famous knitted flowers (something I can do right!)  A rather proud moment!

I've ventured into adding a pattern on the plain yellow jumper (yellow as in banane) by knitting a row of hearts above the rib.  Why not across the top part, my daughter asked.  Because, frankly, trying to do a heart pattern AND negotiate the armhole decreasing filled me with dread.  Anyway, it's a narrow band of hearts so I thought it would look better above the waistband and arm ribs.  

The Banana Jersey...with hearts

Toy Owl

Knitting up the bits and pieces for the owl has taken a lot quicker than expected - I've got all the parts knitted, except for the tiny teddy, which I'll be tackling tonight.  At the moment, they all look like nothing at all and I don't feel all that confident about putting it altogether!  I've also pulled out several pieces:  the increasing and decreasing required quite a lot of concentration.  I was so enthralled by "The Lovely Bones" on Sunday night that the nightcap ended up being decreased down to zero in about an inch!  (And I hadn't even enjoyed the book....)  

My daughter had a laugh assembling all the bits:

(let's hope it looks better when it's finished....)

On the needles (2)

I've started knitting a toy owl for my daughter - something I've never done before!  (I imagine there will be a lot of "firsts" in this blog;  I'm all for experimenting but haven't really mastered anything!)  I was rather reluctant to have a go at a toy.  It seems quite fiddly and even if I have knitted lots of flowers, those owl feet look really tricky, more intricate than anything I've ever knitted.  Along with the tiny teddy, they are going to have to be stuffed by tweezer.  Aaaargh.  Fiddly stuff was never my forte.  So far it's going all right, after a false start in which I pulled apart the owl body when it was only two or three inches long.  The increase instructions don't make sense to me so I had to use my own maths to get an even increase across the row (unless, of course, you're not supposed to have an even increase, in which case my owl is doomed before it's even dressed!)  So far I've done the body and the nightdress.  I'm about to start the wings, followed by the terrifying looking feet.  This is supposed to be a "perfect first toy project."  We'll see!

From Simply Knitting Issue 71 Sept 2010