Gripping
Nope. Nope I cannot bring myself to try to convince you that you need knitted tentacles in your life. This is not the sort of belief anyone is persuaded to hold. Either you come to know of the existence, nay the mere possibility, of knitted tentacles and you are instantly and inescapably gripped by the urge to make an entire swarm of them. Or you are not.
And either response is absolutely fine! You can live a full and happy life never once holding a knitted tentacle in your hand—never once bending it just so and using it to display your favorite bit of driftwood or pressing it into service as the perfect paperweight turned pen holder or having it pressing it into service to stand guard over your very favorite shells and rocks and tiny treasures. I’m absolutely sure you can go about your day without ever indulging in such flights of fancy.
I, however, am not nearly so stoic or respectable. And I confess, I look forward to seeing what my fellow reprobates create once the more respectable folks have left the room.
Binding
Look, I probably shouldn’t love these as much as I do. I fully acknowledge that they’re a modest amusement at best, a scandalous waste of time at worst. But somehow I find them unspeakably charming and am completely unable to resist.
They just hit all my sweet spots.
They turn a very modest collection of supplies (a single sheet of material, a few feet of ribbon or tape measure, a bit of sewing thread, a scrap of yarn) into something both adorable and useful using only the most basic of knitting and sewing skills (a bit of knitting too small to be a respectable swatch, a handful of straight lines of stitching). They offers the faint hope that I will maybe, just maybe, finally be the sort of person who always knows where their scissors and darning needle and tape measure are. And they let me go ‘ooooh, tiny book!’ which is clearly just one of the things my brain likes to do!
Now, will they be enough to finally turn me into a truly organized person? I mean I assume not. But I’m willing to find out!
Shiversome
Look, I have a somewhat complicated relationship with winter in general and with snow in particular.
There’s a fairly outspoken seven year old inside me who thinks it’s great. Snow days, snow angels, sledding…what’s not to like? But there’s also a very tired 40something in there who is really quite sick of shoveling the driveway and driving on slippery roads and worrying about the roof.
I’m trying to find the happy medium. Tucking up under woolly blankets with a new book, hot chocolate ready to hand, watching the snow while I am safely inside is actually rather lovely. And since winter is happening regardless of how I feel about it, I might as well try to enjoy what it has to offer.
But I’m definitely still working on coming to terms with the cold. And these little buddies help. Yes, they are snowmen. But they’re the warmest, coziest, toastiest snowmen you’ll ever meet. No cold toes or freezing fingers or wind reddened cheeks required.
Tufted
Look, I am not even going to try and convince you that you need these. Either you looked at them, fell instantly in love, and began spinning out a whole complicated tale for them (their names are Owlbert and Owllison. They own a combination secondhand bookshop and cafe. Owlbert makes the best popovers you've ever seen, and Owlllison has a knack for tracking down that book you loved when you were a kid but can't remember). Or you’re a normal, respectable adult who is not susceptible to such nonsense.
Either way is cool, and we can still totally be friends even if you’re not as easily distracted by the absurd and adorable as I am.
But if you are easily distracted? If you do feel a sudden longing to know what the owls get up to when no one is around? If you’re pretty convinced they’re having tea with the foxes and going on adventures with the raccoons? Well then you’re my kind of people, I think you’ll love these as much as I do.
And I think we’re going to have a marvelous time together!
Chilled
So it started with the owls (and I’ve heard rumors of some very sneaky foxes), but we all knew it wasn’t going to end there. Because really, once you’ve realized you’re the sort of person who is susceptible to small knitted friends, it’s all but inevitable that you’ll end up with a whole assortment of them. I mean they lead such delightful lives, how could anyone resist? (Their names are Penny and Gwen. They run the ice skating rink in the winter and the swimming pool in the summer. They throw the very best parties and are always encouraging folks to break out their favorite fancy clothes, no matter the occasion.)
And look, it’s fine if you look at these and find yourself wondering if perhaps I spent a bit too much time outside without a hat as a child. I fully understand that not everyone will be as enchanted with them as I am, and I would never, ever, ever suggest that anyone actually needs them.
But, on the off chance that you suddenly want nothing more than to attend the next penguin ball, I’d be delighted to meet you there. I can’t wait to see what you wear!
Toasted
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Here's a preview of the patterns you get at the Sheer Nonsense ($3), Utter Nonsense ($6), and Rampant Nonsense ($12) levels. Oh and there are a couple of goodies for free members too! And of course, you can change or cancel your membership at any time, and you'll still have access to anything you got while you're a member, even if you cancel later.
There comes a point in every knitter’s life (cough, or at least in this knitter’s life, cough) where everything is awful. None of your projects are making your brain do the happy thing. Absolutely everyone in your life is astonishingly annoying (yourself included). The whole world feels like it’s on fire. And you can’t do a damn thing about any of it.
When this day comes upon you, I highly recommend taking a moment to knit something absolutely absurd. The tinier and more nonsensical, the better. You want something you can complete in one sitting and that you can then strategically deploy in such a way as to make someone else’s day significantly weirder.
It helps. I don’t know why, but it really, really, really does. I promise.
And I’m pretty sure knitted marshmallows are the perfect project for this task. You can make one of the tiny ones in less than an hour with just a few yards of yarn. And they’re tiny enough and amusing enough that I suspect you’ll find no end of ways to sneak them into someone else’s day (tuck them in someone’s favorite mug? hide them on top of the emergency chocolate bar stash? put a pile of them next to the hot cocoa?).
I know they made my day better. I very much hope they’ll do the same for you.
Tethered
Anyone with a paid Patreon membership gets this pattern included free in their membership. They get a bunch of other patterns too!
Here's a preview of the patterns you get at the Sheer Nonsense ($3), Utter Nonsense ($6), and Rampant Nonsense ($12) levels. Oh and there are a couple of goodies for free members too! And of course, you can change or cancel your membership at any time, and you'll still have access to anything you got while you're a member, even if you cancel later.
As always, I will not be attempting to convince you that you need these. I will not pretend that they serve any practical purpose. I will not suggest that they solve any of your problems.
I will say only that you can sit down with your needles, a tiny ball of leftover yarn, and the pattern and stand up an hour or two later with a teeny tiny pair of mittens. What happens after that is up to you.
You could probably make a reasonable case for using them as a bookmark or a Christmas tree ornament, or for turning a bunch of them into a garland, or for using them to keep one of your little knitted buddies warm on a cold night.
And I will admit that everyone I’ve shown them to has made something that would be called a squee of delight, were my friends not far too dignified to make such a sound. So the idea of tucking them into a card or tying them around a tiny present (so that the recipient can see them in private, where the demands of dignity are somewhat relaxed, and a person can squee without fear of scandal) has a certain appeal.
But really, I make them because sometimes the burdens of the outside world are simply too much to bear, and I need something absurd and adorable that I can finish in an afternoon. And then I share them with you. Just in case you might need that too.
Palpitation
This was the very first bit of tiny nonsense I ever knit.
I was having a bad time. I’d broken my leg. I couldn’t get comfortable to knit for more than twenty minutes at a time. Everything felt absolutely impossible. So I knit these. I knit piles and piles and piles of these sweet, silly little distractions.
I almost didn’t write a pattern because I truly wasn’t sure anyone needed any such thing. But when I shared a few pictures, folks were absolutely besotted. So I wrote them up, and they’ve been one of my most popular patterns ever since. I am truly delighted that you love them as much as I do!
They’ve shown up as decorations or favors at weddings and baby showers and birthday parties. They’ve been tucked in lunch boxes and book bags and coat pockets on both hard days and happy ones. They’ve found their way into envelopes and through the mail to folks who needed a little surprise. They’ve shown up on Christmas trees and garlands and mobiles. They’re basically the perfect way to turn a few dozen yards of yarn and a few hours of knitting into a tiny token of good will that you can hand out as needed.
Dispatch
There’s something magical about letters. I don’t know why. I’m not in charge of these things. There just is. The idea taking a tiny handful of the thoughts swirling around in your head, turning them on to words, putting those words on paper, and sending them off on an adventure to land on someone else’s doorstep and brighten their day is just kind of special.
My hope is to capture a tiny sliver of that magic with this knitted envelope!
Discretion dictates you not actually try and send it through the mail (though goodness knows I understand the temptation). But you can absolutely tuck a note (or a gift card, or some candy, or some other tiny treasure) inside and slip it under your sweetheart’s pillow or into a friend’s coat pocket or into your kid’s lunch box. Or perhaps you want to help the tooth fairy on her appointed rounds or make a post office play set (how cute would it be to make a little snap on stamp?) or knit a whole bunch and have the coolest advent calendar ever. I suspect that, as with most magical things, something delightful will occur to you if you just think about it for a little while!
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