There’s still a hole in my sweater
It's true...the hole (or rather holes) are still there. But I find I don't mind them so much now! Full disclaimer, I know next to nothing about embroidery. Which should be fairly obvious to anyone who does know something about it. So apologies if you're cringing over there. My approach really is more or less keep doodling until it starts to look interesting. I think it's a viable technique, all things considered. I mean really, if you hate it, you can pick it back out. And I sort of don't hate it. I might actually rather like it! So what [...]
There’s a hole in my sweater
So I have a small assemblage of house sweaters. What can I say. The house is old and drafty, and I work from home. Warmth often wins out over fashion. One of my very favorite house sweaters (a gray cashmere cardigan with pockets) seems to have sprung a leak. Let me be more specific. It's sprung several leaks. It's got a good sized hole on the back of the shoulder (snagged on a dead tree while climbing on rocks), two little holes on the front near the bottom (embers from a camp fire if the char marks are any indicator), [...]
Amoeba? Or Egg?
I am a firm believer in both sweaters and pajamas. And sometimes, when a sweater has put in lots of hard service as a piece of 'go out in the world' clothing, it gets to retire and be relabeled as pajamas. Such was the case for this snuggly, purple zip up sweater with a handy kangaroo pocket on the front. It is too tatty to wear out in public (I do have some standards), but it works perfectly well as something to sleep in (ah my life is so glamorous). Or at least it did, until today, when I noticed [...]
Recovery
Remember the other week when the sock and The Boy and I all trooped off to the railroad bridge? The unfortunate incident? The dreadful dark, sticky goo all over the sole of my pale, delicate sock? Yes, yes it was rather traumatic. The good news is that, with a bit of careful work, things are somewhat salvaged. Here's where we stand now. The transition was made with the help of several thorough soakings in goo gone, an awful lot of blotting with paper towels, and some judicious scraping with fingernails. It's certainly not perfect, but it is a whole lot [...]
Omnivorous
We have two chairs in the family room. They are the tv and knitting chairs. Apparently, we've not been feeding them appropriately. Last night, one of them decided to eat the blanket. I don't know if this is because he was hungry or as some sort of act of protest. We'll be addressing the issue in therapy later. But first, the blanket needed some first aid. See that? Hole. Big gnarly hole with several broken strands of yarn. It would totally have run if left unattended. (Note, these are not hand knitted blankets, there would have been much more swearing [...]
Rhymes with Yarn
So I have a confession. I've been playing a game of chicken with the laundry. I somehow decided it would be much more efficient to wait to wash knitted socks until I had a whole load full. Have you looked at a sock lately? Even for the big footed among us, they're pretty small. It takes a lot of socks to fill one washing machine up. Still, I've knit a lot of socks, so I'm getting close to that point. But, in working my way down to the bottom of the basket of socks in the closet, I've come across [...]
Repairs
I'm undertaking a bit of sock surgery. The feet on one of the socks for Book The Third are a bit too long for the person who is going to model them. So I've picked out the end, ripped back the toe and an inch or so of the foot, and now I'm going to reknit the toe. But before I do that, I've got to address one small issue. See this? See how the yarn is all curly and springy and kinked up into little nests? Yeah. That's what happens when you unravel knitting that's been set for a [...]
The Venerable Tweed
My father has a sweater. Well no, he has lots of sweaters. But our tale here concerns one sweater in particular. It is a rather well aged sweater. As far as we can tell, it's a few years older than me (and I am shockingly old, it surprises me more or less every time I think of it). This sweater has fared amazingly well. Alas, this winter, it seems to have finally started to show a bit of wear around the edges (I know the feeling). A few stitches at the collar wore right away. Once those stitches blew, the [...]
Because Just Knitting Them Isn’t Enough
You have to darn them too... I mentioned the other day that three pairs of socks had worn thin in the heels. I considered just chucking them, but The Boy professed a fondness for his, and I (grudgingly) acknowledged that it was far less work to darn them than to make new pairs. It's true it was less work, but it wasn't exactly a quick process. Let's have a little before and after. First, the damaged sock: You can click on the picture to see an alarmingly massive version of it if you really care. The sock is stretched over [...]
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