Margaret Atwood Knits

Margaret Atwood, one of Canada's most celebrated authors, (think Handmaid's Tale) knits. Who knew? She recently contributed to a London UK show called the Ghosts of Gone Birds. Her choice was the great auk, a penguin-like bird that lived almost exclusively on Canadian islands in the Atlantic. This nearly meter/yard tall bird weighed 5 kilograms or 11 pounds. It was flightless, apparently tasty and had useful skins and feathers all causing it to become extinct in the mid-19th century.

Great Auk

Margaret Atwood said during a CBC interview she selected this gone bird because it is quint-essentially Canadian. She went on to say she visited her LYS to purchase yarn and asked about converting a photo into something she could knit. She was referred to Knitpro 2.0 and it brought her to this result:

Margaret Atwood and her great auk

I'm so surprised that 1) Margaret Atwood has time to knit and 2) that she makes quirky stuff like me. Not sure if the photo below isn't doing justice to her work or if perhaps her project just needs a good blocking. That said I'm amazed. Thanks Margaret Atwood, your doing this project has inspired me. (I have to figure out how to make that skeleton from October 31!)

Save a trip to London, here it is!

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Anatomy of a Sock

I've been knitting socks for a relatively short time. One of the disconcerting things for me as I started following patterns for socks is the pattern designer assumes the knitter (in this case that would be me) knows all the parts of a sock. So I thought I'd devote a post to improve my own knowledge about the anatomy of a sock and maybe some of you will learn something about the humble yet necessary sock as well. Here's the names of the parts of the foot as I know them. #49 ankle, #50 heel, #51, instep, #52 ball, #53 big toe, #54 toe, #55 little toe, #56 toenail. There are some parts more important for this discussion; first the heel of a foot is generally used to refer to the entire C-shape from the ankle to the instep. Speaking of the instep, it refers to that curve near the bottom of the foot. And what seems to be missing in the design above is the sole which generally refers to the bottom of the foot in total or plantar aspect in more technical terms...

Yarn Barf

It's back to quirkiness and time to step away again from the cuteness for a while. But as you see I'm someone who slips from one to the other without much effort so anticipate this back and forth to be my new normal. A dramatization of me in the midst of my startitist frenzy Yarn barf . I'm willing to bet you hadn't thought of putting those two words together, had you? It just so happens yarn barf can be a reoccurring pain for those of us who use yarns that come in a skein instead of a hank. (No pun intended regarding the current Noro virus, well maybe a little pun.) Skeins of yarn wound by the manufacturer These are hanks which need to be wound into balls If you look closely at the picture on the right you'll see the start on the millet yellow skein at the centre right of the photo. Its start can easily be seen coming from the centre of the skein onto the violet skein to the left. Easy to find, right! ...

Knitting-Related Guinness World Records

I had to share some of the Guinness World Records connected with knitting. It is amazing to me the type of skill, stamina and unique characteristics these record holders have in common. How about trying to knit with these SPNs?? Ingrid Wagner and her large needles and knitted swatch The largest knitting needles measured 3.5 m (11 ft 5.8 in) long and had a diameter of 8 cm (3.15 in). Ingrid Wagner, a rug and art creation artist, from the UK used the needles to knit a tension square of ten stitches by ten rows at the Metro Radio Arena, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, on March, 10 2008. (And I complained about getting certain SPNs stuck in my clothes.) See how this swatch was done with merely 5 people managing the needles. And what about the yarn? It is truly ex-bulky. It looks like they're knitting in a warehouse, but with a wingspan of almost 24 feet or 7 m, you'd need all that space. Or h...

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