Skip to main content

Posies for a Knitter

It is hard, I think, for my kids to figure out what to get me as gifts.  I have lived a full and easy life meaning I want for very little.  So when an idea for a great gift strikes me I share it with those who struggle to find something for me.

Here's the end result of that great gift idea:

My Malabrigo bouquet 
I am a Taurus which means my birthday and Mother's day inevitably fall in the same week annually. One of my sons and his wife have made it a standard to have a beautiful bouquet of flowers delivered at home for these two events.  The flowers are lovely for about five days and then begin to wither.  This year I thought I might suggest an alternative:  a Jimmy Bean Wool bouquet of yarn.   The bouquet is put together in a rather clever way.  Hanks of yarn are wound together more tightly than usual so they "resemble" posies and then a SPN is pushed through the hank to act as a stem.  (I now have in addition to the yarn a full set of new SPN needles because of the large size of my bouquet.)  Put several of these now skewed hanks together in a vase and you have a yarn bouquet perfect for any knitter.  I thought it was pretty ingenious so I asked for it with the suggestion they bring it to me while I visit my home of origin rather than mail it to me here in Canada.  So I got it on this latest trip.

The best thing about this idea, as Lex put it:  "It is like a gift that gives back."  I already have ideas about gifts that will make up nicely out of my cache of Malabrigo Dos yarn.  We'll see if I get out of baby knitting mode soon enough to get some adult knitting done for Xmas.  This lace weight yarn is very intriguing so I think I'll be taking the plunge sooner rather than later.

So here's another look at this gift deconstructed.  Unfortunately, that's how it had to travel in my suitcase.  See all the beautiful colours?




Looking for just the perfect gift for the knitter in your life, check out Jimmy Bean's options.  There are bouquets to fit any budget.  Or, I might just decide to construct my own gifts like this one for the knitters I know.


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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...
11 comments
Read more

Gosling's Meme and Knitting

What is a meme, you may first ask? Well Dr. Richard Dawkins, an evolutionary biologist, came up with the idea in the late 1970's and stated something like: a meme is to a society what a gene is to a human. Both are an element or unit that can be replicated or passed from one individual to another. During the Internet age memes can be easily shared, replicated or otherwise passed on to another. Recent examples can be found on Gawker . Memes can include piano playing cats, a honey badger, the Call Me Maybe phenomenon and so on. The political campaign in the U.S. helped fuel memes using some of the most unusual statements like, "binders of women" and "you didn't build that." A few memes have staying power but most have a relatively short life span. Gosling's meme related to knitting has been around for some time; so when I again saw another post about him recently, it was time to figure out the origin. Ryan Gosling is a Canadian actor born in Onta...
1 comment
Read more

Yarn Usage II: Crochet vs. Knit

All four swatches were made.  Each is 6.25" or 15.875 cm square; each prepared with the same sized yarn and needles or hook.  It took 25 stitches to get the appropriate width for the knit swatches and only 20 stitches for both of the crocheted squares.  That already says something, but I'll get to it in a minute.  (Don't know what I'm talking about here?  Check out this post first.) Unfortunately, you'll just have to trust me that four swatches were prepared and that they were all the same size.  In the excitement to get to measuring and weighing of the swatches, no photographic evidence was taken.  Luckily for me the results of this research doesn't have to be reviewed by a jury of my peer.  This blog post will be the sum and total of where this information is published. The remains of my four swatches What can be shared, however, are the balls of yarn rewound after the weighing and measuring was completed.  You will note the size ...
10 comments
Read more