A Life Turned Around by Knitting

Knitting for those of us so lucky is a hobby, a habit, something done with the extra time and money we have floating around. And we lucky souls seem to dominate all the coverage knitting gets. We all look well fed, reasonably well adjusted and content to just have needles and yarn in our hands.

That's why it can be jarring to have a story about how knitting turned around someone's life. The person I am about to write about is Gregory Patrick.

Gregory Patrick (all photos in this post attributed to him)

In 2010 Patrick found himself without a job, living in a woods penniless. A friend reminded him he could knit and with the support of family members he began creating little teddy bears like the ones pictured below. He'd knit a bear from start to finish in about five hours and sold them on Etsy. To his amazement the bears would sell within hours of being listed. In two years his knitting skills helped him earn enough to afford an apartment.

Since then Patrick has written a few books and a blog called Mad Man Knitting where one follows his journey. The blog offers helpful videos about how to embroider those cute bear faces. It is now from the blog site and on Ravelry Patrick sells his already knit bears, tigers and bunnies or if you like, the patterns to make them.

The Saving Bear

Using simple, acrylic yarn and awesome knitting and embroidery skills, Gregory Patrick was able to get back on his feet. A story like that can truly warm the heart of even the most pampered of knitters.

Comments

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...

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...

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 ...

Flagel Knitting Files

Search This Blog