Skip to main content

And So This Is Christmas

Christmas this year is different, a more quiet and solemn affair.  Yet we are having moments of pleasure.  Yesterday Mom sat at the piano and played Christmas hymns for about 30 minutes.  Dad always enjoyed listening to her play.  I remember about a year ago she was playing and we were together in the kitchen.  Dad closed his eyes to ensure he could hear the music better and it made him very happy.  I suspect he was happy yesterday as well.

Today we will visit one of my brother's home where the house will be alive with the Christmas joy of young children.  And much of the family will be there.  I know there will be the sensation of being covered with a warm blanket of support.  That is the legacy Mom and Dad started.

Knitting, well not much has been done.  It will be shared later.  Perhaps I should announce, with probably a dozen skeins of sock yarn in my stash already, I have decided 2016 will be the year of the sock.

But for today I will share two yarn and knitting related stories that are both unusual.

First, a couple of weeks ago an older woman in Sussex, England was locked in a loo for four days.  She survived by eating the candy she had just purchased and by knitting a scarf to fill her free time with yarn also just purchased.  The amazing thing is she held no ill will about the event.  Read the details here.

Second, the Wall Street Journal of all places recently ran an article about people who love to detangle yarn.  Yes they find great pleasure in using pins and small crochet hooks to undo a super mess created by someone or something else (like a dog or cat).  I am glad someone out there finds great fun in this process, I do not have the patience.  The details about people like this, how to find and join a group of them (they are 2,000 strong) can be found here.

The funeral has been held and I am pretty sure Dad would want things to return to normal.  Expect more knitting news (???) in my next post.

Comments

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...

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 ...

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...