You´ve Come a Long Way, Baby

The YouTube video below showed up recently on one of my knitting groups from Facebook. It is simply hilarious. A young man by the name of Brandon Farris is bored and decides to use a video to teach himself how to knit. The video he selects is well done giving him all the details he needs to cast on and knit. Like any of us learning a new skill, he struggles to keep up and has to stop and start the video several times, But it is the narrative he adds to the instructions that makes the whole thing so precious. I laughed out loud a number of times while I watched. Please invest 13 minutes in watching this guy. If you don´t knit his accent and quirky comments about the process will be your reward. If you do knit it will remind you how far your knitting has come because this is how we all looked as we began our own knitting adventures.

Brandon Farris vlog

Here are a few photos of more advent calendar ornaments.

Bluebird of Happiness by Sara Elizabeth Kellner. Mine has a rather short tail.

Little Christmas Tree Wreath by Magdalena Rosianiec. I used the pattern as a guide, three I-cords were knit separately and sewn together and finally braided. The bow was made with three rather than five stitches and French knots were added to make small yellow ornaments on the wreath.

Tiny Toque by Kat at Just Crafty Enough. I added the string and pom pom and used a small candle holder to make the toque three dimensional. Hopefully I put enough spray starch on it to hold that shape for some time to come.

Xmas Pudding Bauble by Amanda Berry with my own hand spun brown pudding yarn.

It is taking about a day and one-half to produce an item. I should be able to finish the remaining 17 ornaments by December 1. (She says with so much confidence now.)

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. (BTW

Ode to the Cat

It has been six months since Mike, the cat's, passing. I think of him every day and miss him especially when Paul is away. Mike was a being in the house with me and we were close. Grieving his death has been muddled with my Dad's passing and sometimes I feel guilty about that happening. As time passes the ache becomes less hurtful for both and I am starting to get mostly good memories in its place. Recently I helped celebrate Pablo Neruda's birthday with Jami, my poet and overall very creative friend. Guests were asked to select one poem written by Neruda to read to the small group who gathered for the celebration. I picked this one: Ode To The Cat -- Pablo Neruda There was something wrong with the animals: their tails were too long, and they had unfortunate heads. Then they started coming together, little by little fitting together to make a landscape, developing birthmarks, grace, flight. But the cat, only the cat turned out finished, and

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 how about the longest piece of finger knitting that measured 4,321.4 m

Flagel Knitting Files

Search This Blog