Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Glitter not included . . .

So, I knit and crochet and do a mediocre needlepoint. One thing I have never done is cross stitch — regular or counted (I think there is a difference but I'm not exactly sure). When I was waiting in the airport one time, I was speaking with a woman who was doing cross stitch. It looked like so much fun, even though she was doing some religious-Precious Moment-themed bookmark. Then a week or so ago while I was knitting on a subway, a youngish man pulled a huge tapestry from his bag and started cross-stitching. He has clips and a tambour frame and everything. It looked like a Watteau painting. It was incredible to watch him.

I told Saint Jerome that I was thinking of teaching myself counted cross stitch. I looked online for patterns and kits. Gosh! One is worse than the next! How much Precious Moments/Disney/Christian/Faerie crap can one make? Or want  to make. I would probably have to design my own.

Anyway, yesterday I find this in my email box, forwarded from The Guardian's website, courtesy of Saint Jerome:





If I hadn't read the description or the excited headline, I would never have guessed who it was. It's Edward Cullen, aka Robert Pattinson. Now, I am not into Twilight or any of this vampire trend, but I thought that this was pretty funny. It's only shades of gray! Where are the colors? Where is the rainbow? Where is the glitter? Oh well . . . it kind of looks like him if you cross your eyes, squint, close one eye and then close the other.

Monday, October 26, 2009

Where have I been?

In a knitting fog! I've been knitting all sorts of projects and have completed exactly 0.

This all started when I decided that I needed to knit my four-year old nephew James a sweater. He is the only one of my six nipoti that  I haven't knitted anything for. My other two nephews and three nieces all have had a "Made Especially for you by Aunt Sarah" special. James wore his sister Evelyn's hooded jacket (dark blue, purple and green yarn), but he needs a non-hand-me-downer. So, a sweater formulated itself in my brain. Not just any sweater. A chunky-ish, black turtleneck with a Batman logo on the front. I found the basic pattern sweater in a 1965 Vogue Knitting (Children's Special Issue), I found the Batman logo charted out for knitting, I found the yarn. I knit up the back in a few days and then put the sweater away and started something else (I didn't have a date I needed to get it done for so . . .I have since picked it back up and am about halfway through the front. The Batman logo is a bit of a challenge for me because I'm not a multi-color knitter. Give me lace or cables any day!).

Then I started on a 1940s cardigan jacket which I have wanted to knit for over 15 years — hip-length with a fitted waist, open-work decoration along the front and yoke, collar and pockets. I was almost finished with the back when I realized that the pattern as knitted—gauge adjusted for my knitting tension, modern yarns and my patience— was going to be too big. I've decided that I will  have to use smaller needles and totally re-work the pattern to fit along my hips. Oh well. I put it away for a near-future date.

At the same time, I started on a 1922 sweater vest. I have no idea what the finished size is supposed to be as there is no size on the pattern but the gauge of 5 stitches per inch would yield a too small vest, especially flapper-sized boobs compared to 21st Century, middle age saggage (okay flappers were a year or so later so sue me). I knit one front half, I start knitting the second front half when I realized three things, I was probably going to run out of yarn (I was using leftover stuff), the yarn was all wrong for the pattern anyway and it was waaaaayyyyyyy unflattering as is. Into the box of broken dreams it went, never to be completed, though the yarn will be reused somehow.

When all of this was going on, I decided to make a 1940s "dickey". In the 1940s, dickies were just a turtleneck thingy that tucked into your crew neck. They were more like fake blouses, sometimes with fronts and backs, sometimes just fronts, usually made of fabric just like a blouse. This dickey is more like a vest. I knit the bottom band — 3 and a half inches of k1, p1 ribbing , which has got to be the most tortuous thing after three rows or so.

I didn't want to make it just plain, so I was looking for simple texture stitch pattern. I spent time looking through my stash of vintage needlework magazine (I have thousands from 1916 to about 1975) when I found the knitting booklet, Bushwick Beat's 'em All, from the late 1960s, early 1970s. It is a book of teen fashions and I couldn't remember why I bought it because I'll buy teen fashions from earlier decades but not so late and also, the patterns weren't very interesting except for this one:



But I digress. I flipped through and remembered why I bought it. I bought it for this young dude:






WHO IN THE WORLD PICKED OUT HIS PANTS?!! It's a TEENAGE fashion book for crying out loud! Did his mother dress him? Was he wearing normal trousers and then switched pants in the bathroom as soon as he got to school? Did he get grounded? Did he make extra money? Yikes! The rest is so fun and innocent (except for the Star Trek sweater).