I am now a marketing demographic

I am now a marketing demographic, originally uploaded by velvetdahlia.

No doubt many a Londoner has seen these billboards around town. Knitting has hit the mainstream. The other day I was in a pub wearing a scarf I’d made and this beefy punter actually turned his attention away from the footie long enough to admire it and say, “Why, that’s a lovely scarf.” and then with a knowing, conspiratorial wink, “I wonder who made that.”

Seriously, when big rugby-player looking guys knit-flirt with you, you know knitting has reached some kind of pop-culture pinnacle.

 

Kate wearing the Train Tam

Kate wearing the Train Tam, originally uploaded by velvetdahlia.

I knit this tam for my friend Kate– the buttons I’ve had since I was a kid– one has a unicorn on it.  It’s based on the pattern by Cozymakes.

 

A Mouse on Four Needles

I was looking for a pattern for a little mouse for Lemmy to play with, and I didn’t want to sew it up the middle, and I wanted it to have an i-cord tail.  Since I couldn’t find a pattern like this, I wrote one.  Here it is.

 Materials & Needles: Size 2 dpns and DK weight scrap yarn.  This pattern is great for using up those little random balls you have lying around.

Special Stitches: LI–Left slanting increase– pick the left part of the “V” below the stitch just worked.  Put it on left needle and knit it.  RI–Right slanting increase–pick up the closer part of the “V” below the stitch about to be worked.  Put it on the left needle and knit it.  Of course you don’t need this kind of detail for a cat toy, but it’s nice to practice it for larger projects because it’s lovely.  For more information on this technique, see Dominknitrix’s blog.

Instructions:

• Count on 3 sts onto one needle using long tail cast on.  The remaining tail will be used later to sew up the head after you’ve stuffed the mouse
• P one row (you are working flat on the DPN)
• K1, K front and back in the next 2 sts.  (5 sts on needle)
• P one row
•  K1, RI, K3,  LI (7 sts)
• P one row
•  K1, RI, K4, LI (9 sts)
• P one row
• K1, RI, K to last 2 sts, LI (11 sts)
• P one row
• K1, RI, K to last 2 sts, LI (13 sts)
• P one row
• K1, RI, K to last 2 sts, LI (15)
• Starting at the oposite end of where the “active” yarn is, slip 5 sts onto another needle, and 5 stitches onto 2nd needle.  15 stitches are evenly distributed over three needles.
• Join to work in rounds, careful not to twist.   The part you have just finished is the head, left open so you can stuff the mouse later.
• K one round
• K round, RI at the end of each needle.  (18 sts)
• K one round
• K round, RI at the end of each needle (21 sts)
• K one round
• K round, RI at the end of each needle (24 sts)
• Work 8 rounds straight.
• K2tog all around, (12 sts)
• K2tog all around (6 sts)
• Set aside the fourth needle.  K2tog until 4 stitches are one needle.  (you will have 2 unworked stitches that remain from the beginning of the round.  Don’t knit them together.)
• Start i-cord tail.  Bring yarn for the row from the back and knit the row.  Don’t turn the row, instead just slide the stiches down to the start of the dpn and continue to knit.  As you do this the stitches form themselves into a tube.
• After knitting 2 inches of i-cord on 4 stitches, K2tog at front of row and continue on 3 stitches for another 2 inches.
• K2tog, K1
• K2tog
• BO remaining stitch.

I filled the mouse with catnip and some beans and cotton balls.  The beans give it weight which Lemmy seems to like to throw around.  I added French knot eyes, but looking at them now they look more like ears.

It’s kitty aproved!

 

Favourites

Favourites, originally uploaded by velvetdahlia.

 

 

Fantastic

Knitted Daleks by Penwiper. Pattern is here.

I promised myself I would never fall prey to fan-girly knitting– no Harry Potter scarves for me, thanks. But then while watching an episode of Doctor Who I became obsessed with Martha’s floppy crocheted tam.

I looked for a screen capture for the tam, thinking I would have to write the pattern myself when I came across not only an improvised pattern for the tam, but an entire community devoted to Doctor Who crafts– many seemed to be based on patterns from a book of Doctor who knitting and sewing from 1984.

As I think about what yarn would be best for this tam, some part of me wanted it to look exactly like Martha’s so that it would be a kind of wink to other Doctor Who fans.

It’s happened, hasn’t it? I can no longer feel superior to fan-girl knitters.  And I must say, after being at a party where the bulk of sci fi fans were quite macho men, part of the old-boy network of geekery here in the UK, I realize I prefer this girly approach– free of ego and alpha behavior– just gleeful, celebratory silliness. Let’s reverse the polarity, sisters (and good brothers), one stitch at a time!

 

Lingerie-inspired Knitwear

When I heard about Joan McGowan-Michael’s book, Knitting Lingerie Style, I was excited and bought it straightaway. After all, it was her designs that taught me the busty girl’s miracle of short row shaping, and her sexy designs were sized perfectly for larger knitters. But on looking through the book I was totally underwhelmed.

The designs seem rather literal. A knitted garter belt? Knitted panties? No thanks. And while the size range in the book is still excellent, the bust shaping in most designs has me skeptical. Since the cup shapes are heavily seamed and only go up to a D, I’m wondering how those of us with larger busts (I’m a G cup) will modify these patterns to fit us. (I’m reminded of how in America a huge range of breast sizes are supposed to squeeze in to a DD cup because in most places that’s the largest cups come, and that DD is somehow considered gargantuan. Most women in America are actually wearing the wrong bra size, buying too-big band sizes to compensate for a too-small cup, but I digress.) I’d come to love her patterns because bust shaping was never an issue, so I’m a bit disappointed. Also missing from these designs are the elaborate Victorian style embellishments which I considered a hallmark of her designs. Many pieces seem inelegant interpretations of older While Lies Designs patterns. Also, the styling in the book is strange– pieces are layered over clashing garments, and the models are very thin, oiled and made up Desperate Housewives style. Of course this is not the designer’s fault at all, but the patterns would have been better showcased with styling that gave a nod to retro-cheesecake.

What I really hope for in the book was some femme interpretation of lingerie construction. She’s done this in a few garments in the “corset” section but on the whole these just look like the kind of girlie patterns you can get on Knitty or Diva Studios, etc. There’s nothing new here.

I may use the designs in the book as a starting point for deconstruction. After seeing the apocalyptic, lingerie inspired designs of Julianna Sissons I am eager to take lingerie shapes and details like eyelets, lacing, gathers, and seaming and put them to work in a more wild and ultimately wearable way.

 

Charity Knitting. Why?

It’s that time of year again, when a knitter is asked to knit for strangers, to knit for an idea, to knit for small change.

Sure, in theory it looks lovely.  Money and awareness for causes and a bunch of knitters feeling good about themselves.  Everybody wins.

So why don’t I do it?  Why do a cringe when I’m forwarded the “Innocent Smoothie Hat Campaign” or the “Children’s Society Big Stitch Appeal”?  Am I just a big Grinch?

For those who may not know, the Innocent campaign asks knitters to make little hats that go on bottles which are sold in markets. 50p of each bottle sold goes to Age Concern, a charity for the elderly in the UK.  What happens to the hat once the consumer has finished with the product? It’s probably tossed away, maybe stuck for a moment on an unhappy pet.  Why can’t Innocent just donate the funds with every bottle sold at Christmas? (Actually, they only donate 25p of each bottle, the other 25p coming from Sainsburys but who’s counting?)

The Children’s society appeal is asking people to help knit the largest Christmas stocking for a Guinness world record.  The emails I have received don’t really explain how this will help disadvantaged youth, besides raising the profile of the organization.

I have received appeals for knitting for premature babies as well as knitting for stillborns.  I can see how something handmade might humanize things, and give the parents some comfort.  But the idea of actually knitting something for these campaigns strikes me as a base sentimentality.  I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

I have also seen calls for knitting hats for the homeless in NYC.   From the campaign blurb:

And keep this in mind: the people who receive your items aren’t likely to complain if there are a few dropped stitches, or if the color’s not what they like. They want to keep warm, that’s all.

You know what?  I bet they do care if their hat is wonky.  I hope they care.  And I’m sure that’s not all they want, either.  My father worked with homeless vets for the last 30 years, dealing with the complex problems everyday. There isn’t so much a lack of warm woolens as dire need for affordable housing and health care.  Primarily mental health care.   It might make the knitters feel good, and maybe even some of the recipients will be momentarily touched but it’s so patronizing– it reminds me of people who get in a charitable mood at Christmas and want to temper their guilt so they drop some money in a beggar’s hand on their way to the mall.

Perhaps I should elaborate here before you think me some kind of monster. When I was a child I was often in the hospital, sometimes in intensive care.  Once, a nurse brought me a clown doll made by a volunteer.  Now, maybe it was because it was a clown, a yellow clown, but I received that thing with a kind of dread.  Surely if strangers were knitting for me, I was doomed?  I was the most pitiful of girls, and was probably going to die.   I kept that yellow clown around for many years as a reminder of just how bad things could get.  Plus, I knew how to crochet and some part of me understood the skill and time involved in its pathetic manifestation. To throw it away seemed even sadder.  And then I got over it.

Sometimes knitting isn’t the right way to show someone you care.

Knitting as activism is different.  In the current climate, often charity and activism are conflated.  They are two different things.  Charity throws spare change at gaping problems in the system.  It offers some comforting gesture to victims of tragedy.   Activism confronts the system with demands for change.  For example, things like the Knitted River– are knitted activism.  The river has actually been used as spectacle in demonstrations.    It is a metaphor for collective action, where the smallest among us is more powerful joined with others, and the project itself has called into question water injustice, educating the knitters involved and the public, as well as making political demands.

And there is Marianne Jorgensen’s surreal anti-war statement– the pink tank cozy. Volunteers knit the squares– this transcends even activism to me.  It charges Mike Kelly’s high-art handicraft imagery– which he appropriated from grans all over the world– and gives it back to us.

(photo by mms on flickr)

Give me more collective stitches like this, and then maybe I could feel good about knitting for an ideal.

 

Favourites

Favourites, originally uploaded by velvetdahlia.

 

 

I Knit London Day

This weekend Alice, Kate and I went to the I Knit London day where there were stalls and a bar and music and a fashion show of men’s knits from Debbie Stoller’s new book.  She’s in the front of this photo. Later, she signed books.

The Shellac Sisters DJ’ed, seamlessly melding one 78 into another– no mean feat when you consider the phonographs needed to be hand-cranked.

The Dutch SnB table was the friendliest of all. They had amazing cookies and also had this afghan on display, knit by the man in the background-center.  He made it for his mother.

There were some stellar knitters there, too.  This is Mulaika modeling her Capecho bolero.

 

Vintage Turban Prototype

Vintage Turban Prototype, originally uploaded by velvetdahlia.

I just completed a beta version of a turban I’m knitting for my friend Amber. I still don’t have the front knot right, and have tweeked it with a black diamond plastic pin from H&M.

I think this turban might look good in a glitzier wool– something with some lurex in it even, just to push it all the way into glam/camp.

This is the back– excuse the wonky photo– it’s hard to take a picture of the back of your head!

The crown is basically a knitted cone, blocked between two bowls.

It is very warm. I wore it today and was surprised at how practical it was. At first I thought it was too frumpy to wear, but I kinda like it.