Feral Knitting

Many years ago when I was a much younger and less experienced knitter, I decided to make a fairisle sweater for my then 3 year old daughter.  In my youthful enthusiasm, it did not occur to me that the project might be beyond my abilities nor did I think to consult a more experienced knitter or even an instruction manual.  I picked up my needles and jumped in.  I enjoyed the experience - it's always fun to make children's clothes because they work up quickly - and my daughter seemed quite happy with the result.

When I proudly displayed the sweater to my mother in law, she promptly turned the sweater inside out and showed me all of the errors I'd made in carrying, or failing to carry, the yarn across the motifs.  "I didn't know that you knit" said I.  "I don't, but I know how not to knit" she replied.

Undeterred, I made plans to knit co-ordinating sweaters for the entire family to wear in our Christmas photo.  A two year stint in Miami derailed my knitting career for a bit - working with wool in the sub-tropics is of limited appeal - and by the time we returned to a cooler climate, our family had grown in number, in girth and in taste.  Knitting four largish sweaters and coaxing them onto the backs of unwilling models was beyond me.  I swore off knitting in two colors and embarked upon a, mercifully brief, affair with novelty yarns.

Until I spied a kit for a fairisle purse in my favorite cottage country yarn shop and my friend Jan presented it to me as an unbirthday gift.  I consulted my sister who provided me with directions for the two-handed fairisle technique, purchased the requisite bobbins and needles and installed the project in my knitting basket.

Where it sat for over a year.  It wasn't just the fairisle that intimidated me.  The base of the bag is knit in seed stitch - possibly the world's most boring stitch.  It also required I knit an i-cord which made me think of some painful gynecological procedure.  And I discovered an error in the pattern but lacked the confidence to make the obvious correction.  I felt quite paralyzed.

Periodically Jan would ask how the bag was coming along.  I admitted that I kept it confined to my knitting basket, at a safe distance from my armchair, from where I imagined I sometimes heard it snapping and snarling at me.  We took to referring to it as the "feral" bag.

Little by little, I moved the chair closer to the bag until one day, outfitted in suitable protective gear, I picked up the needles and set it free.  Apart from the i-cord, it was not nearly so ferocious as I'd thought.  (I have this to say about i-cord: it's silly.)  I quite enjoyed taking the project on outings; it impressed novice knitters ("that looks hard!") as though I had a tiger on a leash.  (They didn't realize I would return home to spend an hour or more undoing what I had knit in their company - keeping the feral beast in line required my undivided attention.)

Here is the finished project.  It's lined with a remnant of quilting fabric and I used webbing for the handles rather than i-cord.  A second bag is on the needles as I write.  And I'm considering the color options for our 2015 family Christmas photo...

Patchwork

The interior of the farm house is decorated in a style I call "mid-century old lady" - a lot of dusty rose and smoky blue and several hundred feet of almond trim.  Mercifully, there is no shag carpet or country themed wallpaper border to be removed.  There was, however, a bevelled mirror "feature wall" spanning the first and second floor stairwell.

I attempted to take a "before photo" but the resulting flash burned my retinas.  Think "Vegas hotel" or "Liberace's bathroom" and you'll capture the image.

Pat removed the mirrors with great care.  We're both somewhat superstitious and 48 mirrors at 7 years each might have resulted in several generations of bad luck.  Thanks to his efforts, the mirrors survived unscathed but not the drywall.

Our options - fill and repair a few hundred holes or cover the entire space with new drywall.

On closer inspection, the previous owner had already installed a second layer of drywall - whether as additional support for the mirrors or to cover an earlier "feature wall" (I envision flocked velvet wallpaper) we don't know.  So we're working on the first option.

It's a long process.  Each hole must be primed to prevent moisture from accumulating in the drywall then filled, sanded and primed a second time before we can prime and paint the entire surface.

Viewing our work in process, my daughter came up with a third option - install a large tapestry.  A vintage tapestry is beyond my means but the challenge of creating a 10' x 20' applique quilt  has a certain appeal.

So Pat continues with his patchwork and I with mine - we'll see who gets there first.

The stockings were hung...

on the stairway with care, as we don't have a fireplace in the farm house.

A few years ago, I made stockings using vintage linen napkins for the cuffs and a remnant of upholstery fabric for the sock. There were not enough of the blue stockings for our blended family, so Pat's old sock was pressed into service.

While I still have dozens of linen napkins in my stash, the last of the blue fabric was used to make the tiny stocking for Roxy the wonder dog.

One of my perennial New Year's resolutions is to start Christmas projects in January (rather than December 20 as has been my habit) so I've started knitting a set of wool stockings.  I have an endless supply of cream yarn left over from an afghan project that went sadly awry - more than enough to make stockings for our current family and any new additions - human or otherwise - that may join our household in the years to come.

Here's the first one:

Five more stockings and 354 Christmas crafting days to go...