Attention Sydney knitters! I’ve just gotten word from Meg that the Sydney Stitch N Bitch is going to be filmed by Better Homes & Gardens for an upcoming show! The only problem is that the presenter’s schedule means they need to film the spot… tomorrow night. We need to pack Hart’s Pub with as many knitters and crocheters as we can get. If you can hold a pair of needles, we want you there. It starts at 5:00 pm (which is a crap time, I know). Details and a map are available on the website. Hope to see you there!
Category: Crafts
Craft projects of mine
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Scary Soctopus!
Dude, this HGTV Soctopus is scary.
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Sexy Geography Teacher
Since Eileen asked, here’s the picture of Sexy Geography Teacher in all his glory. (Click for a bigger version.) Now you can see where I got the inspiration. Wouldn’t you have liked to’ve had this guy teaching you about Mercator projections?Further construction notes: This is an actual pieced garment, not something knit in the round (as I usually do). The graph consisted of the back, the two front sections, and one sleeve. The other sleeve is blank. The design is only on the “outer” section of the garment, meaning if you lift up your arm there’s not another version of India beneath it. I can scan the graph if anybody wants to have a look at it.
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Geography Cardigan
On Thursday I gave my latest knitting project its first public airing… I present the Geography Cardigan! I got the idea from an old 80’s knitting book Mrs Morris (the shop owner) lent me as a joke. The tackiness of the patterns really needs to be seen to be believed. (The back cover, for instance, features a guy in suspenders and a bow-tie standing next to a woman wearing a sweater… with knitted suspender and bow-tie motifs. Get it? It’s an OPTICAL ILLUSION. Very clever.) Anyway, I was flipping through it and suddenly there he was: Sexy Geography Teacher. He had a Ewan McGregor ‘tache to go with his acid-wash jeans and the grooviest, daggiest cardigan I’d ever seen. I had to make one. After a period of trial and error I settled on Sirdar Nova as the yarn of choice. It’s not 100% wool, but it’s soft and it was the only thing thick enough to get gauge that had a range of bright colors. In terms of technical difficulty, it was my first ever attempt at intarsia and I bungled it a bit. It looks fine from the outside, but I made the mistake of occasionally carrying the wool across the back instead of cutting and starting a new strand (because it was only a gap of a few stitches, and I’m lazy). I’ve since found out that you NEVER MIX INTARSIA AND FAIRISLE, which is what I was doing. Consider yourself warned. Anyhoo, I also had to invent a way to knit the collar on to the garment since the one knitted to the pattern specifications was way, way too small. But it worked out. I’m actually pretty proud of it! I still need to head to Newtown for some appropriate buttons, but it’s definitely one of my more successful projects. And check out the back! (And as the Aussies keep asking, Australia’s on my left elbow. No, I wasn’t clever enough to do the thing where you reorient the whole world to put Australia on top. Sorry.) -
Stitch and Bitch time!
Here’s my buddy Katie at the new Thursday night Tapestry Craft Stitch and Bitch. We had six people tonight… Success!
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S’n’B!
Stitch and Bitch at Hart’s Pub in the Rocks. Made several new internet knitting friends!
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Soctopus Attacks Oscar, Film at 11
As you probably read elsewhere, the 2005 Oscar nominations were announced this morning and you all know what that means… The Third Annual web-goddess Oscar Contest has offically launched! This year the first prize is a one-of-a-kind, never-before-seen sock creation: the Soctopus! (Thanks to Christopher for suggesting the concept.) Second and third prizes are the ever-popular mini sock monkeys. Remember, do your research and take as much time as you need before you enter because you can’t go back and change your entry later! But don’t wait too late, because ties can be broken based on who put in their guess first… Good luck everyone!
Oh, and if you want to see more pictures of Soctopus in action, here are some shots of him attacking the Snook. (Matt used them to create the awesome promo image for the contest this year.) In terms of his construction, he’s a slight cheat since I actually used two pairs of socks. The skinny black tie was a joke reference to the modern tuxedos worn by guys like Brad Pitt, and the hat just seemed like the perfect accessory. Matt thinks it makes him look like a “ska-topus.” I can see that.
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Solstice is finished!
A solstice a long time coming…
I am so happy to report that my Jo Sharp “Solstice” sweater is finally finished, nearly two years after I started the damn thing! I ran into difficulty in September (2003) when I started sewing it up and realized that I’d made a complete cock-up of the drop sleeves. I’d cast them off too tightly, which meant that the armhole was rather tight and not nicely drapey like it should be. Unfortunately I only realized that after I’d sewn the sleeves on and woven about 50,000 ends into the seam. Frustrated and annoyed, I packed it in a bag and set it aside to work on happier projects. It languished for over a year. Periodically I’d take it out and pick at the seam, then sigh and put it away. I just couldn’t deal with it, you know? Then last month I had a flash of inspiration: Why not pay somebody to fix it for me? So I took it in to work and gave it to Ann, the lady who runs our knitting clinic. She worked on it all through our holiday and had it ready for me when I got back today. She not only fixed the sleeves (and added a bit more needed length), but she also seamed the sides, knitted the collar, and wove in the remaining 100,000 ends! Of course, as part of the deal I had to put up with a fair bit of griping and criticism from her about my crappy finishing techniques, but hey, I was a beginning knitter, all right? And she did compliment me on my even knitting, which was nice. (Apparently my final measurement was only two centimeters off the 130 specificed in the pattern.) At any rate, it’s finally finished and I can wear it… in about six months when this damn summer heat wave ends. *sigh* But aren’t the colors great? I wanted something big and crazy bold to wear with jeans in winter, and I think this will fit the bill nicely. -
The Cabled Throw
Oh, and I forgot to mention that I finally gave the happy couple their wedding gift: the Sunday cable throw from Jo Sharp’s fourth book, Home. It took me well over a hundred hours to knit, and I used 36.5 balls of Jo Sharp 8-ply wool. I modified the pattern to make it a bit wider and added fringe to both ends to make it a little more “blanket-y”. It’s really pretty and warm. (Unbeknownst to me, it also perfectly matches the beige and red of their living room color scheme.) It’s about six feet long by four feet wide. Here’s a pic of my sister lounging under it along with a detail of the cabling up close:
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Tales from the Knitting Trenches
Since I’m sure none of you have been able to sleep from the anticipation, I’m happy to be able to bring you the end of the Saga of Angora Man. You remember him, right? Well, our knitter finished his sweater fairly quickly and I was eager to get a look at it. It’s your basic men’s crew-neck sweater… just in extremely fluffy snow-white angora. We discovered a problem when we went to call him though – his number didn’t work! I guess that’s what non-refundable deposits are for, right? But wait, this story has a happy ending. A few weeks ago I was busy cutting some embroidery fabric for a customer when I noticed a familiar fuzziness in my peripheral vision. I looked up. It was him! “Hey!” I said. “It’s you, Angora Ma–” (Just caught myself there.) “And you’re wearing a new sweater! Gee, it’s sooo lovely!” And yes, folks, he was wearing a third white angora sweater. This one was also a women’s garment, as evidenced by the puffy sleeves and the panel of smocking on the front. “Your new sweater is ready!” I told him. “It’s really gorgeous!” We took him over and he immediately wanted to model it. I had to deal with other customers but evidently he was pestering the other manager for ages. Did it fit right? Did it hang correctly? It really didn’t seem to be hanging quite right, he thought. Losh had the unenviable task of trying to explain that this was simply because he’d been wearing ladies’ sweaters, and the new one was actually a men’s garment. In the end he was happy enough, though, and forked over the rest of the cash. And thus ends the strange, fluffy tale of Angora Man.
In other news, I’m in the latest issue of Creative Knitting! I met the original editor, Nicola, eighteen months ago at a Stitch & Bitch in the city. Earlier this year she read on Amy’s site about my career change. She e-mailed me and asked if I’d write the “Cable Knits” section for the next issue. (It’s just a little sidebar where a knitter talks about what they’re doing right now.) Anyway, I sent my copy off to her and pretty much forgot about it. Then in the past 24 hours I had two different customers at the store ask me if I was “the girl from Creative Knitting.” Yeah, that’s me! So I ran out at lunch to buy a copy. It’s really cheezy and kinda “gee-whiz!”, but apparently it was also pretty memorable, so I’m proud of it.
