September 28, 2005

• I picked up knitting when I was a teenager for a short spell... dunno why, just did. I still have many a pot holder laying around that I created. Never got beyond that, but I enjoyed it just the same.
• I've never tried knitting but I've done a fair bit of decorative nautical rope work - Turk's Head mats, Sennits and Monkey's Fists etc. Very similar concepts. Mebbe we should start a knitting bee. We could start with tentacle cozies for the various monkeys who might appreciate them.
• I wish I knew a man who knit. It's kinda sexy.
• When I had jury duty I noticed a man in the waiting room who had brought some knitting to do. Several women approached him to ask him about it and watch him knit. I took a crappy photo of him from afar with my phone. Maybe knitting is the new baby/puppy.
• Firefly fans can also knit Jayne's "cunning hat." It's easy, even for beginners. The best color match I've found has been Red Heart yarn - Super Saver, worsted/medium, shades Ranch Red (for the ear flaps), a color that I think was called Pumpkin (for the bottom section), and Gold (for the top). Readily available at a WalMart near you. Hat: cast on 72 stitches of Pumpkin. Alternate rows of purl and knit for 3 1/2 inches. Switch to Gold, and do another 3 1/2 inches. Earflaps: cast on 25 stitches, knit about 3 inches, decrease 2 stitches per row until you're down to 6 stitches, finish with a dangly string. Sew up the sides of the tube, stitch together the top and gather it up. Make a pompom of all three colors. Stitch the earflaps to the hat at what seem to be reasonable intervals. Good project for beginners (like me!), takes about 4 hours to complete - don't worry about making mistakes, that just makes it more like the original prop. I sold a couple of these on eBay. One buyer sent me a picture of himself in the hat, which arrived just in time for his Firefly party. It made me very happy. Man walks down the street in that hat, people know he's not afraid of anything.
• I've done some knitting as well, but here's the problem; I like to wear clothing with really simple lines, and in single colours. But that's kind of boring to knit. I need to find a naked, shivering clown and knit him up some stuff.
• I'm just relearning right now: I haven't knitted since I was 10. I was surprised that my hands seemed to remember the motions while my brain still struggles. I've just knitted an inch of purl and somehow ended up with 33 stitches on the latest row where I cast on with 28. Heh.
• Man walks down the street in that hat He says, "why am I soft in the middle now?"
• I don't knit, but I do crochet, and I made a friend of mine a Harry Potter (Gryffindor) scarf last winter. My mom made me a bunch of scarves when I moved up to the "frozen tundra of Ohio," as she calls it. When she asked me how long I wanted them I said "Dr. Who long!" and she complied. The very fact that she knew what that meant and was willing to make me such a long scarf makes her cool. My project this winter is to learn how to make a hat like Ali McGraw's in Love Story. (Then I get to fall in love with a Preppy and die of a mysterious, yet beautiful, disease.)
• I once repaired a knitted Schlitz hat for my Uncle Bob, but admittedly, it was mostly cosmetic.
• Knitted superhero costumes. Not to be confused with a knitted superhero.
• Cali, this one's for you: Rosey Grier's Needlepoint for Men.
• Mmmm, Rosey Grier. Now that's a sexy man.
• My best friend knits on occasion, but he has the gay, so I'm not sure it counts.
• My brother does not knit, but he does sew. Last Christmas, his wife went to the fabric store and had to tell the sales associate "I want to buy a nice sewing machine for my husband, but I don't know anything about them..." She said, to her credit, the sales accociate just blinked once and then carried on.
• The knitting craze has exploded in my little collegetown. If you'd told me a year ago there'd be college knitting parties all over town, I'd have spit my drink in your face. (Unless I'm even more unhip than I realize, and it's some kind of code word for drug-filled orgies. But then, there are yarn and needles for sale everywhere...) I haven't crocheted since I was a teen, but my sister recently asked me to make her some chemo hats, and it came back quickly. OK, they're a little misshapen, but each one is getting better. I'm not sure if she's wearing them to spare my feelings, or if she's just cold.
• Another fun geek knit project: knit in binary! Translate a phrase into binary, then knit a row of black for the 1, and white for the 0, barcode-style. I made a black-and-white scarf that says "computer geek" in binary. Here's an online binary translator.
• Why not just jump in the nerd pool head first and connect your binary translator to one of these bad boys?
• More nerd knitting stuff.
• *finishes toaster cover and teapot cozy, begins on hard drive doily
• Knit a monkey.
• It's tough being lunch in the knitted animal world.
• LCT is totally getting one of those.