Wednesday, August 27, 2008

This One's for My Infants

I don't know if it's the unseasonably cool weather, the rush before the start of school or the coming apocalypse, but I'm finishing my knitting projects.
Check it:
Baby Srprise Jacket

I wish I had a closer photo of the collar because it's a bit wonky, not helped by the fact that I crocheted it four times. Apparently I'm going for the artfully handmade aesthetic. No worries. Wonky collars like this go for $75 in my 'hood. It will look smashing on the daughter of a militant reformist-feminist performance artist.

I left the jacket buttoned while it blocked, and I must say it made for some pretty sweet button holes. Look how nicely the buttons stand up, too! Sigh, it's the small things that keep us from being cool.

Baby Surprise Jacket

Okay, I'm wrapping this mofo and sending it on it's way, but first I'm going to go out today and do all of the things I said I was going to do this summer, but never got around to.

Baby Sweater

Keep it real y'all

Saturday, August 16, 2008

Something Finished

It's easy to get jaded in the land of internet knitting. We put ourselves under constant pressure to make something fancier ("maybe I should make it in lace with fair isle!") , more complicated ("so, if I start with a knit octagon which will eventually be the bottom of the foot, pick up stitches...") and with more exotic, hand-painted-ier than thou yarn. While all of these things are awesome and I do love a challenge, I've lost a little bit of perspective.

While I was knitting my latest pair of socks, I just saw them as a rookie stockinette project that took up space on the shelf in my studio. I can't tell you how many times I whined to my overly patient friends about my inability to make things while I knit round after round on these bastards. My colleagues, incredible painters and metal workers, would reply "How can you say that? Look at what you're making!"

While I was washing my new socks for the first time today I remembered my first pair. I had only been knitting for a few months and somehow decided that striped socks were the answer to all of my construction-induced anxiety. If I could knit a sock, I could make anything. I started with the most awesome red/white/orange and blue self-striping yarn (I love this color so much I have another ball of it for when my first pair wear out) and a photocopy of a pattern from the yarn shop. I knit my socks while I soldered, fiber-glassed, cast plastic, welded (this I really shouldn't do strictly for the safety of anyone within 15 feet of me). After four months I had a pile of mediocre sculpture and a pair of freaking striped socks!

The moral of the story is that at one time stockinette socks were the pinnacle of my engineering aspirations. Since then I have knit way more complicated things, made some really weird objects etc. but before all of the antibiotic marshmallows and leeching tables, there were the damn striped socks.

socks