Origami a/k/a ribbing Purgatory

I have been working on my Origami Pullover, designed by Linda A. Daniels, for a little over four months. It requires knitting one large rectangle and one humongously large rectangle all in knit one, purl one ribbing. I’m not kidding when I say large. 150 stitches to a row and knit for 68 inches. It’s shown here in a wonderful yarn, Frog Tree‘s sport melange alpaca. Scrumptious. But yipes, this is the most boring thing I’ve ever knit.

I knit very few sweaters for myself. Let’s just leave it at being way overweight seriously challenges this knitter. But I tried a shop sample of this on and it fit and, at the time, I thought I looked OK in it. I didn’t expect to look like the glamorous model in the pattern photo, but I also didn’t expect to look and feel so, well, so bat-like. The odd angles and, what not, don’t flatter.

But still. It is warm and cozy. I expect to get a lot of wear out of it, especially at the lake house. It should be just the thing to wear as the house is warming up after we arrive on a cold wintry evening.

 

 

 

Christmas kitty

This is Christmas Kitty. She’s designed by Katie Nagorney and Ann Swanson and sold as one of their Two Old Bags patterns. Kitty is actually a small pillow, but she prefers not to think of herself in those terms. She is somewhat troubled that her maker is such a bad embroiderer that she only got a barely visible nose. And missing a mouth is really not funny at all, but at least she can still purr. She’s rather proud of her vintage mother-of-pearl eyes. Speaking of purl, she thinks her knitted fur is quite the cat’s meow. The snowflakes are her favorite part. She’s not too crazy about the little “v’s” of white knitted into her stripes because she has a breed memory of fleas.

So, above is kitty forward. Below, you will see that she’s pretty easy to sneak up on.

 

 

Mary Maxim’s Christmas stockings


You should have been there in about 1982. Port Huron, Michigan. An all-day excursion to Mary Maxim‘s. Home (then) of just about nothing but 100% acrylic yarns and intarsia kits of all sort. Zippered jacketed sweaters with deer heads knitted on the back. Actually, all kinds of heads (and bodies) knitted into sweaters: elk, duck, fish, bear, all breeds of dogs and cats. Those patterns were Mary Maxim’s bread and butter. You would buy the sweaters patterns all kitted up with yarn. I made one. A deer sweater. And I do not know what happened to it.

I could knit classier Christmas stockings now. I am a better knitter. But these are ensconced as traditions. My son’s is the snowman. His dad’s and mine are a puppy and a kitten (not shown here).

Intarsia is not a technique I ever warmed up to. But for cutesy inserts, it’s the technique of choice. I guess. Anyway, every year “the stockings are hung by the chimney with care, in hopes that St. Nicholas soon will be there.”

Edit: 11/14/12: Mary Maxim has re-released some of these patterns.  Check it out!

 

Big-headed Santa

This is a cool shop pattern, from The Knitting Room in Birmingham, Michigan, circa early 1990’s. It’s owners ago. In the pre-Ravelry era when only the knitlist linked internet savvy knitters.

This guy is stuffed with the same unspun Perendale wool that you see in his beard and mustache. Sort of a pricey way to go, but it makes him soft and cuddly. He spends the off-season packed away with the other Christmas decorations. Once released, he sometimes sits on the mantle. This year he’s standing next to the Christmas tree. Hoover, the cat, eyes him warily but hasn’t yet summoned up his courage to confront.

Favorite: Calorimetry

 

Many knitters have patterns they knit, and enjoy knitting, repeatedly.  My newest welcome repeat is Kathryn Schoendorf’s Calorimetry, a free pattern published in Knitty, Winter 2006.

I’ve posted three Calorimetries in the past several months and have recently completed my fourth. It’s a wide headband. It’s an ear warmer. It’s a hat specially adapted for folks with pony tails. It’s a fun quick pattern that knits up in about two hours, even allowing ample time for distractions.

Click on one of the photos below for a slide show sampling showing Calorimetry off in different yarns and colorways: The multi-color two are in Plymouth Yarns Boku. The pink and yellow one is Brown Sheep Lanaloft Worsted. And the denim one is in Paton’s SWS Soy Wool Stripes.

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