| Sticks and String [message #47057] |
Mon, 19 December 2011 18:22  |
EMoon
Messages: 664
Registered: March 2009 |
Senior Member |
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Since Robin & friends lured me back into knitting after 40+ years, I thought I'd report on the next level of influence...I began knitting at the conventions I attended, and found other knitters there. (At one, A-Kon, three of us were sitting at a signing-books table knitting away, to the fascination of both non-knitters and knitters among the people wandering past; at two other conventions, specific program times were set aside for knitting/needlework groups.)
Another writer friend who observed the 3-in-a-row writer-knitters (Lynn Abbey, Melanie Fletcher and I) bethought herself that once upon a time she had knitted. She's one of the regulars at my Thanksgiving Day dinners...and this year found herself bracketed by Melanie (working on socks) and me (working on a scarf of big fuzzy yarn using my Buffy needles--easily big and stout enough to slay a vampire (20mm; size 35 US). She was due a scarf, I thought, and she fell for the last skein of that yarn so...I sent her one. In the meantime, her m-i-l died and her husband brought back his mother's needles and other tools. Sure enough, she slipped over the lip of stick-and-string madness and went out to buy some yarn.
Today, friends from Arizona visited for a few hours on their way to a family funeral in Louisiana. M- does crochet but has started getting back to knitting some as well. We fondled each others' yarn and made appropriate noises. She guided me through a little crochet (I had forgotten some crucial steps and the videos on YouTube weren't helpful in crochet, though they were in knitting.) She crocheted some; I knitted some; I passed on to her some yarn I'd been given that I kinda liked but had no real use for (and she said it was in the color scheme of her mother's living room and she'd love to have it.) She was doing it before I brought it up, so that's not a McKinley influence, but still worth mentioning.
E
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| Re: Sticks and String [message #47586 is a reply to message #47057 ] |
Sat, 14 January 2012 11:10  |
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I recently returned from visiting my boything in Ohio, and prior to my arrival, one of the few things his mother knew about me was that I knitted and crocheted. Lacking any pictures of me online, he had showed her pictures of various things I'd made (much more common on my social networking things), so she'd seen the Fire and Ice fingerless gloves and the Knit, Swirl! coat I'd knitted, as well as various toys I'd crocheted.
He met me at the airport with a wrapped package from her, which turned out to contain a (long) scarf she'd knitted for me, with apologies that she hadn't had a chance to block it! I'd brought along a knitting project of my own, and got into conversations with several people that were around for Christmas because I was sitting and knitting. After I finished it, and on one of the last days I was there, the mother and son and I went on a tour of local yarn shops, finding some marvelous things (and spending WAY too much money, and making packing... interesting).
Yarn-y things, as my boy calls them, were definitely an icebreaker and let me go into that trip knowing that I had something in common with his mom so I was much less nervous about 'meeting the family'.
Also, the Christmas present I got from my mom was a set of the Addi Click Lace needles, which I utterly adore.
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| Re: Sticks and String [message #50522 is a reply to message #47586 ] |
Fri, 29 June 2012 09:05 |
 Wordnotes
Messages: 2
Registered: May 2012
Location: South Africa |
Junior Member |
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Handwork does tend to get a grip on the unwary.
My mother was an amazing knitter, intricate patterns while watching TV, jerseys made to order, the whole bit. I was as intimidated as hell, and every time I tried, it seemed to be 'Oh, not like that' and she would take it away from me and do it properly. So I stopped trying to knit and took up crochet. (my mother's granny squares generally turned out triangular).
A few years ago I finally gave up trying to buy a jersey that I liked (the fashion for 'shrugs' finally did me in - I get COLD) and started teaching myself to knit. And got hooked. Even worse, I discovered tatting, which won't help keep me warm, but it is so pretty!
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| Re: Sticks and String [message #52080 is a reply to message #47057 ] |
Sat, 29 September 2012 09:47 |
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Honey_Bee
Messages: 86
Registered: October 2008
Location: Tennessee |
Member |
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Since this is a thread for knitting (there has to be a joke in there somewhere) can I ask about everyone preferred yarn? I am a basic level knitter. I've only ever done scarves and the ones I've done in the past were just knit stitch--nothing fancy. I've started a rib stitch scarf (k2p1 with very thick yarn) and I'm loving the way it looks but I'm curious about other yarns. I normally shop at the big craft stores and tend to stick with Lion Brand yarn, the "homespun thick & quick" (which gets out of shape really easily) and their "wool-ease chunky" but I want to start cabling and I want some yarn that is soft and thinner but won't break the bank. I'm going to go to our (one) local knitting store (The Knaughty Knitter) but I'd like to have some idea of what I'm looking at so I don't sit in the store a cry. I eventually want to make a pair of fingerless mitts/hand warmers and my thick Lion Brand Yarn isn't going to cut it. Thanks!
"All knowledge is worth having."
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