Funky Monkey Sockies

I never did show anyone my newbie socks... so here they are..
Yup... those are my feet....

#1 - my calves are big, but NOT that big... let's just say that faced with the option of shaving my legs at 11:45 pm at night, or exaggerating the extreme peasant-like shape of my calves with heavy duty photographic perspective... I chose the latter.

Addendum: My cherished friend FIBRE FLOOZIE says that I actually have 'Klondike hooker calves' -- oh boy, do I feel better about my self image now...

#2 - the pattern used is Monkey ... gorgeous leafy lace patterning with a lovely variegated yarn.. Designed by a very inspiring knit designer named Cookie A.

http://www.knitty.com/issuewinter06/PATTmonkey.html

Cookie A. used a variegated yarn. So did I.... I used a lovely yarn called Opal, whom my buddette, fibre floozie, a.k.a. Guerrilla Knitter, assures me is the crack-cocaine of sock yarn.... However, look at my colours - oooomigosh - my Monkey Socks look like Monkey with mumps socks... you can't even see the lacy patterning...

But then again, you can't see that I didn't shave my legs either!

Kid Lit Inspired Knits

So, she says to me, she says:

"So... whatcha doing this year?"

"Huh?" I reply in my brain-blasted it's after 5pm and you expect me to speak coherently kind of way...

Sue, the administrator at Ziggy's daycare is smiling at me with that 'you didn't read my newsletter last week did you?' look in her eyes.

Every year I knit something for the daycare's United Way fundraiser. Sue has caught me out... I meant to read it... I'm going to... if I can find it in the backseat of my car.

Um -- when is the fundraiser?
November 30th?
Okee Doekee..
Don't you worry!
I'M ON THE CASE!!!
You betcha! On the case!

Oy...
What to do? What to do?

And thus Kid-Lit Inspired Knits was born.

The 3 books & their related knitwear:

The Missing Mitten Mystery. Story & illustrations by Steven Kellogg
One pair of Red Mittens --if you read the story, you can see why they have to be Red-- complete with an 'idiot string', as we call them in my family - to ensure that there are no missing/lost mittens.

Cookie's Week. Cindy Ward & illustrated by Tomie dePaola
A story about a naughty little kitten... (one of Ziggy's faves)
A Pussy Cat Balaclava/Hat

There's a Wocket in my Pocket! by Dr. Seuss
A very Seuss-ish hat & pair of mittens, based on a pattern from my mother's extremely limited knitting library, circa late 1950s early 1960s.

Funny story: my brother, remembers NOTHING... and I mean NOTHING about our experiences growing up. I brought the pattern book along to my niece's 4th birthday party a week ago, brother-dearest took one look at the pattern book and says:

I remember that book! That's Mum's... She bought it at Woolworth's on Van Horne near the Brown Derby! I remember that! Oh, oh, oh... and I remember the little sombrero thing-a-ma-jiggies that she used to put at the end of her needles too!

So what's up with that? Can't remember ANYTHING about our youth but this he remembers clear as a bell? Is it a Woolworth's induced yarn trauma moment? Is it loving memories of mummy's scratchy knits? Or is it just that the yarn aisle was next to the chocolate bunny aisle in Woolworth's and he accidentally associates the two together in the 'this I can remember with great fondness' section of his hippocampus?

His eldest daughter (who is 16) and I just giggled!

So, here is the kicker...

The Red Mitts are an Acrylic/Wool mix, the balaclava and Dr. Seuss knitwear are 100% not natural fibres. When it comes to most kiddy things, I used natural fibres like cotton... but this is the kind of kid-stuff that needs to be highly industrial.... They will be washed and often... these need to be machine washable... and let's face it... we are talking a lot of bodily fluids here... these are kids...

Teething drool, nose goop and all sorts of food items will get shmeared and ground into these little knits on a daily basis... plus at a daycare, I can tell you, the sandbox NEVER EVER closes on the playground... not even in winter... so figure in a little Bondi Beach inspired residue amongst the fibres to boot!

Nose goop is the substance that binds everything together... nose goop requires trayf yarn... Dr. Seuss demands trayf yarn... 100% not natural fibres... I mean, really... this is Dr. Seuss after all!

Sweaters that cry out 'I'm not from a big-box store'

After Ziggy's Mama's Little Rebel sweater we travelled to Australia to hang with the other half of our extended family. Amongst the crew are 2 amazing (now 10 year old) boys. I knew I had to make them sweaters as well... I'm a Butterfly, Cotton, Super 10 DK fan (the Che sweater is Super 10) so here's what I came up with....

Now, first, I should mention that there aren't very many plain and simple patterns for 12 year olds that I could use as my basis (never make a size 10 for a 10 year old.... It's a waste of time, my friends....) So I used the same basic pattern that I use for all my kids' sweaters -- Kate Buller's Style your own Kids' Knits is an excellent source for patterns & motifs... but I needed more 'grown up' iconography for my 2 amazing surfin'/sk8tr boy nephews... note the super cool flames & stars on Dylan's jumper (British/South African/Aussie for sweater) from Stitch 'n Bitch Nation.. Josh's Skull and Bones are from the Buller's Motif Library....

JOSH'S SURFER DUDE JUMPER

DYLAN'S SK8TR BOY JUMPER

Who says sweaters from your knit-addicted Canadian aunty have to be boring?

The Knitter's Blessing

The Knitter’s Blessing //
Birkat HaSaroget


All you need to do is watch “Fiddler on the Roof” to see that there are Jewish blessings for almost everything. Mottel the Tailor asks the Rebbe to bless his sewing machine upon its arrival in the shtetl… and yes, there appears to be one….

There are blessings on the home, on businesses, candle lighting blessings. Blessings for an easy birth. Blessings for a boy. For a girl. For a girl or boy so that they should sleep at night (so that the parent can sleep – we Jews aren’t meshugge after all…) Blessings for success, for Bat Mitzvahs, Bar Mitzvahs, physicians’ prayers, lawyers’ creeds, for the woman of valour. There are blessings for the traveler, for the dead, for the living, and for the sick…. and, according to Norman Jewison a prayer for sewing machines.

So, when in search of a knitter’s prayer/blessing did I ask my Rabbi? No. I’m a modern day Jew. Instead, I googled “Knit+Prayer” and “Knit+Blessing”. All I could find was this very Christian one (mummy and daddy would say not to use the word goyesher)…..

"Ladies and gentlemen, let us bow our heads for a moment of prayer ... In Yarn's name, we pray ... our Knitter, who art in yarn shop, hallowed be thy name, thy knitdom come, thy yarns be knit, on earth as it is in thy LYS. Give us this day our daily knit and forgive us our dropped stitches as we forgive those who interrupt our knitting. And lead us not to break our yarn diet, but deliver us from acrylic, for thine is the pattern, and the gauge swatch and the knitting forever and ever, amen."(apologies - i couldn't resist.) Posted by Anne from Kniterati.org/blogspot


So after a little bit of Talmudic blessing research and a smidgen of googling I offer to you the Birkat HaSaroget:

May you knit to see your fabric fulfilled
with your yarn and pattern aligned in harmony.
May your stitching be straight and sure
and your eyes not strained....
May your vision be guided by the Torah's lamp

(but pe pe pe, don't sit so close that your gauge swatch catches fire)

May your cables be tidy, your increases discrete;
and your frogging not a plague.
And may you rush in eagerness to hear the words of the learned ones
in the latest knitting publications.

Amen

Jewish Knitting....

KNITTISHISMS
Meditations of a Jewish Knitter
KNITTISH FOR BEGINNERS
By Rebel Knitter
2007


I wrote this little thing called Knittishisms...
Actually, it is my Manifesto.

If ad agencies and corporate bureaucrats can subscribe to a company Manifesto, can't a poor shlep like me?

Here's an important bit on Kosher Knitting:


Kosher Knitting

In the words of one of my closest Jewish knitting friends, Beryl Tsang:

“Friends don’t let friends knit kippot on shabbes”.

Okay, so Beryl is Chinese, so, nu like this is a problem?

In Deuteronomy, Chapter 14, the clean and unclean beasts are named – it is from this which Kosher and Non-Kosher food is derived. But wool mixed with linen, oink, bunny and goat hair IS NOT what I define as the character of Trayf yarn. Trayf yarn is chaloshes yarn. It is that nasty, synthetic, non-novelty fibre so readily available in dollar stores and big box superstores. Essentially, it grosses you out when you touch it. Often, if you knit with it and drop a stitch, you will never see that stitch again.

Regrettably, most little girls, regardless of their ethnic orientation, really dig pink and purple trayf yarn.

Q: So, what to do?

A: Only knit trayf yarn with really cheap plastic or noisy aluminum needles – never bamboo or birch. Whereas my friends have their milk, meat and Passover dishes, I have bamboo, metal, good plastic and trayf plastic knitting needles. It seems only appropriate.

Q: If you keep a kosher knitting home, can you only knit trayf yarn outside the home? Perhaps at Beryl’s?

A: No. Beryl is Buddhist. She has moral objections to trayf yarn as well. Knitters must decide for themselves what makes them ethically centered with their faith and their yarn. Only from this can one make a relaxed choice as to how to live blissfully as a modern kosher knitter.

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This is just a little blurby of it... I will post more, including images, on a later post...