So, I am reading. I promise. Not much, but more than I was. Hopefully, I will post about some reading rather than knitting soon.
I have been knitting a decent amount of late, but you can’t tell by looking around my knitting zone on the couch. There was been a lot of what we call frogging. You take your needles out of a problem project and riiiip it riiiip it. I got so frustrated with my attempted projects that I frogged the latest attempt at a cowl and started knitting something I dread. A project, or series of projects I don’t particularly enjoy but need to get done. Christmas stockings. Anyone who has been around for the last 6-7 years probably knows about them. For those who don’t know many moons ago someone (no one seems to know who) knit matching Christmas stockings for our dad and his siblings. Every year we hung dad’s stocking up as a decoration. One day, shortly before my nephew was born, I was paging through Mason- Dixon Knitting Outside the Lines by Kay Gardiner and Ann Shayne and Dad spied something in the margin. His stocking! Thanks to the powers of the internet, the 1945 stocking pattern is still around. Naturally, he asked if I could knit us all stockings to match his. Thus began a lifelong project. At the time, the goal was to make stockings as close to his as possible. It meant acrylic yarn that I do not love to work with and some swatching. That year I believe I knit two stockings. One for my nephew and one for my grandpa. Each year I chipped away at the stocking queue, adding and subtracting as I went. Each stocking has the person’s name and birth year on it. As needed, I was able to remove a name portion and replace it. That got me out of knitting a few. This year I have three stockings to knit. As I said before, these are not my favorite to knit. The yarn is unforgiving for my hands and squeaks on my needles a bit. The colorwork is a bit tricky and the faces more than a bit creepy. (The internet calls the figures demon children, only in part because they are annoying to knit.) I have the added challenge of names that are too long to fit on the band. I hope everyone has a shorter nickname. I promised Dad matching stockings, so I will keep knitting them anyway. One day they will get linings and a bell on each toe… maybe. Hopefully. I drag my feet on these every time, so I was a bit surprised last night when I ditched a whole list of projects for a Christmas stocking. I am even more puzzled by the fact that I’m mostly enjoying it. Maybe this stocking will be the beginning of a happier relationship between me and this life long project. For now I have started the stocking for our dear friend Miss Claire and mostly look forward to the process. Oh! I have been working a bit on the fiber page for the blog. Hopefully you will see it soon, but I’m curious what people would enjoy seeing. Feel free to chime in with requests and don’t forget that our Books page includes a form to make book recommendations. We love a good book recommendation.
1 Comment
Bilbo Baggins
6/15/2018 06:17:21 pm
You go, girl!
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AuthorsTwo sisters. Two states. Two hobbies. Archives
July 2019
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