Unsung Knits for an Unsung Man

This is my friend Jerry. He just had a big birthday. Here he is at Lambeau Field modeling knitwear. I'm sure you can guess by the amateurish embroidery that I made this mitt. I made another one, too. Unfortunately that one says, YRREY. I got a little excited when I got to the last letter and forgot I was going backwards. I'm pretty sure he's wearing that one, too. It just didn't show in the picture because maybe he's scratching or something. I believe that thing around his neck is what we used to call a transister radio. I had an avocado green one when I was in 6th grade. They are a precursor to the I-Pod and maybe even the cell phone.

I splurged on the yarn. It's Berroco Blackstone Tweed. It's got a felted quality and I enjoyed working with it. The pattern is Knucks from Knitty. I can't remember what I did, but I tweaked the pattern a little because of gauge and so the palm fits a bit oddly. Maybe it's because it's my first top down pair of gloves. I made the fingers a bit longer. You only need the ends of your fingers to poke out. Well, frankly, I usually only put thumbs in wristwarmers, not fingers. Maybe I'll go even longer next time. It gets cold here, baby!

I Had a Dream

Last night I had a dream that I was working on a sock and had finally gotten to the point of trying it on to see how close to the heel I was. Well, there was a big ole hole at the ball of the foot. Bare naked skin was shining through. I was very upset and said to my Grandma Schultz, "This is the first time knitting has ever made me cry." And I cried. Of course there was other weird stuff and jumping around, but as we say in the teaching reading biz, that was the main idea.

It was nice to see Grandma Schultz again. I guess I was thinking about her because at work we had been talking about learning to cook and sew. She moved in with us when I was about 9 or 10, I think. We shared a bedroom and she had an ancient electric White machine in a cabinet with a knee control. That was a great machine. It had 4 drawers and one whole drawer was all buttons, wonderful buttons, which I've been using over the years. This is not a picture of the actual machine. I found this pic on the Internet. Our cabinet did not have a curve and was a different shade of brown. It also had a light bulb in a little cover. I think the one pictured here is a treadle model. Ours looked something like this, but I don't know about the belt. It seems like I remember a belt, but I don't remember it ever breaking or needing replacement.

Grandma was a consumate saver and maker-doer. Afterall, the first half of her childhood was spent on a farm and she was a single parent for a while during the other Depression. (Sometime ask me about what I used for my period at first and how to get rid of a tapeworm.) The button collection has now dwindled alarmingly. I try to replenish it, but it isn't the same.

I say it with pride that I get some of my make do-itiveness from her. Some people see this as fearless creativity. Once I had wanted some little black boot type shoes (read 1980's) and couldn't afford them, but I found a pair that was black leather except that they had large, army green canvas sections that I would probably like now. So I bought them and took a big magic marker and colored the canvas sections black. I had some friends who thought this was highly creative. I don't know about that, but I did get the shoes that I wanted.

Faceless, Armless Wild Thing

Wild Thing in progress. The toes/claws were an interesting structural problem, but I am satisfied with them now. Here is the crocheted original. I did try to do it in crochet, but let's just say that as crotchety as I am, I am still a better knitter than crocheter. I am very worried that I made the head too small. It looks smaller in real life. Once I start putting hair and features on it, it will be too late. I have to decide today if I will knit another head and slip it over this head to get more size. I couldn't stand it if this thing was just off enough to look like a cheap imitation. This picture was taken by Trini of Saturday Morning at Alterra Knitting and e-mailed from her cell phone. Thanks, Trini!

The Wild Thing's intended turns 1 tomorrow. Time, she is a-wastin'.