Sunday, September 12, 2010

Road Trippin'

If you live in Toronto in the summer odds are you attempt to get the heck out of town on any given sunny weekend. To do a little road trippin' that looks something like this:





And if you do that a lot, you need a lot of this at the ready:





Everyone has their personal favourite for the road trip knit. I've tried following a chart and it made me want to puke. I've tried knitting a blanket and it made me want to sleep. For me, I like a simple, easily memorized lace pattern that keeps my hands moving quickly, keeps my eyes on the scenery, and challenges me enough that I don't doze off (even while listening to The Wolf 101.5).



So here's my latest road trip creation, the White Night Scarf, made from reclaimed yarn from a heavy cabled hat I bought from Banana Republic years ago that looked great but gave me a kink in the neck it was so darn heavy.





A heavy, cosy, funky scarf made just in time for the road trippin' to slow down for another season.  Sigh.
 
Pattern:  White Night Scarf
By:  Team Knit
Yarn:  Unknown
Needles:  US 13

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

She gets it....

I often find my husband giving me sideways glances when he sees me knitting up itty bitty pieces of undecipherable shapes, slowly starting a pile on my knitting desk. I can tell he wants to ask me what the heck I am doing but stops short to save himself from my rolling eyes and sometimes less than... uh-hum...polite response. I know the curiosity boils up inside him, not because he cares what I am making, but more because he just has to know what 4 squares, 2 triangles and 2 circles with long tails hanging around will actually be MacGyver-ed into.



So somewhere between square three and circle one I know the question comes...he blurts out in his most pleasant, inquisitive tone "So, what is that you are working on?". He cares not what the answer is, I could say I'm knitting a rocket ship that I plan to launch in the backyard once I figure out how to make this yarn fire retardant, he just needs an answer so that square + square no longer equals unknown.


So I smile inside and answer simply "It's a rabbit". And I show him the picture in the pattern so he can visualize it. I can read his mind (I haven't shared this fact with him after all these years, but I can) and he's thinking "Wow, what a colossal waste of time". But instead he responds with feigned interest, "hmmph", picks up his newspaper and carries on with his life. He doesn't get it.





He doesn't understand that when you care enough to spend so much time and effort into making something that a piece of your love gets implanted in that object, no matter how small and seemingly insignificant that object is. So what may be 4 squares, 2 triangles and 2 circles to him can actually give comfort and love to someone else.
 
 
He doesn't get it, but it doesn't matter. Because SHE does.



Pattern:  Little Hare Boy
By: Ala Ela: