Knitting A Mile Square

Some time over the New Year’s Eve weekend, Facebook  mysteriously posted a news feed that I was now married.  I received a  number of emails  from people who know us pretty well claiming surprise that we had waited 20+ years to tie the knot.  I also got a lot of nice congratulatory messages from distant acquaintances on the happy event.  Even the waitress at the place around the corner congratulated us when we went in for dinner.

I don’t  know what the etiquette is for deflecting a compliment given because of cyber-randomness, so I decided to just go with the whole romance of unexpectedly marrying your true love at the very start of a new decade.  I wrote “Just Married” in the steam in the bathroom mirror. I ate some cake.  I knitted my new husband a hat.

This is a great hat for a husband, new or old.  The pattern is Marsan Watchcap and it’s not a Rav link for a change.

Slightly used husband in New hat

The cleverness in this hat is the method for turning the brim. I won’t give away the surprise, but it’s a fun knit even for the most experienced knitter, an elegant and sharp twist on a staple pattern.

I spent a lot of time outside this weekend, taking advantage of the beautiful weather and lingering fall colors.  And, of course, avoiding laundry.  You can’t do laundry outside in the city, even though I live a block from the  Hudson River so it wouldn’t be very inconvenient if I did.

I took some knitting outside to keep me company, particularly this vest.  I joined this Vestvember group to get some new vest ideas, but I ended up casting on something from one of the Japanese knitting books I got at Mitsua. It has about 75,000 cables and a lot of ribbing, so it’s going to need some expert blocking.

I spent a lot of time looking for the right fall gold for this project, and I’ll be darned if I didn’t find it in the most unlikely place: the Lion Brand Yarn Store.  Given my seriously snobby yarn preferences I never thought I’d find anything at that storee other than some basic stuff for a pair of mittens, but they have a nice line of reasonably priced superwash merino and it was exactly the color I’d been looking for. Go figure.

This little bit of thriftiness sort of balances out some of the excesses of Sheep and Wool last month. This beautiful stuff, from Persimmon Tree Farms, was also meant for a vest until I decided to keep it all for myself. I spent a lot of time rationalizing why it wasn’t good for a vest (too fuzzy! too warm! a tough color! made from goats!) but in the end I realized that love don’t need a reason.  The color is grey, or green,or blue just like Hudson River:

I haven’t yet decided what this will turn out to be.  I’ve been toying a wrap based on the Bandit scarf, but it will have to wait until after the holiday knitting push before I get going on it.

It’s a big holiday weekend here in Hoboken, and what would a holiday be without knitting? We even have a city wide parade dedicated to the day, it’s that important.

When Emily was little (I guess she stopped being little last year) I’d start Halloween costume planning in August.  We’d go to the fabric store and peruse the Simplicity catalogs for hours and hours until we decided on just the right witch, or princess, or cat. My favorite year was one where she was a waitress, and instead of buying a waitress uniform at a supply store, I made one from scratch – a miracle of darts, zippers and yellow polyester.

I never ever thought to knit a costume, though, or knit any aspect of it.  If I did, I might have chosen something like this nice furry cat.  Had I known about them, and had the nerve, I for sure would have knitted one of those frightening balaclavas you see on Ravelry from time to time. I never would have knitted these (Note: not for the squeamish and you know who you are).

In fact, I had never seen a knitted costume in the last 20 years I’ve been going to this parade. Not a one.  But this year I set out this year with my camera, and a modest prize (M&M’s) to find the best and possibly first knitted costume at the Ragamuffin Parade.

No sooner did I get a good viewing space near 10th Street did I see this Knitty Little Red Riding Hood!

Okay it’s crocheted, not knitted, but still, hand needlework, right? I’m trying to keep an open mind about crochet these days, I really want to try to be less judgmental about people’s lifestyle choices.  It was a grandma knitted gift, and grandma wasn’t there so I gave the costumed child the candy.

In the spirit of a weekend honoring spirits, I am going to cast on these cool socks. Have a diabolical day!

Just a quick note to you, dear readers, to let you know I’m back from my blog break. And it was a nice, productive break, thanks for asking! Plenty of knitting, several trips, even a little golf in Maine before I put away the clubs for the winter.  I worked on teaching myself how to navigate Wordpress, which seems like it will give me yet another reason to spend a lot of time trolling the internet some creative freedom in putting this blog together.

Mostly this blog will be about knitting in and around my little city. There is a lot of knitting going on all around the town here, everywhere I look.  I grew up here in Hoboken and learned to knit from my grandmother when I was about 6 or 7.    My first projects were beeyootiful party dresses for my many Barbies which were often embellished with buttons and paper mache flowers.  There was a fancy yarn store on 11th Street where my mother once took me to get yarn for some kick ass granny square ponchos, but mostly I got my yarn in the McCrory’s 5 and 10 on Washington Street, where I could also get a hot dog. You couldn’t get a hot dog at the LYS.

A lot of things have changed here,  but a lot still seems the same to me.  You still can’t get a hot dog in the LYS, for example.

More on this later.