Needles & Hooks

18
March
2007

Life gets in the way

This month I had intended to post every day. And I made a good show of it until Friday. When I spent all day and a good chunk of the evening working, and I didn’t have anything stored up I could post about and I didn’t feel it was right to post “Sorry, no knitting here” just to mark off that day in the calendar.

And yesterday was mostly devoted to working on the divorce. The NEH (nearly ex-husband) came over and we worked on practical things. Like taxes, and divorce paperwork, and separating accounts, and all those other 1-becomes-2 things. At some point, he said “so, I get half your yarn”. And I replied with “okay, I’ll trade you for half your beer” (he’s a home brewer). We decided it was a fair trade.

I also spent an hour+ dealing with the cruel joke of a snow storm we got. Last Wednesday it was nearly 60 degrees. And the small pile of snow that lived at the edge of my driveway finally melted and I covered the lawn with lime and fertilizer and new grass seed. Then Friday dumped 6 inches on us followed by rain. While NEH worked on the taxes, me and my tiny little gerbil-powered snowblower pushed our way through all that wet/icy snow (also a fair trade, I think). My driveway goes up a hill (basement garage), and at the very top was the worst where the city plows piled up the ick. As I was attacking that with a shovel, my neighbor flagged down a roaming plow truck and paid the guy $30 to scoop out her car. As he was turning the truck around for another pass at her house, he pulled up next to me. I told him I was okay, I was almost finished. He said he’d clean it up for me “A present for the red-haired girl on St. Patrick’s day”. How could I argue with that?

So anyway, a day that was long and productive. And mostly non-emotional. And really, all about becoming Me again. But by 8pm, I was more than ready to sit and stitch. So I worked My sister’s geisha wrap with My yarn on his couch (he gets that), watching My Tivo with My cat. And I crawled into My bed around midnight, not having posted to My blog at all. So, this makes up for it some.

Comments: 3 — Posted under: Almost Random

18
March
2007

Vogue’s Knitting Book 8th Edition, 1947

This issue starts out with a strong cover:

That’s a ribbed sweater knit sideways, sleeve to sleeve, so that the ribs are actually alternating bands of stockinette and reverse stockinette. Knit in only 2 pieces, it includes shoulder and torso shaping and I think it would still be cute today.

There were a couple of other things that I thought were cute. This is a simple stockinette sweater. I really like the half stripes.

And here are a couple of evening wear items. Both include sequins and beads sewn onto the piece during finishing.

This issue also contained its share of knitted horrors. This dress would have been perfectly nice. But they had to go and sew on those diagonal ruffles.

On the top of this page is a “crocheted bed-jacket with bow and softly ruffled edges”. No comment. At the bottom is a knitted one-piece bathing suit. That no one would ever wear in water.

No close-up of this page, because really, I want to spare you. In the middle, item #30, that’s an outfit with knitted shorts. And item #31? That woman is covering her ears to try to block out the loud intarsia roosters near her neck.

Moving on to the advertising. This is an ad for Lion Brand yarns. “Quality since 1870…At better stores everywhere”. I’ll let the yarn snobs and the big box store reverse-snobs fight this one out in their own heads.

I found this one interesting. “Easy to make beautiful rugs from old clothing”. You know those “knit a purse with fabric strips” kits? This is its predecessor. Use the “texing” needle to weave torn or bias cut strips of material into a “richly thick reversible rug”.

Rug making was also a family activity. At first, I thought this a was a father-daugther project. Then I realized they could be a married couple. Raise your hand if your man would make a rug with you!