Needles & hooks

Talk to the Hand

I’m thrilled that so many of you love my giant glove!

In response to some of your questions in the comments:

Where can you get your own hand chair?
You can get your own here in a variety of colors. There are other places too, just Google “hand chair”, but that one seemed the most affordable. Sorry, you’ll have to knit your own glove though. And no, I don’t have a pattern, I literally made it up as I went along.

How long did it take to knit?
In all, it probably took me a month to knit, in fits and spurts. Remember - big needles! I’d work on it a few hours a day while I was page proofing over the last month. My eyes were reading, my hands were knitting. Throughout this process, my desk was littered with marking pens, empty Pepsi bottles, drafts of the document I was working on, stitch markers, and random pieces of my Options set.

Will there be a spreadsheet?
Ha haha ahahha ahahahh ahahha hahah hah ahhah ahah…ha.

Will you go into mass production?
See above.

Second glove syndrome?
For me this is a one of a kind. And really, there’s only left hands. Although, my co-worker brought a second one from home for the photo shoot, which was at a local farm ice cream stand. And when he set it down, before I dressed it, I did gasp “Oh no! That’s the other hand!”.

Is that the largest glove ever knitted?
Until someone proves me wrong, I’m going to say it is. As for the record books, someone should start one. Wonder if we can get sponsorship? The Rowan Book of World Knitting Records?

Who has “a few” hand chairs?
My co-worker. Quite a wacky guy. I could tell you stories. Never seen a food item he wouldn’t eat (we got him Bacon Cheesecake at The Cheesecake Factory once and he loved it). Has an office filled with wacky toys (I got him a chicken chucker, he’s got a box of wind-up walking sushi). Freely provides food to anyone and everyone (there’s always something chocolate in his office). Part of the team of “food scientists” that I hang out with at work (we don’t work with food, we just try every new candy and cookie offering out there - in the name of science!; we make liquid nitrogen ice cream regularly). I got him a gummi t-bone steak that has a place of honor on his wall. I adore him.

Why did Hillary climb Everest?
Because it was there.

Some Notes
Sadly, cameras are not allowed at my workplace, so there aren’t any “in-progress” shots. It was quite a production. Almost everyone who passes my office notices the hand, many of them noticed the glove-in-progress as well. In the ~10-month gap between fingers 1&2 and the rest, everyone was quiet about it. Then I started finger #3. And by finger #4, a couple of people asked if I was working on it again. One of my supervisors even came by one morning as I was putting it back on the hand and expressed relief that it wasn’t gone for good — he’d passed my office the night before and noticed it missing because I’d taken it off to do some knitting at home.

This effort highlighted the beliefs about yarn in the world. One person who stopped by said “Wow, that’s a lot of wool”. Yeah, because wool would be affordable! Someone else said “well, it would be cheaper if you used cotton, right?” Um, no. No, this would not have been possible without the wonders of modern plastic. With Caron acrylic, the total cost was around $30. However, wool would have been a lot more pleasant to knit. The yarn was absolute murder on my hands.

Finally, I have to give a real shout-out to my Knit Picks Options needles. Doing this without an interchangeable set would have been a royal pain. I used (and broke) both of my 60″ cables (and successfully super-glued them back together). I swapped out my working size 11 tips with smaller ones to move stitches onto a holding needle so that I could fit it back over to try it on for sizing. I used (and broke) a smaller cable when I was knitting across a smaller number of stitches at the narrowest point of ribbing. The only thing that would have made the Options better was if I had a cable coupler - because I really did need more than one 60″ cable to get it around the palm when working that part of it.

Comments: 14 — Posted under: Knitting, Absurd

Why Hillary Climbed Everest…

Now I show you the secret project I’ve been working on at work while I’ve been page proofing.

A co-worker had a bunch of these:

And so I did this:

There’s a lot of photos, so I’m using a cut. Click for the full story…

Update (5/2/07) Welcome everyone who is coming from the Yarn Harlot! Thanks for all your wonderful comments. Before you ask questions, read the ones I’ve already answered: Click here for Giant Glove FAQ
Read the rest of this entry »

Comments: 204 — Posted under: Knitting, Absurd

Hour 27

Okay, I have plans to be good and do house-selling stuff all weekend, so I decided to extend the knit-fest until bed tonight.

Since my last update, I’ve sewn all the seams on the baby cardigan set from Knit It! that I finished knitting so long ago. Good thing it turns out that it’s huge, so my niece will have plenty of time to grow into it still.

Here it is all ready for a collar and buttons:

Of course, that’s only half the story…

I ran out just after dinner and bought buttons for both this cardigan and the Surplice Jacket. So tonight will be a night of finishing. If I get finished with those, maybe I’ll allow myself to start on a hat for Surplice. Or another Walker Project swatch.

Wish me luck.

Comments: 4 — Posted under: Knitting, Almost Random

Hour 22

It goes so fast. So much time and not nearly as much accomplished as I’d expected.

Since my last update, I’ve finished the Baby Surplice Jacket. All it needs now is a couple of buttons. And I have one ball of yarn left, so I’ll probably make a matching hat.

The finishing of this one was a blast. I decided to do a wrong-side 3-needle bind-off to do the shoulder seams, so from the right side, the garter pattern seems almost unbroken. I also decided not to do any fancy finishing like cuffs or i-cord. I think the sleeves could probably be a little longer, so on the next one I probably will not bind off the cuff stitches, but continue out the ribs there.

I also finished my next Walker Project swatch:

I really have to stop making those and move on to some projects that have been languishing much longer….

Comments: 3 — Posted under: Knitting, Almost Random

Hour 18.5

Wow, can’t believe so much time has passed! So little knitting left.

Anyway, worked on my latest Walker Project swatch before I went to my massage. Got there a little early and worked on an EZ Baby Surplice Jacket that was my last page proof project at work. Had an idea for a little girl jumper that I ruminated on while getting massaged. Had to stop and run one small errand on my way home (needed change cash for tomorrow’s garage sale), so I stopped into my LYS and looked at some yarn thinking about the jumper idea. Didn’t buy anything!

Came home, sketched out my jumper idea, and worked more on the Surplice Jacket.

It’s time for food now, so I’ll eat and do one other small garage sale task (publicity!) and then go back to the knitting.

Here’s the progress on the Walker swatch:

Here’s the Baby Surplice (needs a couple of more rows then finishing):

Comments: 1 — Posted under: Knitting, Almost Random

Hour 12.5

It’s official, I don’t knit while I sleep.

Comments: 2 — Posted under: Uncategorized

Hour 6

Okay, I got the hat finished:

And I started a new Walker swatch:

And the next few hours will be devoted to sleep. G’night.

Comments: 1 — Posted under: Almost Random, Walker Treasury

Hour 4.5

I spent most of hour 3 knitting on a ribbing to the entrelac basket-cap I made from an issue of Wool Gathering. And most of the second hour trying to do a sewn bind-off. I was following Nancy Wiseman’s technique in her book of finishing techniques, thinking that blind following would be fine. But after getting 10 stitches in twice and having a twisted purl bind-off instead of the desired knit rib bind-off, I gave up. I realized that I know kitchener and I can read my knitting, so I’m gonna stop reading the book. When my movie (Spellbound) ended, this is where it was:

This is a view of the mess that surrounds me:

Then I decided it was time to stop soaking things and block.

Here’s the Walker swatches:

Mermaid takes a spin:

Mermaid takes a nap:

Now, it’s back to finish that hat. Tivo has ER and Earl for me.

Comments: 1 — Posted under: Almost Random, Mermaid, Walker Treasury

Hour 2

Okay, so there’s been 1/2 an episode of SNL, 2 episodes of the Daily Show, and dinner.

One frogged project that I lost interest in:

Two swatches for The Walker Treasury Project that are currently soaking before blocking:

And Mermaid is taking a swim:

Mough is wishing for 24 hours of cat:

Comments: 1 — Posted under: Knitting, Mermaid, Walker Treasury

24 Hours of Knitting!

Yesterday I had my big deadline. I submitted final proofs on 1600+ pages. Today, I went to work and hung out in case there were questions on my edits (and there were a few) and to write up the reference pages and to eat instant ice cream because it was Son’s day (yesterday was Daughter’s day and I do mean instant ice cream - heavy cream, sugar, vanilla, liquid nitrogen; stir for a minute and poof yummy ice cream).

But I digress.

Tomorrow I am not going to the office. I’m pretending it’s Sunday (when I was at the office for way more hours than I should have been). And I’m not going to do any house selling or divorce stuff. I’m just going to sit and play with yarn projects (to be fair, getting a handle on my UFOs and stash is a house-selling project).

Anyway, for the next 24 hours, I’m doing nothing but yarn, food, and sleep (okay, I have a massage scheduled tomorrow morning, but I think I count that as sleep). And blog. I’m going to cram a whole month of knitting and knit blogging into 24 hours. Just watch me.

And it all starts……now!

Comments: 2 — Posted under: Almost Random, Absurd