NORTHERN KNITS!!!!!
The one and only Northern Knits
, from Interweave.
We’ve been having kind of a tough week (nothing serious, don’t worry), so here’s what we’re going to do. Tell me a story, a funny story, to make me laugh, about knitting, or other fiber related ridiculousness. The comment that makes me LMAO the most will win the book. You have until next Friday, the 20th of August.
Journey with textile and knitwear designer Lucinda Guy to some of the most cherished historical regions for handicrafts, folk art, and knitting with Northern Knits. Throughout this inspiring book, Lucinda reveals the rich beauty of Swedish, Norwegian, Icelandic, and Shetland folk motifs and traditions in 20 gorgeous women’s clothing and accessories projects.
From knitting in the round and twined knitting to embroidery and embellishments, each stunning project embraces the traditional techniques that knitters have treasured through the years.
If you want more info on this VERY COOL book, hop on over to Interweave’s Site
Okay, here’s my story: 🙂
When my son was 10 wanted to be a clone from Star Wars for Halloween. He had a costume we got from a friend but he still needed a mask. So one night he was hounding me to go get him a mask. So I said, “I have a great idea Logan! I’ll knit you a mask!”
He tried as hard as he could to nicely say NO WAY MOM ARE YOU CRAZY?!? Then later I was knitting (a white hat that certainly could have been mistaken for a Clone mask) and he said–with real fear in his voice– “Uh, mom, you weren’t serious about knitting the mask, right?”
It is so fun to mess with that kid! 🙂
Hubby says i do not really hear sometimes when i talk, i on the other hand think i tend to say things that can be interpreted in a “dirty” way without intending to… and not always clueing in quickly enough. Picture my daughter, then 2, at the zoo with hubby and in-laws. Watching the polar bears playing with these large rubber red balls. My daughter is being held up and i am saying, look they’re playing with their balls, red balls! Of course i say this a few times over as she points saying Look! Hubby keeps nudging me asking me to shush, huh?? why?? So i say it again. By this time the group of guys standing near us lose it laughing aloud, even my tame minded mother in law loses it. Hubby just shakes his head and i finally know why, blushing… i mean what else can i say by that time? Every trip to the zoo i am reminded by them of that incident. Polar bears playing with their red balls.
not truly fiber related unless you could spin polar bear fur into a sweet fiber! You could dye it red!
I first started knitting the first Christmas after my husband and I were married. My husband, who even still after six years and 2 babies in 2 years, almost always has certain things on the brain, nicknamed my point protectors “needle condoms.”
My mom was an avid knitter and one evening as she got up from her chair in the living room a very freak event happened… one of her knitting needles somehow managed to get implanted deeply into the top of her foot! It was funny but scary too. We were both stunned wondering what do we do now??!!
My husband and I were visiting friends recently, and my girlfriend and I were enjoying knitting together while the boys played video games. We were happily chatting about cool fiber we’d come across recently (bison yarn, etc), and my friend mentioned she’d recently seen some yarn that was gorgeous, but $75 a skein. Without looking up from his game, my husband deadpans “What was it made of? Mithril?” We all laughed hysterically.
I’ll let you decide which is funnier: the joke itself, or the fact that 4 grown people a) got a Lord of the Rings joke and b) thought it was so funny. =0)
My mother is a knitter. I wanted to learn so she picked out a pattern for each of us and bought the yarn. Both patterns and yarn were the same. It was a simple sweater – one for my oldest brother and one for my boyfriend. We knit, I ripped, we knit, I ripped. The sweaters were finally finished and I thought they were gorgeous. My boyfriend had a football players body – bulky and large. He put the sweater on and it could have held the entire football team. My brother put his on and it could have held his entire sophomore class. My boyfriend ended up with both of them and probably used them for a blanket on his bed. I still laugh thinking about the gargantuan size of those sweaters. My mom said something had to be wrong with the pattern as she had been knitting all of her life and had never run into anything like that before or since. 🙂
Speaking of Pink Gin… remember that time I took a class in dyeing yarn with food coloring?
I was a half hour early, and a group of 4 ladies arrived at the same time I did. Each carried a bag from a local supermarket, where they’d stopped off to buy their food coloring on the way to class – you know, a package of 4 little squeeze bottles totaling 1 oz. at a cost of about $5 – for each lady!
I quickly told them not to open the packages as I pulled out my supplies – 12oz bottles of red and blue, plus 32 oz. of yellow food colorings from the local restaurant supply store. Each bottle cost me $3.75 or less. I dye yarn every once in a while, so I save money getting the large bottles. I said I would be happy to share as I probably had enough for the whole class! They could use mine and get their money back on theirs.
They felt that wasn’t right, they should pay for their own supplies. SO, all four put their coloring back in their bags, and headed out the door. I felt so bad, thinking they were somehow insulted or angry with me.
I was delighted when they showed up about 5 minutes before class. They’d returned the overpriced stuff to the supermarket and gone to the store I’d told them about. I figured they probably each bought one color, and split the cost that way. Nope, each had bought a full set. So there we were, with about two and a half gallons of food color, to dye about a dozen skeins of yarn.
We laughed and had a great time. Then came clean up time, and then leaving time. The four ladies left together, and about ten minutes later I noticed – they’d forgotten their food coloring!
The teacher had a cell number from one of their class sign-up sheets, so she gave it a call. “Oh, let Kitten keep them, he was so sweet offering to share!”
Honey, would you like a Blue Ice Cube for your Orange Vodka? Some Green Milk to go with your Purple Omelette and Red Hash Browns? For Desert we have Rainbow Cake with Rainbow Icing.
I should tell you about the new display scheme at the county fair this year… it might wind up being a “you would get it if you were there” story but here goes…
Each year the number of entries in the fiber arts category of the fair grows. In years past for an unknown reason, the spinners and weavers were separate from the knitters, crocheters, quilters and sewers. This year the deciders at the fair put all the fiber arts into one building – that previously housed only the knitters, etc. Now all the displays are very confused. Giant quilts used as space dividers and displays set up with no discernible theme. You couldn’t see 1st, 2nd and 3rd of any group or class on one table or on one wall. Furthermore, they thought that it might be nice and rustic to display the weaving and lace on branches with twigs – so the lace and finely woven items have pokes through them.
I guess this isn’t funny, but I’m starting to think I need to apply for a job with the fiber arts display group to stop this nonsense.
Once my Uncle Charlie was sewing a costume and somehow managed to get the needle complete jammed into his thumb. My grandmom helped him detach it from the machine and as they were driving off to the hospital to get it removed, my aunt ran out the front door shouting “make sure you get the needle back from the doctor — it’s the only one we have!”
Some of these are really funny, but I do really want this book, so here we go:
So, a few years ago I started knitting again after a long hiatus. A friend had recently had a new baby and I wanted to make a hat and booties set for him. Keep in mind, this would be my first hat and booties, ever as well as my first anything for a baby (I was not yet a mother and had spent very little time around infants). So, I’m sure you see where this is going, my scale was off, but of course I didn’t really know it. Both my husband and I thought it was a cute little set and gave it to my friend for her baby. She sent a very sweet thank you card with a picture of her 6′-2″ husband wearing the hat, quite comfortably, and the booties stretched out like mittens on his hands. “Brad (said husband) sure does love his hat! Henry (said baby) would love one HIS size to match!”
Gee, I used my best material on another post here. All I can think of right now, is when I was going to make Mom a poncho. I was about 7, and it was an ambitious project for a relative neophyte crocheter.
I chained for the neckline, joined in a circle, then started working away. It didn’t take long for Mom to notice that I had a twisted join. She told me what had happened and that I’d have to start over.
UH-UH, NO WAY! I was sure it would resolve itself, so I just kept on crocheting. I was a very headstrong child (in many ways I’m still headstrong – and childish, sigh). Two inches, twisted. 4 inches, still twisted. 8 inches, 12 – I finally gave up at about a foot, and started ripping out.
However, when I got back to having about 3 inches left, I stopped ripping back, chained a few inches, took the chain so it went past the twist in the fabric and rejoined.
This “trapped” the twist in a little hole, and I was able to crochet around, using the new chain to bridge the gap. Problem solved, and the poncho had a one-of-a-kind neckline.
Mom wore it for years, and always joked about how it was the poncho that she taught me how to crochet, and I taught her how to design.
The 2nd sweater I ever knit was for my ex. It was a V-neck with a checkerboard pattern of rice stitch and a twisted stitch of some kind knit in an cream coloured wool. Only problem, the pattern shows a woman wearing it. He tells me, I can’t wear that, it’s a woman’s sweater! Fine then, I keep knitting thinking I will keep the sweater for myself.
He sees the sweater in progress, feels the knit wool and loves it! Now he wants the sweater.
He wore that sweater until it had holes in the sleeves and then he put suede patches on the arms.
When my son was a teenager he was giving me a lot of sass. I finally threatened that the next time I picked him up at the high school, I was going to wear my hand knit swim suit and stand in front of the school yelling his full name.
He said that would be fine if I wore a paper bag over my head!
Who got the worst of that one?????