KnitBits: Amazing Knitting, and Some Too Good to Believe (April Fool’s Edition)

I know I’ve seen this one before, but the Wonder Woman sweater was recently featured on Boing Boing, so it’s worth mentioning again. Designed and knit by Natalie Bursztyn, it’s a free pattern on Ravelry, and it’s amazing.

While this story is about manufactured socks, it’s still a great story for textile lovers. Once there were 120 sock mills in Fort Payne, Ala., but cheap labor elsewhere has closed most of them. Gina Locklear wanted to keep her family’s mill open, and she’s doing it by producing organic cotton socks made entirely in the United States. Pretty cool.

I’m sad to share that knitting handbag maker Jordana Paige is closing up shop. She has a few bags left and will be officially closed once they are gone. She hasn’t announced what her next adventure is, but we wish her well.

This is an old post and a longish read, but the post on Infotropism about the relationship between knitting and programming is a good one. It’s not just about reading and writing code, but the technical, engineering and math skills that are involved in making a project your own. Good stuff.

And because it’s April Fool’s Day, we also have news of a gorilla caught knitting at the National Zoo and the Mason-Dixon Knitters are opening a side business selling subscription boxes for empty-nest moms to make their houses more like homes (including incomplete decks of playing cards and Doritos to grind into the carpet).

[Photo via Top Crochet Patterns.]

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Not too long ago I was seeing a crochet pattern for a glasses holder shaped like a bear all over the Internet. It was super cute, and also useful as a place to put your glasses on your bedside table instead of just throwing them somewhere random.

This project stewed in my brain for a little while and I decided I needed to make a knit version, but I didn’t want to make a bear. If you know anything about me you might know that I’m a cat person, so of course my version had to be a cat.

The base is just a basic little basic worked from the center out to the desired size, then up the sides as long as you want them. Knit some ears and add embellishments to make it whatever kind of animal you want.

The way I figured out to work the base from the center out was to use a crochet cast on, which gives you an easier way to pick up stitches from the back of the cast on than if you worked a more traditional cast on for a knitting project. It’s kind of fun to do things in a different way from time to time.

This little project is adorable if I do say so myself, and even as a plain little basket not made into an animal it’s a cute way to keep your glasses or other little things in one place. I’m tempted to make one for my desk to hold pens or even little little scissors and sewing needles that are always on my desk but somehow always seem to get lost on my desk.

If you need a little holder for your glasses on your table, check out the pattern at Our Daily Craft.

[Photo: Our Daily Craft]

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