Knitting

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Marathoner’s Scarf Now a World Record

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scarf knit while running marathonI’ve written before about David Babcock, the Kansas City marathoner who knits while he runs. Back in October he aimed to break the record for the longest scarf knit while running a marathon (who knew that was even a category?) and now it’s official that he did, indeed, break the record.

According to Guinness, the scarf measured 12 feet, 1.75 inches and was knit during the Kansas City Marathon, which he finished with a time of 5 hours, 48 minutes and 27 seconds. That’s more than two feet of knitting an hour while running a marathon, people.

Makes my sitting on the couch knitting feel a little lame.

Congratulations, David!

[Photo via Guinness Book of World Records.]

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Knit a Pet Bed on a Knitting Machine

I feel like I haven’t shared many knitting machine patterns lately, probably because I haven’t been using my knitting machines much lately. (I finally made space for them to live on the bookshelf in my office, and now that they have a “place” it’s almost like I forgot they existed for a while.)

But I did recently make a little cat bed, that surely would work for a small dog, too. 

This one uses two different sizes of knitting machine: a larger one (it could be any in the 40-48 needle range) and a 22 pin. 

The larger machine is used in flat panel mode to make the bottom pillow like part of the bed, while the smaller machine makes a long tube that is used around the edges as the sort of walls of the cat bed. 

For stuffing I used a bit of leftover quilt batting for the pillow, and some cut up old T-shirts for the tube. 

You can use any worsted weight yarn you like (I used two colors of Big Twist Pound+, which comes in huge skeins that weigh more than a pound). Acrylic or cotton yarn is nice for washablity, but you’ll be cranking for a while so make sure you use a yarn your machine likes so it’s not too much of a struggle. 

You can grab the pattern for this cat bed over at Our Daily Craft. I’m sorry to report the pictured is as close as a cat has gotten to it so far, but maybe your cats like to be cozy more than mine do?

If you’re looking for more options for cute handmade places for your cats and little dogs to rest, check out this roundup of knit pet beds. I still want to knit one by hand but the machine version was definitely a faster option (especially good since my cats are ungrateful).