This is mostly a knitting blog. Sometimes pictures of things I've made, sometimes not. I'm a guy who knits, I usually attend a men's stitch 'n' bitch on Monday nights, and I prefer natural fibres to artificial ones. I have a love-hate relationship with bamboo yarns: I love what they can do and how they look, I hate how they are made. I've been knitting since about 2003, though I really didn't get into it until 2005, while convelescing with a broken leg. I must have discovered something good, 'cause I'm still knitting years later.

Saturday, September 29, 2012

Turning Behrs into Bears

There have been several men I've known in my life (well, more than several) about whom it could be said that when they took their shirt off it looked like they were wearing a sweater. These guys are so hairy chested that you don't need to knit them a mohair sweater, they're genetically programmed to grow their own. But for the guys in your life who are not hairy chested, but who want to be, you could make them this.
You could make the hair colour match that of the guy you're knitting it for. You could increase or decrease the happy trail. You could give him a hairy back, if he wanted it. No longer do our smooth brethren need to stay smooth! Beardom can be for everyone.

Now if I could only find a pattern to match this picture I found on the internet. . . .

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

I Will Be Good

When, as a young girl, the Princess Victoria learned how close she was to the throne (as in, next in line), she is reported to have said, "I will be good."

One of the LYSs I like to frequent has some Malabrigo Worsted on half price sale. Half price! For Malabrigo! I love Malabrigo! I want to marry Malabrigo! I want to have Malabrigo's babies! OK, maybe not. I don't like children all that much. And yarn babies would only felt the first time you gave them a bath.

I am trying to knit down my stash. I am trying not to buy yarn. I am trying to make things for people I'd never make things for, not because I don't like them, but because I don't know them well enough to make things for them. Take Margaret, for instance. Her daughter is one of my dearest friends, but I've only ever met her mother, Margaret, a handful of times in the 20+ years I've known Carlene. Last week I texted Carlene's husband (because Carlene doesn't really answer her phone), to get Margaret's favourite colours. Black and off-white. Well, she's Presbyterian, so I shouldn't have expected anything else. I have some kick-ass Karabella Margrite in a dusky black, about 612 yards (well, exactly 612 yards, 'cause each skein is 154 yards, and I have four of 'em), that would make a lovely shawl. It's 80% Merino, and 20% Cashmere, and is soft-soft-soft. And probably warm-warm-warm, too. I cast it on last night, all 360 stitches, and finished the first four rows. 

But Margaret's Margrite shawl is not what I want to talk about. I want to talk about the temptation of new yarn, stash busting and the will power not to buy more yarn, even though you really want it, because: a) you don't have a need for it; b) you don't have room for it; and c) you don't have the money for it. Now anyone who knows me knows I believe that the person with the most yarn when they die, wins! (Wins what, or from whom has never been established.) So I was buying needles yesterday for Margaret's shawl, and there in front of me were buckets and buckets of Malabrigo Worsted at half price. I wanted it! I am trying to knit from my stash!  But Malabrigo! At half price! Bugger! Bugger, bugger, bugger! That glorious purple! That warm teal! Oh, my aching wallet! I. Am. Trying. To. Knit. My. Stash. I could hear the yarn calling my name. "Ken, take us home! Add us to your stash!" And in my head, I could only scream, "No, dammit, no!" Because I am trying to bust my stash. 

In the end, I left with only my new needles. I left all that gorgeous Malabrigo in the sale bins. It might be there later in the week. It might not. 

I will be good.

Besides, another LYS I love is having a clearance sale on the remaining discontinued Cascade Pastaza.

No. No, no, no. I am trying to bust my stash. I won't get that, either.

I will be good.