Best of Cassandra: Every Stitch Is Knit With Love

Cassandra is on vacation this week with her children and some extended family. You all may remember her camping escapades from last summer, the result of which was the rental of a CABIN in the woods this summer. No more tent camping for this family.

So, today's post is a "Best of..." post - a little blast from Cassandra's blogging past, brought to you courtesy of the fact that I'm currently knitting mohair lace. This is Cassandra's story on that front. I hope you enjoy.


Every Stitch is Knit with Love

Now I'm going to just say it like it is, I'm not a hugger. Aside from my husband and children (or situations where others need a hug because they're crying or something) I'm not inclined to dole out too much affection. Those who are close to me know this. Most friends choose to hug me anyway... I think they love weirding me out. As a rule, you know I love you when:

1. we laugh together really loud, really often
2. you are the recipient of my hand-made items

As much as I grouse about crafting for others, I do it with love. Something compels me to make things for the little ones in my life, as well as big people who will appreciate the work that goes into the project. I'm not a hugger, I'm a doer.

I think I learned this behavior from my maternal grandmother. I grew up in the same house as her, and she is a very handy lady. She can cook, knit, and sew circles around me... and she is 85. My growing-up years were spent watching her make things for bake sales (seemed like weekly), taking her turn doing the washing and mending of the alter cloths and robes for the church, knitting for every new baby, and more. She's not a hugger either, she's a doer. Last winter I decided to make something just for her.

 I had a small amount of mustard-yellow fine mohair yarn in my stash for a while. Yellow is my grandma's favorite color so I decided to try my hand at lace knitting and make her a neck scarf. I was knitting along just fine for about 5 inches....until....scratch, scratch....teary-eyes....I can't see. I discovered that mohair and I didn't get along very well. My eyes were really swollen and red and kind of scaley. I felt like a cat with a hairball stuck in her throat. It was very unattractive.

However, I did what every good knitter would do, I went into denial and kept knitting. Certainly, it wasn't the mohair. It couldn't be! Must be my hand lotion, or the chlorine from the swimming pool, or my shampoo! There were visits to 2 different doctors and various remedies (including changing my hand lotion and shampoo) - and, yet, I still kept knitting. Eventually, I had to admit that it was the yarn but I was making this for my grandma and, dang it, it was going to get done!

After weeks of itchy eyes, I finished the lace scarf. It was lovely. I packaged it up to mail to grandma, took my knitting bag to the cleaners for a good de-mohairing, and vacuumed everything. It took a few months for my symptoms to go away, but they eventually did. I had truly suffered for my art, and for my grandma.

Alex modeling the scarf for me before it hit the mailbox.

Alex's post from Monday is the inspiration for telling this story. It made me reflect on my relationships with the people that I care about. Do they know that I care? I know how stingy I am with affection. Then I thought about the yellow scarf. I thought about how important it was to me to finish it and give it to my grandma, even if my eyes itched. I was making it for her because it reminded me of her. I thought about her every time I picked the project up. I know it's lame, but, I think that is when you can say "there is love in every stitch".

So what, I'm not a hugger. But, I just might knit you a sweater...

–Cassandra

Friday Finds: Really Pointy Sticks

I got kind of wrapped up reading a sub-Reddit called "Explain Like I'm Five" about "ObamaCare" and nearly forgot to tell you guys about this week's find. If you're interested in learning about the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) in simple language with actual citations, go here: http://www.reddit.com/tb/vbkfm   I actually feel informed!

Now... on to the fun bit. If you read my post from the other day, you'll know that I'm currently fighting with some lace-weight Hair of the Mo. Honestly, I've never knit lace in my life and this yarn is so tiny it's ridiculous. It's beautiful to feel and the finished fabric is lovely but I learned a few things the hard way:

Seriously. This is like hair

1. You can't really un-knit or frog lace-weight mohair. You're better off just breaking off the bit you don't want and starting over.

2. You can't really knit lace-weight mohair with Clover Takumi bamboo needles. The tips are too large and too round.

So, my revelation for this week was learning about super-pointy lace-appropriate knitting needles. Friend of Might Distractible (and test-knitter extraordinaire), Gael (aka Stitchlilly), recommended two needles in particular: Addi Lace and Knitter's Pride Dreamz. The Addi's are metal (as far as I can tell) and I'm not really a metal needle girl so I bought a couple pair of the Knitter's Pride Dreamz. What a great purchase! Awesomely pointy, smooth, pretty (for each size the wood is dyed a different lovely color), and with the most supple cable you can imagine.

Gorgeous and easy to use

If you're in the market to knit some super tiny yarn, I can't recommend these enough.

Have a great weekend!

- Alex

Designing Women

While we're no Sugarbakers, Cassandra and I are, officially, knitwear designers and we're women so... well... we'll feel free to co-opt the name for the purposes of this blog post.

As you've probably heard (because we won't stop talking about it), we're being published in What (Else) Would Madame Defarge Knit?. What we haven't shared with you yet is the fact that we had TWO patterns picked to go into the next installment of Heather Ordover's series, What Would Madame Defarge Knit: Shakespeare Edition. Cassandra and I are over the moon and infinitely grateful for the opportunity to be included in such a fun project and in the company of such talented knitters.

While we can't divulge any details of our patterns, we can give you some insight into the process of designing - which can be both wonderful and frustrating at the same time.

For WWMDfK? the process goes like this: Heather puts out a call for designs; you write up a description of what you want to do, including a sketch (if you can) or photos of potential stitch patterns - anything that will help the board get a sense of what your finished object will look like; the board reviews the submissions; you find out if you got picked. Once your pattern is chosen, it's time to get down to business.

Cassandra and I sourced our yarn from Knit Picks (www.knitpicks.com) for our last WWMDfK? pattern and were so pleased with the quality of the yarn, we went back to Knit Picks this time around.For pattern #1, we wanted something that would provide an ethereal look so we tried the Aloft Kid Mohair. What an exceptional yarn this is! It's lace weight so, basically, it's like knitting with a hair but it is the softest and prettiest mohair I've ever seen. For pattern #2, we wanted something that would provide some weight but also color depth and variation. We choose Swish Tonal which is, possibly, the most gorgeous yarn I've ever seen. It knits up so beautifully, I can't even explain it. So, there's our shameless plug for Knit Picks. I had no idea they carried such exceptional yarn (and at reasonable prices) but I'm a total convert now and will continue to try their yarns going forward.

Various needle sizes and single vs double yarn

Knit Picks Swish Tonal - my new fave yarn

Next, we had to start testing our idea. At this point, nothing is written down - it's just an idea of how the finished object should look. Pattern #1 required some swatching to get the right needle size and "look" for our concept. Pattern #2 required some test knitting of various stitch patterns to decide which combination of stitches would achieve the look we were going for. I'm working on the main part of pattern #1 and Cassandra is working on the main part of pattern #2. We continuously check in with each other to ensure that the direction we're going is agreeable to both of us.

Our next step will be putting some instruction on paper and engaging a test knitter (this is happening tomorrow, actually). Then, the three of us will start frantically knitting the draft patterns and looking for mistakes which, we hope, will all be corrected by the time we turn the pattern in at the end of next month. (!) Keep your fingers crossed for us.

Truth be told, I really, really, really enjoy this process. It's a little nerve wracking but it's SO satisfying to think up an idea and have it develop into something that others can take away and use. I can't wait to be able to tell you all more about our WWMDfK? projects. I hope you'll enjoy them as much as I've enjoyed creating them!

- Alex

Every stitch is knit with love

Now I'm going to just say it like it is, I'm not a hugger. Aside from my husband and children (or situations where others need a hug because they're crying or something) I'm not inclined to dole out too much affection. Those who are close to me know this. Most friends choose to hug me anyway... I think they love weirding me out. As a rule, you know I love you when:

1. we laugh together really loud, really often
2. you are the recipient of my hand-made items

As much as I grouse about crafting for others, I do it with love. Something compels me to make things for the little ones in my life, as well as big people who will appreciate the work that goes into the project. I'm not a hugger, I'm a doer.

I think I learned this behavior from my maternal grandmother. I grew up in the same house as her, and she is a very handy lady. She can cook, knit, and sew circles around me... and she is 85. My growing-up years were spent watching her make things for bake sales (seemed like weekly), taking her turn doing the washing and mending of the alter cloths and robes for the church, knitting for every new baby, and more. She's not a hugger either, she's a doer. Last winter I decided to make something just for her.

 I had a small amount of mustard-yellow fine mohair yarn in my stash for a while. Yellow is my grandma's favorite color so I decided to try my hand at lace knitting and make her a neck scarf. I was knitting along just fine for about 5 inches....until....scratch, scratch....teary-eyes....I can't see. I discovered that mohair and I didn't get along very well. My eyes were really swollen and red and kind of scaley. I felt like a cat with a hairball stuck in her throat. It was very unattractive.

However, I did what every good knitter would do, I went into denial and kept knitting. Certainly, it wasn't the mohair. It couldn't be! Must be my hand lotion, or the chlorine from the swimming pool, or my shampoo! There were visits to 2 different doctors and various remedies (including changing my hand lotion and shampoo) - and, yet, I still kept knitting. Eventually, I had to admit that it was the yarn but I was making this for my grandma and, dang it, it was going to get done!

After weeks of itchy eyes, I finished the lace scarf. It was lovely. I packaged it up to mail to grandma, took my knitting bag to the cleaners for a good de-mohairing, and vacuumed everything. It took a few months for my symptoms to go away, but they eventually did. I had truly suffered for my art, and for my grandma.

Alex modeling the scarf for me before it hit the mailbox.

Alex's post from Monday is the inspiration for telling this story. It made me reflect on my relationships with the people that I care about. Do they know that I care? I know how stingy I am with affection. Then I thought about the yellow scarf. I thought about how important it was to me to finish it and give it to my grandma, even if my eyes itched. I was making it for her because it reminded me of her. I thought about her every time I picked the project up. I know it's lame, but, I think that is when you can say "there is love in every stitch".

So what, I'm not a hugger. But, I just might knit you a sweater...

–Cassandra