Sunday, February 27, 2011

Progress Knitter


Written on January 21, 2011
Progress Knitter
So, I’ve come to realize that I’m a ‘progress knitter’ not an ‘end product knitter’.  I knit for the sake of knitting no matter what my knitted item will be once it comes off my needles.  As long as the process of making the item is entertaining and the yarn is yummy then who cares what it is exactly that I’m making.  Knowing that about me, I have a little secret to share with you.  I started yet another project last night.  It was amazing!  I was just looking through some pattern books I got on my last yarn adventure in Wichita and I decided that I could make the “Morning Frost Wrap” from the Stitch Nation collection 1 leaflet.  However I didn’t have the right yarn, it called for three skeins of Stitch Nation Bamboo Ewe.  So playing around with my stash I found some cotton/acrylic yarn in a pretty lavender color.  I have two skeins and two random balls in the same dye lot.  I’m just going to cross my fingers that I have enough.  This yarn is pretty interesting though.  It’s Redheart’s Carefree Cotton Blend, it’s not as fuzzy as the bamboo ewe but it has a luster to it.  The light catches where I ssk or k2tog.  So I think this will be beautiful once it’s done . . . if I finish it. 

Another amazing thing about being able to knit up this project is that it calls for size 9 (5.5mm) needles.  I have one pair of straights that are old, cheap, and one is kind of bent ever so slightly.  I actually swatched (really I did!) this project on these needles.  The “stopper” on the end of one of the needles is kind of lose or something, because it made weird rattling noises with each movement.  Which got me kind of excited; I’ll have to get new needles before I start this project!  But then I remembered that I really don’t like using straights anyway.  So over to the hanging circular organizer I went where I found several size 9 needles.  I picked out the shortest one which happened to be a pair my Grandma Reeves gave to me.  About a year after I’d learned to knit, I was sitting in my parents’ home showing of my new hobby.  My mom had already pulled out her old knitting needles and given them to me.  So my Grandma, following suit, also gave me a bag of needles.  All circular needles, all very old, most of them in the original packaging.  This is where I learned that not only did have a Great Great Aunt Bessie who knitted, but she also owned and operated a knitting store!  They were all metal needles and most of them had a metal cable connecting them, some of them had a plastic tube.  I have no clue how old these needles are, none of the packaging has dates on them.  I would guess from the 50’s, maybe late 40’s.  The particular pair of size 9 that I am using for this project was made by Boye with “smooth joints” and “concave points”.  
They are awesome, just so you know.  The needle portions are super, super smooth and polished to a shine like a mirror.  The yarn just glides around them easily but my stitches don’t fall off.  My Great Great Aunt penciled in the price in the right top corner, she sold these needles for $1.75.  So now, as I knit away I think of my Aunt and all the things I’m going to ask my Grandma regarding her the next time my Grandma and I sit and knit together.

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