Links, Books, and Blogs

A cute and cuttly cuddlefish

Mandy's Cuddlefish

Since the blog relocation, I’ve been looking at my server logs a lot. I want to make sure that traffic still going to the old site gets diverted to the new site. Wandering through my stats yielded this glorious little nugget:

CuttleContest

Someone had posted the photo of my cuddlefish and written a poem about it! That resulted in a lot of squealing on my part, let me tell you.

The site is called The Digital CuttleFish, and is a fantastic union of science and poetry, the likes of which you can really only find on the Internet.

The blogger had been inspired by an anatomically-correct knitting project, and a commenter directed him to the cuddlefish I knitted for Mandy last year. S/he posted the photo, wrote a poem, and started a contest for crafted cuttlefish.

Here’s the poem:

Of all the creatures in the world
Deserving to be knit (and purled)
I think it’s clear, we all would wish
A cute and cuttly cuddlefish.

A comment-writer, “Impolite”
Has, very clearly, got it right
So now, the screen of my computer
Shows a pic that can’t be cuter

It’s beautiful, this much is clear,
So huggable, so very dear,
So soft and cuddly, cute and charming
Lots of arms, and yet disarming

A knitted brain cannot compete,
Nor teratoma, bearing feet—
The cutest creature of them all,
And made of yarn—so have a ball!

But still, the cuddlefish I see
Does not have eight arms—only three
(No tentacles at all, I think,
Nor any way to shoot its ink)

And not that it should trouble you—
It’s pupils should go “W”.
Small details, sure, but that’s the fun
So here’s the deal. Another one…

S/he goes on to add a a contest. So, if you’ve been doing any cuttlefish crafting, go post it on The Digital Cuttlefish. And hey, leave me a comment, too!

little Dee

Little Dee Comic

My dear friend Matt (recipient of Matt’s Cats, has turned me on to Little Dee, a comic about a toddler, a bear, a dog, and a smart-alecked vulture named Vachel who knits.

Books and patterns

Lee, Jamy, and I are taking a new weekly knitting class that opened up down at the local yarn store. It’s taught by our favorite teacher, Fran, and meets on Tuesday nights, and so far it’s been a blast. It’s so much fun to have an evening devoted to knitting each week.

It’s a great group – I’ve been in project-oriented classes with most of the other students before. I love getting to see what everyone else is working on and hearing where they get ideas. I’ve decided to archive notes from class here, so that I have it for reference later on.

When she’s not knitting socks, Ina is collecting different stitch patterns for a sampler afghan she’s knitting in rust, gold, and purple. The first week of class she brought a needlework book that my mom has had for years, The Readers Digest Complete Guide to Needlework, which has a really nice section on knitted stitch patterns. Last week she had bought the 365 Knitting Stitches a Year desktop calendar, from which she’s already knitted several squares. And this week, Fran brought two of her own books, A Treasury of Knitted Patterns, and A Second Treasury of Knitted Patterns for the afghan cause.

Pam, a recent graduate of Fran’s Socks on Two Circulars class, is working on a pair of socks for which she modified a pattern from Sensational Knitted Socks, which has patterns both on double-pointeds and circulars, with multiple sizes for each pattern, and some fantastic charts.

And Lauren was working on Knitty Gritty’s Skinny Scarf, though her color choices look much nicer than the ones on the online pattern.

You knit what??

Evil clown eats Wil Wheaton

Photo from Renee.

This blog has been entertaining me for days. Each entry is some God-awful article of clothing that someone has knitted, or, more often, that one of the yarn companies has designed and is providing patterns for in order to entice us to buy their yarn.

So I was looking for a particularly awful example to share with you here, and I came across this! This is the best thing I’ve ever seen! I’ve been laughing for 30 minutes and can’t stop!

I wish I knew who knitted the sweater, and how they got Wil Wheaton into in.

*****

Update: Googling “wil wheaton clown sweater” led me to this photo gallery of the function at which he donned the sweater. And that led me to this! The Clown Sweater Project! Apparently this girl Renee bought the sweater for $3.75 at a thrift store, and carried it around with her, making people try it on and taking their photos. Brilliant!

The Happy Hooker

The Happy Hooker – Stitch n Bitch Crochet

Photo from amazon.com.

This was a *much* more exciting find at the bookstore!!! I’d heard it was coming, but didn’t realize it was out already. So I had to buy it. And weren’t you just thinking that there had been a whole lot of knitting chat on this blog, but not enough crochet chat lately? Hmm? That’s what you were thinking, I know it.

Especially since Jamy and Judy have both picked up crocheting lately, and Laurie has joined Knit Night as a crocheter, too! Let’s hear it for diversity! Yeah!!! Go, Hookers! (I mean that in the nicest possible way.)

Anyway, it’s an awesome awesome book. There are several things in it that I want to make (after, of course, the hat, scarf, dorky secret project, Mr. Bigglesworth, Matt’s Cats, etc. etc. etc.). I’m glad that a lot of this weekend is going to be dedicated to knitting (and crocheting!).

Knitting for NASA

Knitting the Old Way

Photo from amazon.com.

In reading knitters’ blogs, you notice that people modify the patterns that they’re following to suit their tastes – they’ll change the style of the sleeves or the collar or whatever, to make the sweater one that they’ll really love and wear forever. It’s one of the great things about making your own clothes, rather than buying them. You can make them to suit your own taste.

I’d read recently that this is an great book for learning how to do just that. It goes into incredible detail on all different kinds of sleeves and collars and body shaping and waist styles, and really does make it possible to come up with a sweater that’s perfect in all aspects. So when I saw it in the store last weekend, I bought it without really looking at it too closely.

Unfortunately, when I got it home, I realized that it was targeted more at the knitting rocket scientist than at me. Now, you have to realize, the most complicated project I’ve knitted is the 2×2 rib hat (and I haven’t even made it to the crown decreases yet), so I may not be the best judge. But it’s waaaay too complicated for me. I think I’m going to return it so that it’s available when a more advanced knitter goes looking for it, and I’ll stick to some nice beginner patterns.

Purl Jam

Rock Chick's devil scarf

Photo from purl jam.

I haven’t had much time for knitting lately, but I’m trying to stay inspired via knitting blogs. I’ve found a bunch of good ones on High Energy Knits’ list of links.

Purl Jam was just too cool to keep to myself. Seriously. Do you see this scarf? And any knitter who mentions Cheeto Federline is a keeper.

Also, I’m a little jealous of the mannequin. I’d love to have a dress form – not that I’m anywhere near the point where I could custom-fit a sweater or anything. I just have this little dream in my head of having a crafting space, with my sewing machine, my yarn stash, all of my books and tools, and now, thanks to Rock Chick, a dress form. Maybe one of these days I’ll have enough space.

Carrieoke

Yesterday I found this fantastic blog by a girl in Athens, Georgia named Carrie. She is a crafty schmoo, a fact that she freely admits.

www.carrieoke.net

She knits, sings in a band, and is training for a half-marathon. Mercy!