Capitalism - Feudalism without the Kings

Tax the Rich

 

Knitting Friday - thinking out of the box

 

First of all, I want to thank everyone who reads my blog. It's so neat now that I can see the number of hits I get. It makes me want to be "better." It least it makes me want to improve my spelling and try to always write coherent sentences. Which is not always possible. You can't believe some of the stuff I edit (at least I hope I edit it correctly) before I post. I read somewhere that typing causes people to make some wacky wrong word choices while handwriting doesn't.That gives me some comfort.

 

Lately,  there has been a lot of trolling on Ravelry. Not political trolling but curmudgeon trolling; mean spirited personal attacks. We've had this on Ravely for a while. In fact, I think I have the distinction of closing down a forum. (A forum is a broad topic posting area like Knitting Supplies; a thread is a topic on a forum like Interchangeable Needles.) The OP (original poster) had asked if we had any experiences with autism and MMR and I thought: What the hell! I have had a real life experience. I'll post. The replies to this posting got so bad I was just about to post that I was no longer going to reply to this thread, I'd just read it when the moderator sent a posting that the thread and the entire forum (I think it was called something like Random Topics) was going to be closed.

 

I get that autism and MMRs is a hot-button topic, but now Ravelers just seem to take a dislike to pretty banal posting and lash into the poster. I think I've read more posting from  the moderators to behave in the last month than I have in the 4 years Ravelry has existed. (I do chuckle when a poster lauds a product because it's made in America. JHC! We're a world-wide group; Made in America is not a universal plus.)

 

I want to talk about "thinking out of the box" in knitting today. I really do try to do that but I'm pretty wimpy with my knitting designs. It's like I'm eating good quality ice cream but always in vanilla.  However, there was a period when I would take 20 different colors and meticulously work them into a sweater pattern. Now, I'm too lazy for that but I do want to share something I just started.

A little background: on the right is the afghan I was gifted by a neighbor. Her deceased sister hadn't finished it and she nor any of her family did needlecraft, so she told me to keep it or donate it as I wished. However, the minute I spread this out, I realized the professional work the sister had done and I knew it had to be returned to the family. I only had about 7 rows to complete (fortunately the sister left the pattern, yarn and hook with the afghan) which took me about a day to master and finish. In appreciation, my neighbor gave me a lot of her sister's needlecraft supplies. I now have dozens of needles and knitting supplies. Plus a very big counted cross stitch canvas. Also, I got over 50 skeins of embroidery thread; a lot of green and blue and a load of various shades. That last gift, the threads, had me stumped. People buy this thread for projects. If I donated to Goodwill it would probably sit in someone's house, never completely used or perhaps never used at all.

And that's when my little brain thought: I make summer shawls from fine crochet thread. Can I work the same with embroidery thread?

Embroidery Thread Shawl

 On the left, is what I've done so far. I'm making a simple: Make a  loop *Ch 5, 1 dc in loop* with 2 loops in each end loop each side, every row for increases with a D hook. I started only using hues of green but the "fox got in the hen house" because when you work late at night, blue can look like a shade of green (middle left.) So I'm making this a green/blue shawl. I'm thinking a big long shawl which I'll wear as a large scarf since there is no way to splice cotton and there is always a thickness where I joined the different skeins.

Tying the ends

Here's how I did my joining: Take the ends of the old and the new skein and put them together. At about 3" down from the ends make a knot. The picture on the right shows the knot on the left and the two skeins going off to the right.

Ends ready for crocheting

You can't work with the ends as they're pictured on the right so I wet them and then bring them down together (left picture) so they are part of one color (either the old or the new skein.) While the area is wet I try to "connect" all three threads so they lay flat when I work with them. Making my stitches a little looser (to accommodate three threads), I work the pattern as usual. If there are any stray threads, I use a sharp scissors to cut them. 

 

In many ways, I look at this as MacGyver project  (that is, using unusual objects to get desired results), but MacGyver's goal was always to save the world. My goal is really to add another not-that-necessary project to my knitting bag.

 

But I wanted to share because I think knitting/crocheting can develop such creative talent. You may be able to "run" with this prototype and get amazing results. Enjoy.

 

Next week: Sweater hems: boon or bane