Knit Sisters

Back in August, when I was still on the road, New England was still a steaming inferno, and the world was just a little younger than it is today, my sister issued a design challenge.

She challenged all of you to design original knitwear of any shape, size, or description as long as it incorporated a leaf mofit, any leaf motif. All entries received by October 15th would be entered in a contest and the designers of the best three would receive a prize of my sister’s handspun.

At the same time, she beat me with a copy of Barbara Walker’s Second Treasury of Knitting Patterns until I agreed encouraged me to design a leafy something, despite the fact that I have never designed anything before in my life. And bitterly enough in the spirit of fairness and decency, my design would naturally not be included in the competition since I am a partner and stakeholder in KnitSisters Enterprises.

She even gave me handspun superwash wool

for inspiration.

Last night, I placed that lovely yarn on top of these helpful books

and left it there overnight. I had heard that sometimes if you get the right combination of books and yarn, a special alchemical reaction occurs and a great design idea is there just waiting for you in the morning.

So far, no luck. But that’s why I’m starting early, you see, while I still have time to monkey with the book-to-yarn ratio and run further experiments.

But seriously, I am certain that when my sister suggested that I “design a little something,” she was chuckling to herself at the thought of how she and everyone else in the contest would kick my butt from here to South Perth eager to see me expand my knitterly horizons and exercise my creativity so that I too could soar on wings of woolly inspiration.

In that spirit, I am panicking waiting in a peaceful zen-like manner to see what the design goddesses whisper in my ear.

Even if the worst happens and my design is shamefully subpar, I can erase my identity and live out the rest of my life under an assumed name in the remote, mountainous regions of Nepal chalk it up to experience and laugh along with the rest of you at my awkward freshman effort.

So far, the design goddesses have said only one thing: “Socks.”

I also thought I heard one of them say, “If you build it, he will come,” but that may have just been my imagination.

On a much nicer note, there is more of Icarus to love all the time:

He agreed to a close-up:

Actual color may vary and in fact be a heckuva lot more like what you see in the next picture, but what can you do?

And finally,

Icarus, bright and dark.

There isn’t much to say about the actual knitting process, except that the rows are getting longer (as the days get shorter…), but I’m not getting bored.

After all, in these trying times—what with skunks roaming the back yard and this design challenge hanging over my head—it is consoling to know that I can still knit my way out of a paper bag produce something beautiful. That is, thanks to the design genius of my fiber-arts superiors like Miriam, whose efforts—believe me—I only respect more with each passing day.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 5th, 2006 at 7:37 am and is filed under Designing woman. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.