Knit Sisters

Dear Emily,
Mama and I would like to present to you a brand-new pair of Regia Bamboo handknit socks for your wearing pleasure:

And it only took Mama most of her adult life to complete this minor project! My, my, how does she do it?

These socks looked like they needed a good home, so we immediately thought of you.

Plus, Mama often says that she likes to knit socks for you because you alone among all her friends wear a size six shoe. She keeps saying something about how she “loves your little dogs,” but frankly I have no idea what she means.

I have surmised from context that is has nothing whatsoever to do with minute canines.

I helped Mama package your socks up and put them in the mail. After that exhausting trip to the post office, and a subsequent bout of “puppy madness” in which numerous fowl were brutally shaken and left for dead,

The carnage was unspeakable.

I relaxed with a bone:

Uh, Ma, did you remember to enclose a note reminding Emily not to fraternize with pandas while she’s wearing those bamboo socks?

I would like for you to know that at all times during the creative process, I refrained from stealing the yarn for your socks, although it was extremely alluring. The 40% wool content reminds me so of sheep and brings back so many fond memories of my youthful herding days.

And my most recent mutton-chop dinner.

But I refrained because I recalled an unfortunate incident between me and Mama a few years ago when—giddy on wool fumes—I snatched some of her yarn and “decorated” the backyard with it. I thought it greatly improved the appearance of the property and showed a certain creative élan on my part, but she was very angry and refused to speak to me for several hours.

Like she never got overenthusiastic and made a mistake! What explains this whole going-back-to-graduate-school-in-her-mid-30s business? Or the appalling Bianca incident? You know, when she made that whole sweater on size 0 and 1 needles?

Sigh. Mistakes were made. We’ve all suffered for them.

But I’ve always heard that it is important to make the effort to have a positive relationship with your parents, so I’ve given up yarn heists (and gnawing thoughtfully on book spines…and those enjoyable ruminative chews on Mama’s Manolo Blahniks that used to bring me such joy…). This has significantly reduced tensions in the home.

I was hoping, Emily, that the completion of your socks would mean she would move on to knitting a little something for me. A fair-isle dog sweater perhaps. Or some adorable little snow booties to protect my tender paws during the upcoming winter season.

The next project, however, seems to be for my Pop, Alex:

A muted Trekking XXL colourway that is oh-so-suitable for his mature masculine sensibility.

One thinks inevitably of the old saw about a picture being worth a thousand words.

Speaking of Pop, now that he has “passed his exam” (we dogs don’t take demanding exams of this sort; we find that they are destructive of pack ties), we’ve been able to do normal things together again.

Like take little strolls and admire the goldfish pond one of our neighbors has in his front yard:

A small, shiny, green frog presides over this pleasing little artificial realm. There is absolutely no indication that he will ever turn into a prince. Or that he would make good eatin’.

Mama and Pop even went to the movies:

Mama explained that the immense popcorn kernels, Coca-Cola, and Reese’s peanut butter cups that you see in this photo are all that remains of an ancient era when mega-junkfoods roamed the earth. Scientists believe that these mega-junkfoods died off in a mass extinction following the collision of the Earth with a massive extraterrestrial object thought by many to be composed primarily of tofu.

I have absolutely no idea what she is nattering on about, to be honest. But I certainly approve of the existence of megafoods.

Well, Emily, that’s about it. Hope you enjoy the socks.

Throw me a bone sometime if you get a chance. And I do mean that literally.

Much love,
Shelley

I finally finished the tufted novelty yarn.  I ended up with some extra singles, so I plied those together as a 2-ply smooth yarn.  So now I have 3+ skeins of tufted yarn and 1 smaller skein of coordinating 2-ply.

I’ll be curious to see how the rayon ribbon reacts when I wash these skeins.  When I was in college, I used a rayon yarn for weaving which would visibly shrink (picture writhing snakes) when it got wet.  Obviously, you had to be pretty careful about pre-shrinking that stuff before you started weaving with it.

I can imagine how you might be thinking about now, “Why didn’t she experiment with that rayon ribbon to see if it was going to shrink before she plied it with the tufted lime green wool 2-ply?  Wouldn’t that have made more sense?”  Well, the short answer is, “I don’t know and yes, it would have made more sense.”  I can only say that I was in the grip of severe spinning mania and didn’t think things through real clearly at the time.  Besides, seeing as how the whole tufted yarn was an adventure, now I have something else to look forward to.  That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

I started right in on the wool and angora blend that I made myself with my handheld combs.

This stuff wants to be spun fine with lots of twist, so that’s exactly what I’m doing.  This is about as fine as I can spin. 

 

Someday perhaps I will be able to spin a single as fine as a human hair (that’s what the best Shetland spinners are said to have been able to do), but that day is not today.

I’ll have to ply this in some way; 2- or 3-ply has yet to be determined.

Next time (Wednesday) on Sarah’s post:  Exploits in making “yarn” out of bias strips.