The Harvard Knitting Project

Friday, January 05, 2007

I am doing a strange thing.

It all started like this...

I have an ugly sweater.

I have an ugly sweater made of beautiful yarn.

It cost two dollars, several years ago, at Vintage Avenger in Arcata, CA.

Its brand name is Geiger, and I kind of bought it just for the cool metal thing that says "Geiger". I was into Geiger counters at the time. I had bought an old one for my mom for christmas.

Judging by its ugliness, it was made circa 1985, but was still in perfect condition.

Details: sleeves about 3 times the size of my arms (and they are not tiny arms), also too long. Body too short. weird poofiness from shoulders down to too-tight, too-high waistband.

It did have lovely buttons, though. And the yarn! It's 67% wool, 17% mohair, and 16% acrylic. And it is SO SOFT! And those colors... it's a short of red/purple/black blend, but not variagated --- I think it's one strand of purple/red and one strand of a very dark blue or purple. Very fine. Almost small enough to be fingering weight.

I HATE this sweater.

And I LOVE this yarn.

So I am doing a strange thing.

I am chopping this sweater into pieces (sleeve, sleeve, body) and ripping the yarn out. Now, because it's steeked and the seams are machine sewn, I end up with a TON of pieces of yarn, between 1 and a half and 3 feet long each.

My floor is covered with little bits of purple mohair.

And I'm BY GOD going to knit me a new sweater. Probably from this pattern. Though with full-length sleeves and no stripes, obviously. I am a no-stripe gal. Pluswise, where would I ever find a contrasting color worthy of this yarn?

Color photos forthcoming, as soon as I get a paycheck or sell off some possessions or something and the moratorium on buying things like camera batteries (and *sniff* yarn) ends.

Also to come: socks from very vintage (and very tiny) yarn, socks for my Shmeeble (read: boyfriend), perfect fingerless mitts for mom, and other exciting items!

Wednesday, January 03, 2007

back from home


all right, well, I survived the horrible redeye and am back to lounging in my dorm room. Roomie is sadly not home. Hi roomie! I miss you! The Boy is working at the homeless shelter tonight. So I am all alone with my computer and I am armed with pointy sticks.

In knitting news, I did the thing I told myself I wouldn't do.

I gave away most of my knitted gifts without taking photos.

That's right. There is no photographic record of the most epic wee ninja in the world, of the Most Happy Wristwarmers, or of the variation socks for dear Tessa (which I am afraid will not fit her, though if they do, they will look lovely poking up from her clogs), or of the dried-mango bag for cheyenne. So sad!

Well, instead I'm just goint to work on the second teva durham loop-d-loop glove, and reflect on this photo. It's of Moonstone beach, and is from a facebook group about my hometown. It had this caption: "Moonstone beach is the beach."

So true. To an extent this is true of all towns, but especially so with Arcata: Moonstone beach is THE beach. The Plaza is THE plaza. The Co-Op is THE grocery store. Redwood Community Forest is THE forest. And of course, Los Bagels are THE bagels. beaches, plazas, groceries, forests, bagels. These things are defined by Moonstone, Co-Op, Arcata plaza, Los Bagels, the redwoods. Nothing else will measure up and I'm sorry to say that unless I move back home, I'll spend the rest of my life saying
"Forest? You think that's a forest? Back home we had forests."
"Beach? You think that's a beach? Back home we had beaches."

and so on. Between that and the knitting, it seems there is no way I can escape being insufferable?

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