This year, I finally did something I have been wanting to do for almost as long as I’ve been knitting: Enter a project into the Minnesota State Fair. In the end, I did not place. But I did show. And I got to show of a piece that I am really, really proud of.
Yesterday I went with my eldest as he got braces. My kid is 21 and this isn’t his first time having braces. When he was younger, we tried to compensate for his under bite, but his bottom jaw had other ideas and we had to wait until he stopped growing before it could be fixed. We’re helping to pay for it, so while I was there to offer emotional support if he needed it (he didn’t), I was really there to make the first payment.
Okay, full disclosure, I actually downloaded this last week. But “Sometime last week I downloaded a hat and I’m almost done with it” is a really long title for a blog post. This project is more about the story behind it, though.
One of the fun thing about working at a post-secondary school is that students will oftentimes work in your office. They’re not always skilled labor for the tasks at hand (though sometimes they are) and they always get the grunt work. But it’s really fun getting to know students at the place you work (especially if your job isn’t student-facing). Our office, Marketing and Communications, has been very fortunate in the student workers we’ve had and I have made some very good friends of many of them. So when our current student worker asked if I could make him a “slouchy hipster-style hat” I agreed. When he asked if I could make a set of matching hats for him and his best friend, I lept for joy because how adorable is that?Read More
When you have a group of friends who fall within a certain age, sometimes they all manage to have babies within a couple of months of each other. And sometimes—despite having almost six months to make a baby object before these women who don’t live nearby have arranged to be in town for a baby shower that you are hosting—you neglect to make any of the adorable baby sweaters or fancy hats you have purchased patterns and books for. When that happens, a quick search on Ravelry will show you the most adorable and QUICK hats possible: Veggies!Read More
I’ve written about my love for my knitting groups before. I love to encourage people to knit. Some people might say I’m a pusher. They wouldn’t be wrong. So when I found a couple of knitter friends at my work place, I was the first in line to suggest a casual weekly knitting group over lunch. Eventually someone suggested that as a group, we knit hats to donate. Then that same someone suggested maybe we could apply for some grant she had heard about to purchase yarn and needles to teach others to knit.Read More
One of my big projects for this past Christmas was to make a scarf and hat set for each of my four nephews. There is a substantial age gap between the youngest and oldest and I didn’t want to ask each of them their head size and spoil the surprise. So of course I did what any good knitter would do: I decided to wing it.Read More
I love television and movies. Seriously, really passionate about it.* Also, it’s the perfect way to get a lot of knitting done on a regular basis. It’s possible I talk about what I watch so often that one of my knitter friends suggested I could blog about what I watched while I knit. This weekend, I watched Marvel’s Jessica Jones. All 13 episodes. Ooo, boy!Read More
Quickie today, like this knitting project. Hats and scarves for my nephews.Read More
Whoa. Where did September go? One moment I’m sending my kids to school, writing a post featuring a picture of my daughter across the windshield of my car and the next moment it’s weeks later, I don’t have any new completed projects, I haven’t spent time searching patterns online and no new projects have been started. My knitting group has started asking when my Hitchhiker will be done. September was brutal for my knitting.Read More