KNITSTER

We were at a family birthday party today. It turns out 3 people in my husband’s extended side of the family had a birthday today. So, we traversed down towards the shore, and ate, drank (soda) and were merry.

I had brought my Mystic Waters project with me. I’m not as far as Becky is at this point, but I do now have lace knitting needles, which will help, even if it’s with a circ cord that’s way too long for me (at least at this point). While using these new needles that I got yesterday helped, on the way to the event, I tried doing a row of the pattern, and promptly goofed it up. I figured that at some sort of down time at the event, I would go about fixing it.

When I finally got a moment, I started to pull out ye ol’ Jordana Paige purse, pull out my project, and untangling some things. One of my little “nieces” (she’s not really my niece, but my husband’s cousin’s daughter, but close enough to be a niece), K, who is 5, and started asking questions and looking at what I was doing. I showed he what I had done before, and showed her that just like she was learning how to read letters for reading books, this pattern was in special symbols to tell me how to do different stitches. She started digging through my purse, which she was amazed was so huge, and we found that I had that ball of the fushia yarn made from corn that I had gotten in SC, and a circ needle in there. I quickly did some thinking (I know, shocking!), and I offered to make her a bracelet. She got very excited and we cast on 5 stitches because she was 5 years old. I started knitting, and she saw at first it was a little slow going, but then she saw how after a little bit of time, the few stitches were starting to grow! It was like knitting a mini scarf for me. I started out just doing garter stitches, because it’s fast and easy, but then she asked why there were “stripes” in the texture, so I switched over to stockinette for a little bit, and then switched back and forth between garter and stocikinette just to make it look a little interesting. While I was in the process of doing it, her triplet sister, J, came by and she remembered me knitting my hat last year at Christmas at their house, and asked if I still had the blue yarn. I told her I didn’t have it with me, but it was at my house. The two of them were entranced by it all, and their mother came by and was amused at how I was entertaining them. I told her that had I known that this would be so amusing to them, I would’ve brought more yarn, and started making bracelets for all of them. But I only had time, from the time I had started late in our visit to make the one. I had told J that I had finished the hat I was making with the blue yarn, and when it’s cold and I visit next time (most likely Thanksgiving or Christmas-time), I’ll make sure I wear it so she can see it. She then asked if I could make a hat for her! Well, I figure I can make a small child’s hat pretty quickly between now and Thanksgiving. I asked her what color, and she said she liked red, so I promised her a red hat. I won’t make anything complicated, and maybe that will be my “brainless” knitting in my purse when I need my hands occupied but don’t need to pay much attention.

In the meantime, I finished the “bracelet”, and J brought it outside to her sister who was playing. She came in and she was very thrilled with it, showing her mother and everything. She came up to me later and gave me the biggest hug and kiss and said, “Thank you for my bracelet, (Windsornot)! I love it!” It made me feel good that a little bit of string knitted about 5 inches long or so would bring this little girl joy. It felt really good.

On the way home, my MIL told me that J and K’s father, E, had seen all my knitting stuff out, and he told her to pass along the hint that he wouldn’t mind a nice gray scarf and hat that I would knit for Christmas. Gee, it’s not even Halloween yet, and I’m getting the Christmas orders already! I supposed time to figure out my sock mistake is out the window right now, and I’ll just work on Mystic Waters when I can. I’ll be needing to get some decent gray yarn and get cracking if I’m going to be making a nice scarf and hat, even if they aren’t complicated, fancy things.

Even so, it’s nice to know that my knitting skills are appreciated in the family.

Posted on October 19th, 2008 by Dani
Filed under: Projects