Knitting on the Road

Knitting in the car works for me. Don’t worry; I’m not driving at the time. We love to take driving vacations, and often there are long stretches of highway with absolutely nothing to look at. This is when knitting has been a godsend for me. I used to fall asleep a lot, leaving my husband to fend for himself when it came to looking for the next highway. Of course navigation has always been one of his strong points, but I like to follow along and note places of interest.

I polished off two (count ‘em 1-2!) projects in the car. I had started a scarf for my niece in my crochet class back in February. I had mostly put is aside and had about 14 – 18 inches done. I really needed to get cracking for her Birthday on Easter. Working in the car, I finished a scarf about 4 inches wide and 6 feet long. I made it like that to double and wrap around, slipping the end through the loop. Pre-teens love to play around with fashion so I left her options. Since I had never done it, I asked for some help and added the fringe at K1P2 one night. I’m glad I took their advice to hold off on cutting the fringe – Jessica wanted it just the way it was. I wish I’d gotten a picture of her in it but I plum forgot to.

Next was a pink chemo cap. At Stitches East last year I made a miniature hat knit top-down. I also saw an adult pattern called Karlchen and experimented with my own top down version. It has a nipple at the top (tee hee) and four peaks to let some air circulate or keep the crown off sensitive scalps. I put in a little eyelet while I was working my increases. It adds a bit of a feminine touch. I still had a good bit of the yellow left, so I designed a little fairisle pattern too. I wish now I had thought to do a Mickey Mouse head for my Disney vacation, but working out the simple design was tough enough. I had to guess on the look with hand drawn long-box graph paper. I kept it veeeery simple.

That makes four chemo caps so far for me. For John.

First FO of 2007

I made the cutest spiral top hat with the Peaches and Cream yarn.

I JUST LOVE HOW THIS TURNED OUT !

I used the free pattern from Carol at The Celtic Knot for Colleen's Cap. I'll have to take it to her soon. I believe she sends caps off to University of Maryland Medical Center's Oncology Center. I added a few rows of purling for ridges on the body. It gives it less of a point and adds grip without the usual ski-cap ribbing.

The decreases turned out this lovely nine point spiral that reminds me of peppermints and those big lollipops from Ocean City. I gotta keep this pattern. It is easy to follow and the decreases can be used for other hats if I don't like theirs. I can use fewer decreases for smaller hats by starting with multiples of 8 or 7 instead of 9. I kept track of my gauge (good knitter, have a cookie) in my little red book so I can even compare various yarns. I think I’m getting the hand of this knitting thing.

I wasn’t quite satisfied with my closure and tinked it back. That was tough. It was worth it though, ‘cause one more row of straight knitting before pulling the nine stitches together made the top perfect. I was looking at it and thinking . . . State Fair . . . yeah! I really intend on entering something this year. It is good to have a goal. Some of the prize winners I saw weren’t fancy or especially pretty, just well done.

When I washed it to take care of the pet hair issues, I blocked it on a bowl on top of the dryer. Bobby and I started looking into buying a head for me to block with and use as a model for my pictures as well. Hmmmm. If I use it for charity work is it tax deductible expense I wonder? He really gets into helping me with my knitting. We were watching something on TV the other night while I was working on this hat. I *had* to be excused and didn’t want to loose my place. I said out loud,” Knit two together on a seven row” and off I went. When I came dashing back and scooped up my needles, Bobby leaned over said,” Knit two together on a seven row”.

I love him.

You know, when I look back to my first hat about a year ago, I wince. I had no pattern and believe I just K2,K2tog and sewed some sort of monster spiderweb on the top. I hadn't a clue about dpn and was stretching the yarn on flexible needles (inventing the double loop I might add). I tied big knots to change colors and did a rotten job of weaving in my ends. It was awful but I was so proud. It was what I wanted to do. It felt good. It feels good now. Scary. Personal. Good.

For you, John.

Why tinkknitz ?

When I was new to knitting, I was telling the girls at my weekly knit-in about my cat's crazy reaction to some wool yarn I bought. When I mentioned her name was Tinkerbell or Tink for short, Holly Anne burst out laughing . . .

Tink? That's too funny. Tink is knit spelled backwards, it's what you do when you have to un-do stitches.

And there you have it, tink...knit. The z is, well, just because.

::fade to sepia::

"Learn to Knit" it said on the DVD that came in the kit. It cost all of $8 I think on the clearance rack at the Tar-jay'. A fuzzy scarf thing with a hole to tuck in the end and snuggle at your neck. At that price I bought another. A simple tote in three pastel colors of soft cotton yarn. It came with two short needles connected with a plastic filament. How exotic! I went home with my treasures, popped in the DVD, fondled my yarn (thus begins the addiction, eh?) and read the booklet cover to cover as instructed.

And then I watched. And watched. And watched.

Now I know all about learning curves so I bought some plain white yarn and was prepared to just knit - nothing. I thought the back button on the remote was going to wear out. Eventually though, I progressed to nice even rows and started my pretty fuzzy scarf that was marked beginners. Auuggghhhh! They had to be kidding. Giving a newbie multi-colored Fun Fur and size 13 blunt plastic needles was mean and whoever came up with that one should be shot by a smiling firing squad. Didya ever knit cobwebs with cigars? Oh, sorry, maybe you have. Because I couldn't see where one stitch ended and another began, I sometimes split the yarn. I believe I counted stitches six times in every row. Then there was turning the corners. That last loop was mangled and abused, folded, spindled and mutilated on every row. At one point I realized I had dropped a stitch and had to pull out about 12 rows before I could load it back on the needle facing the right direction with all the loops going the right way. And then tragedy struck - so I decided to give the smiling firing squad chocolate bullets to shoot the kit people. It could have been so easy if it went like this:

• Cast on 12 stitches leaving some yarn hanging at the beginning
• Keep on knitting until you don't have enough yarn to do another row
• Tie it off and weave in the ends

After all, this was labeled beginners ya know. Instead I got to navigate a huge button hole thingie. Oh did I mention that already? I swear I didn't notice that in the picture. There's a lesson here I'm sure. That which looks soooo cute in the picture on the box may be evil, wicked, bad and wrong on the inside. It went something like this:

• co12
• k(x46r),k4co,5e,9f8e,8g,7e,ff,d,90(3g),sseeb2,#%*?#@###
• bo and weave in ends

At least it looked that way to me. Okay, I'm exaggerating a wee bit, but that buttonhole was a bear. A nasty bear with rabies, shot with chocolate bullets by that smiling firing squad while he was snacking on barbecued knit-kit people.

But I did it. I finished that scarf and gave it to my mother for her birthday. I had my first F.O. and didn't even know what to call it. After that I was a knitting machine (albeit a hand cranked one). I tackled that tote (I'll show those kit people) and instead of squaring off the bottom and sewing it up, I k2,k2tog for a while and hand sewed the center. I was now a designer of Chemo Caps.

::back to our regularly scheduled blog::

photo by javagem(thanks Jody)


I started to knit for a reason. 2005 was a bad year. 5 people in my family died. I knew they were all dying, but I got sooo tired of funerals at Brudzinskis and feeling sad and donating to their favorite charities. After my Godson died the night before his 16th birthday, I felt I had to actively do something instead of donate my dollars and walk out of the funeral home.

Since Cancer was the enemy, it's my goal to settle into Chemo Caps now that I can knit and purl effectively and follow a simple pattern. Interesting thing is - at one time I toyed with knitting for craniotomy patients since there is soooo much focus on chemotherapy. After all, John and I used to crack jokes about how nobody could resist a sick kid in a wheelchair. But there's nothing quite like that first look in the mirror when the bandage comes off after brain surgery. I know. So. As I get better at this, I may still try to establish donating some of my talents (yeah, right) for head cases at Shock Trauma.

As for now, I got debts to pay.