FAB AND FAMOUS FELLOW KNITTERS

Foghorn modeling the
Miss Marple Scarf for
my mother

Just as cold January days make one think of soup and hot chocolate, it also makes me think of wool and knitting.  Yes, I have knitting on the brain in the summer as well (and the spring and the fall), but there is something about gloomy, snowy days that just cry out for woven yarn draped across a lap.  Having finished my son's latest pair of socks, I turned to some rose colored tweed wool and a pattern for a Miss Marple scarf for myself.  Although I didn't learn to knit until I was past 40, I longed to do it from an early age, probably going back to grade school when I watched Wilma Flintstone work with a pair of brontosaurus bones chanting, "knit one, purl two, knit one, purl two."  When I was 12 I became addicted to Agatha Christie mysteries and wanted desperately to be like her elderly sleuth, Miss Marple, who could solve a murder while knitting a baby sweater for her goddaughter.

Joan Hickson as Miss Marple,
solving crime in the Caribbean

Once I caught the knitting bug and actually mastered it enough to make something wearable, I began to mentally gather a roster of fellow knitters.  While my husband may find my tendency to publicly knit embarrassing, I know I'm in good company.  Just consider the company I keep:

Joan Crawford -- no man dared tell
her not to knit in public.

 She may not have been Mother of the Year, but Joan Crawford was a compulsive knitter.  She claimed it calmed her "nervous hands".  It had the added bonus of screwing with her acting contemporaries.  Joan famously aggravated the crap out of Norma Shearer during the filming of The Women by sitting out of camera range when Ms. Shearer was filming her close-ups, needles clicking away the whole time.  I'm sure this was merely a woman completely caught up in her handicraft and in no way was meant to break a competitor's fellow actor's concentration.

Eleanor Roosevelt

Eleanor Roosevelt is known as one of the most accomplished first ladies in history, champion for the poor and women and minorities.  She was also arguably the most famous knitter for the war effort in the 1940s.  In fact she helped start the whole WWII knitting campaign at a Knit for Defense tea held at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York in September of 1941.  She went on to become known as "The First Knitter of the Land."

OK, this guy's fictional, but I adore him nonetheless.  Pushing Daisies fans will know him as Emerson Cod, the private eye.  His catch phrase, "Oh, hell no!" is very popular in my household.  When not solving crimes, he likes to relax with a couple straight needles and manly colored yarn.  How can you not love a big, burly detective who can knit his own gun holster?

Christina Hendricks

How can you not love a gal who made curves popular again and showed that not every grown woman has to have the measurements of a 13 year old boy.  As Joan on Mad Men, she wiggled into the hearts of guys all over Manhattan.  Maybe she should take a tip from her real life counterpart and knit Don Draper a nice fair isle sweater.  Maybe that's what has been throwing him into the arms of all those women.  The poor man is just cold.

Dorothy Parker with knitting bag
(and some dude, maybe a husband)

"If all the girls who attended the Yale prom were laid end to end, I wouldn't be a bit surprised."  How can you not love Dorothy Parker?  I lack her writing talent, but she and I have the same distaste for the domestic drudgery of cooking and cleaning.  (Unlike Ms. Parker, I do those activities, while she reportedly threw dirty underwear back in the drawer with the clean and just let her maid figure it out.)  Like her, I also think "a little bad taste is like a dash of paprika."  I just wish I'd been clever enough to come up with the line.  Anyway, in a bit of a paradox she happened to also have been an avid knitter.  Perhaps she composed all her quotable quips while her hands were occupied with a nice garter stitch scarf and her mind was free to wander. 



The list of famous knitters is long and ranges from Sarah Jessica Parker to Queen Elizabeth.  There are even reports of some men getting in the act.  While I doubt the picture is truly a candid shot from personal life, I at least like the idea of the company I keep...

READY FOR WINTER - KNIT HAT AND SCARF PATTERNS

Ever since my Roving Acres yarn arrived, I've been DYING to get to work on my winter hat and scarf.  When I contacted Beth at Roving Acres about getting a custom-dyed yarn, I asked for a variegated that went from very light gray to charcoal.  And that's exactly what I got.  The alpaca/merino wool is soft and luxurious, but is going to be so wonderfully warm when the temperatures drop.  (Considering we had about five minutes of snow flurries the other afternoon, I think I'm getting this done none too soon.)

The hat pattern is the Hurricane Hat (free pattern here), using a 16" size 7 circular needle and a set of size 7 double-pointed needles.  I actually made this hat out of a variegated acrylic yarn in the spring as one of my first, practice knitting projects.  It actually worked (a boost to the new knitter), but I made it a little small.  I liked the pattern, though, with the swirl design, and ordered the wool yarn with this hat in mind.  Foghorn saw the finished product this week and immediately said, "Can you make one for me?"  Well, it so happened I still had that acrylic one from the spring that was a wee bit too small and was of a similar variegated gray color.  She's thrilled.  I think my husband is planning how to hide when my daughter and I go out in our matching hats.  We already harass him with our 1970s-patterned matching pajamas.

The scarf is the same pattern as I used for my mother's scarf/cowl (found here).  Again, I used size 8 needles and cast on 38 stitches (making it about 8-1/2" wide).  In total I had about 550 yards of the Roving Acres yarn, so I made the hat first and then just worked on the scarf until I ran out of yarn.  After making the scarf for my mother I was totally in love with the waffle-y texture and had to the do a duplicate for myself.

Both patterns are easy enough for a novice knitter, but have enough variety to be interesting to work on and they produce nice finished items.   Next up, I'm thinking a new, more sophisticated dog sweater for St. Jimmi...








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GRANDMA’S BIRTHDAY -- HAND-KNITS, HOMEMADE CAKE, AND DOG RESCUE

Friday was the 79th birthday of The Inmates’ Grandma (who shockingly also happens to be my mother).  I often refer to her as the “Coolest Septuagenarian I Know.”  In addition to all the stereotypical grandmotherly type things like cooking and sewing and quilting, she’s also a kick-ass blogger, wonderfully snarky, and, best of all, occasionally thinks I’m funny (as long as I don’t get too crude or obscene).

On Friday, my sister (the Inmates’ Uncle Chester) and I took Grandma to Mimi’s for lunch, then wandered around JoAnn’s clutching our 40% off coupons looking for something crafty to buy.  In the evening, they came to my house for Grandma’s annual request -- my homemade, award-winning white velvet cake with caramel frosting.  I really hate to brag on myself…so I’ll give you the link to my mother’s blog so she can do it for me.  (You can also get the recipe for the cake if you check it out here.)

My sister had been showering my mother with daily birthday gifts all week and finished up with some antique-y finds.  (My mother has an obsession with the old French-Bauer dairy in particular.)  Foghorn presented Grandma with a handmade picture, the Professor with a Scottie cookie jar he paid for with his own money.  (Scotties are another of Grandma’s obsessions.)

My own gifts went from one extreme to the other.  The first was an iPod Nano, already set up with all her favorite music.  The others were hand-knit items.  The first set was like something my 10-year-old self might have made her decades ago.  I knitted two checkerboard placemats (free pattern available here), then added a crocheted leaf to each (free pattern available here -- I lifted the leaf pattern from the wreath).  I also added three dishcloths -- the acorn pattern and diamonds (not shown) are both from the booklet Ultimate Book of Dishcloths & Pot Holders by Annie's Attic.  The third, with the figure of a squirrel visible in the center, is available for free here. 

The last knit item was the promised scarf made from the variegated Roving Acres wool yarn purchased at the Wool Gathering.  My mother is not one to bundle up in the winter (she and I share the common experience of having been frequently nagged by her mother to put hats on our heads), so she liked this somewhat lacy pattern.  With the wool it will be warm enough if wrapped around the face, but not overwhelmingly hot when the temperature isn’t in the Arctic range.  It was knit from the free pattern "December is for Stephanie" and can be found on Ravelry here. (Complete notes on the projects can be found on my Ravelry page here.)

We finished up the evening with a viewing of Breaking Away, one of our favorite movies.  And another round of cake slices.

Normally birthdays in my family stretch over an entire week or at the very least over several days.  This year seemed to me to be cut short…thanks to me.  Recycled Doggies, the rescue group from which I adopted St. Jimmi, was in need of someone to do the last leg of a transport coming from Green River, Kentucky and ending in Mason, Ohio.  Not only did my mother not object to spending her birthday Saturday with a van full of smelly dogs, she came along and rode all the way with a pregnant Chihuahua on her lap.  Two of the dogs, Grandma’s Chihuahua and Chester’s friend, a Jack Russell/beagle mix named Brae, are actually going to other rescues and were just getting a ride.  Recycled Doggies was taking the mommy dog who rode in the back of the van, in Frank’s cage, with her five puppies.  Unfortunately she looks nervous in the picture and you can’t see the puppies at all, but they were all adorable, trust me.  (Incidentally, if you’re in the Cincinnati area they will also be available for adoption in the next month or two, so check out their website if you’re interested in getting a new family member.)

See what I mean?  Coolest Septuagenarian I know.

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