Alright, alright, I’ve held your hands long enough, with the helpful hints and detailed directions and graph charts. No more mollycoddling- you got a picture and some instructions, go knit that cardigan already!
Perhaps the extreme brevity of this week’s pattern, with its ‘you get the idea’ attitude and lack of any detail whatsoever (“Embroider flowers, as suggested on sketch”) is due more to cramped layout than churlish writer. The paragraph-long charmer was stuck far in back of Handicrafter Vol. 10 without even a picture of someone wearing the finished garment. Just ‘there it is, have at it, kids’.
It’s a pretty adorable cardigan to just be stuck in the back of a magazine when all the other patterns get full-page photos and layouts, what with its pleasing chevron effect, crew neck that’d go nicely with collared shirts, and ease of chunky gauge. It would look great in any sort of jewel-tone, or pastels, I guess, if you’re into that sort of thing.
Pictures of Woolydown, the yarn used, can be seen here on Cathy Knits – a similar substitute would probably be Lion Brand Thick & Quick or a similar all-wool yarn. Enjoy!
Man, for some reason I am really into these chunky cardigans from Jack Frost. They all have wonderful 40s shoulders and lines but without the painstaking effort of tiny gauges and time. This one caught the eye with another recent fascination, chunky cables and textures.
This would look wonderful just a tad longer for more of a swing coat feel or, for the more adventurous: start off with the knit braid + 1 stitch on the inside edge, knit it long enough to fit across half the back and the front piece plus a little extra, then cast on the rest of the front and continue as normal. When seaming up tack the braid to the sides and seam them together at the back for extra length plus a bit more texture.
I’m well-aware a ‘major’ ‘holiday’ came and went with not a wisp of acknowledgement from this corner of the internet. While I dearly love all things crafty and realize Valentine’s day presents many opportunities to do something cute and handmade for your loved ones, I detest how the point of the day’s somehow gone from celebrating existing romance or possibly starting a new one to proving your love. I could go on a whole tirade (and probably have in past years) about how if you’re using one sanctioned day to prove you care about someone through shopworn gestures it probably ain’t love to begin with but why focus on the negative?
Instead, let me demonstrate how much I love humanity by presenting it with this:
…AFTER Valentine’s Day. Because single or taken, NO ONE deserves to blearily stumble in Monday morning and come face to face with a coworker dressed head-to-toe in some pink and red version of this chirruping about ‘wuv’. It would be EXACTLY like coming in on St. Patrick’s Day and seeing them in this:
Far, far too much. (Although, if you’re truly thrifty, you could dye the whole thing black and reuse it on President’s Day.)
No, something like this should be worn much the same way love should be celebrated- unexpectedly throughout the year, with charm and happiness in and of the moment. Also maybe ditch the heart pockets, or at least move them so they don’t look like giant pasties.
Bienvenue, fellow crafters! As snow becomes the dominant conversation topic up and down the East Coast, it seems only appropriate to acknowledge our neighbors to the north, Colder USA, aka Canada. It’s a land I imagine in perpetual winter, in no small part due to the national fixation on ice-related sports.
Canadian favorite hockey, with its brutal fisticuffs and rapid-fire action, translates very well to American audiences. Second-beloved curling, on the other hand, gets at best mocking derision and far more commonly a confused ‘Curling? What’s that?’ Oh, you know, the sport where somebody hurls a rock and a bunch of people scrub little brooms in front of it, usually followed by a puzzled and/or angry look, and a rapid move to somewhere else in the vicinity.
Even I assumed curling was invented in the early 80s some dark evening after one too many beers, possibly some bong hits. Certainly the inspiration must have sprung from the depths of cabin fever. I mean, look at it:
But no! Curling has a long and storied history that begins, of all places, in Scotland. The very name of this week’s pattern, Bonspiel, means ‘curling tournament’ in old Scottish, and the earliest references to the game are from the 15th century.
(still looks pretty silly.)
History’s all well and good, but why watch curling? I’ll be lazy and let some curlers tell you:
Wow! Informative! However, the descriptions of the sport culled from Wikipedia’s page on curling also serve as a bullet point list of why the sport will never really catch on in America:
“More so than in many team sports, good sportsmanship is an integral part of curling. Even at the highest levels of play, players are expected to “call their own fouls”, so to speak, such as alerting the opposing skip if they “burned” a stone. It is also traditional for the winning team to buy the losing team a drink after the game. This is often referred to as the Spirit of Curling.”
“It is not uncommon at any level for a losing team to terminate the match before all ends are completed if it believes it no longer has a realistic chance of winning…When a team feels it is impossible or near impossible to win a game, they will usually shake hands with the opposing team to concede defeat.”
“Curling is a game of strategy, tactics and skill.”
It’s not just America though; curling doesn’t seem to have caught on much of anywhere:
“The 2002 Canadian film Men With Brooms…centres on the sport of curling, telling the story of a curling team from a small Canadian town…The film grossed over $4.2 million, all of it in Canada, making it the top-grossing Canadian English film subsidized by Telefilm Canada between 1997 and 2002.”
Those ain’t exactly numbers to brag about.
Still, curling seems a fun way to enjoy the brisk winter weather, so here’s a cozy cardigan to keep you warm while playing. Interestingly enough, white = official curling cardigan, any other color = regular boring cardigan with no real curling value.
Slouchy hats. Right now, they have achieved an omnipresence not seen since 1995′s Lollapalooza tour.
The sloppy chapeaus top celebrities, models, the fashionably disheveled, and their studied insouciance has infiltrated every college campus coast to coast. In other words, THEY ARE PLAYED OUT.
Who wants to be another floppy hat bobbing in a sea of oversized army green jackets and jeggings? The rest of this bitter season, why not stand out and prevent frostbite with a topper that’s the opposite of slouch? A jaunty little crown that perks up tall and proud and says ‘here I am world, looking vaguely like a winter milkmaid!’ I give you:
The Sports Tiara! (also a matching sweater).
I boldly predict tiaras are going to be next season’s Annie Hall hat for the ladies. Then tiaras will pass onto guys as princess cones become the ladies’ rage, and finally by the end of the Mayan Calendar both genders will be fully decked out in Miss World crowns spelling out the wearers’ names. IT’S IN THE CODEX, PEOPLE.
I’ve posted random stuff online for several years and am happy to provide a pleasant visual forum for visitors to oggle. I hope this site offers tidbits of interest to the curious reader, and useful information for the crafty.
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