Hoarding

I've had at least three FOs floating around for the past two weeks that I haven't blogged. Dunno why.

What was I saving them for? None is a surprise. There's plenty of stuff in progress to talk about, so it's not like I'll run out of things to say and need to fall back on these. I wasn't feeling lazy about them.

It was definitely a hoarding situation, which is foolish. There's a great quote about writing from Annie Dillard: "One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time."

So, in that spirit, I present FO#1, a garter-stitch baby sweater.

I don't actually know any babies at the moment, but I got some free fuzzy yarn at Stitch n' Pitch. I got two balls actually, and this tiny sweater made barely a dent in it. Still, I did use up some pastel yellow acrylic that I inherited from my grandmother, which probably means the yarn is from the 1960s. I suspect the buttons came from around then too. The armband happened when it occurred to me that I might be dealing with a different dye lot.

If I don't suddenly meet a baby, off it will go into the charity pile.

FO #2 is a hemp shopping bag.

The pattern is from Knitty, the yarn from Rachel. I used it this weekend at Tower Grove Market where it admirably held 2 pork chops and some skirt steak.

I loved working with the hemp and was surprised at how soft it ended up being. Getting the cord through the toggle was a major pain in the ass and involved yarn needles, vice grips, and lots of grunting and swearing. Even LB gave up at one point, but dammit, that cord was going to go through that toggle.

The toggle also gave me the chance to remember the twisty little dealyboppers we tied at the end of our dock-siders back when it was cool to wear a turtleneck, a polo with the collar turned up, and an oxford cloth shirt, with a ragg sweater knotted "casually" over the shoulders and an add-a-bead necklace draped over it all.

FO #3 is my favorite, the sock monkey monkey socks:

A baby sweater when there's no actual baby is fairly foolish, but sock monkey monkey socks are foolish beyond belief.

You can actually go to the store and buy Red Heel socks. I have several in my sewing room waiting to be made into sock monkeys. Utter foolishness to knit such things.

The brown yarn is from Regia, the solid from Brown Sheep, and the pattern is my own. I suspect the two socks don't entirely match. In the future, I'll learn how to do a short-row heel. The current heel is a flap heel and involved me graphing out the heel diamond.

I made them for LB, my own personal sock monkey, and yes, his feet are that long and narrow.

Meanwhile, the gator scarf progresses.