WOW

This past weekend, I started and finished my first hat. It was an exhilarating experience, and one that I'm sure I'll be delving into again and again. . .and again.
I am certain that I prefer to make flat hats and just loop through at the end.
Why bother with circulars?
Of course there's that annoying transportation issue with straight needles (ruin my purse's lining or not?) that can be easliy avoided with circulars, which I've found generally don't have as much of the deathly point as do some straight needles.
I have admittedly been less than cautious with my knitting needles some days on the train and in big crowds. They usually do the trick of getting people out of my way.
But alas, I digress.

The hat. I made it from this blue (not so great) yarn from which I had made a baby's blanket last year.
On the train as I was ribbing (such wonderful verbs in the knitting world) during one of the standard delays in New York City transit history, I found myself the object of not one man's attention, but TWO men. And I think at least one of them was straight. I'm just not so sure about the other one (though he was definitely the cuter of the two. . .there might be a reason.)
The I'm-not-sure-if-he's-straight one spoke the words (after I boldly looked up with such innocence in my eyes as a fawn under survey by wiley hunters (teeheehee)) "it's hypnotizing" which led me to ask myself "do straight men use the word hypnotizing when not trying to woo a woman?"

Who knows these answers?
What I do indeed know (in addition to the fact that I am not having a baby boy--or a baby at all, in response to another question I received on the train) is that the making of my first hat, though tedious, was indeed a wonderful wowing experience. And one that I hope you will all shoulder (or handle. . .) sometime in the near future.
Knitting off,
Earthy bka Arin

Fall into the season

I have to admit, I am SO excited about the rest of this year, which just so happens to be the 10th anniversary of my 8th grade graduation.
Yes, that's right. I said it. 10 years ago, I had just turned 14 years old, and I was a freshman diva, running the mean streets of Chicago as if I'd paved them myself.
Uh-huh that's right.

But alas, it would take me several years to even come to a knowledge of and love for the craft of... KNITTING! My hands have never been so well-used before!

Of course my mother had taught me how to crochet, and during college I did make one horrendous purple scarf from a very cheap and not-at-all-soft yarn. That scarf now hangs on my wall at home as a trendy earring holder.
Creative juices run free (across the hardwood floors of my Washington Heights apartment) and I am humbled when I find websites and blogs that are so much more adept at the art than I.
But to my credit, I have only been knitting for approximately 2 years now.
It all started on a Friday just like today when I got an email from my sister whose subject line read "crafts, knits, bad santas".

I was ready to rumble, and rumble I did on that blessed Sunday evening at her boss' house in
Brooklyn (oh Beloved Brooklyn!).

Yeah actully, I'm lying. I kind of sucked for those first fifty or so rows. But after I got over the beastage of casting on (it took me days to remember how to hold my hand and fingers correctly...where does the yarn go!?) I did finally make my first project, which I never ever wear.
Why? you ask. Because it is a very itchy, very curled up, ruby red scarf (2 balls, wool-ease thick and quick--and yes it is thick and quick). No need.
I'm up to par now. And I, like so many other trendy New York knitters, really do enjoy the heat of eyes staring at my hands while I too stare at my hands in hopes of finishing one row and moving on to the next.

To anyone who's reading (and I suppose that's no one right about now) my name is Arin, and I'm in business.