Monday, January 29, 2007

all isles excelling

Isn't the way that Eunny Jang writes about knitting so seductive? I'm a slapdash knitter myself, possibly happiest when mindlessly zipping around stocking-stitch socks while watching television, carrying on a conversation with my girlfriend, and possibly reading the Times Literary Supplement at the same time. Fecky attention to detail makes me, like Laura Ingalls Wilder, feel as though I am flying apart. Moreover, proper attention to detail involves maths, an implacable enemy that cannot ever be underestimated.

And yet, Eunny makes the poetry of detail, the pride in precision seem like a reflection of the works of the Almighty himself. Thus, although, like Felinity, I had been intimidated away from fair isle by Debbie Stoller's dismissive description of it in Stitch 'n' Bitch, Eunny's rhapsodies about "just a little hit" for her Endpaper Mitts had me seduced. I don't really need another pair of fingerless mittens, but the tiny detailing of the project sounded wonderful.

And then, I came across this truly ravishing fair-isle iPod sock, based on Eunny's chart, but with lovely little details such as the corrugated rib and black side seam. Mmmm, I thought. Such a strange coincidence that precisely this electronic item of desire was delivered to my door last week...
wild goose
...and that, although I had bought a silicone case to protect it, I quickly discovered that silicone cases and knitting households are almost entirely incompatible. Silicone picks up fluff like nothing on earth, and my lovely consumer electronic looks like something the feral cats outside dragged in. (There really are feral cats outside this flat.) I'll just swatch for the cosy, I thought, I don't need to learn all that fancy two-handed throwing yet, just see whether or not it works at all as a concept...

but when it comes to something as microscopic as an iPod nano, a swatch is more or less the size you need.
fairest isle
No, it's not perfect: the pattern doesn't quite match up, I'm not convinced about the corrugated rib, I didn't manage to figure out how to put in those side seams. But look! how utterly dinky, what fairy tininess is in this project:
weeniest isle
Teeny teeny tiny, the perfect size for trying out testing new techniques: in one inch, we have a tubular cast-on, corrugated rib and stranded knitting, all new to me before midnight last night. Such a delicious little project. I foresee many, many more.

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