Confessions of A Reform[ing] Selfish Knitter

The other day I was sitting in my chair, knitting, as one does, and my daughter said to me – and I quote – “All you do is knit knit knit and then you don’t even wear your knits you just pile them up on the chair. That is rude and selfish!”  (She loves to throw around the word rude. Whatever you do that bothers her – tell her no, make her clean her room, tell her if she doesn’t brush her teeth they will fall out – she calls you rude.) I went on knitting, ignoring her outburst, until she took a breath and came out with this: “Will you knit me a sweater?”

I have gone on record, right here on this blog, many times about what a selfish knitter I am. And I’ve never apologized for it. Rarely have I ever spared a square for someone. I just don’t do it. The more I knit the more it’s about the process, to be sure, but it’s MY process. I knit what I want, when I want and no bossy five year is going to pressure me into changing.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! You know where this is going, right?

To be fair, I have knit for others. Why, as recently as the Summer of 2012, I knit not one, not two but FOUR freaking ponchos. None of which were for me. Here’s some proof:

One for Meli, one for Cali. Not pictured is the one for my niece and the one for Meli’s friend. Yes. I even knit for a NON BLOOD RELATIVE.

The truth is that Meli didn’t have to go far to guilt me into knitting for her. Her tirade was accurate on all counts. See, here’s the chair with all the knits.

The most recent knit hangs on the model and the rest get added to the chair. Kind of pathetic, no? I do wear the sweaters – well some of them – and the cowls and the hat but it’s SUMMER.

So she told me she wanted a sweater and I told her okay. Then she drew me a picture of what she wanted. I wish I still had it but her little sister took a scissors to it (I was too busy knitting to notice.) Let’s just say it had everything! Polka dots, stripes, ruffles all going this way and that. Frankly, I told her, this is beyond my abilities. She said I was the best knitter in the world and I said no. I’m not. (Okay even if I am a pretty good knitter I wasn’t going to agree to a project I didn’t at least have a SHOT at enjoying. Am I right?)

I told her about the wonders of Ravelry – that we could sit together and look at lots and lots of sweaters and figure out which one she liked best. This exercise was trying at best. For whatever reason it took her awhile to understand that she didn’t have to have the EXACT sweater in the picture and just because a baby was wearing it didn’t mean that we couldn’t make it in her size and no it doesn’t have to be that color. After much swearing and crying (on my part) she finally decided on a sweater: Granny’s Favourite.

Okay. Super cute sweater. We can do that. She told me it had to be blue green and have hot pink buttons. ONLY THREE buttons. Great! We can do that too. It just so happened that I had a beautiful green blue skein of Madelinetosh Pashmina in the my stash. I showed it to her and she said it was PERFECT! So I went looking for Madelinetosh in Nassau Blue – not Pashmina mind you – something a little more suited to a five year old. Maybe some DK but really what child needs a Pashmina sweater. Again, you can see it coming from a mile away right? Turns out I couldn’t find the colorway anywhere but a call to my bestie who just happens to own a yarn store? Yeah. She had three skeins of Nassau Blue in Pashmina just waiting for me. I know what you’re all thinking. Man she is SO LUCKY to have a best friend that owns a yarn store! That would be the GREATEST THING EVER! But it’s not because when your best friend owns a yarn store you end up making your five year old daughter a sweater in PASHMINA. (And of course one to come for your three year old because you can’t ever play favorites.)

I’d be better off if my best friend was a drug dealer.

The yarn is gorgeous.

The knitting is okay. (The pattern is really tedious in that it’s a million pages long when it doesn’t need to be so there’s a lot of flipping around to figure out where you are and where you need to be.)

And the most important part is that so far she loves it (and it fits! YAY for top down sweaters!)

You may not have noticed but there have been some behind the scene changes on the blog thanks to Carrie (formerly of the Carrieoke knitting blog!) We are fully hooked up to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram – all the places the cool kids hang out. I wanted to update the blog (I was rocking some OLD SCHOOL Movable Type) so that I can blog from my phone, upload pictures from my phone – you know – be a part of the real world. Hopefully this will help me blog so much more. I miss writing and I miss connecting with you all so we’ll see. And if you’re looking to update your own blog, Carrie is beyond fantastic! Every tweak I asked for happened almost immediately, she was patient when it took me forever to get my shit together and all around wonderful in getting me to where I wanted to be. THANK YOU CARRIE! (Visit her here!)

I have so much knitting to talk about. And life. But really a lot of knitting. I hope you’ll be back!

L , C