Knitting, Not Sewing

Before I left, the other Janet asked me if I would be interested in a knitting commission. A friend of hers had been admiring a knitted moebius cowl that Janet was wearing. Janet asked if I would knit one for her friend if she bought the yarn. I said I would, that it would be a good plane knitting project.

I’ve never actually knit a moebius cowl before. It requires a specific type of cast-on that isn’t simply a matter of casting on stitches and twisting them before beginning a round of knitting. Twisting a cast-on row creates a 360-degree twist. A true moebius has a 180-degree twist. The late knitting designer Cat Bordhi is credited with bringing forth the moebius cast-on. I taught at several knitting conferences where Cat was also a teacher. The inside of her brain was a wondrous place. JC perhaps remembers, because I am certain she was present, the night a group of teachers at Stitches West went out to dinner. We were in Portland and took the light rail to a restaurant downtown. Sometime during dinner, Cat mentioned that she was working on a new slipper pattern. She took a napkin and proceeded to sketch out her idea. For someone who struggles with anything spatial, watching Cat sketch out this slipper was akin to watching a magician perform a magic trick. Cat also hosted visionary retreats for designers and authors, and both JC and Sarah attended those.

Janet left the yarn and pattern for me at the store so I could pick it up before my trip. I will confess to having attempted the cast-on no fewer than three times before I got it correct. I was helped greatly by Cat’s YouTube video, but even so, I had to wrestle with the concept. (The instructions provided by the yarn store left much to be desired, and I am tempted to rewrite them. A few very specific sentences would have made a big difference.) Once I had it though, I had it, and I knocked out the cowl before I arrived in Cleveland.

I went looking for more yarn to make another cowl. Can I just say that I have not purchased yarn—aside from Lion Brand Homespun to make prayer shawsl—in more than 15 years, and when I was a knitting designer, I had a lot of yarn given to me. I haven’t really looked at the price of yarn in a long time. Wow. I ended up with a few skeins of Lion Brand Wool-Ease Thick and Quick from Michael’s. I think I might sell these cowls at the co-op sale next fall, and I would be hard-pressed to justify spending $15-20 on a skein of yarn because I’d have to price the cowls at a point where I don’t think they would sell.

I have since made three more cowls, although I am making these in plain garter stitch.

These take me a few hours, start to finish, and give me a portable project to throw in my knitting bag. Prayer shawls often get to a point where I’m wearing them while still knitting them.

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The husband had to do a concrete-cutting job yesterday. His cutting business is quickly becoming a second full-time occupation. I handled a bunch of paperwork, cleaned the house, did laundry, and made a batch of Mexican quinoa and brown rice in the Instant Pot. After lunch, I went to my sewing room and attempted to bring some order to that chaos. I began by making a list of the projects I want to get done this month/before the end of the year.

I sometimes get ambushed by analysis paralysis. The husband says, “Just choose something from the list and work on it.” Men—especially the husband—are much better at compartmentalizing than are women. I could choose something to work on and still be thinking about fifteen other projects on the list.

I traced off the Bella Coat pattern. I don’t have enough fabric to start working on it, however, because I lengthened the coat by 3". (I measured my Bernina University jacket and went with that length.) I’ll get more fabric at the store this week. The pattern instructions have you cut out large chunks of fabric and batting and quilt them together before cutting out the pattern pieces.

I decided to make potholders with the fabrics chosen by DD#1 and her MIL. I pulled coordinating fabrics from the stash and raided my bin of leftover batting. I made and quilted three large quilt sandwiches before cutting out the potholders. I’ve got a huge stack of potholders that need binding, so this will be a good reason to have a marathon binding session soon. If I finally get those others potholders done, they can go in next year’s sale, too.

This is a busy week. I teach a machine mastery class tomorrow and a serger mastery class on Tuesday. I’ve got two podcast interviews scheduled later in the week, and I am giving an abbreviated version of my thread class presentation to the Flathead Quilter’s Guild on Thursday evening. The piano tech is coming to tune my piano and also the piano at the church. At the rate I’m going, there may not be much actual sewing in November, either. 🫤