Prehistory

When I was in college, I took a course called Prehistory. I was fascinated with the idea of a history course about things that took place before recorded history.

I started this blog about 10 months ago, and as I knit new stuff, I post about it here. But I've been knitting for two and a half years, and there are some "prehistoric" items that, perhaps, should be brought into the light of day. I've been adding some of these project to my Ravelry page, but for the benefit of my legions of readers and the great unravelled, I thought I'd introduce a few of them here.

This is an Alpaca scarf that was the first project I ever gave away. I made it about a month after I started knitting. My sister-in-law, Jenni, was along with me at the local yarn store when I bought it, and since she's always showed such enthusiasm and support of my knitting obsession, I gave it to her. It's the only think I've ever made from Alpaca. I loved the way this felt (as in past tense of "to feel" -- I didn't actually felt it). Just a basic 2x2 ribbed scarf. She looks lovely in it.

My littlest niece, Gracie was born a few months before I learned how to knit so I didn't have any little booties or other newborn paraphernalia ready for her when she came into the world, but I cranked this out when she was about nine months old. This is the first project that I knitted in public -- somewhere in the C concourse at Houston Intercontinental airport. We were on our way to visit our friends in Pennsylvania and to attend my first (and so far, only) Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival. The pattern is the Big Bad Baby Blanket from the first Stitch 'n Bitch book. It was made by holding two strands of yarn together while knitting, which was new to me. I wasn't too keen on the color (it was the only baby-ish color of koigu I could find in my LYS of which there were 8 hanks), but it grew on me and turned out fine.

Little nieces are the perfect target for uncles who are honing their knitting skills. This is a sweater for Gracie, too. The pattern is called Double Scoop and it's from the Spring 2006 issue of Knitty. This was the first intarsia project I ever tried. I've looked at some others' attempts at the sweater on Ravelry, and it looks like I wasn't too far off the mark. I wasn't really pleased with the colors changed, although I wrapped the yarns when I changed, like one is supposed to. I remember doing this whole thing in something like two weekends. It was pretty easy to do, although sewing up the sleeve seams so that the stripes matched up was a bit of a pain. I seem to remember that you had to be one stitch off on one side in mattress-stitching the ladders so that when you pulled the seaming yarn taut, everything lined up. The pattern warned that this was a bit of a crop-top style, and to add a few inches for more modest toddlers. I wish I had done that. But she looked cute in it nonetheless.

I'll see about digging into more prehistory later. Lunch hour is over!