This Calls For Another Glass of Whine

I haven't been completely satisfied with my first handspun-knitted-not-a-bunny FO experience, I have to say. There is something about watching your gorgeous stitch definition disappear that makes you feel a bit...I don't know...like you didn't really knit that, much less spin it...and yes, I said "disappear." Uh, you might need to be sitting down for this. And pour yourself a good dose of your favourite coping beverage, okay?

I'm talking about that glossy, floppy, love-in-a-bag llama that I was spinning up for a neckwarmer for Spiff. Well, I finished the neckwarmer, and I even took it for a test drive. The drape was fabulous, the feel against the face was divine, and I proudly gave it to Spiff, with all the love a person can put into the giving of a neckwarmer to one's spouse. With one's clothes on, that is.

Gorgeous. The neckwarmer's nice, too.

I sent e-mails to him throughout the day. "Did your neckwarmer keep you warm?" Reply: "I haven't used it yet." Lunchtime: "So? How do you like your neckwarmer?" Reply: "I, uh, haven't gone to lunch yet, I'm WORKING." Oh. Okay. Better wait. He's showing signs of annoyance here and we don't want to jeopardize the chances of the first handspun, handknitted object being completely adored as it should be...bragged about to the coworkers...how wonderful it is that I spun and knit this to keep my darling man warm and safe from the cold....

Heuuuu, NOT. The post-lunch reply: "This thing is too big, it flops around, it's too drapey, and it doesn't cover my nose. I can't use it if it doesn't cover my nose. This is Canada. My face is cold. Do you think maybe you could shrink it?"

Lest you misinterpret the request, my husband did not ask for a smaller face. No, indeed. It's much more drastic than that. It wasn't even an option to rip it (the neckwarmer, that is) and reknit it, because llama drapes no matter what you do to it. Except for one thing you CAN do to bulk up the fabric and lose the drape. Yep, you guessed it:

My husband asked me to felt the llama.

Oh. My. God. My beautiful handspun...my glossy llama...my limited-edition-no-one-has-this lovely fibre....

A lesser woman would have told him to shrink this, buddy, or give back the neckwarmer. I, however, decided that since the whole purpose of this venture was to please the wearer, I had to buck up and attempt to shrink the neckwarmer, as requested. I am not going to be someone's wacky great-aunt-in-training who persistently knits the very thing the recipient would sooner eat ground glass than wear in public. Not that a gorgeous, floppy, glossy llama cowl (because that's really what this garment turned out to be) can be classified in the same range as those neon red reindeer sweaters, but for a guy who isn't the glossy, floppy cowl type, this was just not going to work.

And dude. I can't let my husband's nose get frostbitten. I love my husband's nose. He hates it, but that's his problem. I think it's gorgeous.

Oooookay. Here's where the faint of heart, the YOU WHAT???-sayers, and the people who have never fallen in love with a guy and his nose might want to look away.

I felted the llama. On purpose.

I also whipstitched together two ribs for every ten, to further resize,
making ridges that pop out. Industrial llama chic.
A real snowtire. Do that once, and it's a stupid move.
Evenly space it, and it's a well-thought-out pattern.
I feel like Teva Durham.

Call me a weak woman for caving and doing this to a perfectly beautiful fibre, but believe you me, every time I put this thing through the hot-water paces, I checked to make sure it was still as glossily soft as ever. If it had started to lose that softness, I would have put a stop to this nonsense and would have kept it for myself. (I have my standards. They're bizarre, but they're standards nonetheless.) I assure you that it never lost that glossy feel, and I'm thinking that if I ever get an unlimited source of this stuff, it would be fabulous for a curly-lamb style hat. That's what it feels like now, the softest curly lamb ever.

Yes, that would be a wee bit of pain in my eyes.
But the neckwarmer does, indeed, cover one's nose
and you can't make it budge by jumping around.
Yes, I tried. It stayed. In fact, I might steal it.

So, after the jumping-up-and-down-the-hallway test (exactly as dorky as it sounds), I realised that I had created the perfect thing I hadn't intended to create, and the wearer would be happy. Not to mention about as warm as a human can get. And it's sooooo soft. It's the ideal next-to-the-face Canadian winter neckwarmer. Because this stuff, once felted, is not going to let anything in: not snow, not wind, not rain, not fear of sniffing dogs, not cognac from a pocket flask...

Oh wait, that's the postman's mantra. Sorry, I'm a little disoriented from the PFSD (post-felting stress disorder).

I am not going to tell you how many glasses of wine or how many times through the washer this took to create the perfect hyperwarm neckwarmer for my beloved. I will, however, tell you that when Spiff finally took out the Canadian Tire new-and-improved version of the neckwarmer for a test-drive in the cold, he said those fabulous little words every knitter loves to hear:

"Your thing? It's really, really HOT."

Yeah, baby. Back at you. I'll felt for this guy any time.

Okay, alright, so he meant "warm." But he's French, and I'm delusional, so I'm choosing to believe he thinks felted llama neckwarmers are sexy. Shut up.

It may seem bizarre to jump right into another felting project after this little brush with insanity tailoring session, but I figured, you know, desensitization is the way to go in these cases. So I took the most heinous pink yarn I've seen in a long time, custom-dyed for my daughter by Norma, and blended it with a dark purplish red Galway to make these:

These are the felted slippers from Knitting At Knoon.
And you'll never guess who wants a pair next.
No, not the pony. And for the record,
I did NOT buy that pony.

I knit these over the course of two three-hour waiting room sessions in the Neuropsychology department at our nearest hospital. Kid evaluations. It was not lost on me, however, that I might be making matters worse for the other patients by knitting with what I can only describe as Neon Barbie yarn. The seventy-year-old stroke patients trying to retrain their brains to "look right, look right" while they were navigating the hallways had to regress a bit and "look away" when they came past the waiting room door, just to avoid further retina damage. It should not, therefore, surprise you that not one soul asked me what I was knitting, although one person did say to another as they passed by, "I hear knitting's back. I'm not sure I'd ever do that, though...."

The felting, in this case, really, really helps. The second colour, too. And Norma, she LOVES them. You knew she would. You're evil, but you're wonderful.

Two more pairs are in the works, because my mother-in-law informs me her house is not heated and the floors are cold. (They have heat. They just don't turn it on. I do NOT understand French people.) I will be making the adult version of these in black and grey, of course. And for me, embarrassingly, I have to make the Youth size, because I have "hairless hobbit" feet. Small and square. Maybe I'll do mine in red.

Well, you didn't think I was going to wear pink, did you? I'm just not that kind of hobbit.

December 17, 2005 2:03 PM  | Permalink  | Comments (23)  | Print