My Knitting History With Mommy

Best Quote I Heard All Day
“As I get older, I just prefer to knit. ” ― Tracey Ullman

These days, as I get older, knitting is my lifestyle.

Marilyn's Knitting History

Mommy taught me how to knit when I was 7 years old, due to my grabbing her knitting markers from her knitting bag. So she took me to Montclair's Myer's Five & Ten store, bought me a Red Heart ball that was variegated, tons of colors, and Boye's Needles #7.

Mommy cast on a bunch of stitches for me and showed me how to create a knit stitch, teaching me how to knit via the English method. "I'll show you how to purl, sweetheart, when you make a knitted scarf," she informed me. I loved making the stitches, excited when I saw my favorite color, purple. Once my beginner scarf was completed, Mommy showed me how to make stockinette stitch by doing a knit row and then a purl row.

Stopped knitting until I was 18 and my first sweater was an Aran sweater that I made for my Uncle Pete. Didn't realize that I had to measure him, so the sleeves were too long. Once my babies, Jennifer and Corinne, were born, knitting became my love.

Mom's death last March still agonizes me because she was my knitting best friend. She and I shared our love of knitting and Mom often asked me to design sweaters for her, simple designs because she liked watching TV, primarily Yankees games, while she knit.

Ellie's Heart Scarf

Although I have designed the Aran pullover and a lace cardigan, I've created a lace stitch pattern that I entitled "Ellie's Heart."

Just started the Ellie's Heart Scarf that I'll put up on Fiberality Designs. 

Yes, I design my lace stitch patterns and have taught a couple of knitting friends how to do it. Creating a lace stitch pattern is done using the decreases with the yarnovers as the drawing items. SSK places the decreased stitches to the left, as Dec2 moves the decreased stitches to the right. The yarnover with the decrease is part of the drawing. And using a Central Double Decrease is a perfect central drawing line. 

Lace stitch pattern designing can be very geometric. Would love to teach this and may submit it to Vogue Knitting Live.

Fiberality Designs Yarn Pile

Got a ton of yarn that is gonna be used for Fiberality Designs stuff. Dumped it on my dining china cabinet. This was Mom's. I know she'd love seeing the yarn. Bought some at Twist Knitting & Spinning when I was there with Joe two weeks ago.

Busy, busy, busy! Will submit some designs to Knitty.com, Interweave Knits, Knitter's, and maybe Vogue Knitting. This yarn in the picture is going to be used for socks, lace scarves, and lace shawls. The picture doesn't show everything. Ton of shit!

So am going to the NJ 20th Annual Sheep & Fiber Festival next week, down at Hunterdon County Fairgrounds. My dear skank readers, if you're going, stop to see me! Love my blog readers.

Yeah, another blog post next week!

Fiberality Designs About to Start for Real

Best Quote I Heard All Day

"Many estates are spent in the gettting, since women for tea forsake spinning and knitting, and men for punch forsake hewing and splitting"--Benjamin Franklin

Yeah, my beloved history interest contains Ben Franklin. I'm a history lover.

Fiberality Designs Ain't Knitting Curmudgeon Designs

Even though a lot of my knitting pals on Facebook said I should call it Knitting Curmudgeon Designs because that's who people know.  NO! Even though I was crabby when I first started blogging back in 2002, having lost my darling husband Jimmy, I ain't curmudgeonly much any more.

So last week, my beloved granddaughter, Liz Wagner, designed an ad for my Fiberality Designs. Here it is.

Liz just graduated from Montclair State University with a BFA and I paid her for creating this ad that I'll put up on Ravelry. Right now there are only two designs there but I'm busy writing and editing my directions for a pile of socks, scarves, and a lace shawl. Currently designing an Aran pullover, sized for men and women, along with a lace sweater knitted with Koigu Kersti.

Here's the current sock design that I'm working on--it's Koigu KPPPM, which I wish Koigu would increase the hank yardage. It's only 175 yards, which means that a sock leg can't be longer than 6 inches. Here's a little picture of Lady's Ladder Sock.

The sock was hanging on my thigh when I shot the picture with my iPhone. This week is design photography. Got a big pile of designs that I gotta shoot, the socks on my crazy fucking mannequin that Liz gave me back when she worked part time at a teenager clothing store at our local mall. My daughters always model my lace shit too.

Liz no longer models my socks. Mother Ellie used to model my socks and I let her keep them. Mom never wanted to learn how to knit socks because she hated knitting with double-pointed needles. I offered to teach her Magic Loop technique but Mom said, "You can knit me the socks I want!" Yes, still missing my knitting mother who died in March.

My Beloved Knitting Guy 

Last weekend, daughter Jennifer and I went down to New Hope PA because we love shopping there and having lunch at a wonderful restaurant. So I let QueerJoe know that I was going to Twist Knitting & Spinning and we met there. Hadn't seen Joe in several years and it was wonderful seeing him. Here we are:

 With the fall comin' close, can't wait to go to the Garden State Sheep Breeders Sheep & Fiber Festival September 6-7. And of course, going to Rhinebeck, aka NYS Sheep & Wool Festival, which is the third weekend in October. My dear friend, Duffy Stephens, is coming from Portland, Oregon, and will stay with me. We'll be going both Saturday and Sunday to Rhinebeck. Liz's girlfriend, Sammie, is a fiber major at her college, so she and Liz will come with us too. Can't wait!

So, my dear readers, I'm gonna go back to blogging every week. Ain't doing much other than knitting designing and will continue to edit knitting directions. Will create a Fiberality Designs website, and start my Etsy place too. Ravelry is an excellent place to sell designs but since I need to earn money, going to sell my designs wherever I can.

Write to you soon, Knitting Curmudgeon skanks!