Knitting in Avant-Garde Style and Other Knitting Fables

When Sheila's friends suggested that if she was so fed up with dating, she might give it a rest for awhile and just concentrate on the things she enjoyed doing, Sheila turned to the real love of her life, crochet, for fulfillment. Alarmed, her friends gifted her with dating site subscriptions and confiscated her crochet hooks.

Dylan decided to save money on ski wear by making the same outfit do for both skiing and après-ski activities with her boyfriend. To that end, she'd added strategic holes intended to facilitate both ventilation and easy access.

Inspired by Dylan's frugality, her friend Rosalind made some fetching ski wear out a bathmat.

Both Dyland and Rosalind decided to rethink their money-saving strategies and, in fact, the entire ski trip, after Dylan's boyfriend Marvin got into the act and made himself an afghan onesie.

Proud as she was of her knitwear ensemble design, Jerusha could not shake the feeling she'd mismeasured or forgotten something.

"Eat up, Connie! You'll need the calories for the roller rink, the mall, and the drive-in movie theatre! You know we can't put on sassy hot pants like these and not live up to them."

Fashion editor Anya had set up a special corner of her office where she could relax and knit for a few minutes in avant-garde style whenever things got a little too hectic.

Misty had found the perfect solution for combining long hair with a hoodie.

After weeks of exchanging catty remarks at their local knitting group, Nita and Pearl finally went full-on sparring match.

Winona was not going to let her responsibilities as a mother keep her from being in the forefront of fashion. If nothing else, she could fashion sea horse hair accessories out of her child's outgrown sweaters and sew chic outfits out of crib sheets.

The Cupcake Cowl and Other Knitting Fables

Jolene felt colour blocking required total commitment. Now she just needed to finish knitting the purse and hat that matched her outfit.

Dahlia had donned her newly finished cupcake cowl, patchwork skirt, and hair bow, and couldn't wait until her birthday party guests arrived. She'd show them how a birthday girl ought to dress.

Sylvie's trivet dress proved the showstopper of the student fashion show. As everyone told her, they'd never seen anything like it.

Ramon was beginning to wish he'd listened to his girlfriend's warnings about what might happen if he were to stuff too many woolen sweaters in the washer at one time, set the water temperature to "hot", and forget to use any fabric softener.

Zeb and Marissa felt love, and "his and her" knitwear, were all they needed. Pants were totally optional.

When Reuben tried on the dyed mop head sweater his girlfriend Tasha had made for his birthday he began to wonder if maybe it wouldn't be better to make some concessions in their ongoing conflicts about whether he did a fair share of the cleaning.

Nestrelda was very pleased with her new ensemble of hat, glasses, knitted rompers, knee socks, and bow-tied lace-edged blouse. She thought it perfectly in keeping with her personal style, which she liked to describe as "post modern bluestocking".

Harley's latest strategy for getting men to stop staring at her breasts involved what she liked to call "avant-garde tent poles".

Mae found it very aggravating that everyone kept complimenting her on her new cowl and decided she'd have to figure out a better way to anchor her new wig in place the minute she got home.

Colette and Dexter were disheartened to find that they had somehow got their strawberry/watermelon/eggplant/bumblebee: pom pom size ratio calculations all mixed up.

Tales from the Midknit Hour

Rosamund loved Halloween, but often found it a let down because all the little trick or treaters who came to her house tended to run away screaming when she opened the door. So she decided to throw a "Midknit Hour" Halloween party for her knitting club.

Rosamund's best friend Caitlin came early to the party to lend a hand with the preparations, but wasn't much help as she got distracted by Rosamund's stash.

Rosamund's friend Mira had also offered to help but instead spent the entire party stretching, rolling over on her back, and rubbing up against people's legs. Rosamund, who was a bunny person herself, reflected that cat people were too much like cats to be much help at throwing parties.

Jena, a member of Rosamund's knitting group, appeared at the party in post-apocalyptic crochet and with dirt on her face and spent the entire time talking to everyone about the coming climate change holocaust. Rosamund decided that she and Jena were just going to be coffee buddies from now on. After all, Jena might be right about climate change's catastrophic threat to human existence, but she was a real buzz kill at parties.

No one could figure out who the guy in the clown mask was, but no one at the party quite had the nerve to ask him.

Knitting club member Lucian insisted his seventies "man around town" knitwear look was supposed to be ironic, but the irony wore thin after he got really drunk and asked each woman present if she'd like to come back to his place and help him unwind.

Rosamund was grateful for knitting club member Irwin's presence, as he and his macarenas really got her party started.

Everyone agreed that Enid had the best costume of anyone present.

Unfortunately Enid had brought Cyrus the Bumbledog with her, and he showed his disapproval of both his costume and everyone present by peeing on everything. After everyone had gone and Rosamund was occupied with trying to scrub the dog urine out of her carpets, she decided that next year she'd stick to scaring off trick or treaters and eating all the candy herself.

Queen of the Spiders and Other Knitting Fables

Raphaela was very proud of her new line of eco-knitwear. It wasn't every day a young designer produced such stunning and innovative runway looks out of upcycled dryer lint.

For all their good intentions, the newly formed handcrafting and free love commune hit a snag during their very first meeting, when Raffi accused Norbert of stealing his 4mm bamboo needles.

The members of the Main Street Stitch & Bitch decided after finishing their first round of projects that perhaps it hadn't been such a good idea that they all used the patterns member Nancy designed and offered to let them use for free. Maybe it was time they all ponied up to buy some patterns directly from the designers on Ravelry.

Keara wasn't quite sure how a simple walk in the woods in her latest creation had gone so wrong.

Marjorie's attempt to turn her her favourite dress into what her boss considered "acceptable business casual attire" had been less than successful. Her co-workers hadn't even stopped making those cheek popping sounds at her.

Some day Jinny and Ransom hoped to have a little granny square of their very own.

Dillon was very willing to model his girlfriend Maribel's handknitted socks for her Etsy page, but was unsure that it was really necessary to pose clad only in the socks in order to keep potential shoppers "focused on the product" as Maribel claimed. At least he'd managed to talk Maribel into letting him place his left foot strategically.

Willa wasn't sure that her therapist's plan to help her get over her arachnophobia needed to involve role play as Queen of the Spiders in his friends' Dungeons and Dragons game, but hey, he was the professional.

Bernadine's new gradient square afghan project had wound up becoming her latest dress design. Hey, that "knitted clothing should not look like afghans" rule only applied to granny square afghans, right?

Chloris had finally figured out a way to put all those extra mesh shopping bags she had lying around the house to good use without making the bags unsuitable for their original purpose.

The Thread of Life and Other Knitting Fables

Ursula was thrilled that she'd finally found a good use for all that I-cord she'd made as a child.

Jolene thought wearing one's scarf around one's neck was just so been there, done that. There were plenty of other places to put it.

Calida's new outfit was perfect for going straight from the office to her new part-time job as punching bag down at the boxing gym.

Maris, like Calida, had knitted her own protective equipment for boxing. She was sure she'd never feel a punch through this breastplate and had only to knit a matching helmet for it.

Darby got halfway down the runway before a terrible draft alerted her to the fact that something was missing from her outfit. But as the other models all assured her when she came backstage in tears, anyone could forget her pants.

Moselle, who appeared two models after Darby, got cranky when the other models tried to remind her she'd forgotten not only her pants but also her shirt and bra. She hadn't. Her sweater, scarf, and tam combo was plenty warm enough on its own. Everyone knew you lost 45% of your body heat through the head.

Pansy had carefully kept all those floral decorations she'd made as decorations for her wedding reception, waiting for that happy moment of inspiration she knew would come. And when it did arrive on the day her divorce became final, she felt the resulting outfit and the matching tam she'd made constituted the perfect outfit for her first date with someone new, by expressing her personality and symbolizing new life. And she appreciated her best friend Moselle's support on the whole no-pants thing.

Annelise didn't share Pansy and Mosell's view that wearing a hat or a lot of hair eliminated the need for pants, but she had found an alternative to them. A huge tunic and legwarmers kept her warm while allowing vital airflow to her genitals.

Riva had never been one for the classic look. To her mind, classic was dead, and needed some unexpected leather patches and random fuzzy red nipple-like pom poms to bring it back to life.

Geneva's latest creation was part warm sweater, part sassy tassels, and part art installation. It came with a extra rope that was meant to be attached to a helium balloon. Geneva called this design "The Thread of Life" and gave all its purchasers special instructions for how to pull dramatically on the cord.

Knitwear Design's Power Couple and Other Knitting Fables

After the special secret exercise she'd read about in Are You There God, It's Me, Margaret failed to work, Philippa decided custom design knitwear was the answer.

Arden wanted to show her boyfriend Kent, a master ping pong player, that she was his biggest fan even if she couldn't ever remember the rules of the game or find her way to his matches on time.

Vangie's earliest role had been playing a tomato in her kindergarten class, and every once in a while when the stress of drama school got to her, she'd put on the adult-sized tomato costume she'd created in order to recapture the moment when her passion for theatre had been born.

Petra and Erskine liked to think of themselves as the knitwear design scene's most preeminent power couple.

Giles thought the equipment worn by those who frequented the boxing gym where he was taking beginner lessons was lacking in style, so he'd designed a new look. He hoped his gift presentation of a rad new boxing look would keep him from getting beaten up so often by the regulars at the gym.

Jewel's chiropractor kept telling her that her knitwear shouldn't be of such scale and heft that it was making her bend double, but she felt that he didn't understand how much style really mattered.

Petra's new autumn line had been inspired by her breakthrough realization that knitwear would be so much more useful if it could be designed with several functions in mind. This tam, for instance, could also be used as a bath scrubby and as a pouf for the living room.

When Mira's knitwear design instructor pointed out that her design was going to be rather shapeless and unflattering on most women, Mira decided that he had a point, but that leaving the leg seams unstitched would more than solve that problem. There was nothing like showing a little leg to sex up an outfit.

Mira's design school classmate and best friend Inez agreed with Mira that showcasing the leg was a can't lose design direction.

Joby's newest creation was a scathing political statement about people who spit their bubblegum out on the sidewalk. She hoped that everyone got the message, and also that they noticed that she'd matched the model's shoes to the lining of the bubblegum poncho. It wasn't every designer who showed such political acumen and attention to detail.