How to Keep Your Knitting Projects From Looking Like an April Fool's Prank

When it came time to write a post for April Fool's Day, I cast around for some kind of knitted shenanigans. I googled for knitted jokes or knitted practical jokes to no avail; all I came up with some painfully unfunny knitting-themed cartoons and a lot of horrible projects that were probably designed and knitted in all seriousness. So I decided that today I'd feature some knitted items that look like an April Fool's jokes along with some accompanying tips to help you keep your projects from turning out like them. I got all these photos from the now defunct You Knit What??, which was operational between April 21, 2005 and August 3, 2006, and which was one of my sources of inspiration for the concept of this blog. I realized one night last November that it had been the only knitting blog I ever followed and that I still missed it more than six years after its last update.

The above picture is, of course, the first of my cautionary tales rendered in yarn. Knitting can't solve all your problems. If you suffer from self-hatred this abject, it's time to get some therapy.





One's sweater should not house more than three people.




These rainbow flag hotpants may be perfect for the Gay Pride parade, but if you're thinking of wearing them in everyday life... just remember, there are better ways to show gay pride and support for gay marriage, such as by knitting the Rainbow Pride Scarf I posted about two days ago, or by signing petitions, writing to your elected officials, and donating your money or your time to gay rights organizations. I think we can all agree that these will be more constructive and becoming actions than donning rainbow hot pants.





If you're making a sweater, make a sweater. Don't get too lazy to make the whole thing and think no one will notice.





If you're a male knitter, know that you don't have to prove your masculinity to anyone. You are armed with two pointed pieces of metal, and you can make a cashmere sweater for anyone you're dating, which will get you thanked in kind. You're not only a man, you're the man. Put away those phallic size 50mm knitting needles.





One's knitted outfit should not land one on the endangered species list.





One's knitted dress should not look like it was knitted out of bathmat.





One's knitted hat should not give anyone retina burn.





Don't think you're immune to Christmas sweaters because you're not Christian. Ugly holiday sweaters are equal opportunity.





Don't knit for your pets. Or at least not for your cat. It'll all be fun and games until you wake up in the night and find Malibu Tabby here is eating your face.





Don't let your fingerless gloves migrate to any other part of your body.





Don't get so anxious to use up your stash that you put it all into the same garment, willy nilly.





Felting is not some magical process that turns a horrible knitting project into a good one.





Sewing buttons randomly all over a badly shaped and fitted item won't turn it into a cute, smart item.





Porn stars don't have to knit their own costumes. If your director is telling you otherwise, it's time to get a new agent.





If the model has to adopt some tortured pose to keep her top from falling off, so will anyone you make this for.





Some things should never be made from yarn. Like jewelry. And hair.





If you're a female knitter, I am sure you've heard of the Sweater Curse. Well, it's nothing compared to the Poncho Curse. Knit your man any poncho, let alone one that matches yours, and suddenly he'll move to a new country because he "needs some space", then he'll change his name, join some sort of right-wing militia, and claim your two children aren't his because he's never met you before in his life and besides, that he's gay.





Adding a furry bra to a sheer sweater isn't going to make it look more modest, but rather less so. Just wear a cami tank under that bad girl.





Don't use your knitting to discipline your children. It will mean you'll have to start a therapy fund for each of them as well as a college/university fund. And you've got yarn to buy.

I hope we've all learned a little something today.

Easter Knitting Pattern Hunt

In honour of its being Easter, I thought I'd offer up some ideas and patterns for Easter-themed knitting projects. It may not surprise you to learn that there's a dearth of cool Easter-related project ideas. I hosted the Swan family Easter do for ten years straight, and I used to casually browse through a few stores for Easter ornaments every year, thinking that, what with up to 15 people dropping by my place for Easter lunch every year, it might make sense for me to own some decorations. And every year every Easter ornament I ever saw was uniformly hideously tacky. It was all bunnies and chicks and pastels and kitsch, oh my. I always opted to buy a couple of bouquets of fresh flowers and make several floral arrangements instead.

Happily, when it came to researching this post, I was able to find half a dozen pretty patterns for you that I hope you like. Above, of course, is the first pattern I found, which is for Easter eggs. And the pattern is free.





I don't think too many little girls would wrinkle their noses at this prettily dressed bunny. Unless they are trying to relate to it.





Baby bunnie beanie. This is another free pattern. It's wise to get all your parental zoomorphizing impulses out of the way before your children are old enough to understand and protest it.





These are actually almost funky and cool. I'm thinking you could fashion them so as to be opened via a buttoned flap on the bottom, and then you'd be able to them as treat containers for the Easter egg hunt. And the pattern is free.





An Easter dress that a little girl could continue to wear through the spring and summer.





And something for the grownups. This floral top is striking and will make the woman who wears it look dressed to celebrate the coming of spring without turning her into a large scale nursery decoration.

A Gay Scarf

With the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments concerning the legal recognition of gay marriage this week, and given that the Gay Pride parade season only a few months away, you may be looking for a way to show your support for gay rights. If so, rest assured that you can easily knit something gay! The pattern for the pretty, simple, and quick-to-knit Rainbow Pride Scarf shown above is available for free on Ravelry.

If You're Cold, Put On a Sweater

A Belgian natural gas company wanted a commercial that would convey the warmth and comfort that natural gas will bring to your home. How do you do that? Well, what did your mother always tell you? If you're cold, put on a sweater. The commercial is made by TBWA Brussels, directed by Olivier Babinet, and produced by Lovo Films.






Here's a short film about the making of the commercial above. After a month of preparation, a professional crew of over 40 men spent four days and nights shooting this commercial live and in stopmotion with four different cameras.

Knitting Traditions, Spring 2013: A Review

Knitting Traditions is yet another of Interweave's many knitting magazines. It seems to be a special issue under the auspice of their magazine Piecework, which has a special focus on the traditions and history of handiwork. So let's have a look at the reinterpreted historical patterns in Knitting Traditions.




This is the Pucker-Stitch Jumper. It's definitely either vintage or vintage-inspired, and my best guess as to its provenance is that it dates from the thirties or forties. And it is an attractive design, but do be aware that it only comes in one size: tiny! The finished chest measurement is 32 inches.





This is the Myrtle-Leaf Scarf. Very pretty and delicate.




A Vintage Knitted Tie. Women used to knit such silk ties for the men in their lives. I don't know much at all about men's clothes, but I don't know whether this is something a modern man would care to wear. The shape just doesn't look current to me. If you're making this for a man and you're not the man, you'll want to clear the project with him first.





This pattern is called Naomi: An Anna Marie Jensen Doily. I don't know anyone who uses doilies, although this is certainly a beautiful one. This is a common experience for me when drooling over historical patterns: I want to make something for the sake of its beauty and historical interest, but can't come up with a use for it. And so I force myself to move on. There are plenty of patterns out there that are both beautiful and useful.





Jack Frost Baby Cardigan. This isn't a stunning pattern, but it's attractive enough and perfectly practical.





These Waldorf-Inspired Toy Horses are quite cute. I don't know if I'd want to make the rose garlands for these horses as I don't think they add anything.





An Aran for Füles. Classic Aran baby sweater. I don't know what Füles means, and a Google search told me only that it's a Hungarian word meaning "eared; having ears", and that apparently it's the Winnie the Pooh character Eeyore's Hungarian name. I don't think that's why this sweater is named what it is, unless those ear sleeves rather than arm sleeves. Füles is also a last name, so the sweater is probably just named after someone in particular. The Google searches writing for this blog send me on!





Olga's Learning Socks. These are Latvian socks. I like the concept of fancy tops on socks; they're a way of getting to wear special socks without falling into a common knitter's pitfall: being a knitter whose proudly worn handmade clothes don't match at all.





Grandmother's Finnish Socks. Pretty tops on these socks. They look kind of shapeless, but then socks always do in photos when they aren't being modelled.





Grandfather's Stockings. I don't know any grandfathers who would wear these stockings. They look like kneesocks for a girl or a woman.





These Nordic Mittens for Baby are quite cute and simple. I'd whip up a matching hat to go with them.





Miniature Sion Bag. This little bag was based on a design from the 14th century. I don't know what use a 14th-century woman would have put it to (it's not like she had a compact and lipstick to stash away), but this looks like a little girl's purse to me.





Ancient Riga Mittens. These Latvian mittens are made in a man's size, and they're very nice in their way, but I don't know how many non-Latvian men would want to wear them.





These Latvian Usinš and Sun Mittens are very colourful and elaborately patterned, and yet there's such order and detail in the pattern that it ends up achieving that perfect balance between richly patterned and loud. Few designers can achieve that; it generally takes centuries for a pattern to evolve to that point.





These Groenlo Mittens are Dutch mittens rather than Latvian. It's amazing how the traditional knitwear designs from the different countries can be so similar, yet have such a distinctively national character.





Moose at Sundown Gloves. These gloves are Norwegian. They're the kind of thing a male knitter might happily make for himself, and a female knitter might actually have a hope of talking even a conservative man into wearing.





An Aran-Stitch Vest. I don't have to qualify my praise for this vest. It's by far the best design in this issue. The care and attention that went into designing this vest really shows; it's the most exquisitely detailed pattern I've seen in awhile. The designer managed to turn the necessary shaping at the hips into a design element. If that high crewneck won't suit you, you could scoop it away by a few inches, or turn it into a v-neck.





An Orenburg Honeycomb Lace Scarf. Simple and classic, if maybe a little on the too-generic side.





This Russian Beret doesn't look very Russian to me, but it is a nice hat. The popcorn stitch and the little tie at the side give it all the visual interest it needs, and yet it's simple enough to go with anything and you'll be able to wear it for years.





Summer Flowers Gossamer Scarf. I love the delicate lacework on this scarf, and also that it's lacy without being open lacework, because open lace is so liable to get snagged.





Elizabeth Jackson's A Stocking. Really plain, basic socks. I actually don't know why anyone would make these. If I invest the time in knitting an item, I want to have something special when I'm done — something that I can't buy readymade, and I am sure I could buy purple kneesocks if I took the trouble to look for them. The day is past when we need to spend our valuable time in making generic, utilitarian items.





These Remembrance Socks look like a pair of socks it would be worth taking the trouble to make.

There's Such a Thing as Getting Too Into Our Knitting

This is a 1955 knitting ad from McCall's. And yes, it's true that we put a bit of ourselves into every thing we knit: our creativity, skill, time, effort, love, and hopes for the future. But it doesn't necessarily follow that we have to make everything we knit an actual part of ourselves. I hope we can stop short of using yarn for hair, for instance.

Coming up: Look for a review of Interweave's Knitting Traditions Spring 2013 issue tomorrow morning!

The Mount Everest of Knitting Patterns

A friend of mine recently flipped me a link to a book called Sweater Quest: My Year of Knitting Dangerously, by Adrienne Martini, the story of Martini's year-long effort to knit the Mary Tudor design from Alice Starmore's Tudor Roses, a book of fair isle patterns published in 1998. (ETA: Tudor Roses was out of print at the time of this post but has since been updated and re-released.) Martini calls the Mary Tudor pattern, pictured above on the front cover of Tudor Roses, a "knitter’s Mount Everest, our curse, and our compulsion". It's true that for Martini, this sweater was a personal Mount Everest because it was the most complex and largest-scale project she'd ever undertaken, but I wouldn't describe this pattern as the everyknitter's Mount Everest.

For one thing, the Mount Everest metaphor is more nuanced than Martini may realize. Let's remember that climbing Mount Everest is not considered the pinnacle of human achievement it once was. These days, with the technological advances in climbing gear, it's quite possible for any able-bodied, hardy, and reasonably fit person who has the time and the money to climb it. Mount Everest has been successfully climbed over 5000 times since Sir Edmund Hillary was the first to climb it in 1953, including climbs by one 13-year-old, one 76-year-old, and one blind climber. One person has climbed it 20 times and one couple got married on the summit. One of Sir Edmund Hillary's grandsons climbed it and called his grandfather from the top with his cell phone. Sir Hillary himself never considered climbing Mount Everest to be the most important or worthwhile thing he did in his life, and was appalled by what he saw as contemporary climbers' prioritization of reaching the top over the welfare of other climbers in distress.

When I look at the Mary Tudor design, I don't see a pattern requiring the greatest possible level of knitting skill, or the ultimate achievement in design, or a pattern that must be knitted because it exists, as a "Mount Everest of knitting patterns" designation would seem to imply. What I see is a beautiful and richly patterned design that represents a major time investment, and that I would reshape completely in order to make flattering. Oversized, shapeless sweaters have gone out of style since the nineties, and for excellent reason.

Learning about Martini's book led me to wonder if there was a world's most difficult knitting pattern, and to do a little internet research on the matter. I found discussion questions on Ravelry and some other knitting sites that asked, "What, in your opinion, is the most difficult knitting pattern?", with resulting threads full of links to patterns that were undeniably going to be time consuming, but that otherwise didn't look all that difficult or challenging to me. When I googled the phrases "most difficult knitting pattern" and "hardest knitting pattern", wherever the phrase occurred on the net it was usually followed by another phrase along the lines of "that I have ever attempted" or "that I have tackled so far". And that's very telling.

The truth is that once a knitter gets to a certain level of experience and skill, no pattern looks all that difficult, and knitting patterns simply vary widely in terms of time investment required. Once you've done more advanced knitting techniques such as stranded knitting, cables, fair isle, steeking, entrelac, double knitting, intarsia, lace work, knitting in the round, Swiss darning, knitting smocking, thrumming, etc., the prospect of doing them doesn't faze you any more. And even if you haven't tried all of those techniques (I have not), once you've successfully mastered a significant selection of them, you know you can always learn the others. Just as strangers are friends (or spouses, or employers, or hot pig sex partners, or neighbours, or tax auditors) whom you haven't yet met, knitting patterns simply represent potential uses of your time and possible future possessions/gifts. Once you lose the beginner's fear of the untried and you have enough experience to know what you're committing to, you'll wind up doing a cost and time benefit analysis and conclude, "Ugly, no way!" or "Nice, but not for or on me," or "Nice, and won't take long," or "Beautiful, and will take a lot of time but it'll be worth it," or "Fabulous but too time-intensive; maybe some day...", or "GORGEOUS AND A HUGE TIME SUCK BUT I MUST DO IT ERE I PERISH." There's no Mount Everest of knitting patterns. There are, rather, marathon knitting projects, and it's a marathon you can do at your own pace because no one's clocking you.

I hope that "difficult" knitting patterns ceased, or will cease, to intimidate you fairly early in your knitting experience, and also that you will regard knitting patterns as your servant and not your master. If you've read any of the knitting pattern reviews posts on this blog, you'll know that I suggest tweaks to almost every pattern. I hardly ever knit any pattern exactly as written. There is that rare case when I come across a pattern I consider perfect — perfect in this context meaning "perfect for me/the wearer". If a pattern you love on paper isn't going to work for your figure, colouring, personal aesthetic preferences, lifestyle, climate, or fashion era once knitted, then for heaven's sake change it. Alter it for fit, change the neckline or the silhouette, use three colours instead of twenty or twenty instead of three, substitute cotton for wool or scarlet for gray, or borrow different features of several different patterns to get the look you want.

Designers aren't gods whose every direction must be reverenced and followed to the letter. They make mistakes, there can be a lot of room for improvement in their results, their work can become dated, and in any case they weren't designing especially for you. Unless you are a textile artist making a piece of installation art, you want a finished garment you can wear the hell out of, not something that will sit uselessly in a drawer after you've invested your valuable time and money in it. You can be your own designer, and if you don't feel your skill level is equal to the task of rewriting a pattern to be what you want it to be, ask more experienced knitters for advice, or shelve the project until you're ready to bring it on.

And take a lesson from Adrienne Martini's experience. She spent an entire year of her life making her Mary Tudor sweater in slavish adherence to Starmore's directions, even to the point of resorting to buying the specific yarn required for it on the "black yarn market" because it wasn't being produced any more. With the result that (as I gather from the Amazon reader reviews), she had finished the sweater only to discover the sleeves were too short and that she would never wear it because she didn't like the way she looked in it. Don't let your compulsion to make a project and to reach the summit of completion blind you to more important considerations, such as whether the item you're making will be of any use once you've finished it. In short, have a martini; don't be one.