An exploration of my life as I know it. Knitting, working, creating, and cat-wrangling.

Saturday, January 30, 2010

Elvis Costello Charts

 

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Many, many years ago a friend of mine showed me what she was doing with two sticks and some yarn. She was making a scarf. I thought, well, I can go out and buy a scarf; why would I want to take the time to learn this "granny" craft you call knitting? Then, one day at Barnes & Noble, I saw a book called Stitch & Bitch. It was a knitting book for "my generation". I flipped through the patterns, my jaw dropped and page-flipping stopped when I saw the Skully Sweater. Wait, I can make something as cool as this with two sticks and yarn?! Ok. I'm sold. I quickly bought this book, some sticks, and some yarn. That night I taught myself to knit from that book and was quickly making my first scarf (two colors even!). That was early in 2005.

That same summer, some good friends of mine were getting married. They are both music enthusiasts (we all had worked together at the record store I manage), and I knew I wanted to knit them something wonderful. Being so new to the craft, I had no idea that the projects I wanted to make were waaaaaayyyyy beyond my skill level. After all, the only project I had made so far was a garter stitch scarf and several 4x4 inch swatches practicing stockinette stitch. Such is the bliss of ignorance!

I (with the help of, my then boyfriend, Ray) charted out the design for two intarsia pillows. His favorite band, D.R.I.; and her favorite artist, Elvis Costello. It was a very ambitious task, but I persisted. I made his pillow first (twice, since the first time I had to rip the entire front back) and was able to work out the "kinks" of the process. Her pillow turned out nicer looking, but they're both equally loved.

This was a very long-winded way of saying that I have gotten a lot of requests for the charts on the Elvis Costello pillow. So many, in fact, that I have put it up for sale on Ravelry. It's not very expensive, only $1.99, and you get a chart for the front (his face) and two for the back (his name).  Right now it’s only available on Ravelry, since I don’t know how to put the “buy now” button on my blog.  If I get that figured out then you won’t have to have a Rav account to purchase it.  However, if you’re a knitter and you’re interested in things, like Elvis Costello, and you DON’T have a Ravelry account; then get your butt over there and sign up!  It’s free and you’ll meet so many other cool knitters like yourself that your head might explode!  We could all use that every now and then.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I love you, Tina. I'm glad I already signed up so my head won't explode.