Feiern! ("Celebrate!")

To celebrate ravelry.com – the online community of international folks who knit and crochet – reaching 3 million members, as well as the personal acquisition of a 1973 VW camper, this week's post combines knitting with automotive accessories.

Before cars had automatic transmissions, all cars had manual gear shifts.

To create a seamless stick-shift cozy, a worsted-weight yarn knit on double-pointed needles in desired colors are needed.

Before crafting, chose your desired colors and organize your needles!

This cozy was made for a German car – a vintage 1971 Volkswagen Super Beetle – so colors chosen closely coordinating with the German flag (black, red, gold) will do.

To create a tight fit for a vintage Volkswagen stick shift, cast on 20 stitches in the first color (in this case, the gold) yarn onto 4mm double-pointed needles.

Casting on using DPNs - not as scary as it looks.

Knit in a 2x2 rib for about 2 inches. Switch to the second color (red) in pattern for about another 2 inches.

Switching from Color A (Beware around kitties!)...
...To Color B...

...Ending with Color C.

Switch to the final color (black) and knit in pattern for 1 inch.

To create a pocket for the gear shift knob: In stockinet stitch, (Knit 2, increase 1), repeat to end of round.

On next round: knit all.

On next round: (knit 3, increase 1), repeat to end of round.

On next two rounds: knit all.

On next round: (knit 2, knit 2 together), repeat to end of round.

On next round: (knit 1, knit 2 together), repeat to end of round.

On next round: (knit 2 together), repeat to end of round.

Weave in tails through stitches.

Slip the cozy on the stick shift.

The Stick Shift Cozy as modeled by a 1971 Super Beetle.

Enjoy.

Another will soon be made for this VW Bus.

Knitwear Is Not Exclusive to Christmas

When thinking of hand-knit items, images of people wearing cabled sweaters, mittens, scarves, and hats drinking a steamy beverage in front of the fire are likely to come to mind.

Knit and crochet wear can also be some of the most versatile, useful accessories to make for women during the late winter/early spring season, particularly in Southern California.

With the weather transitioning from winter to summer, wardrobes are in a sort of limbo: too hot for down jackets and boots, too cold for shorts and tank tops. While knitting or crocheting a sweater for this time of year in a weekend is impractical, crafting a scarf or a pair of legwarmers is feasible and functional.

Hand-knit scarf, perfect for spring weather, based on pattern. (Photo by Alison Keiser, 2007, all rights reserved)

The ability to create such items is not merely practical, but may also have personal significance. For special events, people who DIY (“do it yourself”) often use the occasion to challenge themselves and commemorate an event.

During the Olympic Games, members of the crafting website ravelry.com have the option of joining a group called the Ravellenic Games (formerly known as the Ravelympics). Ravelympians attempt to finish a project between the opening and closing ceremonies, documenting their successes or failures.

Whether crafting legwarmers from a complex pattern or a simple scarf from the yarn lover’s own imaginings, spring is the perfect time to fill one’s wardrobe with transitional items.

This will also quickly decrease the dreaded “stash” that plagues many a yarn devotee’s home.

Knitting Enriches TV Viewing Experience

There is a thrill knitters get when settling down with a cup of tea/coffee/wine/beer and their most recent project to watch their favorite show on TV. What is even more thrilling is when, on that show, they witness a character in knitwear. The project they had been working on goes to the back-burner as the knitter hunts for a pattern that resembles as closely as possible what they saw their favorite character wearing.

BBC’s Sherlock has garnered the most recent following of devoted knitters. Dr. John Watson’s inspiring sweaters not only have their own wikia.com page, there is a knit-along group on the popular knitting website, Ravelry.com, for Dr. Watson’s Christmas sweater. The jumper (the British term equivalent to the American word “sweater”), which was worn in the episode “A Scandal In Belgravia,” is a hand-knit navy blue with red and white fair isle, knit top-down "using pattern 7806A from ‘Reynolds New Icelandic patterns’ (vol. 78)" (wearsherlock.tumblr.com).

While fans without the ability to knit can easily go online and buy a replica of what they have seen, such as the infamous knit Jayne hat of Joss Whedon’s Firefly, knitters are able put their skill to use to accentuate the viewing experience.

Dr. John Watson wearing his Christmas jumper. (Photo from KnitYorkCity.com)

Yeah... so

I think I've outgrown this blog. Maybe it was too random, so I'm going to create another blog that's more, I don't know, focused. Thanks for checking this out!

Open Letter To The Guy That Ran Into My Parked VW

What, did you think I wouldn't notice?
Why didn't you bother leaving a note or something?
That's what I would have done!
What are you, the world's most colossal jerk?
What are you driving around a parking lot that fast for, anyway?
That could have been a cat or a child.
Would you have kept going if you'd run over a bunny?
Ass face!

If you're gay and want to get married, go too Iowa.

Unbelievable. Iowa can even figure out that same-sex marriage bans are unconstitutional, but we (California, I mean) just don't know... *SIGH!*

Other states where everyone has the right to get married: Massachusetts, Connecticut.

I saw this photo online and thought it was adorable... I can't remember where, though.



Speaking of marriage, I can't believe mine is less than six weeks away! Sure, Micah & I have been living together about three and a half years, so not much is going to change, but it's going to be a fun party!!

Holy crap, it's halfway through March and I haven't posted anything!!

Well, not a lot has happened, but I'll think of something.

Micah turned 29 twelve days ago. So I baked (at least, I tried to) a black forest cake a la Portal, and it tasted fantastic. We went out for Peruvian with his sister, Heather, and her hubby, Karl, and had an awesome time. Went to breakfast with his mom Sunday, which wasn't so terrible.



Last Friday (3-13-09) we went with Jen & Dan to see The Watchmen. Aside from it being ten hours long, not being a thing like 300, and so much blue, glowing, atomic dong, it was a really good movie. I would not recommend going to a showing anytime after 9:00pm, lest you want to be completely useless the next day. (We would have made the 9pm showing, if we hadn't been sat at the back of a Greek restaurant that used to rock, but now isn't the best.)

Anything else? Oh, yes, I bowled an average of 108.67 in class last Tuesday. Not super, I know, but it's much better than my average two weeks before that: 77. Watch out, Bowling Reception, I'll be a force to be reckoned with! I'm also having ridiculous issues with a certain national postal service. First, I got one invite back two weeks after mailing it, saying it needed more postage. So I put it in a new envelope, put that in a textbook overnight, then mailed it the next day. It was delivered within two days. Then, I got an email from Micah's aunt asking if she'd been uninvited to the wedding. I told her, of course they're still invited and I sent the invites over a month ago. So I'm all, "Am I supposed to call all invitees who haven't responded to see if they even GOT their bloody invites?" Stupid generic national postal service. I suppose having a tiny wedding has it's blessing though. I've only had five freak outs. 1: Micah wanted to wear a tan bowling shirt instead of grey, because it isn't in our color scheme. (Why the hell did I use that word?) 2: The bowling alley we were going to have our reception at CLOSED!! 3: The return addresses were wrong. 4: Micah's mom AND my uncle invited mystery people. (Space is limited. We can only have 40 people total.) 5: Our hotel didn't put the order through for room blocks. Can you imagine if we were having The Big White Wedding? I faint at the thought.

Hope your lives have been eventful.

Alie K