Sunday, July 29, 2007

Sock? What sock? I know nothing about any sock...

Tena kotou katoa. Ko Rachel tenei. Kei te pehea kotou?

It's the end of Maori Language Week so I thought I should throw a little Maori in there. Sadly that's about the limit of my reo skills. I would love to speak more. I did a year of Maori at university but we never learnt anything useful, like how to say, 'Would you like to buy my children for medical experimentation?' or 'double point needles are indeed the devil's work'. Actually, everything we did learn sounded like pass signs for cold war spies: 'The morepork calls at night'; 'the orcas are swimming in the distance'. Not so handy when you want to chat or blog, but come the revolution I'll be fine!

So knitting... I decided to go with the Baby Yoda cardigan - with a few modifications. (Because I can't just knit a pattern the way it's written, can I? Oh no, I've got to tinker and tutu and increase the chances of it all going horribly wrong. It does make it more interesting though!) I'm knitting it in Shepherd's Colour 4 Me wool which is nice and soft - a blue/pink/yellow/white variegated colourway, since Grant & Kate don't know the sex of their baby yet. I remember when I was pregnant and people would invariably ask 'Do you know what you're having?'. I took to answering very seriously: 'a baby, I hope'.
The colours in the photo aren't quite right - it's not as orange (where did the orange come from????) and much more pastel.
I've also begun a neckwarmer for my partner. This is the first time he's ever expressed any desire for a hand-knitted anything, so even though I'm totally over neckwarmers (this will be the fourth) I've said I'll do it. I probably won't bother photographing it or even mentioning it again - the instructions are it has to be black, and it can't have any lace, or pattern, or anything even remotely interesting. So it's 2 x 1 rib and it's very, very boring. Why does it have to be black and boring? Because he wants to wear it playing golf (when a scarf would be get in the way of his swing) and he doesn't want anyone to laugh at him on the golf course. Now on the surface that sounds reasonable doesn't it? But what you have to understand is that we are talking about the man who wears orange, yellow, red and green plaid trousers to golf in summer (which he had his mother make because he couldn't, unsurprisingly, find any in the shops). And he teams these trousers with a turquoise, purple and white Hawaiian print shirt. And he's worried people might laugh at a neckwarmer?????
Does the boyfriend curse still work after ten years and two children?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I can so relate to the taste for conservative knitwear! My husband wears the most colourful of outfits and yet only requests knits in the soberest colours. Grey just isn't the most exciting colour in the world to knit with... sigh!

Unknown said...

That Colour 4 Me is really nice & I will vouch that it wears really well too. I didn't realise that as a superwash yarn it wouldn't felt & tried to make some Fuzzy feet from it. They spent a week or two going through the washing machine with towels, jeans, all the washing & just never felted...AT ALL!!! So I guarantee it's a hard-wearing yarn & will make a really practical baby cardigan. Love that Baby Yoda pattern too - very cute, look forward to seeing the FO.

Anonymous said...

LOL - great laugh about your neckwarmer. Thanks for posting the jedi cardi link - VERY cute :-)

Rachel said...

Thank you all. Oh Libby - your felting story is lovely! :) I'm glad to know how hardwearing it'll be!