The Touch, The Feel of……

Cotton or Merino or Cashmere or Silk or Alpaca or, or, or, well you get the point. My favorite question to answer is “Oh, where did you get that?”. There is nothing more rewarding than being able to say “I MADE IT!!!”  (insert confident smile) 

There is a certain sense of pride that I can’t quite explain, when someone compliments one of my handmade accessories. I am like a new mommy all prepared to show off, to brag about my child. I mean the comparison may NOT be so far fetched when you think about it. I mean I have to  fall in love with the yarn before I will make love, oops I meant start a project. Don’t laugh, I am serious, the yarn has to FEEL good, it has to LOOK good and it has to be the right weight. I like em BIG! Hahahahahaaa I am so serious.

What comes first the yarn or the pattern? The YARN, always the yarn.

Once I find the pattern, the race to the finish line begins. I can and have passed up sleeping to finish a project. The excitement begins with the cast on and intensifies with each stitch. The labor has to be the best part of the whole process. I truly enjoy watching the transformation, as the string of yarn blossoms into an actual garment.  Knitting is like a puzzle, with each stitch the picture becomes more clear; the knitting, the purling, the increasing, the decreasing, all of it, is just pure bliss. You know knitting only has two stitches; knit and purl. The beauty lies in the combination of the two stitches. It’s actually magical, if you ask me. I have always been intimidated by knitting. The finished objects look so polished, so it has to be complicated, right? I was so wrong, it wasn’t as difficult as I expected.

The pictures below depict my last finished object, from the yarn, to the cast on,  to the progress shot, and finally the completed shawl.

This was a one day project, which meant I could wear it immediately, (que Pharrell Williams popular song “Happy”). Now I don’t keep EVERY thing I make, actually it’s a rare occurrence because I sell my hand made accessories on Etsy. The few things that I do get to keep, I wear over and over again. For example, my easy folded poncho, that baby gets a work out as I wear it more often than not and I ALWAYS get stopped. I have yet to pull that 100% merino piece over my head without hearing “where did you get that?” Then it starts….the touching, the feeling, the doubts and the requests. Yea you read it right, the doubts. I have had folks say to me “you didn’t make that!” and then in the next breath they say “can you make me one?” The answer is alway NO! Do they know it took me a month to make that poncho on those little needles. LOL this situation never fails to make me feel good!!!

The pride takes over because this was my first knitted Poncho. During this project I learned the mattress stitch as well as how to pick up stitches, you can’t tell me nothing when I wear my poncho. So if you ever walk up on me in the street wearing any type of knitwear, go ahead, ask me and I will proudly tell you…..I MADE IT!

Remember with every stitch, always weave in a ‘lil love.

~GG

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