In case you all thought I'd given up knitting in favor of ranting and baking - I thought I'd disavow you of that notion. I HAVE been knitting and doing a bit of freeform. Currently OTN are Cookie's Monkey socks and I absolutely love them. The pattern is reasonably easy to memorize, they fit nicely and they look awesome on. If you knit socks and haven't been introduced to Cookie yet, please allow me to do the honors. Readers, meet the very cool and talented Cookie. She designs absolutely fabulous sock patterns, a couple of which, Monkey, Pomotomus and Baudelaire, have been featured on Knitty. She's also done a couple of Knitty Gritty shows.
I recently purchased Twisted Flower from her. I know, don't even ask. I don't know What the heck I was thinking except maybe "Hey, those are pretty!" Right. I'm nuts. So anyway, I'm happily knitting away on Monkey sock number 2 and all of a sudden I feel an unpleasant twinge in my left pinkie. So I kept knitting. A few rows later, the twinge got louder. "STOP KNITTING", it yelled!
Now, I 'm a continental knitter, and I carry the trailing yarn clutched in my left pinkie and ring finger. As I've recently shifted to knitting socks with fingerweight yarn on 1's after years of knitting them in sport/DK weight on 3's, go ahead and sneer if you have to, I can only imagine the problem is that I'm clutching this thinner yarn tighter and it's given me a case of tendonitis. That's right; tendonitis, in my pinkie, from knitting.
Granted this isn't as dumb as breaking my leg scuba diving - but it's pretty darn close. And to add insult to injury - I can't knit until it heals. If you knit - you know how troubling this is. Not only for me - but for everyone around me. I'm calmer when I'm knitting and when I'm not knitting, well, let's just say that I'm more fun to be around when I'm suitably medicated by the knitting needles. I won't start to cry about the fact that I have a six hour drive up to New Hampshire looming on the horizon with NO KNITTING for the car.
Shoot me now.
And just so that I don't leave baking friends in the lurch in this very knitting post, I thought I'd include something for you too. Cupcakes! Yes, that's right, they're knitted cupcakes and just in case your gas is off, or your electricity is off or something dreadful has happened to your kitchen, heaven forbid, you can STILL turn out a reasonable and cuddly facsimile of baked goods with some yarn and a pair of knitting needles ala Ms Darcy! There's a basic pattern here, and another, more detailed pattern in One Skein.
Thank you for visiting my blog. I was too distracted with all this FOOD here that I almost forget to leave a comment! I love that colorway you used for Monkey and I hope you get to finish them. I'll send bad thoughts to help banish that tendonitis :)
Posted by: Dina | May 17, 2007 at 10:58 AM
Those cupcakes are very cute.
Posted by: peabody | May 05, 2007 at 11:44 PM
Knitted cupcakes? They are so cute, I especially like the, yellow cake one! Such talent :)
Posted by: Kelly-Jane | May 05, 2007 at 03:30 PM
Hi, I'm trying to catch up on reading the Daring Bakers, my first challenge will be the May one...aaargh!
I totally love your knitting and the cupcakes are just too cute.
Posted by: baking soda | May 05, 2007 at 05:29 AM
Oh, sheesh...I should look at the sender on SocKnitters more often. I didn't realize until I read this post that you're the knitter with the sore pinky, LOL! Not that a sore anything from knitting is funny.
I think many of us eventually find some form of our craft that hurts in some way. For me, it's knitting a lot with worsted weight yarns. I start to get a painful, swollen bump with a callus on the inside of the middle knuckle on my right pinky.
I had a fix for this for a while, but the product I used isn't available anymore. They were strip bandages by Nexcare that were made out of a "gentle paper". Wrap one of those around that knuckle with the pad on the inside, and I could knit without pain.
Used to buy packages of these every chance I could. They came in a package with "pop art" designs on them that I loved. Then they vanished one day. I kept searching, and went to the Nexcare website, but no luck - they'd been discontinued.
Nexcare still offers a gentle paper bandage. But no longer in the simple strip shape that was essential to me. No, now they're the lozenge-shaped bandages with adhesive all around. And completely unsuitable for protecting my knuckle.
I've tried other strip bandages - foam, fabric, active foam, and more - and none of them do the job the way the gentle paper strips did. So I wind up switching off projects frequently to give the pinky a rest. *sigh*
Why, oh why, do I always fall in love with products that are unpopular enough to be discontinued?
Posted by: Crafting Jen | May 04, 2007 at 11:29 PM
They look good enough to eat :)
Posted by: Stacie | May 04, 2007 at 10:06 PM
I just knit some cupcakes too!!!! But mine are not nearly as pretty, I'll post them sometime soon.
Posted by: Brilynn | May 04, 2007 at 07:18 PM
I can't finish the crocheted jacket I started because of tendonitis in the base knuckle of the my middle finger on my left hand. That's the hand that holds the yarn and the work and now it's like a claw. It hurts to straighten the finger out. I'm also left handed so painting is out of the question for a while too. I may have to clean my house. Pray for me.
Posted by: Ellen-Mary | May 04, 2007 at 04:18 PM