Here's what I've been working on today--I am not entirely thrilled with it, but it's a'ight. I had the realization the other day that in the same manner that chef's families end up eating a lot of experimental cooking, the families of designers must end up with a lot of works-in-progress that are necessary steps along the path to artistic fulfillment. Which is to say, in knitting terms, a lot of weird half-successful hats and stockings and stuff.
I'm going to be making six Christmas stockings over the next few weeks for a special project . . . more on that as it develops. I think those will need to be slightly bigger than this one, or at least longer than this. And I think the heel shaping on this was somewhat unnecessarily complicated. So in the next few days, I'm going to be looking for alternate stocking patterns I can borrow (i.e. steal) from.
This basic pattern (minus the previously mentioned heel-shaping) would be pretty easy to personalize with a name, though--I'm thinking of taking custom orders on the website. Anyone have thoughts on this? Maybe doing something like this in red, green and white stripes?
I've also been working on some more doggy sweaters. Here's the one I finished for Benny Hitt:
And here's a little Christmas one in progress. It'll go up on the store when it's finished (unless someone speaks for it before that). Completed, it will be the same size as the Ole Miss one I made for Eli a couple of weeks ago.
In other news, I was very excited yesterday to discover that Sylvan Park's Produce Place carries local dairy products! I spent quite a bit of time poking around online on localharvest.org the other day, looking for places to get food that comes from Middle Tennessee. I found plenty of produce and even meat (anyone interested in going in on a side of beef next year?), but dairy was surprisingly elusive. Tracy had mentioned that PP, which is right up the road from her house, had milk in glass bottles. That sounded promising, so I stopped by after my Thursday morning babysitting gig, and success! In the interest of full disclosure, "local" in this case is a relative term--Rock Springs Dairy is in Wildersville, which is halfway to Memphis from here. Still, it takes a lot less fuel to bring me milk from there than bananas from Honduras or even organic oatmeal from Canada. Plus, I can return the bottles and get my deposit back!
My recent interest in local eating comes as a result of reading Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, which I highly recommend. It has seriously challenged the way I think about what I eat and where it comes from. I've started digging big rocks out of my lawn in preparation for putting in a modest garden next year--and I'm only half kidding about the side of beef. It's really not that expensive if you get a couple of people to go in on it together, and it comes butchered and everything! Some of the cattle are raised right here in Davidson County--just think, you could be eating your neighbors for dinner tonight! Wait, that didn't come out quite right . . .
Thanks SO MUCH to everyone who has visited the store, read this blog and been e-mailing with your kind words of encouragement and suggestions. I am incredibly blessed to have such supportive friends and family, and I will try and respond to your e-mails sometime this weekend. A special shout-out to my friend Torrey, who was the first of my friends to actually buy something from the on-line store. Thanks, Torrey--you rock!
Also rocking would be Adrienne, who has a birthday today! Happy day, girl! Guess I should go get ready for your party . . .
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