Silly Season

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Yes, you are staring at a baby bunting that will eventually be a ear of corn. I am halfway up the husk. When I am finished, it's supposed to look like this:


The original pattern is here, but of course I modified it to eliminate the bazillion seams that the sadistic designer incorporated into the construction. With my version, only two tiny shoulder seams will need to be sewn. (I always sew shoulder seams, rather than graft them. A sewn seam is stronger and the shoulder area has to support the rest of the knitted item.)

I used the Turkish sock cast-on to begin, knit the stalk circularly, and divided the front in such a way that the corn portion can be knit up from the stitches you see on a holder. I will attach the sides of the corn panels to the husk as if I were picking up stitches for a lace border.

This project is a bit wacky, but a nice change of pace from the serious lace knitting that's being done around here.

The crab holding the husk, by the way, is Cheeto. He escaped from a seafood restarant last week--leaping off the serving plate, scuttling around hundreds of enormous feet, and desperately flinging himself out a window onto a busy street.

Fortunately, he landed on the roof of a car belonging to a Japanese embroidery student on her way to Kurenai Kai.

Cheeto decided to rest a bit before continuing on to Katakai Beach, a rather cold and inhospitable stretch of sand inhabited by hundreds of crazed surfers (but the only beach in town).

Harry found him huddled miserably in a mud puddle next to the dorm. After a fair amount of technical discussion involving Kitchener stitch, intarsia in-the-round, and Claw vs. Web for grocery shopping, Harry invited Cheeto to stay in his light fixture until better accommodations could be located.

Harry broached the possiblity of bringing Cheeto on as an apprentice. It was nice of him to ask what I thought, which was something along the lines of "I never heard of a crab who/that knits."

My comment elicited a lecture about tolerance, open-mindedness, ability to accept change, appropriate pronouns, yadda, yadda.

In any case, Cheeto's first assignment will be helping out with Harry's Shawl, which is up to row 15. Harry keeps changing the pattern, but I hope to be able to post a picture some time this week.