good things come in small packages...

... and I guess I just struck upon the title for my next art installation - part of the cliche series! Who knew?

I have a confession to make up front. A couple of years back, I had occasion to meet a friend's mother-in-law. From what I had already gathered, the mother-in-law was the one that all those jokes have been written about - and I can't honestly say I was disabused of this notion when I met her.

The only positive thing that I learned about her was that she did crafts. Specifically, she tsked when I took out my knitting (I was working on something with 4.5 mm needles if I remember correctly and said "I don't know how anyone can work with those huge knitting needles."

Huh?

Turned out that she, too, was a knitter. Only, her knitting took one very specific form. She made doll clothes with needles fashioned out of ... piano wire!!!

JJ was present at the gathering, and nearly lost half a pint of Keith's through his nose at this statement. This was good for little inside jokes for the next week between the two of us - speculating on mothers-in-law and garottes, for the most part. Example: one day I came home from work to find my WIP missing. In its place, I located two long strips of the wire JJ uses to tie up plants, stuck through a swatch with a note reading: "Don't mention the war".


The worst part of it is, I actually got this joke!

But I digress. What is the confession? That I made fun of this woman for making miniature clothing for her dolls.

And now what am I doing? Making nine miniatures (not one, mark you, not two... nine!) derived from the Mason-Dixon knitting book.

But not with piano wire! (although it might as well be - 2.5mm doublepointed bamboo needles).

The photo shown right at the top of this post is a picture of the Baby Baby Moderne I just made, together with his grandparent, the Baby Moderne. I'd like to be able to tell you that the blurriness in the photo was intentional... but that would be lying to you.
Here is it, by itself and it is 3.75" x 3".

Next up: the Circle of Fun rug.
This one is approx. 4.25" diametre. And I'm here to tell you that the Circle is not so "fun" when one is trying to knit with two strands of yarn on skinny bamboo needles - especially when one has a history of breaking them. How I suffer for my art!

This is the first modified version of this pattern I made last year sometime:

And, last but not least: the Nina shawl.


It is 4" x 2". This was my original version I made last year for my mother (I had doubled the pattern width to make a blanket.

And actually, knitting the baby Nina reminded me that I actually want to knit a full-sized Nina shawl for myself. Maybe if I start this week I can finish it by the time we leave for England. I'm always looking for an excuse to buy more Super 10 mercerised cotton...

Um, er... well, maybe I'd best hit the stash first.

I've put my freeform project on hold for the time being. I figure that doing freeform fragments will make an excellent travel project. JJ has forbidden me to bring knitting on our overseas Christmas/New Year's trip but he said nothing about a crochet hook. Nor yarn, for that matter.

And, on the topic of crochet, I'm going to be trying out the pageboy cap from here soon, I think (having located the yarn I bought for it mixed in with the Super 10 stash - it's right at the front of the photo).

So, no silly walking to the LYS for me, I guess!

Back to my minatures (three to go). In parting, I'll note that four years ago today, the Concorde made its last trip. I wish it hadn't. I'm not certain yet how I am going to cross the Atlantic without smoking. Hmm... perhaps that's why JJ didn't want me to take knitting needles - he might reasonably fear getting stabbed by me in a nicotine-deprived pique!!