Eskimimi Knits knitting blog

Does someone with a lot of knits leave you scratching your head?

I have always been a very singular knitter, enjoying too much the sense of achievement at finishing and showing off my latest knit to the world to delay it by casting on for something else before I had finished.  I was too eager to wear my latest hat/socks/scarf to even think about not getting that one project finished before moving onto my next, but lately circumstances have conspired against me to ensure that isn’t so.  What is most surprising is that I’m enjoying it.

Multiple projects currently on the needles

1. Sleepy Hollow Socks. These hit a rather fundamental stumbling block when I managed to lose my entire set of beloved KnitPro nova metal sock DPNs when I was last in London.  No needles, no knitting.  One sock.  Soon to be remedied by the recent arrival of a replacement DPN set which I promise to love and cherish and never let out of my sight.
2. My first jumper. This project was only delayed for a while as pesky life got in the way.  It was the project I was halfway through when things conspired against me so that I couldn’t knit for a month or so.  The front and back of the body sections are done, and one sleeve is near completion, but I think I may unravel that sleeve and knit both sleeves at the same time whilst modifying them so that they are a bit longer.  Then comes the fun bit – the lace yoke – the bit I am really looking forward to.
3. Crocheted hexagon cushion. A project started during a quiet day last weekend when I suddenly had the urge to give crochet a go.  A nice ‘no-thinking required’ project for quiet moments watching the TV, I think I shall work on this tonight during the political extravaganza that is the Leader’s Debate, followed by Question Time, followed by This week.  The cushion cover looks lovely from the outside but if anyone wants to volunteer to weave in the 100 or so ends floating around inside, raise your hand.
4. Nan’s jumper. I’ve not been knitting this project for long and did cast it on with a nod to my newly polygamous status, as I don’t know if I’d be able to handle all of that 2×2 ribbing all in one stretch.  Still, the first sleeve is complete and has had a test block to make sure that the blocking will ‘work’ with this yarn (it does) and the second sleeve is half-way to completion.

Okay – it’s the first ever blog giveaway on Eskimimi Knits, run in kind conjunction with www.mrcloud.com.

Following on from the Woolly Mammoth T-shirt designed by Eskimimi for mrcloud.com, there is a new product which should excite those needle twirlers and hook-wranglers among us – Woolly Mammoth knitting project bags:

woolly mammoths had knitting needles for tusks and buttons for eyes. Strange, but true. (May not be true)

Made from 100% organic Fair Trade cotton and featuring the wolliest mammoth in history, with his knitting needle tusks, button eyes and wonderfully knitted cuddly body, he reminds us of the evolution of knitting as a way to keep us warm – far more fashionable than wearing an animal skin sarong (well, in most circles, anyway).

To celebrate this new product, www.mrcloud.com is giving away one tote bag as a prize on this blog, as well as offering readers 10% off items in the shop. This means both the project bag and woolly mammoth t-shirt can be purchased for the crazy price of just £9 each (plus shipping), using the code ‘eskimimi’ at checkout. This is a limited time offer.

To be in with a chance of winning this project bag, you can enter the giveaway by following these simple steps:

Alice in Wonderland is probably my second favourite¹ book of all time, and definitely my most repeatedly read. I must have read it twice a year for a long stretch of my youth, so any new film adaptation is likely to at least pique my interest. Naturally a book so rich in imagery and so debated in its shades of meaning will introduce new ideas to all those that read it.

As someone who so enjoys knitting, the chapter Wool and Water threw up this idea for a new t-shirt:

Alice in Wonderland wool and water t-shirt from www.mrcloud.com

Alice wakes as if from a dream after all her adventures – and all of the characters, sheep included, are perhaps figments of her lucid imagination, but in this design it is the dreamer that is conceived from the mind, and needles, of her companion in the boat. Literally conceived of the sheep as wool from animal coat is spun and wound into balls and used to make a friend, at once of substance and yet imaginary. Details of this t-shirt show that Alice is in fact a knitted doll with buttons for eyes and yarn for hair. On the sheep’s knee sit the tools of his labour – his needles, and yarn spun from his wool.

This Alice in Wonderland t-shirt is available exclusively to ship worldwide from www.mrcloud.com, in pale blue, primrose and chocolate. Why not check out the knitting wooly Mammoth t-shirt, too, if you pop by.

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^{(1) The answer to the obvious question here is One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.}

What came first, the woolly or the mammoth?  Did these magnificent prehistoric pachyderms evolve or were they created… by knitters?  Here are two of my favourite things – knitting and natural history, in one T-shirt, designed by Eskimimi for Mr Cloud.

knitted woolly mammoth t-shirt from www.mrcloud.com

With knitting needles for tusks and a warm and cuddly knitted body, this mammoth really is woolly.  In this t shirt the mammoth is caught at the moment of casting on a new project  perhaps another mammoth in a previously unknown form of reproduction.  Could this have been why these wonderful animals eventually died out – because they couldn’t knit new mammoths fast enough?  Help to make sure that knitting never dies out again by making sure that we never forgot the fate of the woolly mammoths, and give fellow knitters and science nerds alike a smile for only £12.99, and available to ship worldwide from www.mrcloud.com

He's not just woolly, he's knitted. Oh, and he has buttons for eyes!