Car Knitting

Car knitting is what I do while my husband drives.....well, as long as he's driving sanely and I don't have to use one hand to clutch that little grab bar thingie while chewing my nails on the other. It's been known to happen. Good thing he doesn't read this! When I first started the blog, he would ask me each day if I had posted yet. I eventually told him that he didn't really need to read it because it was mostly about knitting and dolls and stuff. He happily went back to his Scientific American.

Anyway, car knitting isn't just about knitting in the car. Many years ago I knitted this sweater vest for my father. You'll have to visualize it a few shades lighter. I could have posed the Halloween cat with it.... My father was a big VW fan back in his day. He was especially fond of the models made in 1957 and before--the ones with the little "football" window as they were called. He had several over the years, but his favorite was the gray one. Once in a while, he'd even let me drive it. That was back when I was a regular driver of standard shifts. For years I had a red Kharman Ghia which I was quite fond of, and only gave it up when I had Tech Guy and couldn't get a car seat in it. Well, that and the fact that we had moved to south Texas and it had no A/C.


So today I was rummaging through a closet and discovered some handwork that my grandma did long ago. This is one of a set of pillowcases. I was thinking I might make some pillowcase dolls--just a simple doll with a dress and bonnet made from a pillowcase. I have a pattern somewhere. It might be nice to pass them on to a couple of my cousins. We used to spend time together at grandma's house and she would make us all wonderful doll clothes.....while we snuck cookies out of her sailor boy cookie jar!

When I turned the pillowcase over, I noticed some dark handstitched appliques on the back that seemed puzzling (sorry, I forgot to rotate it!) After some thought, I'm thinking this was grandma's attempt to make a ghost costume for one of her grandkids for Halloween. Or maybe a puppet. Or maybe just to gives someone a little scare when they pulled it out of the linen closet....

So tonight I'm going to a little knitting get-together at the local senior center. It's just starting up and has been advertised as a multi-generational group. Good thing I had my hair colored today! Maybe they'll think I'm younger rather than older.... Maybe I should wear the car sweater and my crazy bird socks. I could accessorize the whole thing with my bright purple crocheted boa. I'm not planning to take the dust mop sweater to work on though. If I try to knit and talk, I'm sure I'll be doing lots of tinking tomorrow....