Letters
Me Made Mouse: Rodent Spa Edition
Dear Ann:
The situation in my living room has gone full-on Geppetto’s Workshop.
Soon I will be carving puppets out of wood.
But for the moment, I am devoting all toy-making energy toward finishing Alex the Mouse.
Could I help it we were fresh out of stuffing? So while I wait for an opening to run down to Purl Soho for a bag of organic artisanal toy innards, I am doing what I can, and what I can is the ears and the feet.
I gave in to the toy-finishing equivalent of eating dessert first, by starting with the ears.
The ears: an i-cord lover’s dream. So satisfying.
You will note that my ears cup a little bit. If you want them to be flatter, pick up more stitches along the edge as you work the i-cord. I wanted mine a bit curvy. The better for Alex to hear cats with.
The Stages of Kitchener
The ears were fun, but then I had to eat my vegetables and take on the task of grafting the live stitches at the top of the feet.
I went through all the stages of Kitchener stitch:
- Denial: I will put those stitches on a holder, just for a minute. I’ll graft them after I finish the two oversized sweaters I am going to cast on now.
- Anger: What the cuss! I can think of so many other ways to design these dang feet without recourse to Lord Kitchener’s cussing graft! Kitchener is mansplaining in the form of a knitting technique! Why aren’t the legs just small socks, with a pinhole cast-on at the toe, and a turned heel?
- Bargaining: I will look up that Russian join somebody told me about. Or, how about I just whipstitch those buggers and call Alex Frankenstein’s Mouse-ster?
- Depression: I don’t want to do the Russian join, either. Life has no meaning.
- Acceptance: [Looks up tried and true Kitchener tutorial.] [Performs Kitchener in 10 minutes with no problems.]
Help in Our Hour of Need
A word to my fellow travelers on the path to Rodentalong glory with Alex the Mouse: Jen and Jim Arnall-Culliford have offered a most excellent port in the storm. Check out this blog post for a bonus video tutorial on how to join the ear parts with i-cord, plus designer Ella Austin’s map for assembling Alex the Mouse. Excellent tips on ear, eye, leg and arm placement, plus the sobering/encouraging news that Ella herself has to undo and redo parts of the finishing to get it just right.
What is the reward for Kitchenering two mouse feet? I’m thinking: cheese.
Love,
Kay
Too stinkin’ cute!!!
I’ve made much like Alex the mouse, little bunnies. The assembly not so much fun. So I thought I’d do assembly line bunnies….make a bunch..assemble later. Now. I have a basket of bunny parts, and no present desire to do the required surgery. Im hopeful that when I see Alex in all his glory, it will motivate me to dig out the basket
I actually love to do Kitchener; I know, really weird. I think part of the trick is to do a huge chunk of it on something so you really internalize the rhythm. At that point, the genius of the stitch comes out. When I am just doing a few stitches, like sock toes or mouse feet, it is just a pain to go fetch the darning needle. Tons of it, like the polka dot cowl I made, makes going up the stairs for the needle feel totally worthwhile. I cannot wait to see your finished Alex!
If you’re weird Debbi, then I’m weird like you! I don’t mind kitchenering at all. When I learned it, the steps settled into a kind of sing-song in my head… I barely think as I do it now, as I can just feel the rhythmic chant in my head.
I wonder if it has to do with learning styles? I’ve always thought of myself as somewhat of a kinesthetic learner…
ITA. I finally retained the rhythm without resorting to YouTube after doing it enough times. Kay, you can do it too.
Excellent use of wonder clips! Alex is my holiday weekend knitting plan so I’m going to toss a few in my bag.
I am assuming you are going to knit Alex a block of cheese. Can’t wait!
While knitting my second-third, whatever, Pussyhat, a lightbulb went off in my head as to why Kitchner works, and it became intuitive. As in, I didn’t need to keep looking at my notes!
and I have that exact.same.Jiffy steamer.
Congrats on the tiny! He’s adorable.
I appreciate your five stages of Kitchener, but I’m happy to say that once you reach the point where you remember how to do Kitchener stitch without referencing anything, you may leave them behind! In fact, if you’re a weirdo like me, you may even begin to *enjoy* Kitchener stitch! (I know. Total weirdo.)
I love your Five Stages of Kitchener. I’m totally going to print that out for a friend, whom I’m teaching to knit socks. 🙂 (Who am I kidding, I want a copy for me, too!)
Alex is looking adorable!
I am enjoying this project so much as a spectator sport! So cute! So colorful! So much freaking technique!
And although I don’t mind kitchenering because I love the result, I recently did an experimental toe which actually turned out exactly as I had envisioned (!) and would have been pretty cool but I had made the sock a little too short and therefore had to tink the kitchenering but ARGHHH have you ever tried to renehctik? I ended up cutting off the toe and pulling out little bits of dissociated yarn until I could identify an actual row in the decrease section and then struggle to get 60-odd nearly invisible dark brown stitches back on the needles. Not sure how many times I can knit toes on one pair of socks, but I am up to 4 toes already, which matches my previous record, and the socks are still a WIP.
I got overconfident on the second foot and messed up the Kitchener but there was no going back!
I love your humor. Definitely gives me a chuckle!!
That photo of Alex on your coffee table already makes him look like Frankenstein’s Mouse-ter. I hope Igor didn’t drop the brain….
So cute! And I love, “Soon I will be carving puppets out of wood.”
I am nearing the fourth (4th!) repeat of Kitchener on a pair of socks. Top down, one-at-a-time afterthought heel, so Kitchener on both the heels and the toes. What was I thinking? At least I have finally got the rhythm in my head for now. (If you sat next to me as I did it, you would hear me muttering the mantra,”Front: Knit off, purl on. Back: Purl off, knit on”. It would make it hard to hear Inspector Lewis and Sergeant Hathaway, though.) But I still don’t really like it. Give me three-needle bind off any day.
And speaking of which…it’s too late for little Alex, but, in the interest of saving others from the non-knitting that is Kitchener stitch: but would it have been possible to turn the sock inside out and do a three-needle bind off?
Do you think this is how Topo Gigio got his start?