JBabe Spins

My aesthetic is asphalt, old wood and love.

[knithacker]

Knit a Fun Cropped Pullover Shrug Featuring Cable Detailing ... Pattern Is Free! 👉 https://buff.ly/3ny8NLd

[gulistan-blog]

㋡🥀

I love it because what I see makes me happy..

[feralisa-deactivated20241027]

[lilianade-comics]

Magic Crafts #011- Guide to Densewood Sheep

[spectrologie-deactivated2023041]

Ryan Resatka

[jbabespins]

The Ski Sweater

In 2004 when I was 19, I found a picture of my younger self up at the pass, skiing, wearing this wonderful brown, orange, and white sweater. I had long since moved on from the sweater, but I remembered loving it. I learned to knit that winter and made one sort of passable scarf. Over the next few years I made more scarves. Then in 2006 I finally cast on my own brown, orange, and white ski sweater. Which I finished in a reasonable amount of time, except for the hoodie style zipper I wanted to add.

It took me 15 years to decide that since I hadn't ever added the zipper I obviously was never going to, but I STILL wanted my ski sweater. So I sent away for more of the same yarn, and then it kind of sat around awhile longer.

All I was lacking was the decision to make a pullover instead and a year with an actual winter. I started closing the front to make it a pullover last night and finished today. In pattern and everything. The seal isn't perfect, you can tell where the edges would have been, but if anyone points it out I will tell them this story.

Any sweater worth taking 17 years for is worth a small flaw.

So here it is- my reason for knitting. Finally Finally Finished!

At last, I can stop.

(Turns out you can't take a selfie of a fair isle sweater yoke without disrupting the look of the sweater, oh well. Also the fit (from the sweater I started as a very beginner knitter fifteen years ago) is not perfect, but it is sure good enough.)

And yes I HAVE knit other things in the between time.

[sosuperawesome]

Needle Felted Sheep

Forgotten Pastures on Etsy

See our #Etsy or #Needle Felting tags

[gentlemanmotorslifestyle]

[hazy-october]

[jbabespins]

Made a little bag for summer! It’s knitted as a tube, With stitches picked up on the sides and knit into mesh. It’s reversible for non-seashell formality. I started by knitting three feet of 6 stitch icord and then increasing the stitches to 36 in the round for a foot, then decreasing back to 6 to join.

This way the “floor” of the bag is two independent layers that are built into the strap. (I grew up in the era when paper bags first sprouted handles and live in eternal fear of handles coming detached.) and it keeps the attachments of the seashells hidden.

[ameliecozy]

Instagram: polly.florence

[autumncozy]

By ticket.to.anywhere

[llcoffeebean]

[llcoffeebean]

[llcoffeebean]

[llcoffeebean]

[awed-frog]

Met an old teacher today and we got talking about ‘the good old times’ and ten minutes into the conversation I jokingly said the one regret I have from middle school is that I never won anything at her magnificent tombolas? Because, like, she used to hold this game about once a month so we’d learn the numbers in French and it was never big prizes, but as a 12-yo I desperately craved them - a cactus-shaped eraser, a bright blue notebook with slightly larger-than-usual squares, a set of coloured pens - and never ever got a single one of them. 

(Actually spent a good few months thinking I was genetically unlucky and researching ancient family curses with my grandma.) 

So today I don’t know what I was hoping for - nothing, really?

(I mean, that part of me that’s still twelve was probably expecting this sweet old woman to have a set of glitter stickers in her purse and just go ‘You know what, you’re right - I’ve been saving this one for you all these years, here you go’ but I’m a solidly rational person and I know that’s stupid.)

No, I thought we’d just laugh and it would be a good shared memory and that would be it. Instead, my teacher got flustered and a bit embarrassed and explained the game was rigged. It was never about learning French at all. She’d just noticed some kids couldn’t afford even basic stationery, so she’d buy a few half-fancy items every month with her own money just for them. She didn’t want them to feel different or left out. And obviously the way she used to walk around in the classroom, looking over our shoulders - it wasn’t to prevent cheating. It was because she was cheating herself, wanting to see which number a particular child needed to get a Minnie Mouse pencil case.

Guys - the world is fucked up, but so many people out there are just good and kind and humbly heroic it honestly gives me hope. 

It’ll be alright, you’ll see.