“If you have followed me here from my other corner of the internet, please know: I will not be knitting any handcuffs. I don’t think my excitingly rare sexual predilections are really going to come up that much during this new and exciting bloggery direction. Bitch, please: I don’t braid whips. In fact, I don’t make anything that I use during sex, unless you count ripping small bits off of a big sheet of sandpaper. If it were possible to knit handcuffs, I would, but, really, knitting is about constructing a networks of loops that result in a notably stretchy fabric. Now, you tell me why this may not be the best material to make handcuffs from. (Don’t actually do that.)”
Knit Yourself Prettier
This is an introduction to my blog and also a post that might have been called ‘knitting pretty’ in a parallel universe almost identical to this one. Or, really, in a radically different one where this blog post still exists but is, instead, called that. Titles are hard. I wanted to call this blog Domiknitrix. I should have googled it before I got so excited. But, actually, I now think BitchCraft is better as it has my name in it. Although, obviously, that is not my real name.
If you have followed me here from my other corner of the internet, please know: I will not be knitting any handcuffs. I don’t think my excitingly rare sexual predilections are really going to come up that much during this new and exciting bloggery direction. Bitch, please: I don’t braid whips. In fact, I don’t make anything that I use during sex, unless you count ripping small bits off of a big sheet of sandpaper. If it were possible to knit handcuffs, I would, but, really, knitting is about constructing a networks of loops that result in a notably stretchy fabric. Now, you tell me why this may not be the best material to make handcuffs from. (Don’t actually do that.)
This blog is not about being *good* at crafts. This blog is just about doing crafts. Doing, not doing well. Knitting up a jumper and then not being able to join the seams in a way that doesn’t look lumpy and awful and then having a small (appropriate) tantrum and stuffing the whole lot into a bin bag (note: google Americanese for bin bags) meaning to salvage the wool later. And then not even doing that.
I like the feel of my hands of making things. I like the process more than the product. (Although I do care about the product – as my frustrations with craft:fail will show. Possibly a lot.) But above all, with craft, it’s all the journey. In fact when I was younger I used to just cruise around. As young people do. Knit up some wool just for the feel of the transformation – one dimension to two – with no destination in mind, except the background needle clicking as I listened to old radio four comedy programs (note: google Americanese for radio four comedy programs)
Craft is simple and wonderful and a sign of triumph over the natural human urge to not be bothered. Craft is indulgent and industrious. Decadent and decent. Puritanical and let-them-eat-cake. Craftwise, mostly, I knit. But I needlepoint a bit and I have this crochet how-to booklet that is so gloriously kitsch and seventies I am probably going to try and learn crochet from it just so I can tote it about and be seen with something so painfully uber-cool that I will become better than that what I am. I also bake. And baking’s not really a handicraft but I might write about baking. So: domestic arts? And why ever not?
Because I have an enduring love of the domestic which (mostly unsurprisingly) is increasing as I get older. Home and soft textures: velvet and mohair and marshmallow. This blog is about those things. About everything that feels nice.
About how, as 40 is now the age-ending-in-zero that I am closest to that I feel less midlife crisis and more midlife relief, that maybe I never liked fast or hard or loud that much anyway. (I do, possibly, still like hard.)
And as I settle and spread, craft makes me pretty. I am somewhat plain as a person, insecure about the face I present to the world. Something about making things soothes this sorrow. Something about watching my (short, calloused) unpretty fingers spinning something fine and beautiful – or even half-arsed and lumpy – seems to silence that persistent, insistent, sanity-resistant voice that tells me that I am a scrumpled mess of a thing. How can it be so bad if I can make a pretty? A mohair dress, a filthily-worded sampler, a red velvet cupcake with piped, pink icing.
This week’s BitchCraft:
I knitted furiously at the dress that is taking forever. I am still on sleeve 1 after trying to get it to measure 53 centimetres for about 15 years (not exact time). Sleeves are exasperating because once the front and back of any project are done I feel so close to completion but, gah, because the sleeves – the sleeves! – just go on forever. (That is not part of the design of the dress.)
I did some work on something I cannot mention here yet because it is a Christmas present for Pan
I tried and failed to make fudge. In 3 attempts lately I succeeded only once. Fudge is such a fickle, fickle fucking bastard, but keeps on tempting me back like a feckless unreliable cad in a half unbuttoned dress shirt who promises it will be different this time, baby. And who also is made of sugar and butter.
6 responses
I love how you use words, Bitchy.
Your analogy for fudge is so perfect.
A feckless cad made of sugar and butter… I’m going to my happy place.
If you’re making cooked fudge, make sure your candy thermometer is accurate. I was frustrated while waiting for my fudge to reach the all important 236F mark, and took it off the heat when it was at about 234 or so. It never hardened, and while fudgy goo is tasty, it’s hard to cut up to give to friends.
I love your other blog and I love crocheting and baking, so I’m excited to see you branch out.
Holy shit, you’re awesome AND you craft? I’m in love.
I used to crochet just to crochet. I didn’t know how to join anything together, so eventually I had an extremely long chain of hundreds of bits of yarn all joined up that went for two and a half lengths of my block.
I was a little OCD. Still am. But now I cross stitch, and sometimes knit. But only scarves, because I still can’t join things together.
I make fudge every winter. I have ruined a few batches. The two most important things are to not scorch it and use a thick/heavy saucepan. The first is simply not using too much heat and stirring constantly the entire time the fudge is over heat. The second is more difficult. I use a hand me down pan made of stainless steel. The bottom rim of this pan is extra thick, it looks to be .5″. Pans like this are hard to find these days. If you use a thinner pan your fudge will be grainy and sugary.
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