Motoring Madness

Motoring Madness is the 9th pattern to appear in Lit Knits. The fingerless mitts are based on Kenneth Grahame's book Wind In The Willows, which was published in 1908.

After reading the book, I knew that the pattern just had to be based on Mr. Toad. There are many characters that appear in the book, but in my opinion, Mr. Toad is the most memorable. I decided that Toad would need driving gloves, which is why the project is fingerless mitts.

Mr. Toad is known to be a reckless driver, so the pattern is meant to look like Mr. Toad has erratically driven over the mitts. Twisted stitches help give the car tracks strong definition. There is a missing rib in the top and bottom ribbing on the mitts so that the tracks remain uninterrupted.

I actually knit this pattern twice. After finishing the first pair and putting them on, I noticed despite the pattern being centered on the mitt, once the mitts were on, the pattern curved towards the thumb. To correct the look of the pattern when the mitts are worn, the pattern is knit slightly off-center on the top of the mitt.

The neatest thing about this shoot was that about 10 minutes before the we started taking pictures, the model and I went to the thrift store and found the brown shirt and jacket that he is wearing. I kid you not. We couldn't have found a better outfit to match the gloves, book, and suitcase.

This shoot was done a few hours after the Tomfoolery shoot and it remained a blistering 108°F/ 42°C. My model deserves an award. Even though he was sweating it out for an hour as we took pictures, you'd never know it. It's hard to believe it was as hot as it was because in the pictures, the model made the day look enjoyable. (It wasn't. It really, really wasn't.)

In the book, whenever Mr. Toad doesn't have a car, he just pretends that he is driving. I knew that one of the shots I had to get was to have my model pretending to drive, just like Mr. Toad. The first few shots looked too posed, so I said, "Mr. Toad committed grand theft auto. You need to pretend like you are stealing a car!"

Here's Mr. Toad gunning it

The next shot was exactly what I had envisioned.

Robin Hoodie

The Robin Hoodie is the 7th design to appear in Lit Knits. While there are many books on Robin Hood to choose from, I read Howard Pyle's version, The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood which was published in 1883.

The pullover is a raglan, knit from the hood down. Special care was taken to make the cables at the top of the hood match up when grafted together. And the instructions have detailed diagrams explaining how to graft stockinette, reverse stockinette, and how to switch between the two. The cabling that starts in the hood goes down the arms, front, and back of the sweater without interruption.
Bonus: all the sweater sizes reference the different characters in Robin Hood. I wear the Allan A Dale size. The model is wearing the Will Scarlet size.

Although it wasn't as hot as the day of the Tomfoolery shoot, it still wasn't close to being sweater weather. My model sweated it out all the while avoiding ants. There were so many ants.
We were in a pretty secluded area, but some person came by, sat down, and started smoking something that was plainly not just a cigarette. At some point they noticed us, a bunch of people taking pictures of "Robin Hood" complete with bow and arrow. I'd like to think that they thought they had really good stuff that day.

This is my favorite picture from all of the shoots. I couldn't help but put it on the cover of the book.

Showing how the cables ran down the entire sweater was a challenge. It was difficult to take pictures that showed off parts of the sweater without looking unnatural. We tried a bunch of poses. Some of them were good, despite not making it in the book.

We did an Errol Flynn styled pose too, just for fun. It didn't quite show off the sweater the way I wanted it to, but hey, we had to give it a try. Not pictured is me battling a branch and contorting myself around a nearby cement wall in order to get this shot.

After this shoot, we immediately continued on to where the Down The Rabbit Hole shoot would happen. (The shoots were done back-to-back.) The model switched to being the lighting assistant. The flowers were on a sloping hill, so we were all in uncomfortable positions to keep from falling over. At some point he looked over his shoulder and asked, "Do I look like a pin-up?"

I'll let you all be the judge of that.

Horses Are Worse Than Bears

Wednesday was an adventure. I was able to cross off another photo shoot for The Book, but Mum, Alina, and I worked for it. I was able to get permission to take pictures in a field of horses. Last time I was in the field, it took five minutes to find the dozen and half horses. This time.... well, we found some other things before we found the horses, including a wood rat nest.

A half hour later Alina spotted them in the field we had passed previously. Apparently we all moved at about the same rate around the trees. It was a relief to find them. I thought they would continue grazing, but three of them decided to be a welcoming committee. Mum called them worse than bears because they had to taste EVERYTHING. I now have horse spit on my camera bag.

Photo courtesy of Mum

They didn't let up in their curiosity, so I parked the golf cart in front of all our stuff. Once we took the good stuff away, they decided to leave.

Photo courtesy of Mum

It took us over two hours of just picture taking, but I was able to get every picture that I had envisioned taking. All in all it was a great success.

Photo courtesy of Mum

I took some fun pictures too. 

I can't wait to have this book done so I can show you all the final photos. Only three more shoots to go!