FO: VW Bug Cozy
Here's a totally unnecessary FO as far as objects with a purpose go, but one I wanted to share with you all, because it is pretty cool as an example of knitting for art's sake, or a community knitting project.

Recently, the LYSs here in Columbus has sign up sheets for something called the Extreme Knitting Team. The goal of this group was to produce a knitted VW bug cozy to be on display at an annual local art/craft fair called Winterfair. The cozy was on display, and kids were allowed to add the embellishments at the event, so it got more decorated throughout the weekend. They also had volunteers to be there to answer questions, and get people interested in knitting, and pass out information related to local knitting groups.

I signed up to knit one of the car body pieces. In return, I was given a traced tissue paper outline of my piece (the trunk), size 19 needles and a bunch of Lion Brand "Big" yarn (LB was a sponsor of the project).

The reason I signed up was to give myself some practice in knitting a piece to given dimensions. And practice I got. I did the math repeatedly, but trial and error really got involved in this a lot, especially because while the gauge of 1 stitch per inch made the math easy, it made the gentle curve of the piece rather difficult to figure out.

I ended up pinning the tissue paper piece down on my blocking board, which has one inch squares on it, and laying down my knitted piece on top of it every row or so to double check.

After we all turned in our car pieces and the knitted embellishments (flowers, animals, and even a pair of fuzzy dice) someone got the thankless job of sewing the pieces together, and the car went on display.



My system in progress:



All done and on display:




More photos and discussion of the in progress and finished car at my blog here and here.



I believe the plan is to enter this in art car parades, and display it at various knitting related events around town as well.