What would Vampires Knit?

Lace of course!
One fateful night at my local knitting group we were discussing how terrible and rom-com-saccharine most novels about knitting groups (yes, this is a genre) are, even more terrible than the post Twilight wave of crappy vampire novels.  An idea was born, and now we are collaboratively writing a knitting vampire (and witch, werewolf, and were-spider) novel.  I have sort of taken over writing for the vampire character, partially because as she is from the Shetland Islands in the18th Century and so requires some research and occasionally, just for fun, I like to use the History degree I am more than $20,000 dollars in debt for.  Mostly though I just seem to be finding it very easy to write for the extremely fussy (even possibly to the point of mild-OCD), precise, opinionated, and slightly bossy former farm-girl.  No idea why.

Anyhoodle, as this is a knitting novel I have been basing a lot of the character work on what sort of things she would knit.  Happily this character work perfectly coincided with Sophistique Noire's one-day theme event of lace because of course, she would be a lace knitter, having cut her teeth in mortal life on the sort of jaw-dropping wedding ring shawls (so called because they can pass entirely through a wedding band) which the Shetland Islands are famous for:
Image by Vulpecva on Ravelry
In her long life she has only loved once, and it was certainly not with the dull sheep farmer to whom she was once betrothed, but with Herbert Niebling from whose beautiful mind flowed the sort of design dreams are made of:
Image furballchaser
Of course one doesn't knit precious masterpieces all the time, even if one is immortal and usually knits with pointed bicycle spokes.  Our vampire lady engages in the sort of profession where one would need a few easy pieces which looked suitably darkly romantic yet still kept off the chill of a Pittsburgh evening.  Something like this Dragon Wings shawl:
A well-liked long standing patron might be favored with something neck-covering like this or this come Christmas.

8 comments:

VictorianKitty (Sophistique Noir) said...

As usual, your post has me thoroughly entertained. The vampire knitting novel is a fun (and novel! lol) idea. :) And your description of the vampire character in the first paragraph... Yeah, I'm pretty sure you just described me. Exactly. Now I really do have to learn how to knit. :)

The white wedding ring shawl is shockingly beautiful. I'm pretty much obsessed with the lace choker now...

linnea-maria said...

What an fantastic idea! I hope you will give out the novel later on! My mother knits tablecloths like the shawls you show, but she's not from shetland. Yeah the cuffs doesn't look pretty or cake like at all, and I like it that way.

Jamie said...

Love the knitting-I wish I had that kind of patience and skill! What a great and thought-provoking post. I would totally read a book about a knitting vampire-wicked awesome!

Anonymous said...

I love this. Please put this project up on kickstarter. You must write this novel.

Varina said...

VictorianKitty - I am starting to think this theme day of yours has created a number of new knitters ;)

Linnea-Maria - Wow, I would love to have such beautiful table-clothes. Really there are many wonderful knitting traditions around the world, or at least everywhere there are sheep :)

Jamie - So do I! These are not my projects, although I think I mainly lack the necessary patience for something so huge and fine.

Sioxsie - I don't really think we need funding at this point. Most current production costs are being borne by Google Docs. The page would have to say something like: "We will use this funding for...tea! It's important to the process." I will keep that in mind though.

Sal said...

These are beautiful!

Oh yes, please share the novel with us! Would love to read it!
(I actually have quite a bunch of both knitting AND vampire novels, too... lol)

Faerunner said...

I would purchase this book and/or fund publishing costs if it helps. I'd also love to learn to knit lace... but I haven't the faintest clue where or how to start! I suppose I ought to start looking up knitting groups in Pittsburgh. That's one thing I can take to work with me and do on breaks!

Varina said...

Sal - Thanks! I am glad to hear we already have a niche audience.

Faerunner - I actually belong to a knitting group in Pittsburgh and you would be welcome to stop by: http://www.ravelry.com/groups/shadyside-snb
I quite like the Knitting Workshop dvds by Elizabeth Zimmerman for learning all manner of new knitting techniques. I got them out of the library last year and even through I have been knitting for 15 years I learned quite a lot.

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