Monday 15 June 2015

A Day With My Knitted Boyfriend. . .

Meet Fritz, a knitted boyfriend that I made for a friend's birthday.  

I have to admit I grew a little smitten with him. And so before I let him go, I spent a full day with him appreciating his many good qualities - he is very good at listening, he never talks back, and is perfectly happy to do whatever I want.


He even got completely immersed in the book that I'm currently reading.


And he too loves his lattes on early morning train journeys.


He even helps out with the knitting.


We went on Saturday to London - one of our favourite cities.


We love to walk along the South Bank, stopping occasionally to watch the world go by.


Fritz was quite dwarfed by the public statues.


But he loved watching all the traffic on the Thames.


Especially this boat painted in a very modern, abstract way.


Which was the perfect thing to see en route to the Tate Modern and their fabulous Sonia Delaunay exhibit.


It's on until August 9th, and I highly recommend visiting it.  She was so multi-talented - a painter of whirls of colour and movement and energy (her paintings of tango dancers are fantastic); a fashion and costume designer (there was a gorgeous coat, hand embroidered with wool on fabric, that she made for Gloria Swanson and a vibrant knitted swimsuit as well); a fabric designer (gorgeous swatches on display, swathes of silk and shapes and colours),  a graphic designer working on lots of art magazines, and she even designed a unique bookcase intended for a student dorm.  It was an enormously inspiring exhibition.  One of my favourite bloggers, Kate Davies, has enthusiastically written about Delauney's influence here and here and the latter link shows some of the exhibit (photos weren't allowed but she went to the opening).   Fritz enjoyed it too.


No trip to London would be complete without a quick stop at Loop.


Fritz had fun among all the skeins of gorgeous yarn.



And he helped me pick out my first ever skein of Wollemeise in a colourway that made me laugh - it's called Franz with Chicken Pox.  This is begging to be a shawl - I will just need to find the perfect pattern.


I grew very attached to Fritz and we had a great day together.  But he wasn't for me and I didn't want the Liverpud to get jealous, so off he went to surprise my friend who will take excellent care of him. And lo and behold, he met another Fritz at the same party!  They are now best buddies.


And if you want to knit your own Fritz, you can get all the patterns from Knit Your Own Boyfriend by Carol Meldrum.  The book is very funny to read as well.  I will admit to find the process a bit fiddly, not having previously knitted any toys, but I got there in the end.  I enjoyed knitting the fair isle sweater and the goatee especially and there are patterns for all sorts of hairstyles and accessories so you can really customize your own boyfriend.



1 comment:

Sallyann said...

Since London Fritz has been to The Lake District and hiked in the mist up Helvellyn, been to work in St Helens and tonight quietly read a book whilst some knitting friends came for tea. He really is the perfect boyfriend EXCEPT I left him at home with his friend Fritz and they really could have got through the list of chores Id left them. I suspect they sat and chatted all day.