fiddle faddle / by Katherine Hajer

Elizabeth Zimmermann had a way of giving the exact right name to categories of things, so much so that in the knitting world, a lot of the personal jargon she used in her books have become the standard terms. A favourite of mine is the "fiddle faddle" she dedicated a chapter to in Knitter's Almanac. In the book, Zimmermann provides patterns for little nets, used for holding oranges so they can adorn Christmas trees. There's also little knitted stars and other small, decorative items.

Zimmermann being Zimmermann, she also lists off some items which are fiddle faddle, but which, if anything, are less useful than Christmas ornaments. I remember this was the first time I'd heard of doorknob cozies which, sadly, seem to be becoming more popular again.

Coffee cup cuffs are a more recent invention for this category, and have a major advantage over doorknob cozies in that they are actually useful, protecting the user's fingers from discomfort and helping reduce waste by removing the need for cardboard equivalents.

I used a free pattern for a dress-up crown, and just reduced the number of pattern repeats until it fit around a standard take-away cup (20cm). The designer did a thorough job of writing out the pattern, but it hurt my brain, and I'm not sure the decreases are written out correctly, so I did some experimenting and came up with my own version... which looks exactly the same as her finished-item photos. I'm not sure I actually changed anything or not.

The leaf pattern is something I copied from a photo a while ago when I made a lot of cuffs at once. If you know how a basic aspen leaf motif works in knitting, it's not hard to reproduce. This cuff makes for a lot of ends to darn in (two per leaf), but it's not difficult to work and I like the finished effect.

The friend I gave the crown cuff to gave me a leaf charm she'd bought. She had several, and had intended to make a bracelet with them until she saw how big they were. I thought it looked like the dangle part of a bookmark, so I dug up some tatted and crocheted thread bookmarks on Pinterest and decided to try this graduated pineapple one (Ravelry, free pattern):

Mine is purple just because that's the first reel of crochet thread I came across that wasn't white. I figured white would just get grubby. The bookmark took the second half of Ant-Man and disc 2 of Archer season 3 to finish. It's a very straightforward pattern — once you see where the geometry is going, you hardly need to follow the pattern at all. It's also the first time I've done the very traditional pineapple pattern, so hooray for personal firsts!

Given how much stash yarn (er, and crochet thread) I have left over, I can see a lot more fiddle faddle in my future. Hey, so long as it's the useful, non-cringey kind.