It really is magic!

When my in-laws came down for Christian's birthday a couple of weeks ago, my MIL, Lynn, the Rock Star Goddess of All Things Knit®, brought me a 40" pair of steel circular needles and a little book on how to make them into the Magic Loop, the purpose of which is to eliminate the need for double points and the pesky task of changing needles in the middle of a project when your circulars get too long. Ha, I scoffed, this cannot be. Only double points work for teeny tiny little projects, and, even though they are a hassle and I'm constantly dropping stitches when changing from one needle to another, I thought, if women for thousands of years could knit with them, so can I!! There's even a medieval painting of the BVM knitting a shirt on DPs for the baby Jesus, and man, I thought, even MARY used DPs, so what kind of knitter am I if I don't?? I'd be a FAUX knitter, I thought, a POSER knitter. HOWEVER, Lynn had knit me a teeny little hat as a test for a pattern I wanted to make, and she said that she did it using the long needles, so hmmmmm....

On Monday I called in sick and I wanted to knit something new as I've had to frog my current project TWICE due to my inability to count, and I remembered a stuffed bear pattern I had seen on Knitty that reminded me of the bears my Grandma Teen made for us when we were little, which, of course, made me all misty and sentimental. I had a ton of remnant yarn from other projects and had recently purchased teeny tiny DPs for socks, so I thought I'd give Bubby a go. When I was looking for my DPs, da da da daaaaah, I found Lynn's needles and booklet and thought, eh, why not. They were the right size and I was too muzzy-headed from being sick to deal with DPs anyway. I read the instructions and they just seemed so simple. I cast on the 24 little stitches for the bear's body and did what the book said, and OH MY GOD, it actually worked! I was knitting in the ROUND on #3 40 inch circulars! It was the coolest thing EVER! I knit the entire bear this way, even the arms and legs which only required 10 cast on stitches. Here is the almost complete project with evidence of using the Magic Loop.


And as a bonus picture, my indisputably brilliant nephew Jayden learning to knit:

Of course, he should have been sleeping at the time, as evidenced by the closed eyes, but he's just so cute I couldn't tell him to get back into bed when he came shuffling out of the bedroom and looked at me through those long lashes. I'm such a sucker.