Thursday, December 31, 2009

The Haapsalu Shawl

oh. my. gosh.


My friend Merli at Apollo Publishing hoped I'd have my copy of The Haapsalu Shawl in time for New Year's and it CAME and it's so beautiful that when I opened up the parcel I was speechless!

(and honestly, it takes a lot for a girl like me to go speechless.)

It's so beautiful that as I opened the parcel to look at it the guy next to me said WOW. That is the most beautiful book I have ever seen.

(and let me tell you, this was not a knitty sort of guy.)

The cover design is beautiful and the photography is beautiful and the paper stock is beautiful.

But apart from all that: this is the most thorough stitch dictionary I own, and I have a few. It's got:

history


a stitch glossary with images so you understand how to make each individual stitch

clear instructions with diagrams for finishing and blocking

'Master's Advice' inserts throughout the book and

large, lovely photographs of Haapsalu residents wearing a shawl or scarf, with a quotation about what the town and/or garment means to her.


But is that that enough for this publisher? Not by half!

The book is oversized - 9.5" wide x 13" tall - and each stitch combination gets its own page. Complete with an impeccable photograph of the stitch above and a large, clear chart below.

It's a heavy book and given the size I don't know where I'm going to store it and it is in such perfect condition because it was wrapped so carefully for shipping that I'm afraid to just leave it lying around where it might get a dent on my watch and yet -

there is so much white on white on the cover, and such a generous amount of white space on each page, it feels as ethereal as the shawls themselves.

This is a great book, and I think you need it. You don't even have to order it directly from the publisher like I did, because the English translation is available at shops now too. Like, for example, Needle Arts Book Shop!

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Now what?

I just looked at my queue to see what's coming up onto the needles next - and it could be anything.

True, I do have an 'obligation' list, but it consists of one shawl (fairly fast to make) and one hat (very fast to make), both already in progress.

Soooo...

I find myself frequently touching sock yarn, and in particular the beautiful blue I got from Midnight Sheep.

I have some more Precieux in a rich gorgeous red with which to make myself a really warm face-protecting hat.

I have some yarn earmarked for another really warm hat, too - a trio from Toots LeBlanc, Sally, and Jessie (lots of positive energy there!)

And then there's the rest of the stash.

But you know what? I want a sweater! Dangerous words, because I haven't knit a figure-flattering sweater since the 1980s, when 'flattering' meant 'giant bag'. So much work and then meh, is what happens when Mary Meets Sweater.

That said, I can't help looking at the new Elizabeth Zimmerman sweater ( scroll to The Green Sweater on the patterns-for-sale page). It's the romance of the story behind it that captures my imagination - how can you not be moved by the recreation of a much-loved pattern after its brilliant maker has gone? To say nothing of the fabulous photography by Jared Flood.

Must. Be. Realistic. It's a cropped cardi and nothing looks worse on me these days, never mind the draft. I need a long swingy shape - something like the gorgeous Nora's Sweater (that's a Ravelry link) on the cover of Winter 2009's Interweave Knits. In fact, Pam Powers' other patterns are pretty seriously yum, too.

Oh dear.

Maybe I should just work quietly away on the obligation list and leave these happy problems for another day?

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

'Kathleen' - an evening bag pattern

Last July, I spent a LOT of time watching old movies and working on this pattern, which has just hit the internet via KnitNet magazine:


It's knit with shiny, smooth crochet cotton and it's named for Kathleen Taylor, who encouraged me to try my hand at designing.



Thanks Kathi!

Monday, December 28, 2009

I finished the shawl!

Is the world still turning?

I thought I would never get through it! and in fact, if I hadn't had to stay home sick from Christmas Dinner, it would be on the needles even now. But I did and it's done


and Lannie loved it


and now I am FREEEEEE


to knit another one for Carol. Thankfully, hers is in heavier yarn, and I should be able to finish it before the weather is too warm to wear it. Knock wood.

Yarn update: this one was knit with just under one skein of Arial from Twisted Fiber Art, in 'Jaunty'.

Friday, December 25, 2009

A very Turbo Christmas

Just popping in to wish everybody a Merry Christmas (or a really splendid Friday)!


Three guesses which thing in the photograph above provides the greatest comfort in the face of a very much worse cold. Having a bad cold isn't so bad in itself, but having it when one is meant to be spending Christmas with a group of really nice people, some of whom are immune-suppressed and facing more than enough health challenges already thank you very much - well, that means just one thing:

Staying at home with a box of tissues for company.

On the other hand, one could also say that I now have five bonus hours in which to knit the last two lingering presents

and

if I finish them, I could use any of these dreamy new needles (the perfect length for hats, did you notice?) to start a hat I've been wanting to make.

One might also note that TCM is running a string of movies I don't hate, but won't be tempted to watch too closely while I knit, either. All in all, kind of a fabulous agenda, don't you think?

Thursday, December 24, 2009

and miles to go before I get festive

It's very pretty here this afternoon, perfect weather for a Christmas eve: grey skies, softly falling snow. You can see some here on the table around the kitchen scale:


14 grams, people. I still have to knit 14 grams' worth of yarn to knit into the shawl I'm giving away in three days. And I'm sick as can be with a cold, again. It's chicken soup to the rescue, and if that doesn't work fast I won't even get to church tonight.

At least the mittens are done... and if I do get stuck alone at home, I get bonus knitting time. Gotta love the silver linings, dontcha?

Saturday, December 19, 2009

Unbelievably pretty needles

I want everything on this website. Seriously! Gorgeous needles, shawl pins, spindles I will never use but love the look of, glamour crochet hooks (and I don't even crochet)... good thing I'm not in the market for any of it. But you might be, right?

Or maybe I'm just tormenting you too, in which case, um - Sorry!

Friday, December 18, 2009

Knit One, Embellish Too

I mentioned this book last winter when I first bought it, but with gift-giving season looming, I just have to recommend it again.

It has a lot going for it - Cosette Cornelius-Bates writes in such a friendly and knowledgeable way it makes a nice read on its own, and it does have a lot of patterns in it - but there is one thing I especially appreciate.

The section at the front that explains basic techniques.

Seriously. The last couple of days I've needed to do a lot of blanket stitch to finish off some Christmas presents, and that's a stitch I've managed to escape for lo these many years - as in, my entire life. Nor did I have a embroidery-mad friend anywhere within reach. Yes, I could have jumped over to YouTube to look for a tutorial, but that would have interfered with watching Howl's Moving Castle. I needed a book.

It turns out I had three books in the house that explain blanket and other embroidery stitches: Knit One, Embellish Too is the only one that made sense of it for me.

And this, my friends, is why I think somebody in your life needs a copy of it. Maybe even you!

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Revisiting the plan

The best-laid plans go awry so it's no surprise my slap and dash ones for holiday knitting have gone to the wall. They were perfect - as long as nothing else whatsoever went wrong.

And it has. Nothing fun like a nice lengthy cold that knocks you flat and tucks you up with tea and a nice battered old book, either:


but rather the kind that sends you off in shifts (the time-punch kind, not the dresses) to stay with an injured friend and make her chicken soup and things.

Which is still sort of fun if you are the person making the soup and knitting en route.

Does cut into a girl's blogging time though! So I'll turn up as I can and if there's nothing new and exciting over here, you may find me at my Procrastination Diary. I've had lots of exciting felted mitten news there, even if it is sewing-related instead of knitty.

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Shawl countdown

Okay, so here we are pretty much on Day 1 of the urgent shawl project I have six days to complete. I did a tiny bit yesterday but it hardly counts, because it seems I still have 127 grams left on the ball:


So today, I am blogging from the sofa, where I am parked in front of a really, um, interesting movie version of Jason and the Argonauts with special effects that look as though they inspired Robot Chicken and woolly hats on some of the actors that - wow.

Let's just say it's a laugh a minute and I should probably turn off the TV if I'm going to get any knitting done.

Monday, December 14, 2009

In which panic descends

Two weeks to go -

except that really the gift countdown is set to one week for one important person and
one day for two more.

One of those very urgent two gifts is ready to go, and the other needs another 40 minutes or so, but the one week deadline is panic-inducing.

Here is what happened: I wasn't watching the calendar and was working away happily on two things I'm not gifting until December 27th. Then on Friday, I realized I had to have a Lazy Day Lace Shawl ready to give on Monday the 21st. By which I mean, not just finished but blocked and dried. So really, it has to be done by about 8pm on Sunday the 20th.

Technically, this worked out to a very do-able three hours' knitting a day when I started it on Saturday, but on Sunday night I realized I had made a serious and highly noticeable error in row 12.

ROW TWELVE.

Which I then continued making for another 5 rows.

How this is possible - it's my own design, and I've knit this particular lace stitch on a near-daily basis since September - I don't know, but I did it. And I had to rip it all out, and today I will have to start again, except that I can't until I've finished Urgent Gifts #1 and 2, and then I will have to pause again midweek to do Marginally Less Urgent Gifts #3 and 4, scheduled for delivery on Friday.

And that, my friends, is where the wrench is positioned.

Because one of those two is ready, and the other an irretrievable disaster unless my iron and muslin-for-steaming turn out to have magical powers, and I almost certainly have to think of something else to give in its place. Candy Wrapper Scarflet springs to mind - I can do it and block it in an evening - but do I go with another teal, or with the pale pink in my stash, neither of which is ideal for this particular person?

Of course I can always get around the worst of the problem by presenting the other half of the shawl gift with a promissory note for the rest in a week or two, but it's so awful, isn't it, to be knitting for Christmas well past New Year's?

sigh.

I know every other crafty person is in much the same overextended boat though, and that's something.

Friday, December 11, 2009

Express (holiday) knitting

Last night I gave in to the pressure to pull together a wishlist of stuff people could give me for Christmas, something I normally avoid because even the sort of people who consistently supply wishlists that look like this:

socks
underwear

are underwhelmed by my honest and sincere wishlist of:

socks
chocolate

So I have to think things up, and not knitting stuff either.

I mean, as long as I go on indulging myself every time I fall in love with a yarn or a book or a needle, there's no point in my putting that on the list. Unless it's going to be made use of by a fellow knitter who will know a magical thing when s/he sees it, and I haven't managed to indoctrinate any of the people on my gifting list (yet.)

But I did consider putting an Addi Express at the top of my wishes. Even at $200 (but on sale here!) it wouldn't take long for you to make your money back and then some in time saved - and just think of the sweaters you could make for people in a fraction of the time next holiday season.

Really I want an especially beautiful swift, which I won't ask for because I don't have a place to keep it. And I won't ask for socks either, or chocolate. Everybody already knows I like that.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

A breath of fresh air

Or do I mean a breath of spring air? That's what I am appreciating today, being officially sick of winter before it officially begins.

Outside it's all lumps of ice with a thin dusting of parched snow over it, cold dry air, and more emaciated flakes coming down. I like a big wet snow you can build with - that's the kind that brings warm (for winter) air along for the ride.

In New Zealand on the other hand, it's spring, or maybe early summer? which may explain why this hand-dyed, hand-spun yarn from my friend Sally is so very cheerful and happy even in the dim grey light of my yard:


It's Corriedale, which The Knitter's Book of Wool says is best for outerwear, but in Sally's hands it's soft enough for me to think about doing as a next-to-skin hat with a forehead. And given how cold it is outside right now, that might just be its destiny!

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Merry Christmas to me

It seems like just last week I zipped into the Knitterly Things shop mere moments after it had been updated and snagged, finally! a skein of the one this-season-only sock yarn I have been unable to forget (aka The Holly and the Ivy.)

And now it's arrived:


On the First Day Of Snow, and everything. Actually wet snow and rain, which is due to freeze overnight, and be followed by two more days of snow. Perfect weather for staying in and knitting if only I could.

But let's leave all that aside for now and look a little closer for swooning purposes:



Isn't it just beautiful? It makes me feel even happier in person than it did online.

And even though the dim light from outside as I took this picture makes it seem not true, I can't help noticing how perfectly it matches up with a semisolid from the Summer Club (Ivy League), and thinking about contrasting heels and toes.


You know, just in case I was thinking it was irresponsible to buy more sock yarn.

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Eloquence - a free pattern for mittens and fingerless gloves

Something that may surprise you (or not) when you look at the ridiculous amount of knitting here is that I am a writer. But it is true.

It is also true that one of my teachers - Wayson Choy, someone I had already considered to be absolutely wonderful - has encouraged me to knit even at the expense of writing because it is important to go wherever your creativity leads you.

Well, here is where my creativity led me when I read Wayson's latest book, Not Yet: A Memoir of Living and Almost Dying.


I made these for him as a present - I so love when things like that actually fit, don't you?

This design is important to me for lots of reasons, but in knitting terms it is all about the thumb, which I redid about a million times before I settled on a gusset I liked. My technical editor tells me that this particular approach is unusual - and I am taking that as a compliment because it's so comfy.

The yarn choice gave me a lot of trouble too. I was swatching about the tenth hopeless attempt when my order from Toots LeBlanc & Co. turned up in the mailbox:


No matter how I tried to make do, Wayson's gloves needed to start with yarn that suggested it had seen animals fairly recently and hadn't had too much fussing over it since then. I had intended my much-coveted Jacob/Alpaca DK for something else, but when I saw it, I knew it was The One.


After that I had to put my sense of Wayson's approach to writing into words. One word, to be exact. One word that translated into Chinese in, ideally, two pictographs simple enough that even I could embroider them.

I spent a lot of time browsing through dictionaries before I was rewarded with this:


The pictograph on the left means 'mouth' and the one on the right means 'sprouting plant.'

When you put them together, they mean eloquence.


Isn't that beautiful? and it applies, I think, to artists in every conceivable medium, making an embroidered pair of these gloves perfect for anybody who works with their hands in a cold place.

Of course it must be said that if you don't embroider them, the thumb is reversible. And that makes it perfect for kids playing or snacking outside in cool weather, so I did a kids' size.


And then I thought, mittens are only a little bit more work to do - so I added instructions for that in all the kids' and adults' sizes.


I worked this particular cuff in Open Flame, an exclusive colourway from the Vesper Sock Club, for some extra zing. You gotta be in the club to get your hands on cuties like this! All Julia's sock colours are fabulous, though, and any bits of leftover sock yarn do just as well.


Knitting aside, I love this book. There is so much in it to relate to, and so much joy, inspiration, and hope. It is amazing enough to have such astonishing experiences and live to tell them, but to have Wayson's particular brand of eloquence too - that is something very special. Not Yet is, I think, a perfect gift.


(and so is a pair of Eloquence!)


Download .pdf of Eloquence

Monday, December 7, 2009

Qiviut

I've been working on my qiviut hat whenever I'm not doing this year's holiday sewing, and if it weren't for said sewing it would be finished now.

I just can't put it down.

It's like knitting clouds previously located in heaven.

Even with the halo it develops as you work with it, you can still see the underlying stitches.

Best of all: it looks like I can make the whole thing in less than 1 22g cake, leaving me a second skein to use for myself.

This is lucky since Cottage Craft Angora, from whom I bought the two skeins (plus some qiviut/merino blend) is currently sold out of it.

Worst of all: the price of qiviut is much, much higher than when I bought mine. $90 for 28 grams in one place! So it may be some time before I can get more... and, um,

I WANT MORE.

Meanwhile, you can still read lots of qiviuty news at Cottage Craft Angora's Qiviut Blog!

Like, the fact that somebody actually commissioned (and got) a king sized qiviut bed cover. Can you imagine? I hope its new owners don't have a cat, because mine would have had that thing in shreds on the first day.

Friday, December 4, 2009

Adapting

Time to face facts:

It's December 4th.

In 20 days, I will be past the point of knitting anything for anybody.

It takes me an average of 30 days to come up with a pair of socks, to say nothing of the other 5 or 6 things I'm supposed to be knitting for presents.

I can't knit socks for my likely-to-enjoy-handknit-socks friend.

I can however substitute a hat out of qiviut:


Let's just hope I have enough qiviut in the stash!

Thursday, December 3, 2009

When in doubt, wind

Christmas is coming so soon! and I am so not ready for it!

The sensible me:
NOT knitting for every single person on my list, like last year.

The ridiculous me:
NOT committing to projects for the few people I am knitting for.

Three people are definitely getting something knit, because I've got their things underway.

Two more might, if I can decide on a colour to use for the project that seems most likely to work for them.

Two others should, but I haven't decided on colour or pattern or yarn.

Enter winding.


What better way to maximize your stash potential while minimizing your decision-making efforts than to wind wool from skein to ball?


I had these two from Decadent Fibers (Cookie Dough and Creme Brulee, but I'm not sure which is which at the moment) custom-dyed so they would match. They both knit up on biggish needles... think I have time to make a mini poncho/shoulder warmer for an adult-sized person?

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Can't quit

Cannot quit the Vesper Sock Club.


Yes, I am swimming in sock yarn I can't possibly knit all of, but dang. Julia just keeps outdoing herself... I would be so bruised from kicking myself for missing out if I skipped a season!

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Are we there yet?

My new kitchen scale is, seriously, the gift that keeps on giving.

Lately I've been wondering about how much more knitting there is in the shawl I'm aiming to finish in time for Christmas, and yesterday the thought occurred to me that I could find out by putting what's left of the skein on the scale:


54 grams.

I started out with 100 grams.

And it's taken me two full months to get this far.

I'm going to have to shift this particular project from 'travel knitting' to 'every spare minute knitting', yes?

Monday, November 30, 2009

Estonian Lace - The Haapsalu Shawl

I first read about this fabulous-looking book over at Northern Lace, an enormously enjoyable blog in its own right, but especially for tips such as this. (You can read the actual post here.)

Bottom line:

Lace stitch dictionary
Gorgeous photography
History

Do I need to say I've been trying to get my hands on a copy ever since?

The good news: the English translation is finally available!
The bad news: for some reason I haven't been able to get the website to process my payment.

If you feel you'd like to have a copy, you too can try ordering directly from the publisher. The pricing is in Estonian Kroon, which you can convert into your own currency here (it works out to about $55 Cdn., including shipping, as of today.)

Or you can also order it from this very nice shop.

* * * *

Updated to add: my order went through!! so exciting...

Friday, November 27, 2009

Charting

It had to happen sometime... you can't be writing up patterns and admiring lace and cable stitches and avoid charting forever!

Fortunately, others have forged this trail already.

At first, I just used ordinary graph paper to pencil in my plans, only to discover that the shaping - big surprise - looked very different once knit. So I was very pleased to find this free source of gauge-specific charting paper.

Also at first, I made a chart for myself and then wrote up the pattern as text.

But having fallen for stitch repeats greater than four stitches over four rows I can't really get away with that any more, so I was even more pleased to find the blog of a Very Clever and Very Generous person who figured out how to chart in Excel and related software and then went to the trouble to share the details.

And now you know what I'm doing today. Well, that and avoiding the resident box of Turtles.

Thursday, November 26, 2009

Comfort shopping

I realize that most people reading this are taking a break from basting a turkey or wondering whether anybody will notice a missing piece of pie (tip: serve the pie from the kitchen, or on a platter of cut pieces, and nobody has to know)

but after wishing said people a Very Happy Thanksgiving, I will also say this:

Read it and weep.

No, seriously. Gorgeous word sketches of Italian places you're probably not in at this very moment! And a freshly blooming white amaryllis, which is also probably not on your table.

And...

beautifully hand-dyed, hand-spun yarn that you can't have, because I beat you to it!

I know, I'm mean.

And fiendishly plotting how best to put Corriedale handspun into a hat.

And very aware that the lovely, peaceful, inspiring thoughts at Quite A Handful can't possibly induce competitiveness or gnashing of teeth. Really, it's almost as good as chocolate, this reading of blogs full of photographs of life in New Zealand.

(But buying yarn from said New Zealanders is better, heh heh heh.)

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Countdown to panic

While I've been frolicking about prepping holiday patterns to share (there's one more coming in a week or two, so stay tuned) a helpful friend pointed out that there is now

ONE MONTH

to Christmas. Less than that, actually, if the last time you will see people with whom you exchange gifts is a week before Christmas.

And if those people are also the ones for whom you are knitting... well.

Or do I mean, not well? As in: how I am feeling right now.

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Storage maximization

I have a pretty good stash cupboard for my knitting, but it's a flight of stairs and a couple of rooms away from my desk, where I usually sort out what I'm going to be knitting next.

So a few months ago, when I spotted this garage organizer in the hardware store courtesy of Case Logic, I knew exactly what I could do with it.



I've stuck it to the inside of my closet door with adhesive hooks from 3M. It won't support a lot of weight, but yarn isn't so terribly heavy. And neither are the spare needles, or the empty bags (both plastic and tiny happy) ready to hold a project in progress or yarn in transit, or the earphones I forget why I needed so badly.

Monday, November 23, 2009

Lazy Day Lace Hat - a free pattern

I had intended to get this sequel to the Lazy Day Lace Shawl out to my fellow Holiday Knitters over a month ago, but as you may have noticed, I've been preoccupied with patterning a different hat set and a nifty scarf.

Better late than never:


This is a much quicker knit than the Shawl, too - two relaxing evenings in front of the TV will do it.

I made my original hat back in September and I've been testing it out in different weather conditions ever since: it is surprisingly warm in temperatures as low as freezing and also in gusty winds, when secured over a ponytail using the resize-able gap for same.


Note the use of matching Shawl as scarf. I am really, really enjoying wearing these two pieces together.

And it's funny... you wouldn't think something with as many holes as a lace hat knit on large needles would hold in the heat, but, in wool at least, it does. Strength in fragility, that's what this hat is about.

Other perks:

It's sized for both young girls and grown women, with a variation for light fingering to match a shawl made with that


A buttonhole tab on the side makes further adjustments a snap (I employed this feature for gifting purposes to minimize risk of the wrong size choice, but have been resizing mine near daily to suit my hair of the moment)


You can kind of flop it over to wear as a beret


and

Based on the reactions I get when I wear it, the style appeals to women of all ages.

Does it get any better than this?

(I hope so, because I love tinkering with hat ideas!)


Download .pdf of Lazy Day Lace Hat

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Candy Wrapper Scarflet - a pattern for a song

Remember my amazing discovery of a fast, functional, and fun-to-wear knit that fits adults and children and can be tucked into a pencilcase-sized tiny happy purse for gifting?

And when I say fast, I mean: you can make it in an evening!


I absolutely love pieces that multitask, so you can guess how happy I am with the way this scarflet came out. The loopy lower edge makes natural buttonholes all around the border, so - with the aid of a button hidden on the underside -


you can hold it close or leave it wide open.


It's surprisingly warm for so small a piece.


And it's such a standout way to finish an outfit, or bring some glamour and sheen to basic black - a necklace that isn't cold against your skin or weird with a turtleneck.


It has to be said, though: in a looser-spun yarn like the red sample, it curls a bit.

Not so with the blue Candy Wrapper, which is 'Teal' in Vesper Mohair Merino (formerly Vesper Kid Mohair - same great yarn, new great name.) The Mohair Merino is spun just snugly enough that you have to deliberately separate the three strands. Until you do you have a balanced, round yarn over your palm.

I consider the Vesper yarn a bargain; it's $15 US for a 100g skein, super soft, gorgeously dyed, and though the scarflet pattern calls for 100 yards to allow for a gauge swatch and differences in each knitter's tension, I am pretty sure you can squeeze two Candy Wrappers out of it. I have 65 grams left from the 100 gram skein I didn't knit a swatch from.

As for colours... Vesper yarns sell out almost as quickly as they're dyed, but the shop is updated weekly, so you never have to wait long for a chance at your favourites.

If you're not mad for extra curl and you want to try another yarn in the meantime - say, something already in your stash and ready to go - choose one that's spun snugly, so it's balanced and round. Or block it really really firmly!

Candy Wrapper Scarflet

Difficulty Level:
Easy to Intermediate

Materials:
92m/100 yds Knitterly Things “Vesper Merino Mohair” (55% mohair, 45% merino wool, 129m/142 yds, 100g/3½ oz per skein) – 11 wraps per inch
1 set 5mm/US 8 straight or circular needles
1 stitch marker
1 tapestry needle
blocking pins
1 flat-style ¾”/19mm button



Download the .pdf of Candy Wrapper Scarflet

Avenue Hat and Handwarmers - two almost free patterns

Not long ago, Louise at Biscotte et Cie paid me the enormous compliment of inviting me to knit an exclusive hat design for her shop.

We all know how I feel about Biscotte yarns! Of course I leapt at the chance, and couldn't believe my luck when she offered me not only a blend of lambswool, angora, and cashmere - but also, my choice of solid, semi-solid, or striped.

This, my friends, is the Dream Project to which I have been alluding over the past month:




First off, I have to tell you that the yarn in question, Precieux, is even more spectacular than it sounds. I am an impatient knitter - I knit for product, not process - yet I ripped the hat out repeatedly 'to make it better'.

Yeah
. Not at all to prolong the knitting experience! And there are about to be more colours, to make it even harder to resist.

Apart from trying out a top-down design, the better to rip back a few rows or add some if you discover on Christmas morning that the person you knit for has a longer or shorter head than anticipated (something that happened to me with two different hats last year) I'd been thinking of a particular stitch sequence I thought would be

satisfying to knit
attractive to wear
stretchy for stress-free gifting and
unisex

It came out looking even lovelier than I'd imagined, thanks to the halo and the rich colour Louise is so good at creating.

When I was finally done, I realized there was enough yarn left to make handwarmers, and spent about a week trying to talk myself out of pushing aside my other urgent projects and making them instead.



No luck.

(I ripped these out more than a few times to reknit, too.)

And I'm about to order some more Precieux for myself, because I am just not ready to let go.

So: for the price of a skein of some of the most gorgeous yarn you will ever knit with, you get, free with purchase, a pattern for a hat that is warm as all get-out yet as light as can be, and offered in four sizes from children to adult,

plus a pattern for matching handwarmers offered in both a child and adult size. And you can make even the largest hat and adult handwarmers out of just one skein.


The adult handwarmers fit a guy just as comfortably as a girl - I just knew that stitch pattern would make for good stretch!


Click here to buy yourself some Precieux and get both patterns free

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Announcing: big changes and a new look!

It's been a very busy month or two here at Hugs, and it all started when I met a technical editor so delightful it took me several hours to realize I'd met a technical editor.

Here's the thing: when I started writing patterns a mere 11 months ago, I was writing them as a writer, which - coincidentally - I am. The instructions were long and ramble-y and took up more pages than they needed to. I described how I did things, rather than using standard knitting abbreviations. And the more patterns I offered here, and the more people came to get them, the more I felt I really ought to do better than that.

I needed a technical editor, and I didn't know where to find one - until suddenly, I did!

And now that she's pored over my most challenging pattern (hello, Meditation Mittens) and given me a very good checklist of how a pattern should look, I've updated everything to conform to that standard.

I've also updated my pattern format:


There are several advantages to the new look.

All the necessary materials for a pattern are listed on the left, with a fold line so you can get that information right out of the way if, like me, you sometimes fold up your instructions and tuck them into a little knitting pouch.

There is also a generous margin at the top for those who like to print onto three-hole punch paper, or simply punch post-printing, for storage in a ring binder.

Best of all I think, I've managed to fit everything onto fewer pages - in many cases, just one.

All my patterns going forward will be getting a proper technical edit before I post them to ensure they're as straightforward as possible, though of course, any remaining errors will be mine alone and not the fault of my most fabulous technical editor.

So, thank you to everybody who's dropped in over the last few months for a look at what I've been up to with my knitting, and I hope you'll all enjoy the new Hugs!

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Another knitty use for the kitchen scale

I don't know about you, but I like knitting my socks simultaneously.

Being so inexperienced with sizing and fitting and heel turning and so forth, I find they travel better that way - when I get done with one mindless knitting section in a place where I can't start into something requiring attention, I can just switch to the other sock. Also: I can be sure to make both identical.

And because I have never met a cake to knit from both ends of that didn't knot itself up in the first 10 minutes, this means I have to count off the yards for two equal-length balls of yarn.

Enter the kitchen scale:


You may recognize this Midnight Sheep yarn from last week's What To Do?? sock conundrum. I still haven't quite resolved that, but I did decide it is going to be socks for somebody, and therefore should be divided.


I think I got pretty close just eyeballing it, don't you? But hey, I have a scale! I can wind one a bit smaller and do better:




HA. I may never have to measure out yarn by the yard on my grandfather's 36"wide desk again.