Author Archives: JC

About JC

Technique freak and skill junkie

Planes, trains, and automobiles

By | November 5, 2010

Get this: next February I’m attending Cat Bordhi’s Visionary retreat in Friday Harbor, WA. Immediately afterward, I’m teaching at Stitches West in Santa Clara, CA. To maximize carpooling, minimize expense, and enhance the likelihood that I’ll actually be where I’m supposed to be when I’m supposed to be there, here’s the game plan: 2/9 Get […]

Read more »

Is it startitis, or …?

By | November 3, 2010

Before a retreat in early September, I cast on for a cardigan, skipping my usual planning and calculating. I “needed” a substantial project to last me through the retreat. Current status: stalled, waiting for a chance to figure out the armhole and neck shaping. Before heading to Tempe in late September, I cast on for […]

Read more »

A million little details

By | October 22, 2010

Blog fodder has been a bit sparse lately. Not much knitting. No stash enhancement. No trip to Rhinebeck. sigh Rather, it’s been nose-to-grindstone, getting Charts Made Simple ready to go to the printer. Hoo boy, does self-publishing entail taking care of a million little details! Especially for a first book: choosing a printer, buying a […]

Read more »

Not quite perfect

By | October 5, 2010

I love my new River Twist gloves. Love the colors, love the way they fit. But I noticed yesterday that they aren’t quite perfect: Can you see this mismatch? Despite counting rows and taking notes so the gloves could be identical, I somehow managed to create cuffs of different lengths: the left is longer than […]

Read more »

More than halfway

By | September 27, 2010

Fingerless gloves turned out to be the perfect project to take on my trip to Tempe Yarn and Fiber. I got the first glove knit to the thumb opening before teaching All Thumbs on Thursday evening, so I was able to demo the process of setting the gusset stitches aside during class. In the evenings, […]

Read more »

Time for new ones

By | September 22, 2010

Tomorrow morning I head off to Tempe to teach for a few days, and as I was gathering samples for All Thumbs, I discovered this: My fingerless gloves are in serious need of replacement. These are the gloves I wear nearly every time I leave the house in the winter, plain black to match whatever […]

Read more »

Winging it

By | September 13, 2010

Sometimes, I can really crank out the knitting: That’s the body of a cardigan, knit from the bottom up through some subtle waist shaping to within a couple inches of the armhole shaping. It’s the Creative Focus Silk I mentioned in my last post. The game plan—after much head scratching and some sketching—is to have […]

Read more »

Indecision

By | August 30, 2010

Lately, I can’t seem to make up my mind about anything. For months now, I’ve been itching (no pun intended!) to design and knit a lightweight sweater. Possibly a cardigan, probably short- or 3/4-length sleeves. But other than that? I can’t decide on the yarn, despite several on hand that I really like. I can’t […]

Read more »

A matched pair

By | August 16, 2010

Finished! The slippers felted down nicely, forming a nice sturdy fabric. Even though it was 80+ degrees in the house, I wore them Saturday evening while they were still damp, so they’d conform to my feet. I now have left and right slippers, sized just right for wearing barefoot or with socks. (And they’re surprisingly […]

Read more »

A change of pace

By | August 13, 2010

On the left, needles of a size I normally use: 2.75 mm. Clearly within my happy range of 2.5 mm to 3.5 mm. On the right, a change of pace: 8 mm. Great, big, honkin’ needles, if you ask me.* The 8 mm needles were called into action for a felting project. (Shoot, I can’t […]

Read more »