Author Archives: JC

About JC

Technique freak and skill junkie

Work avoidance as a productivity tool

By | June 1, 2010

Okay, I admit it: I fibbed yesterday when I said I finally managed to get Camille on Patternfish because I had gotten Yachats out of the way. No, truth be told, it was an example of work avoidance as a productivity tool. Maybe you’ve done this too, once or twice. Maybe, when faced with a […]

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Camille

By | May 31, 2010

Finishing up the Yachats pattern (and a stealth project before that) freed up some time to get back to a long-neglected project: Camille. Actually, I finished Camille some time ago… let’s see, must’ve been fall of 2007, as the pattern was initially published in the Spring 2008 issue of Twists and Turns. It includes some […]

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Yachats

By | May 26, 2010

Hot off the needles: the Yachats socks. To finish the second sock, I did have to unravel a smidge of my swatch. I didn’t measure at the time, but it must’ve been less than a yard’s worth of yarn. Had I known, of course I would’ve knit the swatch shorter… oh, well. I like how […]

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Whew!

By | May 20, 2010

Talk about close! 41.4g required for the first sock; 41.6g remaining for the second sock. ’Course, I can always unravel my swatch if I need a few more yards. And the size of the swatch (16.4g)  leads me to believe knitters will have enough yarn to knit size large socks, even though I’m knitting the […]

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What’s your guess?

By | May 17, 2010

Remember the stealth knitting project that I mentioned before Stitches South? It finally went off into the mail early last week, giving me time to turn to another, long-neglected project: the Dye Dreams socks. I’m happy to report significant progress in a week’s time. You can see that I decided to go with the fold-over […]

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Knit Nation

By | May 13, 2010

Have you heard about Knit Nation? Like the sign says, “Learn, shop, knit, spin!” The more I think about it, the more thrilled I am to be taking part. It’s in London, for cryin’ out loud! How fun will that be? I’m seriously looking forward to sneaking off to the V&A. I’m teaching six of […]

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Checklists

By | May 10, 2010

Yes, yes, I know this is a knitting blog. Bear with me for a minute. I’m currently reading The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right. It’s the third of three fabulous books by author Atul Gawande, a surgeon. His previous books, Better and Complications, explore the question of why things go wrong, despite the […]

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Wavy is the way to go

By | April 29, 2010

A few weeks back, I posted a couple charts for a lace edging. Both had a zig-zag left selvedge (just like the edging), to account for the change in stitch count from row to row. But one also included “no stitch” symbols, so the symbols in the chart could line up vertical like the stitches […]

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On the bright side

By | April 21, 2010

I got up at 5am this morning. I don’t normally do that, but I had to be on the road early today: Stitches South begins tomorrow in Atlanta, and I get to spend the day traveling across the country. Oh, the joys! A two-hour drive to the airport. Paying $25 to check a bag full […]

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Easily amused

By | April 16, 2010

For four years now, I’ve been drawing all my charts, schematics, and diagrams in Adobe Illustrator. It ain’t cheap, but it’s worth it: Illustrator produces publication-quality vector graphics (no jaggies from low-res bitmap graphics), and gives me complete control over every aspect of the final illustrations (yes, I might be a bit of a control […]

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