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Maintaining Cat Bordhi’s legacy

[What follows is an open letter to the knitting community. See below for everyone who signed on. See CatBordhi.com for more about Cat’s legacy, and Val Curtis’s part in …

Just enough structure

Those of you that know Myra Wood know that she’s exceptional in oh so many ways: Her creativity. Her skill in creating free-form works of art in knitting, crochet, and …

National Craft Month promotions

I try not to get too smarmy in this blog, but this time it's for a good cause.

Today through March 13, Craftsy is celebrating National Craft Month in a …

Alexa

Those of you that follow me on Facebook know that I have a thing for swatching. I even went through a phase of regularly posting swatch photos.

.

…

Q&A

Ask anyone who’s been teaching knitting at the “big” events for a couple years (or anyone who’s done a fair bit of designing, I suppose), and they’ll tell you they …

Cogitating

One of the things I’ve always wanted Stitch-Maps.com to be able to do is highlight the spaces between stitch columns.

Or, to put it another way, to break …

A little surreal

You know how I’ve said that I drew stitch maps by hand, long before developing Stitch-Maps.com? Well, I found a little proof today. And it was a little …

Knitting Fresh Brioche

Check out the latest addition to my knitting bookshelves:

It’s Knitting Fresh Brioche by Nancy Marchant, and it’s fabulous.

The …

Filling in the blanks

Let’s say you want to design a shawl composed of lace wedges. You have a lace pattern in mind, and you want each wedge to grow by two stitches …

I could not have said it better myself

Yesterday, while scoping out the knitting shelves at a local bookstore, I found a gently used copy of Martha Waterman’s Traditional Knitted Lace Shawls. Since I’m in the middle …

And we have a winner!

And we have a winner in the Curls give-away! Jules O, I’ll contact you via email shortly. Everybody else: Thanks for playing! And thanks for the lovely comments on …

Pavonated

So, as I was saying, I knit one of Hunter’s Curls a few weeks back. Now, one of the (many!) awesome things about Curls is that you can use …

Curls

Guess what I have?

It’s a copy of Curls: Versatile, Wearable Wraps to Knit at Any Gauge. Whee! So many pretty patterns.

For months now, …

FO report

Remember that swatching I did a few weeks back? For the stole with a bend in it? Well, over the weekend I finished the stole.

From the back, it …

Still learning

Yesterday, in the Stitch-Maps.com news article announcing the availability of symbols for Estonian gathers, I mentioned that stitch maps are awesome for seeing which stitches to knit loosely on …

More swatching

Yesterday I spent an obscene amount of time swatching, not to choose yarn, or needle size, or stitch pattern, but get this: to figure out how to shape some lace …

Rosebuds

Sometimes I’m a little slow on the uptake. Stitch-Maps.com had been up and running for a few months before I started making use of stitch maps in the classes that …

Yes, please

One of the best parts of Knitty is the Cool stuff! page. It always alerts me to stuff I want to check out further. Case in point: Everyday Lace by …

Elizabeth

Remember the stitch map I showed you the other day for the Elizabeth edging?

That stitch map prompted this swatch:

I think I prefer this …

Instant inspiration

This morning I read Hunter Hammersen’s blog post on Everyday Lace, and do you know what caught my eye? Not the eloquent account of the book’s virtues. Not …

Coronet, addendum

The original plan was to map a doily pattern and convert it to a wedge shape. But once that was done, I found I couldn’t stop fiddling.

Looking at …

Coronet, step 2

Okay, this was the fun part: color-coding the in-the-round stitch maps for Coronet, using one color for the repeated stitches and another for the “extra” stitches needed to balance …

Coronet, step 1

Over the weekend I was seized by the need to map a lace doily pattern and convert it to a wedge shape. (You know, because I just can’t get enough …

New Vintage Lace

Have you seen New Vintage Lace? I love this book! Andrea Jurgrau takes vintage doily patterns, lifts out and rejiggers their intricate motifs, and reinvents them as stunning hats, …

A change of heart

You know how I said Stitch-Maps.com would throw up its hands and say, “I can’t do that” when asked to draw a cable cross on a WS row? Well, …

The WS conundrum

Cable crosses are typically worked on right-side rows. But what if Stitch-Maps.com is asked to draw a cable cross on a wrong-side row? What should it do then?

…

Where to draw the line?

With hundreds of possible cable crosses, where should Stitch-Maps.com draw the line? Which cable crosses should it support, at least at first?

To figure this out, I pulled …

A matter of legibility

Like I said, I think most cabled stitch patterns are best charted using traditional, grid-based charts. Then you can use simple, streamlined symbols like these:

But with …

The LT/RT controversy

When it comes to cable cross abbreviations like 2/2 RC, the StitchMastery Knitting Chart Editor really gets it right. That piece of charting software recognizes a slew of cable cross …

Choosing abbreviations

The first step in adding support for a new set of stitches to Stitch-Maps.com is figuring out what abbreviations to recognize. Which bits of text should map (no pun intended!) …

Musings

Don’t get me wrong. The grand majority of the time, I think that cabled stitch patterns, like knit/purl patterns, are best charted using traditional grid-based charts. The grid provides structure, …

Slightly obsessed

In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m a bit obsessed with stitch patterns. So it’s no surprise that, as I’m flipping through Textured Stitches by Connie Chang Chinchio, part of …

Two-fer

Remember how I said I was going to update my patterns to include stitch maps? Yeah, that project fell by the wayside. (Too many projects! Too little time!)

…

Jolie, revisited

Long-time readers of this blog will remember Jolie, a lace scarf knit in Berroco Ultra Alpaca Fine.

Ditto my rantings on how its edging …

Traveling

Next up in the series of patterns updated to include stitch maps is the Traveling Vines scarf.

I don’t know what I like most about …

Updated

You know those Sidewinder socks I posted about yesterday? The pattern has been available for almost two years, but now it features a little facelift:

Travel knitting

Lately it seems I get most of my knitting done while traveling. Case in point:

Before Stitches Midwest, knowing that I would …

Collecting

Yesterday I visited Rhinebeck for the first time, and what did I do? Buy fiber and yarn? Nope, I don't spin, and my yarn stash overfloweth already. Instead, I did …

Inspired

Last weekend’s test-run of my new Wedge Shawl Design class went quite well, if I do say so myself. Oh, sure, there was a hiccup or two, and you know …

Busy, busy, busy

Did you take some time off this holiday weekend? I did. It was fabulous.

But now it’s back to work, and oh, my. If I think too much …

Dreaming of Shetland

It’s almost here: the long-awaited ebook Dreaming of Shetland. Conceived as a fundraiser for Deb Robson’s explorations of Shetland and Shetland sheep, it’s grown to include several essays and …

The cat is outta the bag

What have I been doing for the past couple months? Not blogging, clearly. Not knitting, either. Rather, I've been working on this:

And this:

Highlights

Let me tell you about a couple highlights from my weekend at the Loopy Ewe Spring Fling. (Besides the camaraderie and the dessert reception, of course.)

…

This never happens

Tomorrow I fly to Colorado for the Loopy Ewe Spring Fling. Except for a few last-minute items, I’m all packed. And guess what? Everything fit into just two …

An experiment

Remember the center-out square of Fountain Lace that I knit a couple weeks back? I decided to turn it into a stole, extending two sides of the square to …

Why we save yarn from past projects

I’m still making progress on the Fountain Lace piece, but yesterday I took some time out to repair my tattered gloves:

Irrestistible

When I finished Daphne, what did I do next?

• Repair the tattered fingers on my gloves?
• Re-sole DH’s house slippers?
• Fix the hole in my …

Catch-up

Goodness, it’s been a long time since I’ve blogged. And today would most likely be another no-blogging day, except I have a tiny case of finishitis. (You know, the complement …

Finis

Yet another pair of toe socks, finished:

They’re much the same as my …

Ready to travel

With the repair of DH’s socks out of the way, I’m back to making good progress on my toe socks:

Having grafted together …

Da Hubster did it again

Once again, DH has worn holes through his handknits – this time, through the soles of a pair of socks.

Side note: He …

Potato chips

Right after completing the dubbelmossa, I needed to cast on for another project. (Because none of the UFOs hidden under the end table would do, of course.) What did …

A Christmas story

Years and years ago, Da Hubster started asking questions over dinner one night. “How much yarn do you need to knit a sweater? What do you mean, ‘it depends on …

Belated FO report

A year ago, I had an idea for a scarf. Months ago, I knit the scarf. And I was disappointed: given my limited yarn supply, the scarf ended up …

More toes

Grab a cup of tea; this is gonna be a long one.

•

I’d like to tell you that I finished two pairs of socks in the past …

Too early?

Catching up on blog and Facebook posts this morning, I’m reminded of the tradition of “the Rhinebeck sweater,” the idea that one should parade around Rhinebeck wearing freshly-minted handknits. And …

Whee!

While at Stitches East this past weekend (a fabulous event, as always), I found out that I get to teach at next February’s Madrona retreat. I don’t yet know exactly …

I stand corrected

It was brought to my attention yesterday that Cat’s Sweet Tomato Heel Socks e-book suggests working increases on the sole before knitting the heel, if you have a high arch. …

Ten toes and three heels

Secret project out of the way, I was able to return to and finish my “gotta have ’em now” toe socks:

I’m thrilled that I pulled …

On hold

My crescent shawlette project is on hold. I’d predicted fairly early on that I’d need a second skein of yarn (Valley Yarns Charlemont Kettle Dye in dark olive – …

Because I can

A couple weeks back, my laptop went kaput. No coaxing from the local Mac doctor could revive it. I was told that replacing the hard drive (to the tune of …

Deviating from Plan A

Lately I haven’t been knitting much because another project has grabbed all my interest, but I still need to have something on my needles, you know? So I’m futzing around …

Staying power

Whee! Unicorn just released its TNNA Top Books list, the list of bestselling books at the industry’s top trade show. Charts Made Simple ranked as #8, after being out …

Swatching yet again

Last month while at Churchmouse I scored a couple skeins of Loft:

Oh, such lovely stuff. For a month, those skeins sat on my …

Entrelac Knitting at Craftsy

It can be a little weird to teach a class while knowing that another teacher is scheduled to teach essentially the same class at the same event. For instance, I’m …

The Yarn Thing

Did you catch The Yarn Thing podcast this morning? (Yes, yes, I know I should’ve reminded y’all about it yesterday. My flimsy excuse was that I was out of the …

Fitting

Remember how I said the Be Sweet Skinny Wool clearly wanted to be brioche? The Fyberspates Scrumptious Lace clearly wanted to be lace. And not just any lace: …

Upcoming fun and games

Mark your calendars: next Tuesday, June 12th, I get to be part of Marly Bird’s The Yarn Thing podcast! We’ll talk about Charts Made Simple (“what? that old …

Playing around

Lately, I haven’t been able to commit to any long-term projects. Shoot, I haven’t been able to commit to anything bigger than a swatch. But that’s okay. I like swatching.

…

Alchemy

Blocking is such an awesome thing, isn’t it?

It can take a ruffled mess like this:

And turn it into this:

Myths and fabrications

Tomorrow I get to give a presentation to the Seattle Knitters Guild, and I’m really looking forward to it – but that’s a recent development.

For months, I …

This End Up

I just realized I never posted photos of the finished pedicure socks:

I finished these socks just before leaving for Stitches South – …

Bright ideas

Now available! The long-awaited workshop schedule for Interweave Knitting Lab California is up and ready for review. Be sure to check out the special events, and the “post-event” classes …

Gratifying

Wanna see what I did at Stitches South?

On my way to Stitches, I realized I had a chunk of …

Ready

Just in time for Stitches South:

Vital stats: Going Green from knit, Swirl!, in Mirasol Nuna, on 3.5 mm needles.

Oddly, the …

On target

The Swirl progressed nicely over the weekend, thanks to knitting while watching The Help (that’s a solid 2.5 hours right there) and knitting while on the front porch Sunday afternoon …

Working backwards

It’s amazing what a little time spent on airplanes does for my knitting productivity:

Before heading to the DFW Fiber Fest – …

Which means

Friday is the first day of the DFW Fiber Fest (whee! can’t wait!), which means Thursday is a travel day, which means today is laundry and packing day, which means …

Proof that my mom does not understand me

Today’s trip to the mailbox revealed a surprise package from my mom:

(What you need to know is that my mom …

Really?

Really? It's Friday already? And the second half of March? How’d that happen??

Oh, yeah. It’s because I’ve been deeply submerged in a secret project. It’s big; I’ve been …

Surgery at 30,000 feet

It’s been a couple weeks, but I still have a story to share from my trip to Stitches West.

Stitches was fabulous, as usual. A real highlight was …

WIP report

In a couple hours I’m off for a fun-filled weekend at Stitches West. But first, I wanted to update y’all on my projects.

The Swirl has really grown:

On a rock

You might think from my lack of recent posts that I’ve been hiding under a rock, but the truth is I’ve been on a rock: San Juan island, site …

Better when blocked

Blocking makes such a huge difference, doesn’t it?

It wasn’t my most patient or meticulous blocking job, but I think it turned out okay. Even …

All sewn up

Last Friday I finally finished binding off the second edging piece for my Estonian shawl – despite the aggravation of having three stitches get away from me and start to …

Road trip

Next May, I get to road trip to Seattle. The knitting guild there has asked me to be the featured speaker for their monthly guild meeting. Whee! Ought to be …

Reassurance

This weekend I totally surprised myself by finishing the first edging piece for my Estonian shawl. Granted, it was a long weekend, and the weather was miserable, so I had …

Sanity savers

I don’t suppose it’s any surprise I’ve been dragging my heels on my Estonian shawl project. I mean, really, who looks forward to casting on 565 stitches?

Decision time

Remember that Estonian shawl I’ve been working on for months? Back in November, I estimated that I could knit 15 or 16 vertical repeats of the main pattern before …

Sucker

I’m a sucker for stitch dictionaries. That’s why I had to get this:

Tooting my own horn

Excuse me while I toot my own horn for a moment. Charts Made Simple has made two “best of 2011” book lists. Library Journal says:

Knitters who are …

Whoa

Have you seen this? And this? Stunning Escher-inspired patchwork blankets, made all the more impressive by the skillful use of textures: ribbing for feathers, seed stitch for scales, …

Sign-up time

The news is out: I get to be one of the designers in the 2012 Knit Purl Sock Club. In keeping with the theme of “Masterpieces,” each kit’s colorway and …

Unsustainable

Whew! Thirty days in NaBloPoMo, and thirty blog posts. (If you count this one. Which I will.) What have I learned from this experiment?

Posting daily …

Bizarre

Yesterday I was with some new acquaintances when one of ’em asked me what I did for a living. The long answer would’ve been something like “I teach knitting, and …

To each their own

One of the reasons I love charts is that they’re a sort of universal language. It doesn’t matter where a chart comes from – a publication written in English, German, …

Additional mischief

Yes, yes, I know I’m in the midst of an Estonian shawl, and that I just cast on for a Swirl. But that hasn’t stopped me from contemplating additional mischief, …

Here we go again

So I’ve started my next Swirl.

The butterfly is leftover tail from the long-tail cast-on. I could’ve used a separate …

Hexipuff #2

As suspected, knitting from the center out gave me exactly the kind of hexipuff I wanted:

Vital stats: Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks that Rock …

Thankful

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody! I’m going to keep this short (and hopefully not too sappy), but let me say that as a knitter I’m grateful for the huge selection of yarn, …

Fearlessness

Mining the NaBlogPoMo site for blog fodder worked so well yesterday, let’s try again today. Let’s tweak the prompt for November 14 and look at the question, “Have you …

The moment when

In search of blog fodder today, I checked out the NaBloPoMo writing prompts. The one for November 16 caught my eye: “What is the moment that you leave childhood …

No rest for the process knitter

As promised, a hexipuff photo:

Here are the vital stats: Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks that Rock mediumweight, using 3.25 mm needles. Started …

Translating

I’m pleased to report that my last Nuna swatch has finally finished drying, and it measures 23½ sts per 4". I figure that’s close enough to the target of 24: …

Confession

After fulfilling my MDKR on my shawl today, what did I do?

• A. Keep going on the shawl.
• B. Start winding skeins for my next Swirl.
…

Asking for it

Speaking of never having enough yarn or time to play with it, look what came in the mail yesterday:

Yup, it’s a bag of Mirasol …

Never enough

The new Knitcircus is out – have you read it yet? Some of my favorite designs include the Confection Hat and the French Roast Cardi: each is a smart …

Just to be clear

A couple weeks back I talked about the notion that you can get a looser cast-on edge by casting on over larger needles or over two needles held together. Nope, …

Going south

XRX has posted the class schedule for Stitches South – and, jeez, it’s jam-packed again. I’m looking forward to teaching some of my favorite classes. Two of ’em are …

Crazed

All last night I kept dreaming* of “hexipuffs,” the little hexagon shaped units of the beekeeper’s quilt. How I’d knit them. How I’d stuff them. How I’d arrange the …

More swatching required

Blocking my Swirl swatches revealed something odd.

Going Green calls for 24 stitches per 4" …

Containment

A few days ago, the shawl reached the point where it needs to be contained – not so much to keep floppiness in check, as with some other projects I’ve …

sigh

The Estonian shawl remains at the top of my knitting basket, but I’m still finding bits of time here and there to swatch for my next Swirl. So far, …

Overdue

Today I finally got around to something that I arguably should’ve done weeks ago: estimating to what length I can knit my Estonian shawl, given the amount of yarn that …

An idea

Sheri’s most recent blog post got me thinking. For the past few months, I’ve had a series of Fiesta sampler skeins marinating in my stash:

In the running

You’ve heard of Patternfish, right? It’s a top-notch source of patterns, nearly 10,000 of them.

Which pattern gets the honor of being the 10,000th? You get to …

Nupp paranoia

Astute readers of last Tuesday’s post might have noticed a thin green line running through my WIP:

That’s a lifeline, a bit of waste yarn run …

Best laid plans

Well, it seems Joan and I won’t be attending the Beyond Toes trunk show at Twisted today. Joan picked up a cold at Interweave Knitting Lab and is staying home …

Beyond Toes

I just realized I’ve been utterly remiss in not mentioning Beyond Toes, Judy Becker’s new book. (Sorry, Judy!)

As the subtitle says, it’s a series of Knitting …

What she said

Have you listened to the latest Knitcircus podcast? I have; I was the one nodding my head vigorously as Amy blasted open the myth that you can give a …

Not cheating

It may look like I’m cheating on my shawl project, but I’m not. Not really, anyway.

Say hello to Mirasol Nuna, a yummy blend of …

Sucking less

Check out this article: “I Suck at Photoshop.” The subtitle is telling: “Except I Don’t, and You Don’t Suck at That Thing You’re ‘Bad at’ Either.” The whole …

Maybe by March

Remember that Haapsalu shawl I wrote about in my last post? I decided to place a narrow border around the whole thing. Traditionally, that’d mean knitting the body of …

It better be worth it

Lately I’ve been enthralled by Estonian lace. I’m not sure what got me off on this kick, but I do know what’s fueled it along:

• Taking in the …

Contemporary Irish Knits

Have your heard? Carol Feller puts a new spin on traditional Irish knits in Contemporary Irish Knits, a collection of fresh and exceptionally wearable designs.

…

Suggestions, anyone?

As much as possible, I try not to whine on this blog. And when I wrote last week about having to rip back a sock, I didn’t think I …

Good news, bad news

Good news: I’m really digging a sock design I came up with just before Stitches Midwest. Any spare moment I had outside of class, I worked a few more rounds.

Swatch therapy

The swatch therapy continues. The Merino Silk Lace from indigodragonfly blocked out beautifully:

What you can’t really see in the photo is how the yarn glows. …

Thanks

I’ve had two weeks to think about it, and I’m just as certain as ever of two things: Sock Summit 2011 was a smashing success, and I was an utter …

Across the pond

Guess what finally made it to the other side of the pond – Charts Made Simple, that’s what! It’s now available at Amazon.co.uk and, with distribution help from Search …

Once and for all

Some of you may recall that, years ago, Threads magazine used to include articles on knitting and other fiber crafts in addition to sewing. Fabulous articles, really. Full of inspiration …

Experimental sock

Remember the toe I mentioned in my last post? The one with the kfb increases? It’s turned into a sock:

For the most part, it’s …

Toe #4

This past week I’ve been on a sock-knitting kick. This is a good thing: with Sock Summit right around the corner, it’s high time to be in a sock-knitting mood. …

Is it a bag, or ...?

Nadine, you were right: Full o’ Sheep felts up funny.

Despite being a smooth yarn, it produces a surprisingly bumpy felted fabric, …

Gone

What do you mean it’s July? Where did June go?

Oh, yeah. First there was TNNA, where Sandra McIver’s knit, Swirl! was the hit of the show floor. …

Searching

Lately, since finishing my Swirl, I haven't felt much like knitting because... oh, well, your guess is as good as mine. But I suspect it might be this: while …

Been there, done that

As I started reading the latest issue of Knitcircus, I thought to myself, “I ought to send them a copy of Charts Made Simple for review.” And then I …

I went to Spring Fling and all I got were Monkey Farts

Not true, of course: I came away from The Loopy Ewe’s Spring Fling with a bunch of surprise goodies. But when I won a “Monkey Farts”-scented lotion bar as …

Jane likes it

Over the weekend, I finished knitting my Swirl – whoo hoo! So Monday morning found me on my knees, threading blocking wires through the edges of a dampened Swirl and …

Bribery, decadence, and guilt

All week long, I had been dragging on my heels on a task that needed to get done this week. It doesn’t really matter what it was, but it did …

Three quick announcements

• Stitches South was a blast, as usual. A highlight for me when two students who were in last year’s Charts Made Simple class said that instead of refusing to …

Progress

Sock Camp was a great opportunity to make progress on my Swirl jacket. What once looked like brain coral is now clearly a giant octagon with a hole in the …

Down the rabbit hole

Once upon a time, I managed a computer lab with a raised floor. Cables of all sorts ran under floor tiles that you could lift, revealing a hoard of dust …

Pretty sure

Over the weekend, I finally had a chance to start my Swirl. You’ll notice I decided to go for the gray/black combo rather than the gray/purple.

A pretty package

Look what came in the mail!

It’s from Abundant Yarns – and it came with a surprise.

Introducing Abigail

Last spring I made a couple references in this blog to a stealth knitting project. That project was Abigail.

…

Inclusivity

Over the weekend I received a curious email. Mary wrote to let me know she had posted a review of Charts Made Simple in Ravelry’s On The Other Hand …

Today is Thursday

Franklin Habit wrote a too-true post last week about the disorientation that comes with travel, and needing to remind himself where he is and what he needs to do.

…

An apt comparison

Clara Parkes wrote the coolest review of Charts Made Simple yesterday. My favorite quote: “To resist charts in knitting is like resisting the purl stitch.” Too true!

By …

Unnecessary funkiness

Some of you may have noticed that, of late, the actual knitting content on this blog has been... well... sparse. Practically absent.

Partly it’s because my attention has been …

Is it real yet?

At long last, Charts Made Simple is now available for order through Amazon.

Does that mean the book is “real”? More real than when it wasn’t available …

Stump the Chart Wizard

When most knitting books go on the road, they go in the form of a trunk show: garments featured in the book are packed up, shipped to a yarn shop, …

They made it!

All morning, I kept listening for the tell-tale drone of the UPS truck. False alarms made me all jittery, then crushed my spirit. Finally, mid-day, these arrived:

Sock news

Sock Summit 2011 is approaching fast, and nobody knows it better than ST-1. Among a million other tasks, they’ve got to figure out who will teach what during four …

That time again

In the past few weeks I haven’t been doing any teaching. (With good reason! Who wants to take a knitting class during the holiday season?) But that doesn’t mean I’ve …

Not for me

The other day I saw a demonstration of bobbin lace. Sheesh, did that lacemaker make those bobbins fly! I have no clue how she could move so fast, yet …

Who woulda thunk?

I had the best time today writing up the pattern for a scarf I plan to knit.

This is odd. Most designers (myself included) would say that pattern-writing isn’t …

Limbo

With Charts Made Simple in the printer’s hands, I’m kind of at loose ends. Tasks that had been sucking up gobs of time are now completed, but I’m not ready …

Red-letter day

This morning, FedEx dropped off a long-awaited package: print proofs for Charts Made Simple. The color cover was separate from the interior, and the interior had been printed on …

FO parade

A couple weeks ago, after realizing I had a few too many WIPs sitting around, I took action. First, I finished this:

This scarf had been …

Planes, trains, and automobiles

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 …

Is it startitis, or ...?

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. …

A million little details

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 …

Not quite perfect

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:

…

More than halfway

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 …

Time for new ones

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:

Winging it

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 …

Indecision

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 …

A matched pair

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 …

A change of pace

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, …

So little to show

I just spent a week in London at Knit Nation, and all I have to show for it is this:

Oh, don’t get me …

Jumbotron

Recently I haven’t been blogging about interesting knitting projects because... well, because this is what I’ve been knitting:

Oodles of I-cord. Yards and yards of I-cord. …

Tempe

It’s official: this September I get to teach at Tempe Yarn and Fiber. I’m looking forward to it – I’ve heard all kinds of good things about the shop.

…

Too much

You know you spend too much time thinking about knitting when you try out a new dental floss, and it shreds...

...and the first thought that runs …

That depends

Another bit of early feedback on Charts Made Simple questioned how mosaic charts are drawn: If the mosaic is worked on a base of garter stitch, should the chart squares …

Color and texture

In the past few weeks, I’ve sent an early draft of Charts Made Simple to a few knitters, and asked for feedback: Does the book cover what it should? And …

A quick fix

I’m a sucker for completing projects, for crossing items off my to-do list. Making progress isn’t enough: I need to finish projects on a regular basis, or I get as …

Matching CO and BO

Last weekend was Black Sheep Gathering. As usual, it was a blast and a half. I missed out on the Sheep to Shawl competition, but I got to watch …

Flow

Designing is lot like puzzle-solving. How do you get all the pieces – the yarns, the colors, the stitch patterns, the shaping details – to fit together into a cohesive, …

Avoiding hiccups

For the past couple weeks, I’ve been adding illustrations to Charts Made Simple. The goal has been to get the manuscript ready for review next week: four friends have …

Work avoidance as a productivity tool

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 …

Camille

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 …

Yachats

Hot off the needles: the Yachats socks.

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To finish the second sock, I did have to unravel a smidge of my swatch. I didn’t measure at …

Whew!

Talk about close! 41.4g required for the first sock; 41.6g remaining for the second sock. ’Course, I can …

What’s your guess?

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 …

Knit Nation

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 …

Checklists

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 …

Wavy is the way to go

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 …

On the bright side

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 …

Easily amused

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 …

A few minor hiccups

XRX has just posted the brochure for Stitches Midwest – and it looks like it’ll be a fabulous event! The schedule is packed with lots of new classes. And I’m …

Which do you prefer?

Lately I’ve been playing around with lace edgings. Here’s a favorite:

Normally, you’d see it charted like so:

A little epiphany

Over the past few years, I’ve drawn a lot of charts: for tech editing clients, for my own patterns, and just for my own use. My tool of choice is …

Ya gotta love blocking

Here’s a swatch of Blue Moon Fiber Arts Geisha, in Thistle Leaf pattern from A Second Treasury of Knitting Patterns by Barbara Walker, before and after blocking:

Not much to look at

My most recent FO isn’t much to look at: it’s just a simple hat, in k2, p2 rib, in a rather drab shade of brown.

…

Look what Clara made me do

Like many knitters, I’m on a yarn diet. It’s not that I have a huge stash, but it manages to grow faster than I can knit it. And I don’t …

Now what?

Last fall, I was surprised and pleased when Mona of Dye Dreams asked if I’d like to design a sock for their sock club. Choice of yarn base? Choice …

Tap, tap... is this thing on?

Well, after a series of fits and starts, here I am in blogland.

Why am I blogging? Partly to practice writing. Like anything else, I hear it gets easier with …