Originally published in the Winter ‘07/Spring ‘08 issue of Knitscene, the crochet pattern is now available as in a free eBook from CrochetMe (How to Crochet Granny Squares with CrochetMe). The pattern with full article on how to dye the motifs with food coloring is available for sale through the Interweave online store.

Just updated on Ravelry, the Star Jasmine crochet lace headband pattern is now available in Australia/New Zealand/United Kingdom crochet terminology. Both the US/Canada version and the AUS/NZ/UK version are included in the Ravelry purchase.

$5.50 USD

My ‘net access is still very limited, but I opened the Etsy shop back up and for the most part that is running smoothly.

This site is going to get an overhaul in the very near future. Plans include making it much easier to navigate the patterns for sale, get information on patterns, and offering more merchandise (including photo prints).

For example: I’m working on making this photo available as postcards, and perhaps as a fridge magnet and stickers (I’m using SmugMug – if there’s a SmugMug Print or SmugMug Merchandise option you would like to purchase, let me know).

I’ve been meaning to make changes to this site from the start; as it has worked out for me, it took accepting an assignment from one of my day jobs that has worked out to not only having more cash on hand, but having actual weekends again. For the first time in many years, I have two days in a row off every week. Two entire days! So as a result, I have time to talk to a pro about what I’d like to do and what she recommends, and I have the money to pay her appropriately.

Speaking of making alterations, silent_bunny posted photos of the Funky Squirrel she knit up starting with the Mobile Monsters pattern from SNB Nation and adding a squirrel tail. SO CUTE.

I’m going to be online less in the near future, so I’ve put the Etsy shop into vacation mode and will be temporarily turning off comments to this blog soon. All sales will be run through Ravelry for now; I don’t like offering only one choice but at this time I think that Ravelry is the most likely to be able to offer some kind of help if a transaction does not go as smoothly as it should, and other Ravelers are likely to be able to offer up answers for questions people might have about patterns.

I will still be checking my email, but less frequently than I do now, so if you email me, it could be several days before I respond.

Hopefully I will have fun things and actual! finished! projects! to share with you in a couple of months!

It started out as me thinking about how to do a King Charles Brocade style knit/purl pattern in the round, and then became scribbling out ideas about different ways to transition into that (for shaping purposes; I’m thinking about how to incorporate it into a hat). I let myself just wander over the paper with the pencil, gridding out blocks and making eye-pleasing patterns.

From a technical aspect, I had been thinking about working out the math, and charting out the shaping and working out smaller patterns that would fit into the shaping. That’s the kind of thinking that gives me a headache – the good kind, I think, the kind that has me pushing at the boundaries of what is easy for me. That’s often a good starting point for me to go into a wandering creative direction, in which the seeds of the technical issue 1) start to annoy me, which often inspires me to find Something Else To Do, and 2) looking at patterns of lines and shapes light up other thoughts about how to express textures, and perhaps colorwork, and wouldn’t it be interesting to incorporate colorwork into the texture pattern, and oh, what if it was done in fingering-weight in strong colors, or in worsted Peace Fleece (have you seen the new colors for 2010 by the way? Baba’s Sienna looks like it would be gorgeous colorworked in a pattern with Volgassippi Blue, Soyuz-Apollo Teal, Baikal-Superior Green, Glasnost Gold, Chickie Masla, and a little hit of Violet Vyehcheyeerom), or in all soft colors (again with the Peace Fleece – Anna’s Grasshopper, Georgia Rose, Lena’s Meadow, Chickie Masla, Latvian Lavender...). This is, unsurprisingly, happening after I’ve done a massive de-stashing and gave my set of colored pencils to a child who has a great enthusiasm for colored pencils (how could I resist? His mother was telling me he calls out to her when she’s leaving the house to “bring back more colorrrrrrs!”). I’m going to make sure I have a pad of graph paper and a few colored pencils packed in my carry-on luggage. Although I can work out these sorts of patterns on my computer much faster than by hand, I find a lot of personal value in working out some ideas with pencil and paper. It’s really soothing and forces my thinking to slow down in some areas, which can lead to a blossoming of more ideas in the long term. It’s also a more peaceful way for me to work out how the patterns are structured, and how different geometric patterns can relate to each other. I can see that there are rules and formulas I could use, and it would probably be faster if I just went with that, but that does involve a certain amount of fighting with my inclinations (which is good for me in some ways, but sometimes I don’t want to be grouchy and breaking pencil tips over a possible border for a winter hat).

I don’t know if I’ll wind up using any of the ideas I have been sketching out, but I am really itching to get my hands on a skein of solid-colored sock yarn and start something smallish, like a baby hat, to start toying with knit/purl texture patterns.

Smitten Kitchen recipe for baked tomato sauce. I added roasted asparagus.

All photos taken with my iPhone, using the ShakeItPhoto app.

It is nearly certain that at the end of April, I will be off to a new job location for a minimum of two months. Aggressive de-stashing has got me whittled down to what is the least amount of yarn I’ve had in about 6 years (dating back to the last time I did a long-distance move). Some of it will remain in storage at my parents house, and I am assembling the travel stash. Above is part of the stash, getting used up as a baby hat (Blue Sky Alpacas Handspun Organic cotton, 1 skein, US 4/3.5mm needles, Top-Down Ribbed Beanie Recipe done in stockinette stitch). I increased to 84 stitches and plan to get the length at least 5″ beyond the last set of increases. I plan on updating the details on the Ravelry project page for this item.

Back to packing: I have three skeins of allhemp3 in licorice black, and vague plans for a string bag. Two skeins of Malabrigo Sock, for the gift socks that I started last year and will be starting over. 1400 yards of 2-ply laceweight sea silk that I hope to knit into a Sabine cardigan or a Featherweight cardigan. If the back-ordered skeins arrive before I leave, 4 skeins of Valley Yarn Huntington sock yarn, for a bicyclist’s cap I’ve been asked to do. That’s probably plenty. Actually, that’s probably more than I would realistically knit in two months, even though I will (gasp!) be working only 5 days per week, instead of my usual 6. Even though I will have to go to a cafe to get internet access. I will also be packing the tools I assume I will need – I hope to swatch for the projects before I go, so I can pack just the tools I will have to have, but that is not a very realistic hope.

If you were going to spend two months away from home and yarn shops, what would you pack?

It might not be that new, but I didn’t know that Shirokiya had opened a craft department until someone at an Aloha Knitters meeting (Angela?) brought it up, and the next time I was at Ala Moana shopping center, I stopped by for a quick peek. I noticed fabric, ribbon, buttons, and yarn – small selections, but some very nice stuff. I’m planning to stop in again when I have more time.

Shirokiya
Ala Moana Shopping Center
1450 Ala Moana Blvd.
phone: (808) 973-9111

“Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.”

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

If I had princesses, oh, they would look like dragons (my eyeroll at the implication that the function of princesses is to helplessly witness aside).

The winter holidays, for the past several years, have been a time of year that is just not fun for me. The past couple of years have been brighter – recognizing that I have Holiday Dragons that can be effectively managed with things like booty-shaking music (say hello to a playlist heavy on Shakira, Zap Mama, Beyonce, Fergie, Black Eyed Peas, and Missy Elliot), plenty of sleep (just say no to Bejeweled Blitz), re-reading a favorite book (John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War has done this well for me at holiday time; I save Robin McKinley’s Sunshine for when I am sick in bed), lots of brisk walks, and focusing on the delight of spending time with loved ones, instead of swords and red wine. Some of you might quirk an eyebrow – wine? Yes, when the non-drinker has calculated out how much of the bottle will go into her at what pace to result in being able to finish cooking without disaster but having to take a nap before turning into a bitter old shouty-pants, that’s probably a good sign that other options really ought to be explored, even if a nice Pinot Noir can really take the wind out of my sails.

Some of what I’ve had to do is also just grow the #’@& up. Some of that has been coming to grips with what I’ve mentioned here before: I’m an introvert, and no matter how much I actually enjoy being around other people, it saps my energy, and I need personal downtime to recharge. That gets to be a challenge during the holidays, since I’m usually working more (say hello to jobs that don’t do holiday pay!), have friends visiting from out of state, big family meals that need planning/shopping/prep. One horribly memorable year included three funerals and a long struggle out of a dark stinking mire of depression. At the end of the day, though, I’ve been fortunate and privileged and I think I’m getting better at recognizing that. Heck, that I have three dental appointments in December (two down, one to go) is a gift, when I see that I have access to modern, competent dental care, that my primary job gives me dental insurance coverage, and that I can afford the co-pay easily (especially if I cut even further back on diet soda and sparkling water – yes, sparkling water, as it turns out, is just about as bad for teeth as diet soda).

Maybe I’ll even get this pair of socks done before Chinese New Year. I am still working on the foot of the first sock, and wondering what to do about the too-tight cast-on. I was really happy with it, and still like using the 2×2 tubular cast-on, but should have used Pam Allen’s technique of working the cast-on and part of the leg in needles a size larger than needed for gauge. Cutting off the top of the leg and knitting back up (or alternately, starting a new cuff and then grafting it on – but oh how I dislike grafting as an experience) is looking like the most likely scenario. Dorothy recommended a trip to the frog pond, but these socks are for someone with big, broad feet and muscular calves and I’m really really attached to getting this first sock finished (have gotten more than halfway down the foot since this picture was taken).