5 years ago, Amy Singer at the then-fledgling Knitty thought my submission was just too weird to not publish. At that time, I think I’d already submitted to and been accepted for Stitch ‘N Bitch Nation, but the Winter ‘04 issue of Knitty came out first and established me as a freak fiber artist. Hey, might as well be honest right from the start!

The version of Womb that I’ve been working on with different licensing permissions (this one will 1. hold things and 2. have permissions allowing the sale of finished items) has been going on for years now; I keep getting sidetracked by other things. Getting there, though.

Details in my previous post, as well as on Ravelry. Getting the colors true when photographed is turning out to be much tricker than I’d thought (I should probably ask Dorothy but whenever I see her at an Aloha Knitters meeting I forget to).

I’m knitting the heel flap on the first sock now, and it’s going slowly. Since I got done renewing my drivers license way faster than I’d thought (Fort St. Mall Satellite City Hall, in the door and back out with my new license in 10 minutes!), I was able to walk over to Isle Knit and pick up a pair of Hiya Hiya stainless steel 9″ circular needles. On one hand, I like that the metal needles are short. On the other hand, they are really short, and I have big hands. Not worrying about stabbing anyone (especially myself) and/or losing a dpn on the bus is a big plus, though. Sue did say that the Hiya Hiya needles aren’t good for long stretches of knitting time because you have to pinch your hands up to use them. My bus commute is 15 – 30 minutes in either direction, so I think that will work out. If I can squeeze even 20 minutes more per day into knitting these socks, who knows, maybe I’ll have them done by the end of the year!

…but I left my sock knitting project bag sitting on the table at home. Whoops. As I tweeted earlier today, I had been doing a little grumble in my head about knitting socks for an individual with wide feet and muscular calves, but the truth is that my sock-knitting attention span is shorter than any sock larger than one intended for the average human infant. I’ve been thinking that I could speed up this project by using circular needles (so I could take it on the city bus without worrying about dropping a dpn and having it roll away from me). So far: I don’t know the size of the dpns I’m using. I don’t have a needle gauge that goes down to that fine a gauge (have asked that someone who does bring it to tomorrow’s Aloha Knitters meetup; I’ll be at the Bubbies University Ave. location from 8 pm on). I don’t know what brand of needles I want to buy. I am an Addi Turbo girl, but my budget is not allowing for $30+ to be spent on a pair of circs (yes, I could cut that to $15 by using Magic Loop, but I don’t like it). Hiya Hiya sock circs have gotten good reviews, but I’ve never seen them in person (or I have, and have forgotten).

I’m using Elizabeth Bennett’s Perl Sock Program (and this makes me giggle like you would not believe, because there is a backstory involving the person I am knitting these for, and why I even know what Perl is), along with Ysolda Teague’s Tubular Cast On for 2×2 rib, which just may convert me to knitting socks from the top-down. I prefer toe-up, but this time around I’ve got plenty of yarn – am striping with two skeins of Malabrigo Sock, which is 440 yards per skein – so unless I plan on making thigh-highs, I am in no danger of running out of yarn. The cast-on is lovely, with a nice clean line and just enough stretch for my taste. The only trouble is that this means I’ll be Kitchenering a toe, and I do not enjoy doing that. Yes, I am aware I could do a circular closure, but I am hesitant to try that on socks I’m not going to be wearing. I’ll just suck it up and Kitchener away – or get Vron to do it for me :D

For now, I’ll just keep enjoying my mocha and salty chocolate cookies at Satura Cakes.

Ravelry project link

So while in SF, I visited Imagiknit and Urban Knitting Studio.

I walked through the door of Imagiknit and if there hadn’t been people coming in the door behind me, I would have just stopped and stared with my jaw hanging open.

…this is just part of the first room. There’s a whole other second room. And, in all that, they also had every weight of Malabrigo, including Sock and Lace, which I didn’t know about, and two skeins of Malabrigo Sock came home with me. Imagiknit has big front windows, so I walked them over into the daylight and that sold me, right there. The shop was buzzing with activity, but also had nice comfortable seats for those who wanted to sit and go through pattern books or just sit (it’s a lot of yarn to take in all at once).

Urban Knitting Studio has a wonderful light, airy feeling, with plenty of space to browse in and comfortable seats in the big glass windows. As you can see, I lucked into a clear-skied, sunny stretch while I was there. Lovely place, stylish, elegant, and friendly!

I’ve got a small set of trip photos up on Flickr (SF November 2009); once I figure out how to get my short video clips uploaded to Flickr I’ll add those in too.

I’m back home after a really lovely visit to San Francisco, a city I have long loved but had not been to in years. There was a lot of eating, a lot of walking, and some yarn acquisition, which I’ll be blogging about later this week.

For now, just this observation: I am quite smitten by the Asian pears grown in California.

I am having one of those days where I am looking at this hat in progress and I can’t tell if I’ve seen it before elsewhere or I just got it pictured so strongly in my head that it might as well already exist. I’ve been searching Ravelry and using my Google-fu and so far nothing. Doing a purled stripe is definitely not ground-breaking territory so there’s got to be at least one hat pattern with that out there, yes?

Could it be?

After months of marinating, I finally finished Liesl!

Maybe.

Let me be a smug cheeseball for just a moment more…

…and I’m spent.

I’m going to stress that the issues I have with the finished sweater are all due to choices I made. I like the pattern layout and the way it is written and many, many knitters have successfully knit a Liesl.

In my case, the choices I made included using a vintage wool (Pingouin Fleur de Laine, not sure how old but I’d guess at least 30+ years). It’s nice enough yarn, but it pre-dates the lovely merino breeds available today. It’s not terribly scratchy, but it is scratchy enough so I won’t wear it over bare arms again. I am also seemingly unable to count to four, a necessary skill for this lace pattern. This has become a running joke for the Aloha Knitters. “Nice enough girl, such a pity she can’t count past 3.” There is at least 2.5 sweaters worth of knitting in this as a result. Did you notice I still have the lifelines in the photos? Then I hit the first sleeve (right) and raging frustration ensued. I finally got it done and then shoved it in a bag and out of my sight until recently. The left sleeve had to be ripped back a few times, but I got it going smoothly last week and got it done in a final burst. I think there’s something about the way I picked up stitches that threw things off; what worked for me was starting the round with *k2tog* twice, *yo, k1* twice, following the instructions in the * * and then ending with *k2tog* twice, *yo, k1* twice. Notes I’d scribbled on my pattern indicated that the swatch grew, so I had knit the body and the sleeves shorter than I wanted the finished results to be (and didn’t weave in the ends, as you can see in the photos). After washing, the sweater grew to just the right length, but it’s also looser than I’d like (which may have something to do with my losing about 30 lbs. between casting on the neck and binding off the second sleeve).

Then while trying it on again and admiring my work, I realized that the first sleeve had at least one mistake in it. On closer inspection, more than one. I am not posting photos, not yet, anyway. I plan to wear it a couple of times, and then if it makes me too crazy I’ll rip back and re-knit that sleeve. I had also planned to dye this sweater, either dark blue or dark red, and I am leaning towards blue…and not chancing a dye debacle until I figure out if I am okay with this sleeve (right now I am not okay with it).

Pattern: Liesl, by Ysolda Teague
Yarn: Pingouin Fleur de Laine, 4.5 skeins
Size: 46″ (if I did this now, I’d go down to at least 38″)

(a little swatching and playing with sock yarn I dyed with food coloring)

Honey: I am going on a for-real vacation! Not a short, rushed trip to a wedding or to move kidlet into a dorm, an actual for-real go spend time with friends and get reacquainted with a city I love but have not been to for years and years!

Sting: I will have about 20 hours of work to do while I’m on vacation. I am glad I have a job, especially a job I like, even if it is a job with a company that, like many other companies right now, is trying to do more with less.

Honey: I plan to do a lot of sitting on my behind and knitting or crocheting while on vacation.

Sting: A new Raveler sent me a message that slammed one of my patterns. I suspect the Raveler’s aim was to leave a comment on the pattern page, not send me a direct message, but I got it. I tend to take a deep breath before checking my Ravelry messages anyway; I never know if someone is going to send me something sweet or a text-based slap in the face. It stung, yes, but I can see that it came out of frustration with a pattern that *is* problematic, in more ways than one. I’ve published errata for it, but it’s still confusing, and I sold all rights to it (because I didn’t know any better back then) so I can’t re-publish it. Yet it’s still out there, with my name on it. For a while, I’ve been thinking about how I could revisit the pattern and do something based off of it, charted out the way I’ve started charting out my more recent crochet patterns, without violating the copyright that I don’t own. Renegotiation might be possible but I have not had much luck getting in touch with that particular book editor, and I’m not surprised, really. I let her down by sending her work that wasn’t up to standard.

Honey: got my hands on Blue Sky Alpacas’ Spud & Chloe ‘Outer’ in 7200 Soapstone and it’s lovely stuff. Soft, soft, soft! I am crocheting up a pattern sample with it (another lace scarf pattern I’ve been noodling around with for a while) and it’s going beautifully.

Sting: a minor one – it’s been so hot that holding yarn has just not been fun. I’ll get over it.

Saturday afternoon, Satura Cakes, Ward Center. Browsing Ravelry, crocheting a neckwarmer, drinking an iced coffee (it looks a little odd b/c I put nonfat milk in it), and eating salted chocolate cookies.

My summer was extremely hectic, and things have begun to settle down (for now, at least). My pattern sales were way, way down this summer – it’s usually a slow period, but this year was really slow, despite this year having warm-weather appropriate patterns (the Star Jasmine headband and the Jules & Julia hat set). I do have some cold-weather appropriate patterns in the works but no clear timeline for when they will be done – I went back to one that’s been marinating for several months and *I* could not follow the instructions even though I wrote them and had crocheted a sample! Definitely time for a re-write, and the symbol diagrams need to be tweaked too.

Today I’m sewing up a curtain for my new place and getting started on another curtain – the results are either going to be delightfully tropical bohemian, or a hot mess of aloha print. I’ve been looking through my vintage crochet lace edging booklets, because patchwork aloha print might not be enough for me…this could get loud.

Pattern: Basic Crochet Baby Beanie with some alterations for thinner yarn (smaller hook, additional rounds)

Yarn: Blue Sky Alpacas Skinny Cotton, organic colors Birch 30, Clay 31, and Skinny Dyed 310 Coffee. I had one skein of each and I am thinking there may be enough left over to make a second hat, but I might have to change the stripe pattern on the sides to include the Birch 30.

Hook: E/3.5 mm

This was whipped up quickly as a gift for friends expecting their first child (and one of them made a beautiful patchwork baby blanket for me to gift to another friend), so I didn’t take detailed notes while I was doing this; I wanted to get it done and wrapped and delivered without delay.

Ears were worked in as part of a round, into the front loop only as (chain 4, 4 dc into next st, chain 4, slip st into next st), slip stitched in the front loop only to the next ear (worked as the first), then back to hdc into ea st. On the following round the hdcs were worked into the back loop from ear to ear. This does make that section a little tighter and the ears could just as easily be added on afterwards. Eye and mouth details were embroidered on afterwards.

I was calling this a bear, but it’s really unclear and sort of oddly generally animal-ish. I showed a photo around at an Aloha Knitters meeting, just asking those present to tell me what animal they thought it was. Answers included hedgehog, agouti, otter, dog, rabbit, and woodchuck, so hey, it’s whatever you want it to be! What I like best about this hat is that the wee face on the top has ears, and from the side, the baby wearing it has ears too. Aww!