A Good Day In Knitting Land

A. I finished Jon's sweater, and it turned out great. Pictures will be forthcoming.

B. I mended a sweater I made for Rebecca a couple of years ago, and mended and washed Jon's favorite black cotton pullover. These will be sent along with the new sweater.

C. In the last two days, I've had great response on Ravelry from two of my designs: Mini Rej Vest which is listed in my Ravelry store, and the Cabled Button Wrap that I did for WEBS (boy, has that gotten a good response!). This was the wrap that was on the display racks at WEBS' booth at Stitches in Baltimore.


D. I talked with Flo at Peaches-Creme about working with them on designs.

E. I'll be participating in a Blog Tour later this month for the up-coming publication of Tops & Toes from DRG (I've got two hats in it!).

So I'm feeling pretty good and knitful.

Love the One You're With

Seems as if I fall in love/lust with whatever new yarn I'm working with. Is it possible to have one-project stands with yarn? If so, I guess I'm a yarn slut.

The latest yarn that I want to spend all my time with is Kraemer Yarn's Tatamy Tweed:



Sport weight, cotton/acrylic blend, soft, wonderful colors, excellent yardage for the price----what more can I say?

Almost thirty years ago, I knit a sweater for my husband (it's ok---we were already married so it didn't turn into the sweater-that-killed-the-relationship). It got passed down to my son a few years ago, and he loved it (except that it was wool---slightly scratchy Shetland). He asked me to remake the sweater but just not in wool. I was very excited to see the colors for Tatamy Tweed and find that I could put together just about identical colors for the recreation. The gauge is spot-on identical to the original sweater, which is another terrific plus.

I started knitting yesterday, using the Knitting Fool's Simple Worked-from-the-Top Raglan calculator; so far, so good.

Happy Feet

After taking six months to finish one pair of socks, I'm now back in sock mode. I finished the socks I started in May and then rolled right on to finish three pairs back to back. Today I'll start number pair number four.

I've used OnLine, Red Heart Heart& Sole, and Malabrigo for the most recent pairs. I love the Malabrigo, but I think the Heart & Sole is a good workhorse sock yarn---the acrylic blend and aloe are a big plus. Heart & Sole and KnitPicks Essentials go in the washer (not the dryer---I'm not that reckless) and come out looking fine, so that's what endears them to me.

I do have the hand-washing of socks down pretty well: a nice soak in Woolite, a gentle wringing out, then laying them on a towel on the guest bed and covering them with another towel (to prevent big fat Henry from wallowing on them). When I was first making socks, I thought that the care of these beauties would be a bit much, but it really isn't.
Next to try out is Patons Kroy.

And I'm still in love with my KnitPicks double points----so smooth and pointy and easy to work with.

Somedays, I honestly feel that I want to put the designing on hold big time and just knit socks. Now wouldn't that be self-indulgent?

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

After seeing my designs at WEBS, I was feeling pretty pleased with myself as a designer and a knitter. Also, I hadn't heard (yet) from knitty.com about my latest submission to them. knitty says that the longer you don't hear from them, the more under consideration your submission is, so as we went further into November, I felt more and more hopeful (my previous submission to them got a pretty quick rejection). Until the week before the anticipated publication date of the winter issue. And I got rejected from knitty.com. Again. Poop.

This is where it gets tricky for me: how to express my disappointment without sounding as if I'm trashing knitty or whining because I didn't get what I wanted. I am disappointed: I worked hard on a design that I like very much, worked out the pattern, took good photos, and it wasn't what they're looking for. I keep missing the mark with knitty; maybe I'm getting closer to what they want? maybe the next design will tickle their fancy? Oh, and I know that not every design gets accepted every place, every time.

So I'll weather this letdown with a small amount of whining (which I'll keep private because whining is ugly) and keep working away at things. Plucky me.



I've put the pattern up on my website and on Ravelry (at a discount to fellow Raveliers, and where it has been favorited).

I love the design, the photos, and the model (my friend Betty's granddaughter). It's also inspired me to do more with sock yarns than "just socks".

I Think I've Arrived

I'm back from Stitches East (down Thursday, back Sunday)----classes, shopping, hanging with knitting friends, shopping, showing off the tattoo (I'm getting a reputation), shopping.....

And I had a thrill that's still sinking in. In the past year, I've sold a few designs to WEBS for their Valley Yarns; they are wonderful people to work with and for, very gracious, supportive, nice, and they pay in gift certificates. Which meant that I was recession-proof when it came to hitting the Market at Stitches.

The Market opens at 5 on Thursday for those registered for classes and present, a preview, time during which you can run around, see everything, get first pick, and it's not crowded. Our group of four was there just about at opening, and when we walked in, I kind of lost my head and went directly to the WEBS booth without telling anyone where I was going. I was completely focused on my gift certificates and hopefully seeing at least one of my models hanging in their display.

And oh my goodness. There they were: my child's cardigan and my button-wrap. For all the knitting world to see and touch and buy the pattern. I was more bowled over than I had anticipated.

I feel that I've arrived as a legitimate designer.

Halloween Adventures

This year, for some reason, I wasn't really feeling the whole Halloween thing. Maybe it's the result of handing out candy for twenty-five years, maybe it was exhaustion from making it through the World Series and having the Phillies (finally) win. For the past few years, the weather has been very mild on Halloween, and we stand outside with neighbors, hand out candy, drink some wine, have a good time. But this year, we bought a smaller amount of candy than usualy and decided we'd hand it out asap and then go out to dinner.

The plan changed a bit, as friends called and asked if we wanted to go out to dinner with them. Oh yes, we were all over it. So they picked us up and we went up to Memphis Taproom where we had a great dinner. From there, we went downtown to Scoopdeville where we had great ice cream (vanilla with gingersnaps mixed in mmmmmmmm). And a stroll over to the Comcast Center to check out the ever-changing wall.

By the time we got home, it was 9:30 and Halloween was pretty much over, at least on our block. Allie called to say she was pretty much stranded up in Northern Liberties, and would Michael come pick her up and take her home to South Philly (a two-three hour wait for a cab was the other option). So he went out to pick her up and called me a few minutes later to say that this is who he met right out on our sidewalk:

And I went out, and there he was, up in the neighbor's tree.

This is probably one of the family of raccoons that seems to be residing somewhere in the vicinity of our block: we've spotted them twice coming out from under our deck, and neighbors have seen them in their alleys, on their second-floor decks, kind of all around.

Cute, but this guy was a big one: looked like Henry in a costume. Maybe it was.

Anyway, that was Halloween.

Now we just need to get through the election.

Thank You

As of Friday afternoon, our goal was reached in the Fundable fundraiser. We now have enough money to fund our class through June 2009 and hopefully into the fall. Our yarn closet will be stocked, and our needles and notion bins will be full. Our clients will be able to make whatever they want.

What was great about this was that not only friends donated: complete strangers from the Ravelry community made donations. And in addition to the monetary donations, many Ravelers have said they'll be sending yarn from their stashes to help us out. So the next few weeks will feel like Christmas: waiting for those boxes and then seeing what's been sent.

And Kathy from WEBS and Flo from Elmore-Pisgah are sending us yarn, too.

Oh my goodness.

This is so great.

Thanks, everyone! If I could knit you a hug, I would.