28 April 2010 · 3 Comments
When I was a kid I found watching raindrops on the windows of a car absolutely hypnotic. I was convinced they were holding raindrop races. I worked out a whole series of rules and victory conditions and stories for the individual drops. We’ll just say I had a rich inner life and leave it at that.
From the first minute I cast these on, the combination of color and pattern reminded me of my raindrop races. I find these almost as hypnotic. I’ll get a proper picture with feet some time soon, but I had to show these off now.
27 April 2010 · 3 Comments
I’ve sent email to the drawing winners. At least I think I have. I’ve recently been inundated by a string of hard-to-detect spam comments. I think my spam filter has caught all of them, and it looks very much like the winners are real people, but there is always the chance that something has gone awry. So check your inboxes. I’ll give the winners a week to email me back with their mailing addresses. If I haven’t heard from them by then, I’ll draw more winners.
There will be a new pattern coming out at Knit Circus at the end of this week. Some time in mid May, the blue reversible socks (likely called Diluvian) will out too. Pictures and more information soon.
Edit to add: I’ve heard from both the winners. They’re both real people, and their yarn will be headed out to them shortly!
26 April 2010 · 8 Comments
Every now and then I get these fits (and those who have seen them will testify that ‘fits’ is really the best word) where I have to get rid of stuff. Blame my peripatetic childhood, blame years spent in tiny apartments, blame the stars. Sometimes I just must.throw.things.away.right.now. It works for us. It lets us live in a smaller-than-average house and still have plenty of space.
I was in the middle of one of these fits the other day, and my attention fell on my craft closet. I have recently realized that I just don’t care for spinning. Heresy, I know. I tried. I was fixated for a few weeks, but in the long run, it’s just not for me. That meant the spinning fiber had to go. Now I’ll find a home for the nice stuff, but the crappy practice fiber and lumpy bumpy early attempts are not things I need to keep.
Or so I thought until Barry came along. Barry is my cat (er, one of my two cats), and doesn’t exactly feature on the website. Somehow having excess kitten on a knitting blog seems just a wee bit too close to the cliche, so I generally avoid it. But today, I have no choice.
One of my random sacks of fiber destined for the trash contained some…stuff. I have no idea what it’s really called. It’s super curly. It looks sort of like individual clumps of very curly sheep tendrils. Some of it was dyed, some of it was sheep colored. It is er…unprocessed…enough that it has the occasional twig or leaf, and it makes your fingers feel greasy if you touch it. It reminds me of mermaid hair. I have no idea why I bought it. I was more than happy to throw it away.
Barry had other plans. He’s always had a fondness for sheep-scented things, and this stuff drove him nuts. He desperately wanted to spend some deeply personal time with it. I could not dash his tiny kitten hopes. I also could not just give him the wodge of fluff in its original state. He would eat it, strew it all over the house, or both (likely in that order). So I wadded up a handful of it, stitched through it a bunch of times to hold it all together, and turned him loose on it.
Massive kitten glee ensued. I was powerless in the face of such cuteness, I had to take a picture. Apparently, I am also unable to keep the picture to myself. I must share. May I present Barry, stripped of all his noble kitten dignity, reduced to helpless abandon by a very smelly wool pet.
23 April 2010 · 2 Comments
Ya’ll are awesome. I’m sort of loving the comment thing. Alas, I’ve closed them on the previous post. I’ll be emailing winners over the weekend and posting them here on Monday(ish). I’ll also be back with details of upcoming releases and (hopefully) some pictures of the finished blue socks.
20 April 2010 · 94 Comments
The pattern for Interstices is now available. There’s a wee giveaway, read on for details.
I probably shouldn’t say it, but I sort of love these. They’re quick, can be made from leftover bits of sock yarn, and are super stretchy. All of that makes them eminently suitable for gift/swap knitting. They look far more complicated than they are (the main repeat is only 4 rows long), which always feels somehow both sneaky and deeply satisfying. Add in their shamelessly frilly fluffy frivolous nature and their bargain price ($1.99 through Knit Picks Independent Designer program), and I’m not sure you could really ask for more.
And yet, I do have one more thing to offer. I’ve got yarn to give away — two skeins this time. The yarn is Knit Picks Imagination, one skein of Damsel (the color shown in the pictures) and another of Unicorn (another suitably pink bit of frippery). Since I’ve got two skeins of yarn, I want to do two slightly different giveaways. You’ve got a pretty decent chance of winning, so pay attention!
The first is super simple. Just leave a comment. That’s it, that’s all. Leave a comment, and use a real email address. In a few days, I’ll randomly pick a comment, email the winner to ask for a mailing address, and send off the yarn. I’ll also send this pattern and another of the winner’s choice. Easy as pie, right?
The second is just a tiny bit more complicated, but I’m sure you can manage it. I want to give those folks who’ve bought my patterns an extra chance to win. So, if you’ve ever bought one of my patterns, leave a comment with the name of the pattern you’ve purchased. Again, use a real email address. In a few days, I’ll randomly pick one of these comments, email the winner with some sort of very easy question to make sure they really have the pattern, ask for a mailing address, and send off the yarn. Again, I’ll include this pattern and another of the winner’s choice. And yes, if you’ve bought more than one pattern you can leave more than one comment.
So just to recap, everyone who leaves a comment is entered in the first giveaway. If you’ve ever bought any of my patterns, leave the name of the one you bought in another comment (or comments) to be entered in the second giveaway. If you don’t use a real email address, you can’t win (no one but me will see your email addresses, and I won’t do anything with them other than contact the winners). I’ll leave comments open for at least three days.
18 April 2010 · No Comments
Do you see that tree? That tree with the leaves and the wee pink flowers? Wouldn’t that tree make you think of spring, of warm sunny days and soft breezes and singing birds? Yeah. That tree is a filthy liar. It started snowing about 20 minutes after we took that picture. I’m cold. The pattern should be out next week. Perhaps by then the snow will have melted.
15 April 2010 · 1 Comment
I am assuredly not dead. Busy, yes. Dead, no. Thanks to the folks who emailed to check though. I do like knowing that if I ever should be dead, someone might notice before the cats have the chance to nibble on too much of me. Hopefully The Boy would notice, but he gets busy too sometimes, so it’s good to have a back up system at the ready.
Busy with what you ask? Why the book of course, which explains much of my dreadful silence. Luckily, the part of the project where all of my knitting time is focused on super secret book business is almost done. Note that this does not mean that the book is almost done. This is proving to be a different process than I was expecting. Not better or worse, just different. There’s an odd combination of ‘hurry hurry faster go’ and ‘wait’. I’m not so good at waiting. I sort of loathe it. Alas, it seems unavoidable. I’m taking it as a character building experiences (pay no attention to the footlockers full of character I’m currently storing in the basement…you can always use more).
The short version is that the blue socks are nearing completion. I’ve got the second half of the second foot yet to do, and I’ll likely do it this week. Next up will be the lovely Hedonist Sock by Slackford Studio in the color Mahhvelous Dahling. This yarn has been sitting on the top of my ‘to knit’ pile for far too long, and I can resist it no longer! The lovely subtle colors will be the perfect background for some fancy stitch work. I have a plan.
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