Christmas 2022

 So, yes, I decided to make a couple of items this year. For my son, Chris and daughter-in-law, Veronica.

And, yes, these items are not yet completed, but they are at least well on the way. It's a good thing that Chris and his wife usually spend Christmas in Texas with her family, and this year is no exception. I may, or may not, have counted on that.

Anyway, I started this scarf pattern Embrace The Chill (Link to Ravelry) some time ago, because I wanted to try Mosaic Knitting. I like the pattern, and I think the end result is going to be really nice, however, I really like my scarves:

(1) Longer 

(2) Thicker

This scarf, while stylish, won't keep me warm when I'm driving to work at oh' dark 30. AND, it looks more like a guy's scarf to me. So, yep, going to give it to my son.

Since I decided on that, I then must do something equivalent for Veronica, which leads to my go to Cowl Pattern Blackberry Path (one of my original designs)

And, progress pics, cause that's what it's really about after all. These are both about 1/2 done, so my plan is to get them finished this next week while I am on Winter Break from teaching.

Also, wishing you all a very Merry Holiday 2022 season, and a great start to 2023.

Mechanical Mermaid

 So, I've been working on this for a while and it is now complete. I really like the way it turned out. I had a skein of Dream in Color Smooshy (don't ask me the colorway cause it was well marinated). Anyway, skein of about 400 yards which wasn't enough to do get anything big enough for me to be happy with it.

I've been looking for a coordinating skein for Quite Some Time, and finally realized that I just needed another Dream in Color skein. So, the brown color is Lafayette, and I have no idea about the blue. 

The pattern is Mechanical Mermaid by Nim Teasdale, you can see it on Ravelry. My project.

Mods:
1) I did knit, purl, knit, knit in a 4 row repeat for the plain rows, because I am not a fan of garter stitch.
2) I did 2 repeats of the Overlapped Rivets pattern, as it created a stronger contrast than one repeat.
3) I definitely did more rows of the Scales pattern. 

I wanted to use as much of the yarn as possible, since I ended up with a couple of very tiny balls, I succeeded there. It blocked out to a little over 6 feet on the long end.

Picture 1

Picture 2

Hello Again, World

It has been quite some time since I've been actively knitting. I've had some various life events happen and knitting definitely fell by the wayside, but I really want to start designing knitwear again.

So, I am announcing a free pattern. It will be available on Ravelry in a couple of weeks once it has been tested. It is a quick and easy braided headband. So great for these cold winter months!

Knitting FAIL

As I go along my merry knitting way I usually am able to think of myself as having some amount of knitting mojo.  However, there are a few techniques that I still need to look at step-by-step pictures in order to get them right and not end up with a hot mess.

As you can see (as pointed to by the red arrow) I still cannot do a provisional cast on with any sort of consistency. Yes, I've been knitting for over 20 years. Apparently, that has no relationship to my ability to work a provisional cast on successfully.

Sometimes it works great, and sometimes I have to cut the "supposedly" provisional yarn out piece by piece.

And the other part is that when I have to take out the provisional yarn with scissors it's not just one little snip with the scissors here or there. Oh no, it's more on the lines of a Gordian Knot. In the picture, you can't see the other side, but I actually had to cut the gray yarn twice for each blue yarn loop. How is that even possible?

Random Knitting

I've been working on my new design (a set of fingerless gloves, hat and cowl) which is quite intense twisted stitch cabling and as a break I've been doing a headband in bulky yarn.

My daughter requested it, and I found a basic recipe on Old at Heart Blog. So, I used a bulky yarn, weighed it out into 3 balls, cast on 11 st, with k1,p1 rib, slipping the first st then I just knit until the ball was gone.

Then, I braided the three strips. I quite like the way it turned out.

What I Did Today

Or - the Real Life of a Knitwear Designer

1. Tried to get a scalloped edge on my new pattern schematic. Yes, it probably would have been ok to just leave it as a curve, but I wanted the edge to be scalloped like the shawl is. I have been using OpenOffice Draw - but apparently scallops aren’t supported.
2. Researched how to do this in paint.net, the other photo editing software I've been learning. By the way, it's slightly less difficult in Paint than in Draw. (i.e. Impossible) 
3. Figured out I’ll have to start working with yet another new program, Inkscape or Gimp - they are less intuitive (at least to start) but more powerful - researched which is best for vector schematics. (Inkscape in case you are wondering). 
4. Figured out how to redraw entire schematic using Inkscape tools. Did find out that there is better tutorials and information available for Inkscape. Cool.
   Also, that when you're creating vector graphics a "line" is too boring so now everything is called a "path."  I'm not sure if this has a purpose yet, or if it's just to be confusing to the new user.
5. Figured out how to get scalloped edge. 
6. Completed schematic for new pattern! 
7. Completed pattern entry in Ravelry database. 
8. Created pdf file of new pattern - oops, noticed weird formatting. 
9. Created pdf file of new pattern - oops, noticed that I forgot to include yarn fiber content. 
   
10. Created pdf file of new pattern - yay! no issues!
11. Created pattern draft entry so it's ready to go when I am.

Actual knitting? 0.

Background Noise

I do have a goal of posting here at least once a week. I actually have a lot of ideas running through my head but then they never seem to get transferred into the blog. Right now, I'm thinking a lot about how I want the site to look, what information I want to include and how to give it the feel that I'd like it to have.

You think this would be easy but it's really a lot to think about - at least for me.

However, even posting once a month is a big step up from where I was so I'll count it as baby steps.

There hasn't been a lot of knitting/designing in the last week. I've been doing a lot of researching on how to photograph knit items so they not only look amazing, but show what a person who might be considering the pattern needs to see to decide if the pattern is what they want.

This pdf, www.conradhoffman.com/photographing_your_knitting.pdf, turned out to be a great piece of information on the nuts and bolts of creating a photographers studio on a budget. The most helpful thing I found in this document was that he included pictures of both the photo set-up and the final polished copy. It was a great look into the process.

This post; www.dull-roar.com/2012/01/7-tacky-sins-of-pattern-photography.html also had some good tips - although be aware there is some swearing and a knit object that was definitely inappropriate although I found it really funny.

So, after my admittedly non-scientific research, I went out yesterday and got a tripod from  (which was less expensive than I was expecting) from Mike's Camera. The guy who helped me was really helpful in talking to me about the different tripods and what options were. What I found out is that it's a lot better to get a ball-joint on the top as then you can swivel your camera around in any configuration you want.  So now you know.

I also purchased some lights from Lowe's and some felt in black, white and gray from Jo-Ann's. I decided on the felt because:
(a) it was non-reflective
(b) it doesn't crease or wrinkle
(c) it was cheap! Which was a nice bonus.

So, if I can get all of this stuff working together, I fully expect that I should be able to produce photos that will stun and amaze the viewer (or at least show clearly what the end result of the pattern should look like).