Thursday 31 March 2016

Nervous

I expect to hear from a knitting magazine about a submission today.  It's silly, but I'm nervous.  I don't know why, nothing bad is going to happen if I get rejected.  If one of the designs gets rejected it's going to be sent out to another magazine this weekend and if the other one gets rejected I'll probably just self-publish that one unless I see a call that it's particularly suited to in the next little while.

The anticipation is driving me mental, I normally find it fine to wait, but I know they're sending the emails out today and I have been obsessively checking my email since I found that out.  I'm enjoying the process of submitting things to magazines, and I'm really looking forward to getting my first pattern published.  I haven't had one accepted yet, maybe that's why I'm nervous today.  Because today could be today where that changes.

This entire blog post sounds like it was written by a fifteen year old.

Oh well.

Monday 28 March 2016

Shoot

When I volunteered for the test knit I'm participating in I thought I had four and a half weeks.  I thought that was tight but doable.  I'm having a blast, it's a great pattern and really interesting, but I've misread the calendar and have one less week than I thought.  This sweater is in sock yarn, and I'm working really hard but am a tiny bit concerned about the deadline.

There's really nothing I can do but knit like mad so that's more or less what I'm doing.  I've decided if I can get the second sleeve done by tomorrow I should be able to get the small part of the body done by the end of the week.  (It's a funny construction, but that's what makes it so interesting.)

My phone died so I have to get another one (currently the cord is duct taped in), and I actually have a car tomorrow so that's what I'm going to do in the afternoon between my knitting group and picking Joshua up for work.

THEY WANT IT!!

The magazine wants one of my patterns!  They are PAYING me to write the pattern!  That I designed!  Then it's ACTUALLY going to be in the MAGAZINE!

I totally just left a voicemail for my best friend where the entire message was a couple octaves higher than I normally talk.

I am so ridiculously excited.  I should knit the sweater I'm test-knitting for now, because that deadline is first but man on man am I excited.


Thursday 24 March 2016

And I fell off the wagon

Last Saturday I gave up on getting the yarn I had bought for Bonny to get gauge, it's not going to happen.  Clearly the yarn is meant to be something else, and I'll figure that out later.  This Saturday we went to the yarn shop and I picked out stunning soft-as-butter yarn (silk and merino), to use instead.  Caleb came with me, and helped speed things up by insisting that the only acceptable colour was pink.  (It's actually a coral, but he was quite definite that this particular ball was the one for me.)

It's absolutely luscious to knit with and I love everything about this project.

I've been really good about not having too many (for me that's more than 4) projects on the go for ages.   But on Sunday I saw this stunning sweater that needed test knitters and before I really thought about it committed to knit it by April 17th.  It's in sock-yarn.

It should be do-able, but that's pretty much all I can knit right now, and I took a number of swatches to get gauge and managed on DPNs but I don't have the corresponding circular for the body.  I'm knitting the sleeves first because I don't know when I'll get back to the yarn store and don't really have time to spare.  I'm having a marvellous time, though.

Monday 21 March 2016

Gauge Issues

I really want to make Bonny by TinCan Knits.  I have the pattern and I bought the yarn ages ago.  The thing is, I'm not getting gauge.  Or rather, in order to get gauge I have to use a needle so small the fabric is really dense and there's no way it's going to drape well which is what I love about the pattern in the first place.

I really want this yarn and this pattern to work, but I don't think it will.  The only possibility is if I swatch and get a gauge I like, and run the numbers to see if it would work to knit one of the smaller sizes at the gauge I can get.  I was going to make a small, the pattern lists both an XS and a XXS, which isn't a ton of wiggle room but it's some.  I think I'll likely swatch with the bigger gauge and see if it's a possibility but I'm not really hopeful that it will work.

I just went through the stash and I have two balls of yarn that could work, the purple I definitely have the yardage for.  The orange would be close, and as I like my tops a bit on the long side it's not a great idea to tempt fate.  The alternative would be to buy yarn, which could be really fun, but I'd rather use something I have (namely the yarn I bought for this project).

Thursday 17 March 2016

Width Play

This past winter I made Ada a dress, I'm completely smitten with it. 



I also adore that picture like nothing else.  

I've been working on the pattern for some time, it's a bit more complicated than some of the other patterns I've released plus it was in more sizes and I wanted to make sure it was done right.  It was really frustrating at times, but I am so happy that I pushed through that.  As a side note, if you want to save yourself a headache make a super-detailed schematic BEFORE you start the math, that's made the whole process a million and one times easier for the next pattern I'm working on.

The pattern is out on Ravelry here and I'm pleased as punch.

Monday 14 March 2016

I actually finished something

I generally try to keep four or less things on the needles at a time, otherwise I just never finish anything.  I like finishing things, so having this little rule for myself works really well for me.  Last week my projects were pretty much all nearing the end, and I've been really looking forward to starting something new, I just needed to get something finished first.

Flax Light was almost done, I just needed to do the ribbing on one sleeve and weave in a few ends.  I did that on Saturday and wore it on Sunday.    I shortened the sleeves so they'd been three-quarter length, which I'm pleased about.  I think I should have actually shortened them more, so they'd be about half-length, I always end up shoving the sleeves up over my elbows anyways.  The pattern was well-written, I find that anything by TinCan Knits is, so that wasn't a surprise.


It wasn't a really interesting pattern to knit, there was a lot of stockinette, but that made it perfect for tv knitting, or knitting in more social settings.  I'm really happy to have it in my wardrobe, though, I think I'll get a lot of wear out of it.


Thursday 10 March 2016

Detour

I haven't touched any of my works in progress other than the blanket, I have no finished object to show you.  Instead I've been spending time working on two submissions for a knitting magazine called I Like Knitting.  I noticed the call on Monday after my post and decided I had enough time before the deadline (tomorrow) to put something together.

I have two submissions for them, and I'm super-excited about them.  It's all I can do not to ignore everything I'm working on and knit them right now.  There's no point, of course.  If they accept my submission I'll have to knit them in the colours they want in the next two months anyways, and if they accept the proposal I'll knit them in whatever colours I want and release them myself.

Submitting to magazines has been a really different process than I thought it would be.  I thought I would design things and then submit them when a call matched what I had, but largely it's been me creating ideas that work within a call's specifications, using colours or concepts I might not have picked on my own.  I'm finding that really stretching and exciting.

I also am finding that it's adding to my to-knit list, which is the most exciting to do list I've ever had.

Monday 7 March 2016

Mid-Point

I reached the halfway point on the baby blanket, I'm working on.  It's knit on the bias, corner to corner, so the halfway point is when I finally stopped increasing but started decreasing.  I don't know how many of stitches are on the needles, but it's a good number, I'd guess between 250 and 300, and starting those decreases felt really good.

I'm really happy with it, it's turning out exactly how I pictured.  It's sort of like an old sampler scarf, but more colour-blocked and a blanket.  I'm hoping to be able to release it in May.  I have to make sure not to become Ravelry friends with the recipient until after the baby shower though.  (I realize that if she looked for me she could probably see it, but the likelihood of her doing that is pretty low, the likelihood of me forgetting about this and finding her is, sadly, possible).

I have a few works in progress that are languishing on the needles, and I want to finish one of them this week.  So hopefully my next post will have a picture of a finished item.

Thursday 3 March 2016

Projects

I can't count the times I've tried to remember details about a project like what needles I used, the gauge, or yarn used.  I try to write these things down but even when I write them in my knitting notebook it's almost impossible to find them easily.  So, I'm trying something new.  I'm trying to enter each project I do into Ravelry, that will be easy to search even in the future when current projects get buried and I the fact that there's a form to fill out should help me remember to fill in the various details.

So far I've got everything I'm currently working on in there and a few older but larger projects.  There's no way I'll go back and add everything I can remember, since that's a surefire way to kill any desire to use this part of Ravelry again.  I think this is going to work, it should also help me from forgetting about works in progress which is a bonus I didn't think about.

I keep forgetting about that blue sweater, then remembering when I see it on Ravelry.  I've got about 2" of one arm to go and some ends to weave in.  I think I have some solid knitting time tonight and I might try to work on it.