Thursday 30 June 2016

Found!

The hat must have fell out of our car while I was packing it to leave the last stop on our vacation!
Good news: It is safe and at the reception of the resort.
Bad news: That is an hour away from here.
Possibly good news: I may have family members headed that way this weekend.

Worst case scenario I can may them to man lit to me, I'm really happy it was found.

I've been working pretty hard on some design submissions to magazines.  I have one that I sent in last weekend and four more I need to get ready in the next two weeks.  The written parts have been typed and I just need to do swatches, drawings, and some photos.  I've been branching out into new colour combinations and I'm pretty excited about them.  Of course, they're just new to me but it's really nice to get out of that "I like teal" rut, as beautiful as teal is.

Monday 27 June 2016

Gone

I knit a hat, it was beautiful and exactly as I envisioned but quite a bit smaller but that wasn't an issue since it fit Ada with a bit of room to spare, perfect for this winter.  I washed it and blocked it, and it is gone.  I'm thinking it fell out of the yarn as I got in at our last stop.  I have methodically gone through everything and it doesn't seem to be here.

I'm not as upset as I could be, it sucks that I'm out the yarn.  I'll make another since I loved it so much.  I wish I knew where it was.  Also, I wish that I had taken time to weave in the ends since whoever finds it won't even be able to use it.  It is sad.

Thursday 23 June 2016

A baby!

Last night two friends of mine announced they're expecting their first early next year and I am so over the top excited for them!  They are completely lovely and are going to make great parents and I can hardly wait.

This also may solve my problem about what to knit on the trip since I can buy yarn en route (there's a great yarn store about half-way through our road trip), and make them a baby blanket, I have a really cute idea and I'm excited to start work on it.  (I may have been planning a baby blanket for them for a little bit since I knew they wanted kids eventually...)

Monday 20 June 2016

Choices

The blue top is coming along really well, I'm at the top lacy bit and just need some dedicated time to sort out some of the shoulder shaping.  It's not going to take long, it just needs to be a time when my lovely little people are asleep because it's seriously difficult to do math while being asked "why?" every other second.  My son is in a super inquisitive phase and I do like the fact that he asks questions and thinks about things but it means I'm constantly interrupted and I just need to think for longer than that to be able to work out shoulder shaping.

I will definitely have some time tomorrow at the latest, because I have the sinus infection from hell and am going to see the doctor.  My mother is looking after the kids while I do this, so I don't have to take them with me.

I'm really happy with how the top is going.  I have a really long drive coming up later in the week and I was planning to finish this but that's no where near enough knitting and so I now need another plan.

The legs of the trip will be 5 hours, 1 hour, 1 hour, 1 hour, and 3.5 hours.  Plus knitting time in the hotel room after the kids are asleep.  I have 48 hours to figure it out and no time to get to a yarn store (other than Michaels.... but that doesn't really count, any big project I find I prefer yarn from LYS, and I need something big.) What would you bring?

Thursday 16 June 2016

Quiet

I had a good friend in high school that hated quiet.  She always had to have people around or music on, I could never understand it.  I love the quiet.  But last night I had the evening to myself and all the things that needed to be done were done and I was at loose ends.  I almost always have a long list of things that need to be done and there were certainly things that could be done but nothing demanding my attention.  I love the quiet alone time, but it suddenly struck me at how I had become so used to noise, not just the audible noise but the chaos of people running around me.

I found a book to read.  It was lovely.

Monday 13 June 2016

It goes

The blue top is going really well now, I've got the front and back split at the armholes and I'm almost at the point where the lace starts.  I'm going back and forth about how low I want it to start and I just can't decide.  I think I'm going to start it lower than I originally thought I might, it requires some math and probably ripping back a couple rows but that's alright.

I'm at a place where I'd rather do something well than live with results that annoy me because I didn't go back and fix something.

Thursday 9 June 2016

I'm so excited

I have a bunch of designs in the works for the fall and I am so excited about them.  They're in various stages of progress, one is just swatched and I'm working on the pattern, I'll knit it later.  Another is knit and photographed but I have to figure out how to explain the technique and the degree of tutorial the pattern should include.  Another is knit and the chart is done and I'm two thirds of the way through the written instructions.  Another has the pattern and I'm enjoying knitting it.  I have a schedule (the spreadsheet is called "release schedule" which sounds super-official and makes me all sorts of dorky-happy), and it looks like all of the patterns will be released the month I want them to be.

I'm making progress and I'm so excited about it.  I feel like I've figured it out a bit.

Monday 6 June 2016

The big rip

I should have paid closer attention to row gauge.

I'm working on this summer top and it was going really well, I was really surprised how quickly it was knitting up which is awesome because then I'll actually get to wear it this summer, when I realized it was a bit long.  I was 20 rows away from the armholes but had already hit the length it was supposed to be when that happened.  Apparently the row gauge I'm getting is 8 rows/inch instead of 9 rows/inch.

There's bust shaping that needed to be done so I couldn't just decided to do the armholes in the row I was on, since that way there wouldn't be enough stitches.  I did the math and I'd need to eliminate quite a bit of the straight waist rounds to get the length out, so last night I ripped back.  I've got it back on the needles now.  I was worried the stitches would run since it's bamboo and really slippery but it wasn't too bad and I'm back to making progress.

Thursday 2 June 2016

One of the reasons I love designing

The other day I read this article about introversion and it really resonated with me.  For the longest time I've felt that I don't really fit in workplaces, my colleagues are forever going out to drinks without me because even though I really like them, I'd rather be at home.  I have friends, and I hang out with my friends, but my happy place doesn't have a ton of people in it.

During the kids' nap time I quietly work away at my design work (and laundry, because that's never-ending), and it's so wonderful, that time alone feeds me in ways I can't quite explain.  I love the glorious quiet and the progress I make working on my own.