Thursday 28 July 2016

Waiting is Not Easy

Caleb has this adorable book called, "Waiting is not Easy" by Mo Williams.  Basically an elephant is having trouble waiting for a surprise his friend, Piggie, has for him.  That's totally where I'm at right now.  I'm waiting to hear from a magazine about a few submissions I sent them (which I would love to get started on).  They should send out the details about which patterns are accepted and rejected any day (actually a couple days ago), and I have a magazine commission that has been accepted and I've done a bunch of work on but am stalled until the yarn comes.  It should also be here any day.  I feel like a runner at the starting block waiting for the race to start, I know I'll have to hustle once I can get started but at the moment...nothing.  Just waiting.

I'm almost done the third sample knitting square I'm making for a blanket and I'm going to be making a forth because I have nothing to knit in the car tomorrow.  If you're looking for a designer who does breathtaking colourwork Jenise Hope is absolutely worth checking out.

Monday 25 July 2016

I like to finish something before setting it aside, it's totally a personality thing.  Right now I have some sample knitting due mid-September, I have a pattern I need to send out mid-August.  Clearly, I need to do the pattern before the rest of the sample knitting but putting aside the sample knitting is driving me slightly bonkers.  I'm also in the middle of a great Craftsy course that I'll need to put on hold until I have some work done, and there's no reason for that to bother me other than things like this drive me a little nuts.

I heard someone speak recently about the fact that it's okay to have personal preferences based on our personalities but sometimes we just need to put those aside so we can do what we want to do.  I'm trying really hard to think that way.

The pattern is fun to work on, so that helps too.

Thursday 21 July 2016

A little laugh

My husband likes to learn things, he's quite indiscriminate about in, in that if someone he loves is interested in something he'll ask questions about it and enjoy being able to discuss it.  (He is quite knowledgeable about knitting as a result, he is very charming.)

The other day he peeked over my shoulder while I was looking at a sweater pattern and got very quiet, then very slowly said, "what.... is underarm BO?"

Of course it is underarm bind off, it never occurred to me that it could be taken any other way.  I've been chucking about this for a couple days now and had to share.

Monday 18 July 2016

New Pattern!



Quite a while ago now I made an airplane sweater for my airplane obsessed son.  It took me a while to edit and have it tested but it's done and I'm thrilled with it.  Take Flight is knit flat and seamed, with an airplane and clouds that stand out because of their texture.  I'm thrilled with it, and if you are too you can find it on Ravelry here. :)

Thursday 14 July 2016

Glorious progress

I heard back from the designer who I'm doing some sample work for and am off working the pieces.  They're so much fun.  It's part of a modular blanket but Jenise Hope and the pieces are super-fun (and super-pretty), I'm really enjoying it.

On a completely desperate note my one year old daughter has decided that waking up at 5am and a one hour nap are enough sleep for her.  I disagree.  In addition to honestly needing some time to get things done she's super-grumpy and just needs more sleep to be happy, which I want for her, because feeling tired is unpleasant and there's no reason that I can think of that she needs to feel like that, she just needs to sleep longer.  She just woke up and is complaining, but she's been down for less than an hour, I'm hoping she'll fall back asleep again.  Not quite sure what to do about that.

My raglan sizing spreadsheets are going fairly well, I''m doing a Craftsy class on it.  I've sold patterns on Craftsy before but this is the first class I've done.  I'm enjoying it, even though the intro has been mostly things I've already known (how to measure and use excel).  It's just starting to get into the meat and potatoes of the material and I think it's going to be very helpful.  I really want to get through it because there are about four sweaters I want to work on but don't want to start the samples until I sort out certain numbers so I can make sure the colourwork works across the different sizes.

Tuesday 12 July 2016

Hello again old friend

I'm in this awkward place where my projects either is on hold until I hear from the designer because of a possible issue in the pattern, not done swatching yet, or needs finishing that requires a sewing machine or buttons (in other words not portable).  I didn't know what I would knit during knitting group today and was worried about it until I realized I have a project for just this occasion.

I've been using up leftover sock yarn in a double ten stitch blanket, it's about 4.5' square now, and I love it.  It's super straight-forward and is never at an awkward stage (until I finally finish it and have to weave in a hundred ends but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it).  I pulled it out last night and am still illogically in love with the thing.

Monday 11 July 2016

Grading Knits

The last time I tried to size a sweater it was epically frustrating so I decided that this time, before starting, I would make a spreadsheet to help me.  I thought this was a brilliant idea, however I'm discovering that it is largely moving the part of the project where I want to poke my eyes out to now rather than putting it off.  I'm persevering though, because I think that if I get the spreadsheet sorted I'll be able to use it more than once which should avert the "arg this is awful" phase of my next sweater project.

I have found some really awesome resources for grading knits, this tutorial has been very helpful, and I have just signed up for a crafty class on it too, haven't started it yet though.

Friday 8 July 2016

Argh

I'm doing some sample knitting for this gorgeous modular blanket at the moment, I was really excited do start but it's taken me forever to get gauge.  Yesterday I was so frustrated with it, the beginning is sort of finicky and it's a centre-out square with colour work and it's in the round and so I just had to guess a needle size, start until it's big enough to measure, then rip it out if it wasn't right.  It wasn't right about 4 times.  (Apparently the designer is a super-loose knitter, I am a tight knitter, and our needle sizes have to be waaaay different to achieve gauge.)

I was thinking about why it was so frustrating and I think it's because I just wanted to knit, not go back and forth between starting something and ripping it out.  I am absolutely thrilled that I finally got gauge, I was working happily along and then I realized something, there's a mistake in the chart and I have to wait until I hear from the designer before I move on.  I just want to knit it, it had just gotten fun.

Oh well.
(I should add that I'm participating in the design process, the teeny mistake isn't a reflection of poor work by the designer, she's awesome, and one of the points of other people participating in this stage is to weed out these things.  I'm mostly frustrated because I want to knit.)

Monday 4 July 2016

Returned

For years I prayed I'd get good inlaws.  I figured, you get to pick the person you marry but sometimes awesome people can have nutty parents and inlaws are a big deal.

Yesterday mine drove a 3 hour round trip to get the hat that fell out of our car on vacation.  They are super-awesome.  They also explained to the lady at reception where the hat was that I don't sell knitted things because that makes no sense because knitting takes a long time, I sell patterns.  They did this without me ever explicitly explaining this to them.