Friday 16 December 2016

Insane

This week has been nuts and there is a party happening at my house in a couple hours, after I finish typing this I have to check facebook to see exactly what time I said the party is starting, because I can't remember.  I'm glad I finished so much last week because my knitting to do list has exploded (in a lovely way, it's just that there are some early January deadlines and between now and then is Christmas).

I'm really excited about the design I'm working on to propose to a yarn company that has a call out now, it's not something that I would ever normally knit for myself which is one of the fun things about responding to calls for submissions: it gets me working with ideas and styles that never would have occurred to me.  I

Thursday 8 December 2016

Finishing

Since the start of November I've been working really hard to finish up some designs I'd been working on.  I had about 10 of them in various stages of completion; some just needed charts, others needed formatting, others maybe just a bit of work to finish the sample and photography and I decided that I wanted to push through getting most of those finished before starting other new designs.  Mostly because I wanted to be able to clear my head a bit, there's something nice about starting something new when there isn't a laundry list of things that will need to be done eventually floating around my head.  I've been working and working and the list is down to three.  

Three is great, because there are different stages of a design and sometimes it's nice to work on one of the later stages--taking a break from sizing a pattern so I can do something easier like formatting, for example.  Last night I sat down and made a list of the things I want to work on.  I'm almost through my to do list for the month and making that list felt so light, happy.  It's going to be a good December. :)

Monday 5 December 2016

Charts

I like charted patterns, although for anything other than colourwork I always try to include both charted and written instructions in my patterns, given that they're sold digitally I figured why not give people the choice?  A while ago I was watching some of Kate Heppell's Kitty Knits vlogs (they're on youtube and she's lovely, you should check her out) and she mentioned that there is a large segment of knitters who can't read charts.  I thought that was a funny statement, they's a key right there and I think they're so intuitive, plus it's the sort of thing that's easy to learn even if it looks like Greek the first time, at least that's what I thought.

Last week I was knitting something, there was a shape made out in reverse stockinette and I had a chart showing which sts were purled and which were knit.  There were only the two symbols and they clearly made out a particular shape when an older friend who is a very competent knitter walked by, saw the paper, and exclaimed, "that can not be a knitting pattern!  Is that a knitting pattern?  How can you read that?"  Genuine questions, from someone well versed in all things knitting.  I was considering leaving the written instructions out of this pattern but I have been put quite firmly back in my place.   Isn't it so funny how something so clear to one person is confusing to another?  I would have found working written instructions for this particular pattern maddeningly frustrating, I make way more mistakes when I use them, my dyslexia makes using written instructions pretty difficult but she would have been able to do it no problem, while finding the way I do things simply foreign.  

Thursday 1 December 2016

A Lull

It looks like Old Faithful (my giant blanket made of out sock yarn) and I are going to be spending some time together over the next little while.  It's my project for between my other projects, since it's always ready to be picked up.  I've made it my goal to publish one knitting pattern a month and I have been, but my design to-do list for December is quite full and December is always busy, I don't have time to swatch and do the math for knitting a new design so I will continue to use up all the teeny balls of sock yarn leftover from other projects.

There is one drawback to this project, I've recently discovered.  I'm totally charmed by the Yarn Harlot's tiny Christmas ornaments, and if I hadn't made this blanket I'd have the yarn for them.  It's okay though, I feel like while I would love having the teeny Christmas ornaments she's making that knitting them would slowly drive me insane.  Better stick to the blanket.