Well it looks like Picasa, where I store most of my pictures, is down. That means that most of the pictures here aren’t showing up. Hopefully everything will be back to normal soon.
Perhaps I should start hosting the pictures on WordPress instead…
UPDATE: It looks like the pictures can be seen by everyone except me. Huh.
It’s happened. I’ve finally succumbed to the insanity that is swatching. Why is swatching insane, you ask? Because it involves expecting the swatch to tell you the truth and that the finished project will be faithful to the gauge measure on the swatch. Now don’t get me wrong, I’ve certainly had projects that were dead on with the swatch gauge. Usually those were small projects like gloves, and less likely to be sweaters. If you took all of the projects made without a swatch, and all of the projects made with a swatch and compared them based on accuracy with the pattern, fit, frustrations endured, or happiness of the knitter with the final project I honestly don’t think that there would be any statistical significance. But this time my knitting angel has won out over my lazy knitting devil and I’ve swatched. Multiple times for multiple projects.
The pink is for my editing of the Starburst pattern, and the purple is for a new pattern, which I haven’t decided if I want to share it before it’s completed, written, tested and edited. But we’ll see how patient I am. The missing swatchlette, which was a herringbone stitch done in the round for a pair of fingerless gloves, is missing. It was on the table when I went to bed and the next morning? Gone. Disappeared. I looked under the couch, under the bed, behind the tv. Nothing. I’m seriously hoping that I walk in to the apartment tonight to find the cats playing with it. I really just want my swatch back. I’ll forgive the cats for stealing it, really, I will. Just bring it back to me.
This weekend was very productive pattern-wise. Not only did I swatch, but I took pictures for Rose’s mitts and the Katherine hat. Also, I’m about two steps away from buying Stitch Mastery. I played around with the demo and emailed Cathy about her policy on switching computers. The demo was easy to work with, and I was even able to create my own stitch (which I need for Katherine) and I got such a speedy reply from Cathy that I nearly had whiplash.
I do believe I’ve cured my knitting ennui.
Happy knitting!
At the end of each month now I have a sense of impending doom. I am finding myself constantly checking the calendar to see how many days I have left to finish Ty’s socks. I’m proud to say that I have completed approximately 17% of my new year’s resolution. Meet the February Socks: “The best socks yet” ~Ty
We spend quite a bit of time last night looking for new socks patterns to add to my Ravelry queue, as well as picking March yarn and pattern. Now that Ty knows about ease, and how much he likes in his socks, it will hopefully be easier to make “the best socks yet” every time.
In non-sock news, I finally started the hat Ashley’s been bugging me for since October (I don’t know why she isn’t making it seeing as she knows how to knit…) and I cast on today for my Rose’s fingerless gloves. This came after a much welcomed push to revisit my patterns like I’ve been saying I should. Last Tuesday at Looped I met someone new, as I do most Tuesday, and she commented on how much she liked my yellow hat, which I’m pleased to say isn’t the first time someone’s mentioned it. However, this time, she told me that she needed the pattern, that she wanted to make that hat and she would pay for the pattern. Well, that got me thinking about my desperately lonely patterns, which prompted me to cast on for the gloves. The hat pattern is still tucked away in one of my notebooks, but when I have a few hours where I’m not worried about a sock deadline I’ll type it up and post it.
And in conclusion, pictures of my Fuse cardigan! (complete with me squinting at the sun)
Happy Knitting!
I finally finally finish the Java socks for Ty. I feel like they’ve taken me forever! I’m certainly not the worlds best planner, but really I need to make sure I know what I’m doing before I convert a top-down to a toe-up when I’ve never done a toe up or a heel-flap and gusset! And although the lonely foot of the first sock sat for months while I procrastinated figuring out the heel, once I sat down and put some thought into it, the second sock practically finished itself. And of course, now I’m an expert.
This moment of triumph inspired my first new year’s resolution of 2012. I will knit a pair of socks for Ty every month of this year. And to make sure I’m not starting the new year off on the wrong foot (haha), the Java socks don’t count, and Ty now calls them his ‘December Socks’. The January socks are started and coming along nicely, thanks to the brilliant fastness of stockinette in the round (with some stripes going on so I don’t get bored). I’ve yet to decide if I’m allowed to get ahead on my monthly sock making, but maybe I’ll wait for the January socks to actually be finished in January before I worry about that.
And for your viewing pleasure: better pictures of my January selfish knitting!
The cowl looks rather brown here, but I swear that it is in fact a pretty green.
Fuse Cardigan update: No joy on finding Shelter yarn in Faded Quilt, both in DC and NYC. Will have to wait at least a week. Boo.
Happy Knitting!
These last few weeks have been full of knitting, and a few FOs, but it seems that a few things on my to do list have managed to escape my attention, again. My redo of Peacock Feathers is finished, but to be honest, I’m not as happy with them as I’d like to be, at least if I’m going to go through the trouble of re-editing the pdf and taking better pictures. Fortunately I have another skein of that same purple knitpicks stroll, so I’ll try again. The socks will go up on Etsy, just as soon as I do the finishing for them, and figure out how I’m going to do the pictures.
Speaking of pictures, I recently received probably the best hand-me-down I’ve ever gotten (and I’m the youngest of three), my dad’s old DSLR camera! I’m still figuring out how to use it, both the physical buttons and what actually makes a good picture. Etsy has some nice tutorials on small object photography, which kind of overlaps with what I want, but I’ll need more info on photographing hats/gloves/etc. The other issue that comes up with finally getting a nice camera, is the issue of a model. I’d much rather be in charge of what the photo looks like, which means I have to be behind the camera, not wearing my knits. And as much of a good sport Ty is about modeling the men’s stuff, I think he, and my customers, would draw the line at him modeling the women’s items. But I guess that’s what friends are for… *cough* Ashley *cough*
My autumnal colorwork fingerless mitts are finally progressing, after having the issue of being way too annoying to carry all those skeins around with me. Once I realized that I should therefore work on those while I’m home, instead of more transportable projects, I found myself almost finished. I’ll have to remind myself when I’m done, however, that because of all those color changes they’ll need some serious blocking.
As my take-with-me project I started a second pair of men’s fingerless gloves, which I think are probably my favorite thing on the needles now. Partly because the Rowan Felted Tweed is so nice, but mostly because they knit up so quickly! I started to realize that although I had a thing or two for men on my Etsy shop, more is definitely necessary before the holidays. Because seriously, what exactly are you supposed to get your husband? And if I have that problem, and I’m a knitter, I’m sure that the non-knitters have that issue too. Women are easy to shop for, and even if you get something they don’t like, they know how to lie. Men? Not so much.
Tomorrow I’ll be heading off to Philadelphia for a work retreat/3-day seminar, which means that I’ll have quite a bit of travel time to knit, and hopefully get these four Etsy projects ready for pictures over the weekend. Maybe I’ll start Ty’s next pair of socks on the train, is October 26th too late to enter Socktoberfest?
Happy Knitting!
