In The Grip

I got the nicest note from someone the other day saying they were sorry I wasn't knitting much these days.  I had to do a bit of a double take.  I sort of feel like I've been knitting like a mad woman.  That cramp in my neck and the twinge just above my right elbow also seem to indicate that I've been knitting rather a lot. What I've not been doing is showing you my knitting.  That is in large part because most of what I'm knitting at the moment is swatches.  Piles and piles and piles of swatches.  See?  [...]

September 6, 2013|

Pin Me Down

So let's talk about blocking. You know those stitches that just, by their nature, don't want to lie flat?  The ones that have a bit of ripple and curve to them?  Yeah.  There are a few ways you can go with them.  You can force them flat when you block, or you can exaggerate the the waves.  I think both can be fun, but what about you guys.  Would you freak out if the blocking instructions wanted you to do this? You'd need either several (oh, maybe 12?) straight needles or a set of blocking wires or some super skinny [...]

August 15, 2013|

Process

I am a firm believer in order of operations.  Having a set of steps (and then following them) helps ensure things get done the right ways and that things don't get missed.  Given that, it should come as no surprise that the books (or at least the patterns for the books) follow a set process. Step 1 is picking the yarn. Step 2 is swatching like a fiend. Step 3 is making myself a page of charts and notes (on graph paper, it has to be graph paper, I don't know how anyone writes on lined paper) for each pattern.  [...]

May 14, 2013|

More Milestones

I showed you last month when I had half of the swatches for Book the Third finished up, so it seems only fair to show you the second half.  Now of course I'm mean, and I want to keep the details secret, so I'll only show you a tiny picture (and one with all the good bits blurred out too).  Hopefully it will at least serve as proof of concept and reassure you that I have been up to something, even if I haven't been turning out finished objects with any regularity.  I have a sneaking suspicion you're really going [...]

May 30, 2012|

Milestones

I think I've explained before that writing books isn't either as linear or as quick a process as I initially thought.  It goes in loops, at least for me.  There's a general process for each project.  There's some variation, but it usually goes something like this: pick yarn get yarn play with graph paper swatch rinse and repeat as necessary to beat the swatch into submission do some math finalize swatch finalize notes take the notes from the graph paper and turn them into a real pattern get sample knit (and do the first round of testing in the process) [...]

April 4, 2012|

I Slipped

So you want to know the other reason that lovely gray sock is taking forever?  Besides being a pattern precisely calculated to be as slow as humanly possible to work?  It's because I've have had a lapse of knitting fidelity.  I became distracted.  It could have been by these... Swatches.  Piles of them.  Little bits of color and fluff, none even as big as an index card. These aren't proper swatches (and you are not allowed to cry about things not fitting if your swatches look like this).  These are trial swatches, proto-swatches if you will.  Color doesn't matter, fiber [...]

March 25, 2011|

The Three Rs, Part Three

So day one was rowdy, and day two was reverent.  Day three can perhaps best be called raucous.  It was knitting with Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, it was the final day, and we were all more than a bit slap happy. Things started out well enough.  There was learning, there was sharing, there was swatching.  We got to try out all the yarns we had dyed on the first day and several more as well.  The wisdom of my decision to buy piles and piles of Silkie Sock was confirmed.  My resistance to sweater knitting was substantially undermined.  (Ya see that silvery [...]

July 25, 2010|
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