Doing the hard good thing

Vera - front view
Originally uploaded by snowdenbecker

First things first--Vera is finally ready for prime time! Like Adelaide, she has been tech-edited, and thereby much improved, by the wonderful Hadley (Ravelry: hadleygetscrafty) and some extremely patient test-knitters. So that wasn't too hard for me, and I hope it'll be good for you! This design was originally made for Rowan Calmer, a longtime favorite of mine, and between the chainette construction of the yarn and the ribbing, it's a great stretchy cardigan to wrap up in for autumn (which has FINALLY arrived here in Texas). It's a $3.00 PDF download from Ravelry; the pattern includes charted and written instructions for the leaf-and-vine insets, and it's worked bottom-up with seamless set-in sleeves--practically no finishing required.



Second things second: Today I had to frog out half a sleeve and the entire body of a sweater-in-progress. Everything was the right shape, but it was just too small--the fit wasn't right for the style, and I knew if I went ahead and finished it as an XXS, I'd be so frustrated at not getting it right. So, rip rip rip up past the armpits, wind wind wind the yarn back onto the ball, and start from square one. Maybe one and a half--the shoulders and upper back were fine, and I had a lovely swatch to start with...

This is only the latest in a string reminders about something my husband says: Anyone can do the easy thing. Most people can do the easy good thing, and everyone does the easy bad thing more often than they should...but sometimes you have to do the hard good thing. I've done a couple of projects now where doing the hard good thing--ripping out hours worth of work--became inevitable. I wouldn't say it's gotten easier, but I've never once regretted it, or felt it wasn't worth the extra effort in the end. And hey, any excuse to put off doing more work on my dissertation!

New pattern, new prices

I must be a grown-up now: My first professionally tech-edited pattern is up and ready for download from Ravelry. You can buy it right now for $3.00 with the button below, in fact! Adelaide took some extra effort, because the construction method is a little unusual (worked from the borders inward, and then up from the hem, with no seams). Having convinced myself I had the math right, I wanted to make absolutely sure.

Hadley (on Ravelry: hadleygetscrafty) came highly recommended, had reasonable rates, and was available when I contacted her, which might be the most important thing. She turned the job around quickly and did really terrific work. I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship! Hopefully, you all will benefit from her efforts without ever being truly aware of it. You'll just think I'm an awesome pattern-writer who's naturally perfect with math stuff. Riiiiiiiight...

Some of my older patterns will get the professional tech-edit treatment in the near future; they'll also be updated to include suggestions and improvements from folks who have worked from them already (things like new charts and schematics, technique refinements, etc.). Rest assured that if you've bought a pattern from me in the past, revised versions will always be available to you AT NO CHARGE. The way I see it, I'm not giving anything away (after all, you already bought it), and I'd rather my best work was available to everyone--not just whoever wants to shell out twice for the same pattern.

Last but not least, after having a "back to school sale" in late August/early September, I've decided to drop all my pattern prices to $3.00--permanently. Go crazy!

Placid, and full disclosure

Here I am, starting the day off right: With my knitting, the New Yorker, and a cup of coffee on the deck of our cabin by the lake at the Sherwood Forest Motor Inn near Lake Placid, NY. There were ducks and herons, and we went canoeing every day while we were in town for a friend's wedding. (A certain quantity of maple-nut fudge was also consumed.) It was a timely break, falling as it did in between submission of my written qualifying exams and my oral defense, the last stage in the qualifying procedure for my PhD. I passed my orals last week, and am pleased and relieved to report that I have now advanced to candidacy. Yay, me!

So, that at least partially explains the long gap between posts. That, and the fact that it's STILL getting up into the 90s around here. Knitting must be done indoors, and even then anything bigger than a sock will give you a seriously sweaty lap. I have, however, been kind of cranking them out lately--I finished the Vera-scarf-inspired Adelaide in time for Amy Singer's visit to The Knitting Nest (OK, all except for two buttons. Which I finished day before yesterday--that still counts! Final FO pics coming soon for that.) I think that pattern's just about ready for posting now, too--we'll unveil it for the Hill Country Yarn Crawl. Maybe get a KAL going for it or something...

I also finished Myrtle 2.0, with improvements made to the all the little things that bugged me about the first one. I mirrored the lace panels on either side of the front and back, inserted more lattice panels where I had ad hoc stockinette sections before, simplified the shaping, and worked out a more reliable way to keep the stitch count right on the set-in sleeves, which was difficult originally because the stitch count for dayflower lace changes pretty much every row. I even worked up the chart for the lace pattern, so I'm about halfway done writing up the pattern for multiple sizes, too. Whew. But that's not all! I've also written up instructions for Agatha and charted THAT lace pattern, too (getting to be an expert at this here charting stuff). Which leads me to my most exciting update...

FULL DISCLOSURE: Agatha will quite likely be the next pattern I release--and the first one I release as a sponsored knitter, with yarn support from KnitPicks! I was approached by a representative of the company several weeks ago with this generous offer--and after I got over my initial conviction that they must have me confused with someone else, I was thrilled to accept. It's probably clear from my Ravelry project page that I'm already a KnitPicks fan (especially of the oh-so-soft Alpaca Cloud: there's the shawl I made for my MIL, and the Laverne sweater I just finished for my pal Lisa--plus a dozen or so hats for friends in the late, lamented, lovely Panache, which they don't sell anymore). So it's not like I'm compromising my values here. In fact, I think KP really helps me knit in harmony with my values--for instance, I chose Shine Sport as an alternative for Decimal because it was a way more affordable option than the Rowan Cotton Glace I worked the original in. Life's too short to knit with cruddy yarn, but when you're talking about shelling out $100 for materials just for size XS, you know you're going to be pricing a lot of people out across the entire size range. And they have organic cottons, too!

Not all my future patterns will feature KnitPicks yarns. I support my LYSes faithfully, and those who know me know I'm powerless to resist good fibers, whatever the source. When I do design with KnitPicks in mind, though, you can be sure of two things: 1) I truly think that it's the best yarn for the project, and 2) KnitPicks was generous enough to provide me, an independent designer, with the support I needed to make it. Thanks, KnitPicks!

Wishful knitting

Who wishes fall would hurry up and get here, already? I do...


And then winter should come, too. As soon as possible. Please. Is anyone up there listening? At least call it quits with the 100-plus temperatures for a while, OK? Pleeeeeeeeeezzze?

I'm on TV!

OK, well, maybe it's not TV exactly. But I finally decided to support Ravelry by becoming an advertiser on their Patterns page--which means that my cobbled-together ad (pictured at right) for the Harriet sweater pops up in prime placement one out of every 11 times you load the page. It's unreasonably exciting for me to see it up there and I've been checking my click-through stats obsessively, of course.

In honor of the occasion, I'm having a "Back to School" sale on all my current patterns--they're 40% off for a limited time only, so if you've been wanting to buy one (or two or three), now's the time! I regret that back-to-school-sale pricing applies to the patterns only; I can't do anything about the cost of the yarn, kids. :-)

Is that your stash, or your furnace?

It's happening again...there's a WHOLE lotta yarn in the stash. Some of it is destined for projects that are already on the needles, some of it is for imaginary stuff that's yet to be...but it all reminds me of that thing we learned about in 8th grade science class: Potential energy.

You remember: The car that's barreling down the road while the driver texts her BFF has kinetic energy--probably more than enough to kill the li'l ol' pedestrian who's on her way to the bus stop, where she's planning to get a few rows of knitting done before the #5 comes.

The yarn in the pedestrian's project bag, on the other hand, has potential energy--to roll away into the grass clippings behind the bus-stop bench, or to bounce down the bus steps and under the seating reserved for seniors and mobility impairments. Or to become something that generates warmth, particularly in the area of the wearer's heart. (Awww...) Look at it that way, and the yarn cupboard in my home office has more BTU's than the closet with the water heater in it--potentially, anyway.

According to the one-for-you, one-for-me principle, having just finished that sample for the still-very-secret book project and my pal's Laverne, I'm due at least two sweaters of my very own. (Doesn't matter in the least that it's 105 degrees out every day here in Texas. Call it wishful knitting.) So I'm working up my new merino lace singles into a sweater pour moi. I've done the front edgings and worked down past the sleeve-separation point now...and the great thing is, this yarn is really living up to its potential energy. Because I spend my days working on my doctoral research--work that can be by nature a solitary, incremental, open-ended, and frustrating leap of faith in one's own intellectual abilities--knitting like this offers an extra comfort now.

It just feels good to have a vision for something, pick up my yarn and needles, cast on, and start working doggedly in that direction. I may not know just how I'll answer my research questions (yet), but I do know how to pick up and knit the right number of stitches to start working down from the back neck edge. I may waste time referring back to all my disorganized research notes during my qualifying exams a few days from now; nevertheless, just like referring to the chart for that lace pattern, eventually I'll know it well enough to wing it. I can tell as this new sweater takes shape that it really is turning out the way I want it to--that I finally have the knack of translating my mental picture into a physical object that matches it just so.


As each fat cake of yarn in my stash dwindles down to a nugget, I see myself as activating its potential energy, channeling it with great precision and accuracy (and pointy pointy needles) in the direction where I want it to go. And that, in turn, is reassuring me that I really can reach my own potential when it comes to the giant hoard of articles, books, case citations, and research materials piled up around my desk. Now all of that seems less like an unmanageable morass, and more like just another stash I'm working my way through...one skein at a time.

So much more than meets the eye...

July's steaming toward the finish line, and I've spent more than half of it away from home--which means plane trips, which means some nice long uninterrupted stretches of knitting (and reading dreadful celebrity gossip magazines, thanks to which I now know who AnnaLynne McCord is and what chicken cutlets are). Yay, I've been productive!

I finally finished the Laverne sweater I started for one of my best gal pals, which worked up great in KnitPicks Alpaca Cloud--the finished fabric has a super-silky hand and gorgeous drape, but the laceweight yarn should stave off that pesky alpaca drooping problem...

I also handed over the finished sample for a book project I was honored to be invited to contribute to. It's a sweater, and it's in Knit One, Crochet Too BabyBoo in Lemon Ice--which is absolutely not a color I would have chosen if I were making something for myself, but it ended up surprising me. It showed texture beautifully and had a great shimmery depth, even in a pastel hue. It also looked terrific with these pretty periwinkle vintage buttons I picked up on one of my trips this month. Wish I could say more than that, but I've been sworn to secrecy--rest assured you'll hear about it when the book comes off the presses!

I also cranked out another Otto bear for a friend who's expecting, and made him a little sweater and pants out of stash yarn. That's fast becoming my go-to baby gift. Ysolda Teague's pattern is so fun to knit, it's cute as can be, and stuffed animals are conveniently gender-neutral...

My next big project, knitting division: I started on a duster-length sweater using the graphite-gray merino laceweight that Stephanie dyed up for me earlier this month. I decided to resist the Hannah Fettig trend (charming as the Featherweight sweater is, I think it's too short for my figure, and it would look too plain if I just extended it), so I am playing around with the Fernfrost lace pattern from an Anne Hansen shawl I liked as a border, and am going to see where that takes me. Next big project, rest-of-life division: Finishing my qualifying paper and taking my qualifying exams, which should be happening over the next few weeks. Expect even fewer posts than usual during that time!

(Oh, hey, if you like the sweater, you can score a copy of the pattern via the Ravelry pattern store by clicking here:

You need not be a Ravelry user to use it!)