the domestic sphere

2008-02-28T16:47:00.000-08:00

The domestic goddess has left the building.

After nearly six years here at blogspot, I'm moving on. Come visit me at my new place, domesticsphere.com.

All the same old bloggy goodness with all sorts of snappy new features. (New blog features since the birth of this blog: comments, the ability to blog without knowing html, RSS feeds, trackbacks...) And don't worry, all the old stuff is there, so you can stay up to date or cruise nostalgically through all 534 posts we've ported over there.

2008-01-29T11:07:00.000-08:00

Do call me George.

I have a collection of etiquette books. My first and favorite was found in the free books box outside of Powell's in Hyde Park. It's Vogue's Book of Etiquette, published in 1948. The author is Millicent Fenwick, an associate editor of Vogue. That a Vogue editor would write an etiquette book and that she should have such a perfect name for the task makes my heart beat just a tiny bit faster.

Anyway, here's a tidbit to amuse you in these days of informality.

A man addressing a woman always waits to call a woman by her first name until she has taken the initiative. A woman may make a point of the change by saying, "Please, don't call me Mrs. Edwards"; or she may simply start calling the man by his first name. But, unless the man is very much older than the woman, he should never fall into the modern rudeness of saying, "Do call me George."

2008-01-29T10:42:00.000-08:00

modernity

So I was doing a bit of the "from the thrift store you came, and to the thrift store ye shall return" yesterday and decided to pop in for a look around. You get rid of some stuff and you make room for more stuff. I spotted this cabinet.

Which turns out to be a sewing machine cabinet. The "drawers" are a facade for a built in bench with underseat storage! How sleek and built in. How mid-century!

In that miraculous interchangeability of sewing machines built in the days before planned obsolescence, the old pink Brother fits right in. This is maybe one of the most loveable things about sewing machines. Need a belt? Need a bobbin case? A cabinet? They're all standard sizes. Across brands. Across decades. Plus you can actually observe all the moving parts and figure out which one isn't moving the right way. No mysteries. No chips. It's an actual machine.

The machine in the cabinet seems very close to working -- needs a new belt and a new slide plate, but I think I can find those without much ado. At first I thought I'd get rid of it and just use the cabinet for the Brother, but I tried it a bit and I think it might be a winner. I've never heard of the brand and couldn't find much on the internet -- it's a Radi-O-Matic, and has enough levers and dials to get a man on the moon. All metal. No plastic. And it's got the manual with it. And if there was any doubt about it, it's very Modern. It's even labeled.

2008-01-20T07:00:00.000-08:00

music

I heard through the grapevine (and the University of Chicago alumni magazine) that my old friend Paul K. has released a 100 song MP3 collection available through iTunes. We used to call Paul "the singing librarian" or "the suburban balladeer". You might call him a singer-songwriter or a folk singer. Anyway, twenty bucks gets you a whole lot of Paul. Including a song about me.

2008-01-20T06:56:00.000-08:00

how's this for a knitting machine?

Came across this video on YouTube. A knitting machine made entirely of legos. Wow.

2008-01-17T11:06:00.001-08:00

plying my trade

Here's a little photoessay about my most recent spinning creation.

8 ounces of superwash merino roving from Matahari Spinnery. Most of the shades are warm, but I wanted to introduce a little surprisey contrast of green. It ended up too pale and blue and I just didn't like it. These dyes are pretty old and not always predictable.

So I stuck the offending portion of the roving into a pan of hot water with two packs of cherry Kool-Aid for 20 minutes. This browned and greyed most of the offending portion and left just the smallest blips of the cools. Cool.

Outside drying.

I knew I wanted to ply this yarn and originally I was going to simply divide it in two, spin each half and then ply them, so that they would mostly (theoretically) match up and I could get a gradient from one end of the skein to the other. I divided the roving in half lengthwise (A and B), then divided the skein into lengths of "lighter" and "darker". First I spun A dark, then A light. That's the bottom bobbin. In watching the colors go by, I decided that rather than pairing the light with the light and the dark with the dark, there should be more coherence, so the second bobbin started with B light and ended with B dark.

The result, I think is quite pretty. No one should be surprised to see these colors from me, I suppose. By quick calculation, it's about 220 yards of bulky yarn. No project in mind for it... yet.

2008-01-08T13:15:00.000-08:00

holiday knitting

This is what became of the holiday wreath of yarn. I did end up going with the swallowtail shawl after all though I left out the border sections. By my calculations (x squared over 2 [where x is the number of rows in the whole shawl] minus y squared over 2 [where y is the number of rows knit before the border started]), I would need roughly half the yarn to complete the border as written. After the 14 repeats of the pattern, I weighed the remaining yarn and found that I had less than half left (Mr. Fullbrain, get behind me.) so I decided to continue with the budding lace pattern and just wing it on the edging later. All went well until I got very nearly done. I underestimated how much yarn I might need to do the border I wanted and, trying to use up every last yard of yarn, knit too far. I had to rip back and then I decided to rethink the border. I'm sure if I'd chosen to sit undisturbed for an hour I would have counted things properly and made my litte chart work for the number of stitches and the amount of yarn I had, but somehow, I just kept knitting and unknitting, introducing problems that then had to be undone. To the point that my entire family noted over the holidays that I was working with the same 1-inch ball of yarn over the whole break! On the plane home I got things straightened out, knit it up and got to the row before the bind-off and ran out of yarn. Fortunately in my stash was some Stacey Charles Ritratto in a very resonant colorway with just a bit of sparkle, so I did the last row and bind-off with that. So it's got a subtly sparkly edge. I'm very pleased with myself. I love the color and the way that I managed to work in some color shifting along the way. Even though it's a semi-solid color, there's a lot of richness to it, that I don't think could be achieved by any thing other than hand dying roving. I was quite nervous about it being a rather skinny single and whether it would behave like "real" yarn, but the extensive knitting and ripping over the last couple of inches proved to me that it was really shockingly sturdy. I don't think I had it break on me even once. So pleased am I that I quickly set to spinning the other half of the same batch of roving. Dyed at the same time. It's very earthy. Browns and greys with a bit of lichen-like green. It's drying in the oven to ease my impatience. I want to make sure it's dry in time for my TNNA trip on Thursday. And at another phase of development, more wool and rovings soaking up dye, so I'll have something to spin. Both rovings came from Matahari Spinnery. One is superwash merino lambswool and the other is an Alpaca Silk and Merino Blend. I mixed the tags up and I still haven't really figured out which is which. You'd think I'd be able to tell, but both were so soft and delightful that it's surprisingly difficult! I think the shawl is the Alpaca Silk Merino -- Now that it's gone through everything it seems to have the faint sheen of silk and a hairy halo that I suspect is Alpaca. At any rate, I was very pleased with the quality of the products from Matahari and found them delightful to spin.

2007-12-16T08:31:00.000-08:00

holiday spinning

I've been spinning some... This wreath of hand-dyed hand-spun indicates that I do tend to overtwist still; I think that I just don't have faith that it will stay stuck together as yarn with less twist. Still, the yarn is relatively even and I love the colors. I was planning on plying it when I started, and since my enthusiasm for twisting goes both ways, plying should undo part of the twisting. But now that I see it, I love it as a single ply and am reluctant to lose much of the color variation through plying. Currently I'm thinking of something lacy, but forgiving. If I'm feeling lazy, a larger version of the garter stitch scarf with elongated stitches from Knitting Patterns for Dummies. Or a feather-and-fan something. I'd love a modified version of Evelyn Clark's Swallowtail Shawl in Fall 2006 Interweave Knits, but even a larger gauge/fewer repeats strategy, I believe, will come up short. By my quick calculation, I have about 350 yds and 105g. And I'm guessing a stockinette gauge of maybe 5.5 sts/inch. I'll know more after it's washed.

I have been experimenting with knitting up some handspun yarns, so here's a quick little patternlette for you. Perfect for handspun in all flavors and lengths. I've knit three variations on this theme. The green neckpiece above was some mysterious fiber that I played at plying and my friend Dawn spun up for me. It was really just a microskein -- an experiment -- but it's a fun little finished piece that you can manage to whip up in almost no time flat. Pair it with a vintage cufflink for a closure, or create one by sewing two buttons back to back -- an idea I picked up from Sharon Turner that I love! If you aren't using buttons with shanks, be sure to leave a little space between them and try using two wildly different buttons so that the closure has dual personalities.

Below you see another version of the same pattern, knat from a silk hankie I dyed and spun, then plied with sewing thread. This is a single hankie and the finished piece is in the smallish scarf range -- maybe 5 inches wide by 45 inches long.

The great news is that these knit up quickly and I think show off "interesting" yarn in a very positive way. The stitch pattern biases naturally and is forgiving to the idiosyncracies of a handspun yarn. Millspun yarns would work well too of course, particularly those with changes in color or texture, so dive into the oddballs and you can still whip out a couple of these for holiday giving. The smaller neckpiece will take only a couple of hours to finish; a full length scarf is manageable in a couple of days of unfrantic knitting.

a short attention span scarf:

One caveat: with some yarns (like the silk) the fabric has a tendency to roll. It's still cool, like a tube scarf, but you may want to assess this issue for yourself. The two woolier versions I knit did not roll at all.

Yarn: whatever you've got. The green neckpiece used well less than 50 yards of aran/chunky weight yarn. 200 yards should be plenty for a scarf in all but the thinnest yarns.

Needles: Use a needle appropriate for the yarn, or a size or two larger if you want an even lacier effect.

Directions: Cast on any odd number of stitches. I used 13 stitches for the green piece, 21 for the silk scarf and 17 for a "short attention span" version I made by plying all my random scraplets of spinning practice into a single skein about 100 yds long. "One of a kind" would be a charitable description of the colorway.

Row 1 (WS): Purl.

Row 2 (RS): K1 *yo, k2tog, repeat from * across.

Repeat these 2 rows until the piece is long enough or you are nearly out of yarn. Bind off.

2007-12-06T10:39:00.000-08:00

feast of lights

Hannukah's a holiday without much musical backup. So I've put together my own soundtrack for the holiday.

Here are my picks: Eight Days of Chanukah CINDY PALEY Hannukah Snowman PHRANC Hannukah Dance WOODY GUTHRIE Ocho Kandelikas VOCOLOT Feast of Lights THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS The Chanukah Song ADAM SANDLER Hannukah Tarantella DAVID POLANSKY Sevivon, Sov, Sov, Sov THE MAZELTONES Nun, Gimmel, Heh, Shin THE LEEVEES Hanukkah, Oh Hanukkah BRAVE COMBO I Have a Little Dreidel BARENAKED LADIES Ocho Kandelikas HIP HOP HOODIOS Latkes DAVID GROVER & THE BIG BEAR BAND The Latke Song DEBBIE FRIEDMAN Hanukkah, Oh Hannukah GBAR GIRLS Jerusalem MATISYAHU Mi Yimalel MORTON SHAMES & THEODORE BIKEL Maoz Tsur CRAIG TAUBMAN

2007-12-04T10:46:00.000-08:00

blogging

The month of November has come and gone. Holidays, birthdays, visits, plagues. For one reason and another, there wasn't a complete week of school to be had. But here we are in December -- already! I've been working on a couple of projects for Curious Creek. The one I'm working on right now I'm particularly excited by. The knitting's easy and, I think, quite intuitive. But the construction is unusual and deliciously geometric. I'm onto my second sleeve, so it should be done soon!

I'm not going to show you that today, but figured I'd throw in this, the wing of an Anise Swallowtail. We've had wacky weather this year and a few hot days persuaded this butterfly to hatch in mid-November. I love the way the blue spots are pixelated. Turns out butterflies have scales of sorts. And yes, someday, there will be a butterfly sweater.

2007-11-02T14:12:00.000-07:00

wasting time in the best possible way

If you haven't seen it yet, it's the time-sucking web portal with a difference -- freerice.com -- you'll build your vocabulary and end world hunger, 10 grains of rice at a time. brilliant!

...and here's a little sneak peek at one of the projects I've been working on.

2007-10-27T14:59:00.000-07:00

spinning

So I've been itching to try it for a while and finally have the time -- I've been spinning. I spent a couple of days getting pointers from my friend Dawn and getting to know her Majacraft Little Gem. Soon after I managed to sweet talk Kristine into loaning me her "Sweetie" -- an Ashford Traveler.

I must say that the wheel is much more pleasant and engaging than the spindle. Hypnotic and soothing, as knitting can be, but somehow more subtle and with a smoother rhythm. Perhaps it's my place on the learning curve, but since it involves both hands, both feet, the eyes and the brain, it's quite absorbing. I still haven't decided on what wheel will be the right one for me, though a castle style wheel with double treadle seems, at least physically, the most correct. I welcome any input on wheel likes and dislikes, of course!

I've spun a hand dyed silk cap, so far, a roving I dyed back when with Mary-Kay, and a hat's worth of what I dubbed Andromeda-Plus. Some fleece from Cousin Elizabeth's sheep, which I washed and then combed with dog combs. I left some natural and dyed some pink with Kool-Aid. To that, as I spun, I added in bits and pieces of whatever fleecy fluffy stuff came to hand whenever I got bored to practice joining. So bits of various wools and even some silk. Because I didn't have a lot of patience or the right equipment, the fleece is what we might call "minimally processed". Still lots of weird chunky bits and pieces of vegetable matter, and I really didn't even try to spin consistently. Everyone I've talked to said to enjoy the unevenness and general funkiness of early spinning efforts. So I went for a very organic look. I decided not to ply it as it's whimsy started to get lost. Once done, I instantly cast on and knit this hat, again without a lot of forethought. It's fun and suits the yarn I think, as well as it's intended recipient, Andromeda's owner.

2007-10-23T07:46:00.000-07:00

fire

Thanks for the emails checking in on us. We live in an area of San Diego that is largely unaffected by the fires. We live close to the water and reasonably far from any dry canyons.

Anyone needing a breath of fresh air, drop me a line. When we moved into the 20th century and put central heating in part of the house we now have the luxury of conditioning the air. The windows are shut and the fan is on, so the air's pretty good here. And there's plenty of yarn to go around.

2007-10-12T07:09:00.000-07:00

signing time

Saturday we celebrated the release of Knitting Patterns for Dummies! I felt like I signed quite a few. It was great to see old friends and new faces too. And how better to celebrate than with festively decorated cupcakes? These cupcakes were, literally, weeks in the making. Lots of planning about how best to summon just the right look.

2007-10-03T07:19:00.000-07:00

the book!

At long last -- the book! I've been thinking the book is about to land on my doorstep for a couple of weeks. I have engaged in all sorts of magical thinking trying to force it to arrive. Meritorious household chores. Activities so messy that I could not actually touch the book when it arrived (painting, gutter cleaning). Being in the shower when the delivery truck showed up and being forced to run down stairs in a towel with soap in my eye (since this is hard to pull off timing wise, it didn't actually happen, but it was proposed). Leaving the house. Not leaving the house. Making my child cross her fingers and hold her breath as she ran down the block. Strangely, none of these things worked.

Yesterday I was fairly certain that it would show up. Since it showed up as "out for delivery" at 6:02 AM. Cruelly, they waited until 5 pm to deliver it, I ran around in manic circles for a few minutes and then had that sudden calm feeling like you do when you finish your final exams. The book is here.

It looks good! It's so book-like! As far as I know, the only place you can actually buy it is at Knitting in La Jolla -- I gather a couple of copies sold before I actually laid eyes on it. You can order it now at any of your favorite online book retailers, but I gather it won't ship or actually hit store shelves until next week.

If you are in the San Diego area, do come and see me, get a signed copy of the book and fondle all the knitted samples from the book this Saturday, October 6th. I'll be there from 3:00 to 5:00. Also, have tasty autumnal treats.

2007-09-28T06:51:00.000-07:00

knitting in fashion

Leo handed me a clipping from Wired about Sandra Backlund, a designer who has created some breathtaking garments from folded paper. She works mainly though, with knitting.

"The handicraft process and the handmade feeling is also very significant." she writes, "I am interested in almost every traditional handicraft method. I do experiment a lot with different materials and techniques, but it is through my heavy wool collage knitting that I have found the ultimate way to express myself. It is a freedom to be able to make your own fabric while working."

2007-09-18T17:57:00.000-07:00

meet charlotte!

And here's the happy family united in Nanchang, China. Welcome Charlotte, we're looking forward to getting to know you soon!

2007-09-18T11:10:00.000-07:00

update

So many things are going on these days... so here's a brief catch-up.

My book, Knitting Patterns for Dummies is due out imminently. Officially the beginning of October and I keep checking my porch to see if my copy's arrived. The For Dummies series is printed in the U.S. and so when it's printed it's almost ready to ship. Typically knitting books are printed in China and a few copies are sent by air, so the author gets advance copies well before the rest of them (arriving on the proverbial slow boat) make it to market. While I've seen it all in bits and pieces and have a good idea what it will look like, I still have not actually seen it. And each time a truck rolls down the street I have to go and check to see if it's the delivery guy with my book....

Today is the day that my sister, at long last, will meet her new daughter. She is in China with her husband and my niece, Claire, and I've just heard that today is THE day. They will meet Charlotte and bring her home soon. I keep clicking on their blog to see them united...

This weekend I'm heading up to my hometown, Olympia, Washington, for my 20th high school reunion. It'll be interesting to see what people have done with the last 20 years. Also, of course, singing a mid-80's soundtrack and trying to figure out what to wear!

I finally got my invitation to join Ravelry! I've not spent long poking around but I am particularly giddy that there is a patterns> designers> kristi porter page, where one can click and see all kinds of people knitting things that I designed. How cool is that?

first day of school

2007-09-05T06:25:00.000-07:00

first day of school

That's the first day of first grade and the first day of fifth grade, respectively.

2007-09-04T14:57:00.000-07:00

meet andromeda

...or at least her fleece. Leo's cousin Elizabeth sent me the fleece from her sheep, Andromeda. A Lincoln/Finn/Romney mix, I gather. As anyone with any experience in such matters will tell you, fleece is pretty sheepy. And dirty. So I've been experimenting with cleaning methods, combing methods, and so on.

It cleans up pretty darn good. Creamy. Soft. Crimpy. All things that are good for spinning, I gather.

More fun than playing with cleaning, however, is just playing.

Ella and I dyed this chunk of fleece with Kool-aid and then I felted it haphazardly to give it a bit of structure so it won't fall apart. I love the natural fleecy qualities of it, the locks and irregularities... and the watermelonish colors.

2007-08-30T12:59:00.000-07:00

home and garden television

Click on the shot below for the Ella guided tour of the backyard renovations.

2007-08-28T18:18:00.001-07:00

Eye Candy

My spouse showed me these this morning. I haven't spent the hours gazing at them that I might, but particularly the Kunst-Formen der Natur by Ernst Haeckel are stunning. The fellow that posted the flickr files has scanned and uploaded the whole book at high resolution. Surely, enthusiasts of Norah Gaughan's Knitting Nature will find inspiration here. Then again, The Grammar of Ornament by Owen Jones, surely speaks loudly to fans of Kaffe Fassett's work.

Haeckel_Kunstformen_019.jpg Originally uploaded by EricGjerde

2007-08-28T08:28:00.000-07:00

running off to join the circus.

Some kids say they are going to run off and join the circus.

Mine just might do it.

2007-08-26T07:00:00.000-07:00

end of summer

It's hit me that it's the end of summer, not really weather-wise as September and even October are often our summeriest months here. The weather's good; the tourists have emptied out after leaving the contents of their wallets in San Diego. The kids go back to school, but still in their summer clothes, as it's just too hot to wear the nationalized "back to school" offerings yet. But the afternoons are still long and the beaches are quiet. Really a spectacular time of year.

I'm working on three tech editing projects right now. A mixed bag of delight and aggravation, these, but I love the short time frame (10-14 days) on a tech editing project, all the different ideas I'm exposed to, and, yes, getting to unleash that OC-Delightful aspect of my personality and give it free reign.

On the computer front -- It really was broken. After a couple days' worry that I had unwittingly committed some not-under-warranty offense that would cost me half the cost of the machine to fix, they replaced the malfunctioning keyboard, no charge. In celebration I bought it a protective cozy, though I'm holding out for a smart little bag from Lexie Barnes.

So the needles up there at the top of the post -- most of them belonged to Leo's grandmother, whom everyone called Baube. She passed away last year and I received most of her knitting things, a few needlepoint things, her apron. Leo's dad just brought me the family copy of Jewish Cookery, complete with midrash. And I got a box unexpectedly of a few more knitting things from Leo's sister. There, tucked in with a few skeins of RedHeart, a handwritten pattern. Coming across the handwriting of someone who's passed is right up there with hearing a recording of her voice. There's something captured there.

Anyway, here you have Baube's Ripple Afghan pattern. I've started mine, using up leftovers. Feel free to Baube along. Now if only I could replicate the Date Nut Pinwheel cookies...

Afghan -- Ripple Pattern Cast on 206 sts. Use 10 or 10 1/2 needle with 4 ply yarn. Row 1: K1, k2tog, k6, yo, k1, yo, *k6, k2tog, k2tog, k6, yo, k1, yo*, finish row with k6, k2tog, k1.

The pattern, I'll note, does not offer subsequent rows, but I assumed that if there was more critical information needed, she would have offered it up. So, Repeat Row 1 on all RS rows, and WS rows can be either purled or knit.

2007-08-16T06:44:00.000-07:00

the book

Knitting Patterns for Dummies comes out next month and will be available nationwide and at all major internet book dealers.

The back yard project is nearing completion. Pictures soon. Another development in the domestic sphere -- a shiny new laptop computer that I've been slowly transistioning to. I was just about to make the switch. New pictures have been landing there and I finally installed Photoshop, but then yesterday it started acting funny with keys not responding correctly and this morning I can't turn it on.... hopefully it's nothing major. And if it's a lemon, I found out quickly. And I'm glad that the desktop machine is still up and running.

2007-07-23T11:16:00.000-07:00

changing gears

Things are afoot here in the domestic sphere. I have just completed the final readthrough of Knitting Patterns for Dummies. My marked up pages are on their way back to my editor and all the sudden, I don't have anything that I must be working on. I've got a few tech editing projects in line and ideas germinating in the back of my head, but I've been doing some recreational knitting, and even.... not knitting.

Still, the design center of the brain never sleeps and has turned its attentions to my backyard. Many things do not like to grow here in our desert-by-the-sea. Or rather, everything likes to grow here if you are willing to give it water and fertilizer and tend to it.

Our front yard, I've let "go natural" for the most part. Some sturdy plants like New Zealand flax and yucca, agave and aloe... anise and milkweed for the butterflies.... and whatever flowering weeds are willing to grow there. Mainly, Mexican primrose which blew in and decided to stay. I whack things down when it gets out of hand, and I throw rocks and bark chips in the empty spots.

The courtyard and I have also come to terms in Mediterranean sort of a way. It's bricked, with a big table and a rocking chair. Lavenders, rosemary, bouganvillea. A jasmine vining up the porch. A small orange tree and an enthusiastic volunteer fig. A few geraniums in pots. A pleasant spot. Bright and sunny. But because it's in the middle of the house, you don't feel tucked away in a quiet spot.

The backyard, however, is more private as only one room has any view of it, and it has the most shade. Still, it has mostly potential at this point. And dead grass. I've got big plans, plenty of graph paper, and an incessant need to check craigslist*. Stay tuned.

I have discovered from craigslist that many people seem to prefer "rod iron" to "wrought iron" -- so if you're looking for some, stick to "iron".

2007-07-05T06:52:00.000-07:00

"this is how you make a stitch."

2007-07-04T17:54:00.000-07:00

catch up

Lots has been going on here in the domestic sphere. I finished norah-gami*. Actually, I finished it at TNNA (late at night in the hotel room -- it's only received hotel room blocking, as I watched George Harrison parade about in a crochet sweater {really!} while Yoko Ono ululated on PBS, and yanked out the ironing board at 12:30 to do so...] and wove in my ends inside the convention center the next morning using Lexie Barnes' scissors). I love it, though of course it's been pretty warm to wear it just now.

A simultaneous thing-in-the-brain has been to do some potato stamping on fabric. Ever since doing a final read-through on Lotta Jansdotter's Lotta Prints (not yet listed, but keep your eye out for it), I've been captivated by the idea of doing some printing. And since since my norah-gami has that goes with everything/goes with nothing quality, I figured it was a prime candidate. The simple potato stamp on the pants mirrors the horseshoe/umbrella/tulip of the lace. It was so much fun, it will be slightly surprising if all my boring clothes don't end up printed.

*My friend Laurie and I are starting our own Norah Gaughan fanclub here it seems. She's knitting the hexagon tank from Knitting Nature (which I've been eyeing too). It also turns out that Laurie graduated from Brown the same year as Norah, and she reckons they must have unknowingly crossed paths.

2007-06-18T09:26:00.000-07:00

the photo shoot

As promised, the play-by-play of the photo shoot for Knitting Patterns for Dummies that took place the first week of June in Columbus. It's taken me a while to get to it as I've been busy catching up with the author review business, being swept up with end-of-the-school-year goings on, and so on.

I've also snuck in a quick tech edit of Annie Modesitt's Red Carpet Convertible -- a beautiful dress originally designed for her friend to wear to the Emmy's. The dress has clever one piece top-down construction and can be knit to any length and covers a broad range of sizes. Annie's a teacher and designer, and chances are you've seen some of her brilliant stuff. Unfortunately, the reason I wanted to sneak this job in is that Annie's family has recently learned that her husband, Gerry, has terminal cancer and aside from the total kick in the head that that is, are fretting about making ends meet in this difficult time. So the dress pattern is downloadable for donation. Stop over at Annie's blog and get the details.

So the photoshoot was done in Columbus -- very conveniently as that meant that I got to go to the big knitting geek out that is TNNA. Kreber has a massive photo and design studio on the outskirts of Columbus. Think warehouse. And this isn't just some guy with a camera. If you think about it for a minute, chances are each day you get catalogs and flyers in the mail that are full of photographs. And someone has to make all those photos. And Kreber is the sort of place that does that. Which meant they were very organized and knew just what to do... because they do it every day. Need a bed piled high with pillows? A clawfoot bathtub? A distressed barn door? No problem. It's all there.

For each shot, they had prepared what they call a go-by -- essentially a picture from a book or magazine that had the style elements they wanted to include. Likewise, the background colors had been determined and they'd just roll in the appropriately painted wall.

Mark, the photographer on the project, was a master with the lighting. Now I've done a fair amount of my own photography for Knitty and what not. And my lighting philosophy is pretty much "shoot outdoors when the sun is low; have the sun at your back and hope for the best". I know light is important, but after spending a few days with him, I have such appreciation for his much deeper understanding of how to use light. I don't think any picture had fewer than three lights and often, he put a light behind something like a gauzy fabric, a shutter, or even a tree branch in a vise. You won't really SEE any of these elements in the photographs mind you, but the fact that they are there makes the pictures much more interesting to look at.

It was also great to work with Susanne, the stylist who had come in from Michigan to work on the project. She had a great eye for the details and we had a lot of fun putting the shots together. This old chair? Maybe the caning is too much. Try this slightly taller one. A few baskets, maybe?

After maybe a day at it, she lead me into the prop room -- like a vintage store packed to the rafters with stuff. Need plastic fruit? A tea pot? A funky chair? No problem. It's all here.

That the last pictures we took do not have an assemblage of menacing parrot statues, pink telephones and fake meat is a testament to my restraint! I was fairly giddy by that point.

There were definitely some packed days, but we got through all the color photography while I was there and started in on the black and white things -- and because they shoot with the camera hooked right into the computer, we could all see them instantly and decide if we had the shot right. The folks at Kreber were very receptive and accommodating to my input, so I'm very glad that I had the chance to be there. This book has been so fascinating to work on as I've been able to see at each stage how the finished product will look. The marvels of modern publishing!

2007-06-07T12:45:00.000-07:00

goodbye, columbus

My week in Columbus was a whirlwind. Here are some photos from TNNA. I'll follow up with the photoshoot stuff in a couple of days. I got to catch up with some old pals and finally meet face to face with people it seems almost impossible that I haven't actually been in the same room with.

Kim Werker gets giddy with crochet designers Robyn Chacula and Amy O'Neill Houck over the galleys of the Crochet Me book... which she hadn't seen prior to spying it on the New Products table.

Drew doing his impression of a Wolverine.

Here I am with the poster for Knitting Patterns for Dummies at the Wiley booth. Careful readers will note that I am wearing Amy Singer's Habu Silk and Steel scarf. I totally want to get a couple of skeins of steel/wool to knit with.

Nathania, Amy and Cookie A at the Potter Craft Party. I coerced Amy and Jillian into bringing me as their date. Potter always has good food and goodie bags, so it was well worth crashing.

Here, Amy teaches Amy to crochet. In the back, Jillian's getting pointers from Doris Chan.

And here're Cookie and Jillian getting silly in the lobby. This was really only the tip of the iceberg on silly for the evening. Ask the waitstaff at the Tip Top about knitters some time.

Finally, Amy Singer and Eunny Jang closing out the show on Monday.

2007-05-28T06:32:00.000-07:00

columbus

I'm heading to Columbus on Thursday. And apparently I have not given the fair city its due. I knew that Columbus was the capital of the great state of Ohio and also home to Ohio State University. I did not know that Columbus was the largest city in Ohio. Or that OSU was the largest college campus in the U.S. or that Columbus was the 15th largest city in the U.S.* Money Magazine calls it "the 8th best large city to inhabit in the US."

In addition to the state government and the university, Columbus is home to lots of insurance companies, an emerging tech sector, and the headquarters of The Limited, Abercrombie and Fitch, Wendy's and White Castle.

The climate is "characterized by hot, muggy summers" and the average temperature in June ranges from a low of 59 to a high of 82 degrees. The population is predominantly white (70%) with a significant African American population (25%), and a tiny bit of everything else.

Looks like there are plenty of things to eat and look at within walking distance of the convention center.

*Of course this is city size which isn't really so telling. On that list San Diego is number 8. Talking Metropolitan Statistical Areas, Columbus is #32. Which actually makes it slightly smaller than Cincinnati or Cleveland.

2007-05-25T06:19:00.000-07:00

how the book ends

Okay, so I've handed in Q4 -- the last fourth of the book. Hooray! Take a day to celebrate and then there's a bit of clean up.

Here are most of the book projects (the ones that weren't already vacationing elsewhere) bagged and tagged and checking their boarding passes for Ohio. Also, a list for the photographer of what goes where with what.

And then there's Author Review. The stuff on the page that's still black is the original. All the pretty colors come from rounds with my editor, the copy editor, the technical editor, the editor again and then back to me. Changes to the text and a lot of midrash.

If you haven't ever gone through editing before, then you are unaware, likely, of the wonders of "track changes". This handy little Word tool allows you to pass a document around and have everyone throw in their two cents. And you can see who did what, turn the changes on and off, accept and reject changes... So, for this pass, I turn the changes off and read it to see if it makes sense. As if I had never read it before. If anything strikes me as weird, I turn the changes back on and see if I can figure out what happened.

It's a strange process. I think that I am pretty good at being edited. I like to joke that that's what graduate school for. I try to bear in mind that everyone working on the project is trying to make it better and, really, I agree with 95% of the changes. Still, I find myself feeling vaguely grumpy and having to really drag myself over to the chair. It's exciting to see it so close to done, and also slightly nervous-making that this is the last chance to get it all right. (It's not really. I'll see it one more time in layout).

In more exciting news, I am heading out to Columbus on Thursday! TNNA happens next weekend, and the photoshoot for the book is in Columbus starting the following Monday. So, really, seldom before has someone been so excited about a visit to Columbus.

2007-05-20T10:15:00.000-07:00

fashion trends

In contemplating my wardrobe and thinking about design, here's what's going on with me:

brown. I've had brown phases before. I had a brown phase in college I think, which a friend dubbed the "Atalanta Earth" look, but more recently I got rid of all things neutral. Anyway, brown is back. My mother-in-law must have had a brown phase too because I have loads of brown table linens thanks to her.

ruching. Heck, it's so fun to say, how can you not find ways to slip it into day to day conversation? I've been fascinated lately by ruching. I think it's an extension of the ruffle phase that knitting went through a couple years ago. When you think about it, ruching is just a ruffle that's attached on both sides. I've seen a couple of knitted items that use it -- I think there's an intriguing bit in the Tracey Ullman book. And one of my students is knitting something that uses increases and the contrast between a thin yarn and a thicker yarn to create ruched stripes. In order to get the drape you need (and not something outrageously bulky and heavy), you'd want to use something light. Maybe a ribbon yarn? I think it'd need to be used judiciously, but could really do some interesting things.

pockets. It dawned on me yesterday as I was admiring the pouch-like pockets on a cargo skirt that knitting has really not seen a lot of pockets recently. I seem to remember more pockets a couple of decades ago. My aunt knit my sister a tunic length sweater with cables and two pockets that was pretty fetching back in the '80's. Patch pockets can be worked in a number of pretty cool ways, with or without flaps, and inset pockets also offer the potential for interesting embellishments. The issue I think is that they add bulk. So you'd have to deal with that. And also, any time you actually put anything IN to a pocket, you wreck the lines of the garment. Still pockets are darned useful. Ask any kangaroo.

2007-05-20T07:50:00.000-07:00

deadlines

The final quarter of the book is due tomorrow! And honestly it's pretty much been a coast to the finish. I overloaded my early quarters and so the fourth quarter was light. The hardest thing to write was possibly the last, the introduction. Only because I thought about it too much. Still, I've been working along at a steady pace on it and its thousand little things, and I've done two tech-editty final readthroughs on books this month. I felt connections to both projects so I really wanted to do my little part on them. And, when you've been contemplating your navel for a while, it's really nice to read someone else's words for a change. They were both really good looking books that you'll enjoy too: Kat Coyle's Boho Baby Knits and Lotta Jansdotter's Lotta Prints. Anyway, in my head I was giving myself time off for good behavior after this. But when I spoke to my editor this week she reminded me that author review starts Tuesday. This means that I'll be receiving the book in five batches to look over for any mistakes and fix things that have become clear in the intervening months (like for instance, once the knitters were through knitting them). So I'll have one week to turn each batch around. Which pretty much takes us up to the start of summer vacation. I did have friends over to dye yarn on Monday, and went exploring some antique shops with a friend on Tuesday... so it's not as though it's all work and no play. And I'm knitting on two extra-curricular projects -- the Norah-gami cardigan and a lace shawl with the yarn that Zoe dyed. I'll just say regarding dyeing, that the skeins my kids dyed came out way cooler than mine. I guess there's something to be said for just diving in, eh?

2007-05-18T06:55:00.000-07:00

a few links

#1873218

The Rubbish Vortex

my kids modeling for Interweave Crochet

2007-05-11T13:48:00.000-07:00

to kill a mockingbird

A couple of weeks ago, I realized that there was a nest in the bouganvillea. And in those weeks, the mother mockingbird, the father mockingbird and I have been busy. Mrs. hatched her eggs and then was very busy, as mothers are, darting in and out of the tree with mouths full of tasty worms and other tidbits. While she was out of the nest, Mr. stayed in the area, flicking his tail and squawking his noisy squawk if anyone got too close. He'd swoop in and distract predators while she slipped into the nest. If she saw any trouble, she'd squawk, Mr. would come over and squawk some more, and if that kept up, I'd go to see what cat, child, or other predatory animal was in the area and shoo them away.

It was all working fine until this week. Much more squawking. Compounded by the presence of crows swooping in and out to find the shelled peanuts my child had hidden around the yard. I noticed that the attention of Mrs. was no longer on the nest, but rather on the ground a few feet from the tree. I watched her, and sure enough, she was flying the tasty morsels to the ground. When she was busy elsewhere I found this.

Getting fat and feathery, but still unable to fly. And, more importantly, in a much more precarious position! So Mr.'s busy keeping everything out of the area. Since there was nothing going on at the nest anymore and hadn't been for days (and since I decided I really didn't mind if we didn't get another brood of birds in there in case she was planning on it) I decided to go in after the nest. And found this.

So apparently one of the babies perished and the sib had to hit the road early. Hopefully it'll learn to fly soon and get out of danger! In the meantime, the three of us will stay busy!

2007-05-11T06:08:00.000-07:00

a love letter to norah gaughan

I've been eyeing the Sanpoku cardigan in Berroco's Yin & Yang booklet for a while. I love that whole booklet. Such simple shapes, such wearable designs! Berroco's been very good at having pattern support for their yarns, both in print and online, for a long time. Now that Norah Gaughan is their design director, though, the designs are superlative. Norah says that she has been experimenting with minimalist shapes and interesting designs. And how! The fronts of the sweater are rectangles, hung on the bias. The back is essentially a trapezoid. The sleeves: rectangles topped with regular raglan decreases. How could I not love such a combination of simplicity and geometry, served up with just a soupcon of edgy?

How pleased I was, then, to see the Origami Cardi in the latest issue of Interweave Knits. In it, Gaughan uses a bumpy berry stitch meant to summon the texture of Japanese crushed silk along the edges. I think it's effective, but I thought the bulky berries would annoy me -- to knit and to wear. So I went with a slightly modified horseshoe lace (Barbara Walker 1). It reminds me of of tulips and umbrellas, particularly in this ever-so-springy yellow.

That Norah Gaughan loves geometry as much as Hugh Moody, my high school math teacher, is clear. Look at her book, Knitting Nature. A book so cool that I make non-knitters look at it to understand why knitting is cool and smart. A book that I can point to when people ask what kind of book I'd love to write.

2007-04-29T07:38:00.000-07:00

most likely to...

If there were popularity contests among scarves, this one would win in the Most Likely to Resemble Seaweed category. It's Stitch Diva's Curclicue Ruffle Scarf. This time in Curious Creek Isalo (100% silk), Colinette Zanziba (50% wool, 50% viscose), and Curious Creek Kibo (large loop mohair boucle). Seaweed, lettuce leaves, Julia sets... whatever comes to mind, it's delightfully organic.

It's going to be raffled off at the San Diego Postpartum Health Alliance's Mamafest.

2007-04-14T18:26:00.000-07:00

lucky

As if I needed further proof that I live an enchanted life, I have just discovered that we have a mockingbird nest in the bouganvillea. Mockingbirds and bouganvillea by themselves are enchanting enough,* though common around here. This makes our third brood of birds this year, as we have had two batches of hummingbirds this year. While the nest itself is hidden, the bouganvillea is visible from almost every room, so we'll be able to watch the action.

*And both smack of Jefferson Middle School for me. Bouganvillea, found in John Steinbeck's The Pearl, was a vocabulary word written on the board in my 7th grade teacher's beautfiful chalkboard hand. A mystical, unknown flower for me at the time. Mockingbirds, of course,remind me always of To Kill a Mockingbird which I clearly remember reading for the first time in 6th grade. And just like the bouganvillea, the bird was completely foreign at the time.

2007-03-30T06:11:00.000-07:00

amateur dramatics

Two school plays this week: Zoe's class did a short rendition of "The Myth of Medusa" where she was a narrator 1 of 8. They all did a fine job. Note pink toga. Even transported back millenia, some things don't change.

And yesterday was the dress rehearsal for the kindergarten production of "The Grouchy Ladybug", featuring Ella as Grouchy. The performance is this afternoon. It's a musical. It features small children missing teeth with amusing things on their heads. How can this not be sure to please?

Friendly Ladybug, Leaf and Grouchy Ladybug.

Rhinoceros and Elephant.

If you are not up on your Eric Carle, that's the Clock, Yellowjacket, Stag Beetle, Praying Mantis, Sparrow, Lobster, Skunk, Boa Constrictor, Hyena, Gorilla, Rhinoceros, Elephant and half of Whale (the other half of Whale had a dentist appointment).

2007-03-23T06:31:00.000-07:00

I.C.

The preview of Interweave Crochet's spring issue is up! Have a look!

2007-03-20T09:50:00.000-07:00

500

the birds and the bees

It's spring here. Totally and undeniably spring. Actually we're well into spring. Things are in bloom and I wake to the sound of birds chirping, almost to the point of parody. In the back yard, I am enormously pleased that a hummingbird is nesting in the same tree as last year. She's already raised two babies that flew out in late January and now there seems to be action again. These are ruby throated hummingbirds. While marvelous, they are pretty common around here. So the other day I was very excited when I saw a very tiny, tiny bird hovering around my lavender. The bird was no larger than one head of lavender. How exciting! How rare! Wonderful! I went out and managed to capture it on film. Later, we broke out the bird book and tried to identify it. Turns out, it's not a hummingbird at all, but a sphinx moth. Not a tiny bird but a big bug. Funny how perceptions of the same thing change.

the book

I'm getting my Knitting Patterns for Dummies ducks in a row for next week's 3rd quarter deadline. I'm handing in Chapters 2, 3, 5, 6, 7 and all the scrap art for the remainder of the book. This translates to a lot of swatching. Chart drawing, and trying to get files in the correct format at the right size. By my count, I have three swatches left to knit.

the bugs, the beasts and the charismatic megafauna

I'm also making costumes for Ella's kindergarten production of Eric Carle's The Grouchy Ladybug. Ella will be playing the title role! So mark your calendars for March 30th and think grouchy thoughts. I love Eric Carle, but I have to say, while a ladybug costume is pretty straightforward, stag beetle, hyena, and a whale costume large enough for two kindergarteners are less run-of-the-mill costume wise!

the birthday

Finally, The Domestic Sphere has reasons to celebrate. This post is number 500. Also, next week, the 25th of March will mark the 5th anniversary of this weblog. Happy birthday, blog!

2007-03-08T05:54:00.000-08:00

It's pink in there

Johnny Cash once said of his closet, "It's dark in there." Zoe's laundry basket? It's pink in there. Zoe has chosen to wear pink almost exclusively for hmm, somewhere around three years? Maybe more. Sometime in first grade I think, we started moving to pink. She's not particularly vocal about it, but it is her uniform, and the not-pink items just don't really get worn. I will say that it has made clothes and getting dressed a non-issue...

Once at a friend's house she got wet and had to borrow clothes. A blue sweatshirt? Leo and I couldn't stop staring at her.

On to knitting news. I'm working on the mini stitch dictionary portion of Knitting Patterns for Dummies. It's a whole different ball of wax from writing patterns and is going pretty smoothly. Lots of swatch knitting, which is strangely satisfying.

Anyway, I was trying to come up with some "multiple of 8, plus 3" lace patterns. One of the sweater patterns calls for this stitch count, and I love the one I used, but since I'm including a couple of lace patterns in the front of the book, I want to have them be easy substitutes for the one in the pattern. So, multiple of 8, plus 3.

I've been looking through stitch dictionaries and even done some web searches based solely on that stitch count. Found a lace I thought was good (these all need to be pretty short and simple. I want plain wrong side rows and not more than about 10 rows to the repeat.). I couldn't see it clearly in the picture. Swatched it. Didn't like it. Came to think it was a typo and what would happen if Row 4 were shifted over 1 stitch? Swatched that. What if I changed these 2 decreases to a single double decrease? Then there was too much "blank space" between the lacy bits. I tried a couple of things and decided the best was to throw a purl in there. That would give more attention to the vertical thing that was happening and pull in that space a bit, like a very mild rib. Now I'm getting somewhere! This is on today's swatch list.

So this morning, I plug some other variation of "mult of 8 sts, plus 3" into google. And found the exact lace pattern that I had just made up! And it does look good.

2007-03-03T07:35:00.000-08:00

It's not easy be green, part 1

I've been thinking recently about shopping and the big sooty footprint we leave on the planet. We, as Americans, particularly, buy a lot of stuff we don't really need -- and we love a good bargain on it too! When you think about what the production of the stuff you wear does to the planet, and, for the most part, how the workers who make your 2 for $10 t-shirts are treated, well, it all boils down to an unpretty picture. But this is hardly news.

Most of my clothes I get secondhand. Honestly not so much through any sort of politically correct choice, but because I seem to find things I like better there and I enjoy the sport of it, the treasure hunt. And because the prices are so good, you can afford to be more daring. Or keep something for a couple of months and then give it the "from the thriftshop you were taken, and to the thriftshop ye shall return" trip to the backdoor.

And secondhand shopping IS recycling. And even if something was manufactured in a sweat shop, your dollars are not supporting the practice, rather they are usually supporting some sort of rehabilitation program or care for sick children. I don't think anyone can make the argument that more firsthand things are made to support the lively secondhand trade. Rather, the more things are re-used, the fewer things need to be produced and the fewer things end up in the landfill.

Some people are squeamish about wearing something used. There are always lines. Whether it's someone else's shoes, or anything that can't be machine washed. So what about these things? I've been thinking that I should really be voting with my wallet more conscientiously when it comes to these purchases. American Apparel has a pretty full line of t-shirts and underwear, pajamas and tights. And lots of nice cotton basics for kids. This is something else I end up buying new. Not all of American Apparel is organic, or perfect for the planet, but it seems like a more positive choice.

2007-02-11T08:12:00.000-08:00

A dedicated follower of fashion

I'm sure I've said this before: I am fascinated both by how familiar my children are to me and by how unlike me they are. This is one of those things about one's offspring: at some moments you know exactly how they feel or remember having the exact same reaction to something or you see the same expression in the face of your spouse. And at times, even from their tiniest babyhood, they are just unknowable. Different. Themselves. And I suppose you spend a lifetime trying to sort that out.

I can't find the photo of me that I wanted to to juxtapose with this one, but in it, at about the same age, I am wearing dangerously plaid pants, my orange handknit sweater with applique ducky, and a red laplander style hat. You'll have to trust me that Ella and I do share a certain aesthetic.

Here's some schoolwork Ella recently brought home. They were supposed to make a book of things that rhyme with "ball".

That's how you spell "shawl" in kindergarten. But a brilliant choice -- I bet none of the other kids came up with that!

2007-02-11T07:54:00.000-08:00

Who sews? She sews.

After seeing Kay's Carrie over at Mason Dixon and Emma, I felt compelled to post a picture of my own young quilter. Here's Zoe late one evening perched next to the machine reading The Complete Family Sewing Bookwe inherited from my Aunt. Absolutely filled with newspaper clippings going back to the Seventies. Newspaper clippings on things like "Make your own ski pants".

Zoe's current quilt project involves red flannel, pandas and flowers to welcome her new cousin from China when she arrives.

They could start a club.

2007-02-06T05:15:00.000-08:00

knitting topology*

Or, How I spent my Friday evening.

Somehow (okay, I'm working on designing hats, so it's not exactly out of the blue), I got a bee in my bonnet the other day about hats.

Let me back up for a second and explain a bit about hats so that the non-knitters are with me on this. A hat is round. A hat is knit in what amounts to a very, very shallow spiral, so in some ways you can treat each round as a circle of stitches stacked on top of another creating a cylinder with a cone on top, but you can also treat the stitches as a single long line.

For this particular thought experiment, we will begin with a hat that has 100 stitches. It measures 20 inches around. So, there are 5 stitches per inch. Measuring vertically, there are 7 rows per inch. We have already knit a cylinder that is the appropriate height (6 inches or so) and are ready to shape the crown of the hat.

To shape the top of a hat you have to get rid of all the stitches over some number of rows that is at least as big as the radius of the hat. Since the hat measures 20 inches around, it's radius is 3.2 (2 pi r = C). So we need to decrease our 100 stitches over some number of rows greater than 22. 25 rows would give you a flat top like a pillbox hat. 200 rows would give us an absurdly long (maybe in a good way) floppy, pointed hat. Usually, decreases are done on some sort of regular schedule so you decrease (a decrease turns 2 stitches into 1 stitch)at 2 or 8 or 6 points in a single round every other round. Changing the number of decreases in the decrease row or changing the rate at which you repeat the decrease row (every row, every 12 rows, etc) changes the shape of the hat. That's pretty much all you need to know to design hats.

So my "bee" was this: What if, instead of decreasing in the usual way, I decreased on the 100th stitch, then the 99th, then the 98th and so on? What would it look like? I didn't have access to paper at the time so it took me longer to figure out (plus I was driving -- both good and bad for thinking). Later I asked Leo about it and also how could you make the line of decreases into a spiral? I figured I'd mark each decrease with a purl stitch or bead to mark it. What would happen if you start with 100 stitches, but do your first decrease at 110? 150? 60? What shapes would these hats have? What if you decreased every 100th stitch all the way up?

So we spent some of Friday evening discussing this problem. Leo fell to writing code while I pursued the empirical test. I have a pretty solid picture in my head now of what happens in these various cases, but I think it would be great to actually make some or at least do some computer modeling. Now you can all just sit there for a moment and either a) shake your heads at the fact that people exist that discuss such things at length, or b) smile quietly because my mate and I are so shockingly well suited to one another.

And now, the mathematicians among you can fall to work on hat design.

Yoav is to thank for "topology."

2007-02-05T18:21:00.000-08:00

what else?

My Q2 deadline for Knitting Patterns for Dummies is February 12. The end of Quarter 2 brings the end of pattern making. I'm on my last pattern chapter now, then I need to assemble my scrap art (rough drafts of all the illustrations used in the chapters) and send them all off. This is a big milestone for me. It's great seeing the book come together. There's still plenty to write, but with these two intensive quarters out of the way, the rest is just explaining my vision of the universe, and well, anyone who knows me knows I can do that at length. There's the "fear of sounding dorky" (is there a greek word for that?), but it's a different kettle of fish.

I am almost certain that as of last week, I have all the yarn I need and nearly all of it in the hands of the knitters in question. I've got several bits and pieces to knit yet myself, but of the hat here, scarf there variety that doesn't make me wake up in the middle of the night.

So in other news, I've been also scrambling to get fundraiser class projects done for my daughters' school. It seems like every school has a fundraising auction these days. The actual event reminds me too much of a high school prom to actually attend (I didn't attend my prom either), but it's easy to sucker me in to a massive art project. So Zoe's class has created a photo montage of the school through their eyes -- after they shot the photos I chopped 2-inch squares (don't worry, I bought a punch!) from over 400 photos and assembled them. A pretty cool effect in the end and a good balance of kid participation. I can now state with some conviction that it is very difficult to get a fourth grader to take a picture of something that is not pretty. However, you can really make a 10-year old boy's day if you tell him he can photograph the bathroom. I haven't photographed the photograph, but when I do, I'll post it.

For Ella's class, I had each of the kids fold and hand dye a dinner plate sized circle of fabric. On the advice of the Empress of Dirt a.k.a. Pioneer Woman with Cellphone, I also had the kids "sign" the quilt with their initials and decorations on smaller circles for the back. After prepping the fabric, I had them write with gel glue (just Elmer's) on the fabric. When it dried, it got dyed. When you wash, the glue comes out forming a fabulous batik-like resist. The kindergarteners enthusiasm for my two colors of gel glue (with sparkles!) got in the way of any sort of minimalist impulses for most, but they are really cool.

After that there was a lot of going around and around in circles with the zig-zag and a miraculously quick quilting job by my machine for hire. If you need something quilted, Al's your man.

2007-01-23T09:39:00.000-08:00

three cool things

Okay, so mostly things are mundane but three cool things this week:

During my usual knitting class on Wednesday, the shop's phone rings. It's one of my students calling from Bangkok to get talked through the shoulders of the sweater we've been working on -- her idea, her knitting, my design. Holy three-ring bind-offs, Batman!

I've heard from my editorial team at Wiley that Knitting Patterns for Dummies will feature a black and white photograph of each main project accompanying the pattern. This is great news because while the color insert was going to showcase samples of all the patterns, there's nothing like actually seeing what you want to make on the same page as the pattern.

And finally, imagine my surprise when I finally got a chance to look over the recent issue of Yarn Market News (the yarn industry's trade magazine). I was combing through the book reviews and read this by Cheryl Krementz:
NO SHEEP FOR YOU by Amy R. Singer

Singer's a glass-half-full kind of gal. As devoted as she is to knitting, she hasn't let a cruel allergy to wool get her down: she's simply done her research, opening up a whole world of wool-free fibers for the rest of us.... Oh, and the patterns -- accommmodating to larger bust sizes, in fine Big Girl Knits fashion -- are to die for, especially Kristi Porter's intoxicating mosaic-bodiced lace-sleeved sweater in silk. Don't feel so sorry for Amy now, huh?"

2007-01-18T09:40:00.000-08:00

rock star week redux

So Rock Star Week is over and I'm back to cutting crusts off of toast and cleaning the cat box and generally catching up where I left off.

Kaffe Fassett and Brandon Mably came to my local, Knitting in La Jolla, for tea on Tuesday, but, frankly, my rich fantasies on the subject were much more exciting than the actual event. Not because they were not fabulous, but, as it turns out, I had to go downtown and show Marilyn Murphy, president of Interweave (and TNNA), my underwear. "Hi, wonderful to meet you... let me slip into something a little more comfortable... like this see-through Lily Chin mini-skirt? Sure, okay." Really it did not seem so strange at the time, the folks from Interweave were absolutely lovely and Kim Werker did tell us about her meeting with the bra lady, so, you know, not only my undergarments were discussed.

So then I jumped back into the station wagon and raced uptown to pick up my children at school, grabbed them and had a short and persuasive talk about the honor of meeting such a legend and that it was far better a way to spend the afternoon than watching back episodes of "Zack and Cody" and, well, yes, okay, I had ice cream money burning a hole in my pocket and they could try to run down the up escalator as much as they wanted because I would turn a blind eye. That bit of parenting done, I turned my attentions to the honored guests. Who, had, of course, been hanging out already for a couple of hours and were mostly ready to sit there and knit (they are both wrappers, I will note!) Likewise, I, who had already had a frenetic and unusual day, was more or less willing to do the same rather than force someone into conversation. Brandon said I had lovely hair. That was about as exciting as it got. I did get invited to dinner, but felt that I was already worming out of so many parental obligations this week that I shouldn't... not to mention my 6:30 AM call for hair and make-up the next morning. I hear it was a good dinner...

Next day, hair and make-up before dawn, then off to Balboa Park to shoot some photographs for Interweave Crochet. I had made complex plans for childcare, but, as it turns out, things went so smoothly I was done by 10:30. Here I am being jeujed (zhoozhed?) at a convenient fountain between takes. We shot again the next day near my house at the beach. And also ended up taking some of the photographs at my house. So, in all likelihood, you'll see not only me, but also my house and my cat in the magazine. As those of you in Southern California know, we've been having cold weather, and Thursday was probably the worst day weatherwise we've had. It was grey all day and chilly and windy. Not a beach day. Still, everyone involved was great at what they did and it was a pleasure to be a part of it. I still find myself longing for someone to choose the appropriate earrings or fix my collar or offer me lipgloss as needed.

Here's Kim Werker, editor of Interweave Crochet, holding the magic reflector dish... and likely pining for a hot beverage.

Then it was Friday, Amy Singer day. I fetched her at the airport, took her to experience the joy of the fish burrito at Wahoo's, and then off to Knitting in La Jolla to meet some folks.

Here she is with her books, and also, if you look, her hard-to-find Susan Todd bag, and her new yarn that will become a Spanish Dancer. You'd think that Amy would have all the stuff she could ever want, but I tell you she knows how to rack up a tab at a yarn shop! Sandi Luck actually showed up at the yarn shop, so it was all one big lovely vortex of coincidence.

Here's Amy with the wonderful Kate Perry.

And Suzanne Pineau, proprietor of Knitting in La Jolla, teaching Amy a provisional cast on. Isn't that cool?

We finished there and went down for the start of TNNA's convention. The weekend was busy and full. Full of hijinks too.

Here's Cecily Keim, Stefanie Japel and Robin Chachula.

Tara Jon Manning, Amy Singer and Clara Parkes.

A crop of Interweave authors outside the Interweave party.

Lily Chin, Natalie Zee from Craft magazine, and Shannon Okey.

And Amy and Tara inhabiting the bodies of Mary Kay high priestesses. "My next car is a pink cadillac."

2007-01-09T06:45:00.000-08:00

another way knitting will make you feel good

I love my knitting classes. I could go on and on about the myriad ways they are so wonderful, but it's the start of rockstar week and time is short. I've been teaching at Knitting in La Jolla for 2 years. Beth, who attends our sessions regularly, was there on day 1. Wow. Many others have been with me nearly as long, and it is truly something I look forward to each week.

So, here's something that can make you feel even better about knitting: All the money I receive for knitting classes in January will be donated to Heifer.org. Heifer does good in the world by giving animals to poor families and teaching them to raise them. In this case, I'm going for the "knitting basket" of fleece bearing animals. The families will use the wool to bring in income, and they, in turn, pass the offspring of their animals on to other families, so the gift continues to give.

So come in and knit: do something good for yourself and for others!

2007-01-08T12:38:00.000-08:00

giddy

There's so much news it's hard to fit it all in here! This week is my "rock star" week, so please indulge me!

Today is the day to cross things off the to-do list. I have to confess that looking at the calendar made me realize there's a lot to be done this month, but all that's not done today will have to wait until later. Still, I finished a project that I've been working on for far too long. It's a project for the Dummies book, and am waiting for it and it's companion piece to dry so that I can try them on. I've also writing for the book. Quarter 2 deadline is closer than it should be. Plus I've got two projects for the girls' school fundraiser to get done by the end of the month. So while all that gnaws at my stomach lining, here's why I still feel like a rock star:

Tomorrow, Tuesday, Kaffe Fassett and Brandon Mably will be at Knitting in La Jolla having a tea party! A chance to meet such brilliant designers would really be pretty much enough to make a week fabulous, but wait...

I will have to divide my attentions because I must also meet tomorrow with the photostylist for Interweave Crochet. As you may have heard by now, Kim Werker, editor and founder of CrochetMe.com, has been tapped as the new editor of Interweave Crochet. Further, it will be published quarterly now, and available by subscription. This is fabulous news for Kim, and for crocheters. Anyway, they are doing the photoshoot for the spring issue of IC here in San Diego this week and in one of those wacky spins of the world, I will be modeling in the issue! So if you come to knitting class on Wednesday evening, chances are you will see me all dolled up.

This brings us to Friday, when I will pick up the lovely Amy Singer, founder and editor of Knitty.com and all around fabulous person at the airport. I will feed her lunch and then bring her back to Knitting in La Jolla for more tasty snacks and knitting. I will no doubt spend the first hour or so making Amy talk and being fascinated by her voice. Amy and I have known one another for 4 or 5 years now and worked together on lots of things, but I hardly ever get to hear her talk.

After that, we'll head downtown for the start of TNNA with a fashion show and reception. At some point, I'll rendezvous with Shannon Okey -- she's staying at my house again this year -- and lots of other wonderful people I am so excited to see. The world of the needle arts is filled with so many wonderful people and it's great to be surrounded by them. People who get giddy at the sight of new yarn, or classic yarns worked in new ways. The whole week is bound to inspire me in a thousand ways. Definitely reason to feel giddy.

2007-01-02T11:41:00.000-08:00

happy new year!

A brief photo essay of our winter break:

In my hometown, Olympia.

Three generations of knitters.

Enjoying Ring-Pops with cousin Claire.

Experiencing snow at Snoqualmie pass. The fact that snow is both cold and wet was a bit of an affront to my California girls.

Eating greasy food at the diner featured in Twin Peaks. No log lady. No Kyle MacLachlan. Eerily long time waiting for food.

And back home to celebrate the new year and Ella's 6th birthday at the beach.

2006-12-11T06:45:00.000-08:00

Quarter 1

My deadline for Quarter 1 is tomorrow. The designing and writing are done and I am assembling "scrap art". Because the For Dummies series relies on illustrations more than photographs, the illustrators need to know what to draw, so they need sketches or snapshots or pointers to guide them. For the 80 pages I'm handing in, I'm also handing in about 50 pieces of scrap art.

Two things on the previous post:
Careful readers will note the delightful warmth of the colors shown in the swatches.

And Musetta asks what becomes of knitted samples for books and magazines. First they are photographed for the book. In the case of Knitting Patterns for Dummies, the knits and I will travel to some undisclosed Midwestern location sometime soon after the manuscript is due (May) and the pictures will be taken. Note that an author is not always on location for the photography -- the publisher handles it completely most of the time and the author is only along for the ride. Or to play the role of the sensitive artist. My take: it's a chance to see how they actually do a photoshoot and also, as the designer and author I can point out what the significant details of a certain piece are or what's unique about it, so the garments get shot in ways that highlight those features.

After the pictures, time passes. For many craft books, most of a year can pass from the author's deadline! There's the production of the book itself which may or may not be well underway by the final deadline, and then there's printing. One of the marvels of working on the For Dummies series with Wiley is that my final deadline is in May (and not even the beginning of May) and the book will be on shelves in September. There are a couple of reasons for this. First, when you write a Dummies book, you write right into a template. The margins are predetermined, the fonts are predetermined. If I print a rough draft at home, it looks just like it'll look in the book. Except for adding in the illustrations and jiggling stuff around a bit. The other big reason that Wiley is able to turn these books around so quickly is that they print books in the US. Most knitting books I have been involved with (or even heard about) are printed in China. And dealing with that adds in a lot of time. Mostly it's because the books are heavy and literally take the slow boat from China. A few books are sent expedited and that's why there are "advance" copies. But most of the 10,000 books take the slow boat. Not only does Wiley print in the US, but at least some books are printed in a press connected to the warehouse by underground tunnel! So the books are printed, wheeled over, and they can be on trucks on their way to stores as soon as the ink's dry. This seems like something you'd like to watch on Mr. Rogers' Picture Picture.

So back to the actual knitted objects. Post photography they will travel back home with me, and sit in my closet (or someplace). You never know when Oprah is going to call... or the Poughkeepsie Picayune, so it's smart to have them. Or maybe you're doing a little book promotion and it's great to have the samples to show. Some things will probably hang out at my local yarn shop for a while, because there people see them and want to knit them. Once the potential for all that has passed and the hoo-hah dies down, then it's a mixed bag. Some knits are given to models in exchange for their work. In my case, some of the knitters will be paid for their work by getting to keep what they knit. Some of them I will keep. Sometimes things sit in limbo, though, usually with the author.

Where are my published sweaters? Let's see, as far as I know, Amy Singer still has "Surf and Turf" (which has traveled a lot!), Shannon Okey has my Knitgrrl 2 sweater, I have my sweater and skirt from Big Girl Knits back, but Jillian has my sweater for the sequel still since it's not done yet. And Amy must have my No Sheep For You sweater. I'm pretty sure the photography is done, but the book won't be out until Spring. The stuff for the dog book has gone the way of the wind. Some of it, I suspect, got left with the Today Show Crew about a year ago. I have all the stuff I've done for Knitty or have given it away. And my Curious Creek Fibers designs go back and forth and live with me, with Kristine, or at Knitting in La Jolla, depending on their mood.

2006-12-09T20:10:00.000-08:00

swatches

Here're some swatches because I can't actually show you the more exciting things I have to show you... Like for instance, I've received my first batch of finished items back from the hired hands. One stole, one shawl and one coat. The coat I'm honestly most excited about because it's a whole garment. And it fits, well, ME... just like it was supposed to.

Think about that for a moment while it sinks in... I just paid someone to handmake a garment for me. This is heady stuff, folks. I sit here and think for a while. And do that weird thing with the tape measure and the graph paper and the swatching in my pajamas for a while. And then I ask someone to send me some yarn. And then I send the yarn to someone else. And she knits it into the thing I thought of. Wow.

2006-11-20T07:02:00.000-08:00

pattern exchange?

These are some of my favorite pants. Favorite not only for their vertical stripes, ability to add zest to any outfit and space-age fabric that repels stains and wrinkles (They claim to be made by Levi's. What decade, I just can't quite decide.). But mostly they are favorites because they fit well. The legs are a good balance of fit and flare, and the waist hits in just the right place. They never feel tight or like they are about to fall off.

So I've thought about trying to re-create them. And I'm sure that I could do it -- with world enough and time. However, I am much better and faster at writing knitting patterns than sewing patterns and I am sure that out in the ether there is someone of just the opposite persuasion. So I propose a trade: You make me a sewing pattern based on the pants, and I will write you a knitting pattern based on your favorite sweater.

Let me know if this idea appeals to you!

2006-11-17T13:53:00.000-08:00

I've got my hands full.

Not only of bugs... mostly of yarn.

I've got my hands on all kinds of great yarn -- some great silk/wool called Creme from Crystal Palace and also a whole box from Colinette. I'm like a kid in my very own candy store!

Now that the yarn depot I call an office has been filled up, I'm swatching and rationing out the goodies to my knitters. Trying to figure out what I can actually manage to knit myself in the time alloted. (And, interestingly, there's nothing like having a bunch of yarn and must-knit projects to cause your eye to wander. I've been toying with the idea of starting one [or two] extra-curricular projects that aren't part of the book. Not that I'm giving in, but once you get yourself started on thinking up new projects, it's sort of hard to rein in... )

Only a few projects remain to be hashed out and I spent a bit of time making sense of things with Suzanne of Knitting in La Jolla after class today. I think we made good decisions and I don't think I'll end up driving myself or the knitters crazy. Hooray!

I've handed in a couple of chapters. My real first quarter deadline in December 14th, so between then and now I've got one more chapter to write, plus a few odds and ends, plus assembling all the scrap art for the quarter. Also, I've turned in a list of all the illustrations I imagine will be in the book -- not so easy when you haven't actually written it yet!

It's definitely keeping me and my brain busy!

2006-10-19T12:23:00.000-07:00

on designing

step 3: get more yarn.

It's still such a thrill to me that people will give me yarn. I understand, of course, that from a business perspective it's a smart decision for them. Patterns published that use their yarns help them to sell yarn. Still, it's much more like getting presents.

Yarn isn't widgets and yarn companies are not faceless megaliths. These are real people who care genuinely about yarn and knitting and share my enthusiasm for what I am doing. And they are willing to go out of their way to be helpful and supportive. Take the yarns above from Curious Creek, for example, dyed to order and hand delivered by motorcycle messenger (also known as Phil "Mr. Curious Creek" Boncer) despite the crazy schedule they've been on of late. I've also received goodies this week from Crystal Palace, Cascade Yarns and Rowan. I am grateful.

step 4: design, design, design.

So now that I have the goods, what I've been doing looks a lot like this. Apparently when it comes to pattern writing, I am a Luddite. I do use a calculator sometimes, and sometimes I turn on the lights, but other than that, I could pretty much do this in a log cabin, teepee or cave. By rough count, I have designed about 18 of 54 patterns and variants that will be in the book!

2006-10-06T06:07:00.000-07:00

how to write a book

get yarn.

So imagine you are choosing yarn for a new project. I think for most knitters this ranks right up there on the "fun parts" list. Choosing colors, fondling yarns, deciding what colors go best together, thinking about gauge and texture and materials. Clearly you could spend all afternoon in the yarn shop happily absorbed in this activity.

Okay, so now imagine that you need to pick the yarn for 35 projects. And remember that they can't all be in your favorite color*. There needs to be a range of color and texture and gauge. And if, after making 10 decisions you decide that number 11 has to be red, then that means that number 3 can't be red too and needs to be revisited. And then you need to figure out how many skeins of each you need. Note, too, that this means you have a pretty darned good idea what is actually covered in the book and that it has something to offer for everyone -- things that are appealing and flattering to a variety of tastes and sizes. That's a much bigger job. Challenging, but definitely still fun.

Especially when you start to see the results. Pictured above is my first shipment of yarn for the book. I had to show the envelope because it was covered with cool Gee's Bend quilt stamps, and, as Suzanne Pineau, owner of Knitting in La Jolla, pointed out, addressed by Cheryl Schaefer's own hand. Inside, alongside the beautiful yarns, a personal note from Cheryl. Cool, huh?

*Several people have said when I bring this up, "I guess you need to cover the full range of colors." but I cannot really decide if this is true. Black, white, navy and very pale colors are out because they are hard to photograph. I could see, say, an all green book being silly, or an overly orange book looking dated, but I do find myself thinking, "What if I left blues and purples out entirely?" On some level, a limited palette can be called "coherence". I know there are scores of people who love blue and purple, but, at least right now, I am not one of them. I like warm colors. And, afterall, there are browns and greys and greens that are cool. I don't dislike blue or bluey colors, I am simply unattracted to them. I mean, some of my best friends like blue. This goes back to the "people knit it in the color they see" chestnut. If a purple person sees no purple in the book will she decide "there's nothing in here for me?" Most of me finds this preposterous. But a tiny part of me is afraid it's true.

2006-10-05T05:44:00.000-07:00

sewing machine

I've been trawling for an antique sewing machine and cabinet for Zoe's birthday. And yes, this is what is on her wish list... When I was a child we had our (electric) machine in an old Singer treadle cabinet, and I was endlessly fascinated by it and did wish that you could sew with your own foot power, so I do understand the attraction. If I could get a treadle machine working smoothly again, I'd go for it, if not I figure I'll have the pink Brother installed in it somehow. I do find the cabinets and the old machines themselves quite lovely.

2006-10-03T14:17:00.000-07:00

how to write a book

Book writing has begun in earnest. I've got a monsterous yarn order to put in and then send off to the four corners of North America for knitting. In the mean time, I'm in full design mode.

I love designing things. Really, if you push me, I'll say that I like it more than actually knitting them. The knitting is relaxing, something that can be done while my brain is otherwise occupied. But designing things absorbs me completely. Measuring. Doing arithmetic. Figuring slopes, hypotenuses, wingspans, sleeve depths. Mapping a series of numbers, a string of code, onto the three dimensional body.

On my desk: Pencils and pens. Calculator. The Craft Yarn Council's sizing standards, stitch dictionaries. Half done swatches, thrown to the side. The gauge-o-matic. Graph paper, but mostly just scratch paper. Strings of numbers all over them. I write the actual pattern on the computer, so I don't think I'll ever have to revisit my scrawling logic, but I've decided to start labeling them and keeping them organized just in case. There's already a huge pile of papers and I'm not that far into this thing.

On the floor, today at least, a random sampling of our household's t-shirts to see what the relationship between width, length and sleeve depth tends to be on various things. The Craft Yarn Council does not, frustratingly, include any sort of arm width measurements. So sleeve width is always a great unknown and I have to resort to other means. So if I come at you with a tape measure, don't be disarmed. It's just research.

2006-09-30T17:56:00.000-07:00

debunking myths

I'm sure you've heard this before: "75% of knitters not only knit in the same yarn named in the pattern, they knit it in the SAME color as pictured in the book or magazine." I've heard it dozens of times. Naturally enough, with a varying, but invariably high, percentage named.

So how on earth do they collect this data? In theory, you could watch sales of a specific yarn after a pattern is published that uses that yarn AND track the cited yarn versus other colors. But for how long? For the two months until the next issue comes out? One year? Until the book goes out of print, during which time perhaps dozens more patterns using that yarn have come out?

I could also see gathering anecdotal evidence from yarn shop owners, "How often, would you say, do people knit things in the color shown in the pattern?" But I think this is inevitably skewed. Knitters who know what they want will just march in and get what they need. Knitters who need guidance will show the pattern to the yarn shop owner and get advice. The fact that they are less familiar with the yarns available and what they MIGHT use in a pattern, is, I would argue, clearly related to their likelihood to make a conservative choice.

Another by-the-wayside point: The color of yarn chosen by the designer had to do with trends and color availability in general. Maybe it's one of two "good" colors in that yarn. Perhaps robin's egg blue is what's hot this year. But many of the same things that made the designer choose that color will inform the knitters as well.

So, someone, please tell me where these statistics come from! Or, failing that, I propose an empirical test. We track a pattern, say published in Knitty, and the yarns used to knit it. I can't quite conceive of a way to make this a blind study, but when I look around at all the wonderfully various Clapotis (Clapoti? Clafoutis?) out there, I just think knitters are being sold short on their creativity and ability to make choices for themselves.

Either that or I can inflict my will on people more easily than I imagined :)

2006-09-29T06:32:00.000-07:00

reflection

Question 1 (from new student in my knitting class): "What do you usually knit?"
Me: "Swatches."

Question 2 (from neighbors, etc.) "What will you do now that the girls are both in school?"
Me: "I'm writing a book."

Yes, I think the time has come that I can finally spill the big news -- over the next 8 months I will be writing a book -- Knitting Patterns for Dummies! The book will contain nearly 50 patterns and lots of explanations of both how and why you knit things the way you do. So while it isn't a how-to knit book (Knitting for Dummies, written by Pam Allen, already covers that nicely.) I hope it will make knitting -- and being a more adventurous knitter -- easier.

How will I write a 312 page book in 8 months? The only answer was really "divide and conquer" and though there are a number of ways to do that, I've decided to take on all the writing and designing, but do as little of the actual knitting as possible. I will be hiring on stunt knitters scattered across North America to knit the samples while I scribble and type and swatch.

2006-09-28T06:55:00.000-07:00

heirlooms

So I was looking today at my blog and thinking about knitting blogs in general and waxing nostalgic over the last, umm, four and a half years. My first post was March 25, 2002. I certainly haven't posted with regularity during that time, but, wow, that's a long time! Older than Knitty.

And, the root of my nostalgia, the knit bloggers web ring, started that same month, March 2002. My membership has lapsed, hopelessly out of date, but I will note, for the sake of nostalgia, that my original number was 35 in the webring, assigned, as I recall, by a lottery, as the early numbers are not chronological. And in one of those rocking chair "I remember when..." moments, I remember when one could -- and did -- surf the entire ring each day.

Vive les knitblogs!

2006-09-21T07:42:00.000-07:00

on dyeing

So Mary-Kay came by on Monday to dye some roving with me. Now, Mary-Kay has an enthusiasm and ability to jump into things with both feet that is aweing. She started knitting a year ago, I think. One year. In the meantime, she has taken up dyeing, spinning, purchased whole dirty fleeces from Australia... and of course, the knitting. The sad thing (for us) is that I just heard that her house sold, so she'll really be moving to Denver and sooner than later. It's always better when people are hypothetically moving, but this sort of looks like it seals the deal. Even more than preordering your season's ski pass.

Mary-Kay at work. You'll have to go over to her blog to see the results.

A necklace of birthstones my Mom gave me: Zoe's topaz, Eleanor's garnet, mine is aquamarine and Leo is peridot. Anyway, I was wearing it and seized upon it for inspiration. Below it the resulting dye job.

I have to say that I like the gem inspired piece. On the second one (which was really the first one chronologically)I happily daubed and ladled the dye around, seemingly with purpose, but the minute I looked at it after it came out of the microwave, I wondered how those colors came out of my hands... or more importantly out of my brain. I lean very heavily toward warm colors. I have no idea what possessed me to put that blue in there... contrast, maybe? And the yellow is a very sharp and not-so-warm yellow. Actually the word that jumped to the top of my brain is "grell".

Every once in a while a German word is the one that comes to me... I was an exchange student in high school and at the time was reasonably fluent -- reasonably fluent for a 17 year old, which means if you want to talk about rock bands, teenage boys or late 80's pop culture, I can maybe hold my own. Grell I associate with flourescent lighting in train tunnels and other things that set your teeth on edge. The online translator says it means "harsh".

Still, I think it may turn out interesting spun up. I am a firm believer that you should occasionally try things you don't think you like or are not attracted to. How can I make this ugly yarn into something beautiful? What could I juxtapose with it to bring out what is good? Such exercises I think can really spur your creativity in new directions. And just as yarn on the skein is often surprisingly different knit up, I think the roving may be surprisingly different once it's spun into yarn.

2006-09-14T06:54:00.000-07:00

entomology

i'm having a bug phase.

2006-09-12T06:57:00.000-07:00

guessing game

2006-09-12T06:39:00.000-07:00

coffee table yarn

I couldn't wait to wash and whack my new yarn, wait for it to dry, and knit it. Indeed, I rolled it into a ball and dreamed of various things I could do with it. I consulted Barbara Walker. I swatched a little.

And then I decided that, at least for now, it belongs only in that yarn state of purest potential -- the hank. I can see everything that's going on in the yarn; it's integrity hasn't been diminished by the act of knitting it into the wrong thing. So I ripped out my swatch, unwound the ball, and put it back into it's ideal state.

2006-09-12T06:20:00.000-07:00

heirlooms

Vive les knitblogs!

2006-09-10T07:15:00.000-07:00

it's a little kinky

2006-09-09T21:41:00.000-07:00

spinning

my first hand spun yarn -- wool dyed by shannon okey in her dishwasher. spun on a spindle.

2006-09-08T17:13:00.000-07:00

the spider and I

2006-09-05T11:20:00.000-07:00

my own private knitting olympics

2006-08-12T06:30:00.000-07:00

I've been knitting with great focus on my submission to Big Girls of late. Indeed, as of the end of July, when I realize that September 1 isn't really so very far away and they are running ads for shiny #2 pencils on TV (see how shockingly in touch with the world I am now that I have TV?), I had only the Front done and was in the black hole of "this will never, ever, ever get finished". I don't think it's giving too much away to say that it involves some mosaic work. But the result of that is that significant portions of the sweater are at a gauge of 7 sts and 12 rows per inch. Yes, I'm knitting the equivalent of sock gauge on size 10 needles! On a sweater with a 46" chest.

After considering bailing on the project and a peptalk from Jillian , I decided to treat it like a job. Or Olympic training. Concerted effort. Scheduling. Calisthenics for the wrists and thumbs. And some revamped design decisions. All for the good, mind you.

The Back is complete is remarkable time. With only short moments of celebration and the recogition that I will likely finish the sweater in the current era, I cast on for sleeve 1. It too is finished in remarkable time. But, as Ms. Clavell woud say "Somesing ees not right!". It looked a little funny while I was knitting it. It looked a little funny bound off. Funny in the orangutanish way, truthfully. So I blocked it. Smooth it out. A little long? Nah... it's a big sweater. (Okay, I'll just say for the record right now that I know that people who have big chests do NOT have longer arms. I understand that Da Vinci height = wingspan thing. Really. I was a tad delusional.) So what do I do? Stop there and face it? No, I stitched it in. I did not baste, mind you, I mattress stitched. Still looked funny. So I wove in my ends. That oughta fix it!

And then I faced up to it and feverishly ripped the sleeve down to just above the elbow. There will be less knitting on BOTH sleeves I rationalized. It was the right thing to do. But now what? Where was my mistake? Okay, 1) they were too wide and 2) they were too long, but there were other issues. These are not quite usual sleeves, so there's a lot to consider about where they hit the body and at what angle. Eventually, I resketched the front and back on graph paper and then made proto-sleeve cut outs and taped them on. A 3-D model. Really.

And now back to knitting.

sardines

2006-07-19T06:59:00.000-07:00

sardines

As to the sardine experimentation, I heard a piece on the radio about which fish are best to eat based on their health benefits and risks coupled with the environmental impact of fishing or farming them. Alaskan salmon, mahimahi, canned salmon instead of tuna, also, sardines and anchovies, herring and anything that looks like bait. It makes sense, you want to go low on the food chain. You can read the list for yourself here: Oceans Alive Best & Worst list. As far as what to do with your sardines, there are recipes on the Oceans Alive site, but I found a salad on Epicurious that had the canned sardines marinated in lemon peel, oregano, red pepper flakes, lemon juice and olive oil. The marinade was good, but it didn't make me love sardines. Pickled herring, anyone?

2006-07-19T06:44:00.000-07:00

jury duty

I've been summoned for jury duty tomorrow. And feeling a sense of civic responsibility, I have not tried to weasel out of it. I haven't actually done jury duty since the pre-parent days. I did sit on a jury about 10 years ago, and it was pretty interesting and entertaining. Shoplifting. Young court appointed attorneys who imagined they might be on TV. No gore.

San Diego has a one day/one trial system, so I figured I'd go down town and sit in the jury lounge and knit all day until they told me I could go home. Like being on an airplane, you really have little to do besides knit, read some old paperbacks, or stare at your fellow jurors until they call lunch.

So I am re-reading the summons last night, and there on the list of no-no's -- knitting needles. The airport security doesn't even blink at them anymore. But then I remembered the Yarnharlot's comment about "giving someone a nasty poke". So me and the criminals, we'll be crocheting tomorrow.

2006-07-18T06:41:00.000-07:00

my summer vacation

We've had our big trip of the summer -- fly to DC, minivan to NC for a great 4 generations/1 roof weeklong reunion. It was a great trip, but any trip you take with young children should not be confused with "taking it easy". I have come to terms with that over the years. And also the recognition that family vacations are truly the stuff of memories. So I figure I've succeeded in making some mark on my children's brains for now.

Since our return, the girls have been at daycamp at the local highschool. And this, I have to say, is a vacation unparalleled in my recent history. 9:00 to 4:00. I don't think I've had that many hours to myself in, uh, well, about 9 years. And not just one day, but days. Add to that that it took a while for people to catch up to the fact that I was home. No one was asking me to do anything new.

So I've painted the fence, washed the windows and reinstalled the screens, contemplatively strolled the aisles of the grocery store, trimmed some shrubbery with an oversized electric turkey-knife, cleaned out the garage and the craft room, experimented with sardines, written Frankenknits for fall, talked to a publisher, watched television, knit, let my mind wander. And still found myself pleasantly surprised that there was still time left in the day.

2006-06-28T05:49:00.000-07:00

Dear Big

Dear Big,

I need to tell you something. You know our relationship means something to me. We've been together already for a couple of months now. And at first I was very involved in our relationship. Your shape excited me. I swatched you for hours; playing little games with your stitch patterns and gauge. I drew pictures of you while you lay there, not even knowing that I was looking at you.

But our relationship takes a lot of work. You are a lot of stitches. I feel we really need to sit down and take stock of where we are headed. I feel pressured to continue seeing you because of other people's expectations. Sure, I enjoy spending time with you, but I don't always feel like I'm really doing it for ME.

So I need to tell you something. It's summer time. And I'm on vacation. There was this long plane trip. And I started toying with this hand dyed cashmere. It was just a few innocent stitches. But it was fun. And she's foreign. And, so easy going. And I ended up inviting her to come with me. And things are going really well between us.

So, Big, I'm pretty sure this thing between Clapotis and me is just a fling. I hope you can find it within you to forgive me. You know I will come back to you.

2006-06-12T07:33:00.000-07:00

affectations can be dangerous*

Leo and I went to the Red Ball this weekend which was a lot of fun. I mean, how often do you get to dress up, leave your children at home, and go to a cool party with food and drink, music and art?

Leo's costume was dubbed "All Tomorrow's Revolutionaries"

Me, I chose Isadora Duncan , a revolutionary with a tragic story... and good fashion accessories.

*Gertrude Stein said that.

2006-06-02T07:23:00.000-07:00

antimacassars

i've been thinking about antimacassars. and that i need to make one. if for no other reason than to say that i am working on an antimacassar.

i know that they were created to keep the greasy hair oil off the parlor furniture. but what sort of greasy hair oil? inasmuch as i favor any hair styling products, i am partial to the greasy hair oil genre. according to wikipedia, macassar oil was coconut or palm oil scented with ylang-ylang. which sounds pretty good, really.

2006-06-02T07:00:00.000-07:00

television

So here's one of those "100 things about me" moments. I have spent most of my adult life without television. My children have spent their entire lives without broadcast television. We do borrow movies and pbs shows from the library, so it's not like they're not watching ever, but if your entire week's viewing is made up of one episode of Blue's Clues and four episodes of Peewee's Playhouse, it's not quite the same as being a television consumer.

Yesterday that changed. direct TV. The reason? The World Cup. Four years ago the World Cup found Leo crawling out of bed at strange hours to visit similarly smitten friends (usually of british extraction) or finding open sports bars. This year will be different. This year, all games will be recorded and waiting.

Our first TV moments: We flip through the seven zillion channel names on the guide. Zoe's popular culture radar are all the sudden up and firing: every show she's seen at a friend's house or heard mentioned at school. She wants them. I see things like Star Trek: The Next Generation, Family Feud, and Little House on the Prairie. And have the strong sense that they haven't actually MADE any new television in the last 12 years. Eventually, Zoe settles on HGTV or Food channel She is SO, SO her mother's daughter in some ways.

So what's on? If I ever do watch something what should it be? The thing magically records your shows so you don't have to watch real time.

2006-05-24T07:43:00.000-07:00

dress as your favorite revolutionary?

we've been invited to a party -- to the Red Ball Sushi Performance and Visual Art. Which is cool, except one is supposed to come dressed as one's favorite revolutionary. Any favorite female revolutionaries?

Also, Leo's growing a beard, not because he has an actual revolutionary in mind, but just on the grounds that you've got more revolutionaries to choose from with a beard.

2006-05-24T06:06:00.000-07:00

checking in with the list

done

Frankenknits column for summer knitty.

Most recent spate of tech editing.

The pattern for No Sheep... has been sent off.

The sweater for No Sheep... is knit, seamed and blocked. When it's dry, it goes off to Colorado.

My pattern has been accepted to Big Girl Knits 2! I'm still swatching to get it just right. It should be a lot of fun to create!

to do

announce frankenKnits logo/t-shirt contest. so go over there and check it out.

re-edit pattern and photograph finished thing for fall knitty... i love this pattern!

continue swatching and planning my entry in Big Girl Knits 2. Knit Bigger? I'm really excited about this pattern. It should be lots of fun to create.

write that fall Frankenknits column!

i still haven't done a thing with the fibercraft classes. i'd love to, but they keep falling to the bottom of the list. mainly because...

the two most recent developments:

I've found a co-author for the historical knitting thing. This makes the project into something cool and fun rather than overwhelming. Stay tuned.

I've been thinking about a new book project. No details yet, but this is definitely the most pre-occupying thing on my plate right now!

I have lots of brain and computer work to do, but nothing to knit... other than swatches, swatches, swatches. But one still needs a real project. I mean, your station wagon project can't really be swatches. Too many balls and needles. And I know better than to try to measure gauge on the steering wheel or my knee.

But I have an idea... Actually, I have several ideas. I love this part of knitting/designing. At first a vague dissatisfied void. What AM I supposed to be doing? And then ideas start coming in to the void. Where you sketch and imagine and play, examine people's clothing on the street... but as yet it's not tied to reality and the fact that you're going to have to figure out how to get the sleeve cap to match the armscye in 4 sizes has not really even intruded past the threshold of your knitting brain.

2006-05-18T10:39:00.000-07:00

new camera!

what I especially love is the digital macro zoom. cool.

2006-05-09T06:17:00.000-07:00

cast on?

I'm working on another editing project. And this always makes me think about knitting parlance.

When cast on (and bind off) are transitive verbs, I write them like that. Plain and simple. However, in some other cases, e.g. "Work even until piece measures 4.75 inches from the cast on edge." or "With MC and cable cast on, CO 12 sts at the beginning of the next 2 rows.", I get the urge to stick a hyphen in there. You?

The other: Kitchener stitch. Capitalized or not? I'm assuming it's a name and therefore capitalized, at least as yet. According to the dictionary, jacquard is not capitalized but Fair Isle and Aran are. intarsia - not capitalized. i-cord, though often capitalized, shouldn't be.

and yes, for this, i get up early.

2006-05-06T08:00:00.000-07:00

a circular needle?

here's one of those questions: is it A circular needle or a PAIR of circular needles?

on the one hand, it's one thing. a double pointed needle, which, arguably, is just a shorter, less flexible cousin of the circular needle, is certainly singular. on the other hand, a circular needle, particularly when used to knit flat, is, as i tell students all the time, "really just two straight needles that happen to be stuck together so you can't lose one." sort of like a string on a pair of mittens.

pair of pants, pair of scissors... though i must confess that i actually call it "a scissors" -- a habit i picked up from a college friend. probably like lots of other misguided speech affectations that you think make you sound smarter.

2006-04-27T14:17:00.000-07:00

research assistant

WANTED: College student, graduate student or other interested soul to do some basic research for me on a book project. Knitting, American History, Women's History. Mostly making phonecalls, doing some online research, so your location isn't an issue. Keeping organized notes of your findings. For the right person, it'll likely be interesting and could conceivably lead to a spiffy term paper or whatever. Which I will gladly edit for you with my razor sharp red pen. There will be modest compensation for your time as well.

Please let me know if you have someone you think would enjoy this job.

2006-04-27T06:24:00.000-07:00

to do list

finish frankenknits column for summer knitty. [amy's in italy, right? so it's not REALLY due until she's back and catches up with her email.] it's fun. and summery. and if you haven't checked it out, i have a new website devoted to recycling and revamping -- check out frankenknits.com.

perform copy editing and technical editing on a set of patterns. i've been doing a fair amount of freelance technical editing, or, as my husband calls it, debugging knitting code. it's fun because i get to see things first (nanny nanny boo boo), there's always something inspiring in a collection, and i enjoy crunching the numbers and getting those k2's tog. or i do for 2 or 3 weeks at a time. which is good, because there's usually a deadline about then and i send it back.

re-knit and re-size sweater for Amy Singer's book, No Sheep For You. it's knit and writ already, but i needed to change the colors and i still need to step out the various sizes. due may 22nd. front's done. back's about halfway. sleeves will go quickly on this one. so i'm right on target.

continue swatching for Big Girls Knits 2. the sweater has been conceived, i'm just playing with color and yarns. i'm really excited to knit it and work it out. i only wish it were my size! pattern's due september 1.

tech edit a book that shannon okey is in on. that's summer. june or july maybe.

write fall Frankenknits column. I already have a theme. I've got a couple projects in mind. So I'm pretty on top of it. But the due date is sooner than I think. See item 1.

write up a syllabus for a fibercraft class for kids.
here in san diego (and i imagine in other cities) they have afterschool enrichment classes at the school. next year, eleanor starts kindergarten and zoe will be in 4th grade. so i could teach a class. indeed, i've had enough inquiries about it, that i'm thinking about getting other teachers at other schools. .

similarly, put together a one-hour teen fibercraft spiel.
over summer, libraries have lots of programs for kids. apparently it's hard to find good things that appeal to the young teen and tween population, so i've been asked if i can do the local library circuit over the summer. a bit of how-to, recommendations on starting a teen knitting and crochet club, and some good books. let me know if you have any particular ideas.

decide whether the above list has space in it for any more projects before fall and if so, what sort. it's one of those difficult things -- i hate to say no to something that sounds like a good idea, but at the same time, i hate being over-extended more.

2006-04-26T06:33:00.000-07:00

station wagon

it may seem like i'm not knitting, but really, i am. or doing knitting related tasks. one of life's little ironies: the more knitting-related work i have, the less time i have to knit.

a lot of my knitting comes in those "soccer-mom" moments. and all the sudden, i totally feel like a soccer-mom. the girls are at different schools and as they get more involved in the external world and, as yet, are unable to drive themselves as they still require booster seats, and have only recently mastered fastening their own seatbelts, i take them places in the station wagon. places where, i'll point out, there are many other station wagons. we are, apparently, station wagon people. and i've come to accept that.

i confess though, that i have taken to overestimating the time it will take me to run errands or how early i have to leave to pick-up -- and then i sit in my station wagon and knit.

2006-04-18T09:37:00.000-07:00

coincidences

we just got back from a spring visit to washington, d.c., where we saw trees in full blossom and celebrated the spring holidays with the broader branches of the family tree. a beautiful and busy visit.

i was excited to learn before our trip that ann and kay would be in d.c. doing a book signing during my visit -- further, the book shop is walking distance from my grandmother-in-law's apartment on the very evening the family would dine at her home. so i trotted over, got my "for keeps" copy of ann and kay's wonderful book and met some great knitters.

after reading the book and getting in to the "log cabin" blanket idea and all that it holds i was struck by a connection between that and sophie taeuber's dada needlepoints on display at the national gallery of art in the east wing. if you're in the area, you should definitely check it out. i think some of taeuber's work would extend very well and naturally to knitting in the log cabin style.

i did a web search for "taeuber needlepoint" to try to find the piece that i was thinking about. i didn't find it. but the first link that came up was lollygirl's blog. and here's another serendipitous element: i met lolly at the booksigning, and she not only recognized me, but blogged me and my very orange outfit -- apparently it's orange month for Project Spectrum. So you can check us out chez lolly. note that i am carrying my fabulous orange purse from grandma edna.

it's amazing how round the world is sometimes.

2006-03-30T06:34:00.000-08:00

pretty dresses, pretty girls, pretty day

2006-03-19T10:55:00.000-08:00

what i'm knitting

I'm hard at work knitting up my project for Amy Singer's sheepless book. I don't think it's giving too much away to show you the yarn I'm using. Curious Creek Fibers Isalo -- pure handpainted silk.

2006-03-17T09:22:00.000-08:00

Cinderella Story

Zoe's been reading various Cinderella tales. She was particularly drawn to this cover illustration. It is a beautifully drawn picture. And I understand her attraction to it.

2006-03-17T09:17:00.000-08:00

just in time for spring

A new spring coat for Eleanor. Reversible, even. A confession though: I started this coat a long time ago. Such a long time ago that it was meant to fit Zoe and there was a smaller one cut out for a much smaller Eleanor. This one was very nearly done. It just needed the sleeves and bottom sewn closed and the buttons and buttonholes. And there it sat, for, three years. But now it's done, just in time for Spring. It's from a commercially available pattern (McCall's I recall), but wasn't lined/reversible.

I don't think it shows in the photo, but the more colorful side has apple buttons. Silver buttons on the green side, per Miss E's request.

2006-03-17T09:12:00.000-08:00

...and i've got a brand new bag

take the skinheads bowling,take them bowling.

A new felted bag to match my shoes. Knit in Cascade 128 (color: red; 2 skeins) and Cascade Eco Wool (color: purple; 1 skein, held double). The pattern is available for free at Curious Creek Fibers.

2006-03-11T06:30:00.000-08:00

reading blogs

I'm sort of on again, off again with blogs. Not just posting, but reading. It takes time to keep up. Time that one could be working on something worthy of blogging. And there are so many blogs. So many with interesting things to say. So, I've been reading blogs lately.

In comments to her own post, Amy asked on the Knitty Blog "Does that mean geek knitters attract geek science guys as mates?" This had to do with Richard Feynman as bedside reading, telescopes, moebius strips and other, well, nerdy things.
My answer. Yes, of course. Now a few points to be clear: I am a nerd. I have always been one, always will be and I am okay with that. I come from a long line of dictionary readers. But I think I wear it well. Some nerds are intensely introverted, socially maladept or morose. I don't think I am any of those. I do dress funny, but usually on purpose.

Nerds come in many forms. Lacking better terminology, I will say that I am a left-handed nerd. A nerd who has a strong creative bent, who likes "thinking outside the box" and problem solving. I have come to realize (indeed, mostly through knitblogs and the online knitting community) that there are lots of knitters who fall into this category (obviously not all lefties, but I can deal with that). Particulary those who are designers or otherwise think a lot about the technical aspects of knitting.

Are their mates geek science guys (or gals)? I'd wager yes. Mine is. But again, with a creative side. Witness the blend of science geek and artist here in his artwork. Not all arty science geeks are actually artists though. Some may write computer code, or be engineers or whatever, but they do so creatively, and are art and music enthusiasts even if they don't do art. And I think there's the occassional mate that's the other way: more arty, less sciencey. But I'd suspect that they'd be attracted to the nerdiest of the knitting nerds (I actually really enjoy technical editing, I don't know how much nerdier it gets!) just for balance.

The other blog thing that I wanted to comment on in a way that was too big for the comment box was the Yarn Harlot's "I know what I like" post. Stephanie has decided to start reviewing knitting books. She and her commenters raise many good points about reviews and critiques. I think the most significant is that there is a big difference between making an aesthetic judgement and discussing why. I don't mind a critic who says something is hideous (as there are many bad ideas allowed to come to fruition), but it's much more useful if that is followed up with, "The single sleeve and the novelty yarn trim make the model look as if she has stuffed half her bra with a dead bird. The assymetrical neckline is inevitably unflattering, whether in a prom dress or a sweater. If that's as good as they can get it to look on a reclining model with one arm over her head, how will it look on you?" Discussing what is wrong with something technically or even conceptually is fine. Useful, even.

What should not be part of a critique is ad hominem attacks. That is, you are welcome to criticize the design, the layout, the paper, the picture... but not the person. Recognize that a paper written by a person or a pattern designed by that person, is NOT the person. It's a single project at a certain time. Perhaps an experiment. Perhaps something that was allowed out of the house without brushing its teeth and combing its hair. Things that get published don't always have time to get polished (this too, you are welcome to criticize, IMHO, because not every knitted thing is worthy of publication). Perhaps the author understands the irony of the project and doesn't really expect anyone to want to wear it. Or they just had a bad week.

Likewise, I think it is useful for authors, designers, content producers, makers of stuff, etc. to understand that even if it doesn't sound that way, a reviewer is criticizing that one project. Love it or hate it, they do not love or hate you. And they might love or hate your next project. Now of course this is easier said than done, but disassociating yourself from the stuff you make, makes putting it out in front of other people a lot easier.

Finally, you should always assume that the designer or author WILL see what you've said about their work. A blog is a public place. And sooner or later it will get back to them. So if it's not something you're willing to say to them, don't say it. Like that mean note you wrote in third grade to someone you thought was a dork, you'll regret it later.

2006-03-05T16:01:00.000-08:00

mama's got a brand new bag

This is a purse that I made for my Mom. For her birthday. Her birthday that was 1.75 years ago. But now it's done. Well, except for the handle sewing on bit. She was here to witness the felting, though. I will get the handles attached and the thing sent off by her next birthday, I promise.

If you'd like to make one like this for your Mom, the pattern's available under "Free Patterns" there on the left sidebar!

2006-03-02T09:48:00.000-08:00

profiles

I tried to capture the girls' profiles as they are really quite different. These are sort of silly pictures which don't capture their chins well. But as it is endlessly fascinating to look at one's children, I am often struck by how similar -- and how different -- they look.

2006-03-02T06:51:00.000-08:00

crochet

So the rumors are true. I've been hooking. Not obsessively really, but little flowers, the odd granny square, etc. I even did a little swatch yesterday in Tunisian crochet. When they say "creates a sturdy fabric" they aren't kidding though. If you want that (thick, almost no stretch)for a belt or bag, it is s a cool technique. Like traditional crochet, I have to say I am shocked by how much yarn it gulps up.

the bigger square is from CrochetMe Kim, the smaller one is mine.

And this is a sweater for Zoe. The body is knit (yo, k2tog), but I did do a crochet border all around and at the sleeves. Which turned out just fine. Crochet is really easy to rip out, which is nice. But honestly, what was so nice about knitting this sweater is that I knew it was not going to be published! So I let the mistakes stay and didn't take notes and didn't have to think of knitting in terms of how to describe it. I don't get to do that very often.