Mim’s Blog

I got pictures yesterday of the Pinstripe Sock I worked up in Isager yarns for Knit-Purl to take to Sock Summit as a kit. The pattern will also be available later as a download and for wholesale purchase. If you’re going to Sock Summit, check out Knit-Purl’s booth. They’ll have it in a bunch of other colors in the kits too, some bolder than this. I like subtle :)

The Isager yarn was a lot of fun to work with. Most of the sock is worked with one strand of Viscolin (50% linen/50% rayon) and one strand of Alpaca 1 (100% alpaca). Working them both together gives a soft, strong, and sturdy fabric. The pinstripes are worked by knitting the pinstripe column with just the linen and then slipping it on every other round. It makes the pinstripes subtle and classy.

M

So the word is in. The Community Garden is plodding along and not looking very good because our soil is lacking in Nitrogen. The people in charge are going to provide us with fish emulsion, green waste compost, and straw mulch to help. But I can’t help wondering if it’s too late to really get a good harvest out of it. I’ve got a few tomatoes on the vines, and they’re still growing despite the lack of foliage on everything else, but the soil amendment party isn’t until next week. I think I’d rather go find myself some fish emulsion today and get it started now. It wouldn’t hurt to have more, right?

Despite having been planted on May 16th, my swiss chard is still teeny leaflings poking out through the soil, no more than 1/2″ high. *sigh*

Feeling a bit disappointed about it. The picture at the top of this post is of the mint growing in a pot on my porch. It’s anything but disappointing! It’s growing like crazy and seems to be thriving in the sunny spot on my porch. I’ve also got some potted sage there that is happy.

M

1-365

Originally uploaded by mimsical

I decided to join the 365 project and take a picture everyday, and then I went completely NUTS and went for the whole “Self Portrait” angle as well. Nuts because I usually despise pictures of myself.

Things are going along pretty busily for me. I’ve got a bunch of designs I’m working on, including 2 different pairs of socks for Knit-Purl. One for their Sock Club, and one for them to take as kits up to Sock Summit. Both with eventually be available through my site as well.

And I’ll be showing you the sock summit one probably tomorrow. Can’t let the opportunity to take a modeled picture of the sock and use it as a 365 self portrait pass me by :)

I’ve been home for 4 days, but I’m still exhausted and all I want to do is sit on my couch and watch Star Trek: Deep Space 9 (anybody else totally in love with Odo?).

As expected, I came home with no dearth of ideas and creative stimulation from TNNA. The sheer knitting brilliance that collects there is astonishing! I got to spend some time talking to Cat Bordhi about a book idea I have, and got some great feedback from her. I got to see some old friends, meet other friends in person for the first time, and make great friends with people I had never met before. I could post links, but I know I’d miss someone and feel horrible. You all know who you are.

The really amazing thing about a trade show like this is that everyone really is better than you imagine they’ll be. They are kinder, more genuine and real, and just all around lovely people.

I’ve seen a lot of non-industry people upset that they can’t go to TNNA, but as much fun as we have, it’s really a business activity. It’s about networking (I really hate that word, but it’s the right term in this case), and bouncing ideas off other people who have a slightly different perspective of the fiber universe than you do. Yes, we get free yarn, but it’s with the understanding that we will work with it, and give something back to the yarn company by talking about their yarn.

I got to spend a bit of time with Laura and Ysolda too, which was great fun. They were kind enough to let me stay in their hotel when my first roommates left early. I took a bunch of Face Down Tuesday pictures with Ysolda on Tuesday before I headed home, which just crack me up.

Technically cameras are not allowed on the show floor (taking pictures in your own booth isn’t really enforced), but as a result I don’t have a LOT of pictures from the weekend. What I do have is here.

I also had my first Jeni’s Ice Cream, which is simply amazing stuff. I came home with a t-shirt and an overwhelming desire to pay the $35 in shipping to Utah just to have some more.

I’ve now got a lot of projects that I’ll be hammering out details for and knitting like a maniac to get them all done. I’ve got a sock pattern that will be going out as the September offering for the Knit-Purl Sock Subscription Club.

I’m working on something that I CAN post about right now though, so I’ll show you next week.

… for TNNA. If you are going to be there, I’ll mostly be in the Stitch Cooperative Booth (#663), but I’ll have stuff on display in some other booths as well:

Habu Textiles will have the Transverse Scarf
Dream in Color will have the Seraphim Shawl
Lorna’s Laces will have the Juno Regina Stole & Wrap
ShiBui Knits will have the Evolution Mitts

If you want to follow along with the hijinks, or the special promotions Stitch Coop is running, we’ll be tweeting. All our twitter contact stuff is here if you would like to check in and see how it’s going :)

Winners have been chosen and assigned to prizes!

The winners are: Sue H, Shelle, Lisa E, Joyce, Ingrid, Anna, Trish B, Ann Rose, Rachel, Malin, Jenn and KSH. I’ve sent you all e-mails so if you didn’t get one, check your spam filter and junk e-mail box. The e-mail subject is “MimKnits Drawing Winners”.

The patterns are up as well:
Desdemona Shawl
Cleite Shawl
Juno Regina Stole & Wrap
Transverse Scarf

The patterns are now also up on Ravelry.
Hope you all have a great week!

Oh, and the eggs have hatched and there are twee little bugeyed baby birds in the nest!! What a great birthday present!

M

My garden is up, although somewhat behind OTHER people’s. We didn’t get to officially plant until the 16th of May, so things that could have been germinating already didn’t even get PLANTED until then.

Next year I will get the same box, so I can start peas, spinach and lettuces under a cold frame and get things going a bit earlier.

I’ve got 7 varieties of tomato, 6 of which are heirlooms, and bell peppers, hot peppers, carrots, yellow squash, honeydew melon, green onions, basil, dill, cillantro, cucumbers, lettuce, swiss chard, garlic, and bush beans all in my 4′x16′ community garden box. I’ve been going out to water it twice a day since the 16th, and I really enjoy watching the wee changes from day to day. The carrots and green onions came up yesterday, and one bean plant too. The only things still not up are the cilantro and dill, but I expect those up any day now.

M

Thanks for all the wonderful comments on the what you love about lace! If you haven’t yet, don’t forget to enter the drawing. I’ve got a bag from Hug Me, some sweet georgia CashSilk Lace, some Lorna’s Laces experimental colors of Shepherd Sock, some lace yarn, some sock yarn, some spinning fiber, and some gift certificates to my shop to give away. I’m really excited!

I’ve been rather busy getting ready for TNNA and getting patterns ready for the June 1st release shindig, and I’ve been working on a new piece that I cant unveil in full yet. I’m trying to get it done before the trip to Columbus so I can start something else. The yarn is sproingy and the pattern is turning out very well. I think it will be easy to work, but also very very lovely. A lot of bang for your buck, so to speak. Here’s a peak at one of the section changes, made black & white.

Mama bird is doing fine, and starting to get really protective of her nest. She puffed her feathers at a bird who had the audacity to land on a branch near her, and does the same to anybody walking by.

I’ve got to do a photoshoot this week for the wrap version of Juno that Emily was lovely enough to knit for me.

M

A nest appeared in the tree just outside my apartment. The branch is at eye level, and 3 or 4 feet from the edge of the balcony. Not really the best place for a nest if you want it secluded from people, or roaming neighborhood cats…

I’ve been sneaking out to check on the nest a few times a day, and when Mama Bird was out for food or whatever, I took some pictures.

With a step stool, leaning over the balcony and blind shooting with my camera, I got this one. Looks like 4 eggs.

I’m watching them eagerly :)

M

Spreading the word the best way I know how. World Wide Knit In Public Day is going to span 2 weekends this year, June 13 & 14 as well as June 20 & 21. It has been the 2nd weekend in June for a while, but that always interferes with TNNA, so it’s being moved to the 3rd weekend in June. The move will be permanent after this year.

Speaking of TNNA, I’ll be there, in the stitch coop booth, I just still need to buy my plane ticket still.

M

So when Desdemona was sent out as a kit, the end of the exclusivity (which is the day I can publicly release it) ended up as June 1st. Well, June 1st is also my birthday, so it seemed a good time for a drawing and prizes. Then I realized that Cleite came back to me on May 1st (but I still need to reformat and do the layout). Plus I have the Transverse Scarf that is specifically designed to be easily compatible with handspun yarn, like Cleite. It just needs the pattern finished up and checked before being released. I plan to work out another design to use handspun yarn before then, and on June 1st, we’re gonna have a great big release party, OK?

Here’s the rundown:
1. Birthday
2. Prize Drawing (I’ve got some outside donations for prizes as well as stuff from my own stash, including some Mossy Grove Prototype Lorna’s Shepard Sock that is GORGEOUS!)
3. Desdemona Release
4. Cleite Re-Release
5. Juno Regina Re-Release with instructions for wider wrap
5. Transverse Scarf Release
6. Other unnamed handspun-able project (this might be the thing that goes away if I don’t have time) release.

So, what can you do to enter the drawing? I want to hear about your favorite lace piece and why you loved it. Did it challenge you? Was the yarn just perfect for it? Maybe you loved it because it had resting rows. I wanna hear what floats your boat when it comes to lace.

Alternatively, if you are new to lace and haven’t finished a piece yet (or if you just can’t PICK a favorite–they would all get jealous!!), you can tell me what you LOVE about lace in general.

I’ll take entries until 12:00 midnight MST on May 30, and will announce the drawing winners on June 1st.

Please leave entries in the comments of THIS POST ONLY. Comments in any other post will not be eligible.

And then come back on June 1st and share the birthday/prize love :)

M

Clearly, I have a bias in favor of lace, but lace is economical, time-consuming, and has a wide range of difficulty to choose from. As we head into summer, with car trips, vacations, summer camps, and gardens, here’s a list of lace projects that can be done for less than $35. It is the rare sweater that costs that little, so here are 14 yarn/pattern combinations for your knitting pleasure. They are not, by any means, the limit of possibilities, just some suggestions to get your lace appetite whetted.

$15 or less:

• 1 skein of Malabrigo Lace = $8.95 from Yarnzilla + Persephone Scarf Pattern = $14.40
• 2 skeins of Shadow Laceweight= $5.98 from KnitPicks + Mountain Peaks Pattern = $12.48
• 2 skeins of Misti Alpaca Laceweight = $14.40 from Webs + Free Adamas Shawl Pattern = $14.40
• 1 skein of Plymouth Baby Alpaca Lace = $5.29 from Webs + Flutter Scarf Pattern = $10.97

$15 – $25:

• 1 skein of Lane Borgosesia Cashwool = $16.00 from The Loopy Ewe + Nefertiti Wrap Pattern = $22.50
• 2 skeins of Zephyr Laceweight = $18.50 from Sarah’s Yarns + Icarus Shawl Pattern = $24.50
• 3 skeins of Shadow Kettle-Dyed Laceweight = $11.97 from KnitPicks + Hidcote Garden Shawl Pattern = $18.47
• 3 skeins of Reynold’s Whiskey = $17.97 from Webs + Foliage Shawl Pattern = $24.47
• 1 skein of Lane Borgosesia Cashwool = $16.00 from The Loopy Ewe + Free Juno Regina Stole Pattern = $16.00
• 2 skeins of Malabrigo Lace = $18.00 from Eat.Sleep.Knit + Cleite Shawl Pattern = $25.00

$25 – $30:

• 2 skeins of Ultra Alpaca Fine = $20.00 from The Wooly West + Seraphim Shawl Pattern = $26.00
• 4 skeins of Jaggerspun 2/8 Heathers = $20.00 from Sarah’s Yarns + Zephyros Shawl Pattern = $26.50
• 1 skein of Jade Sapphire Lacey Lamb = $19.50 from Knitch + Lightweight Mountain Peaks Shawl Pattern = $26.00
• 1 skein of Alpaca With a Twist Fino = $21.00 from The Loopy Ewe + Aspen Grove Shawl Pattern = $27.50

YAY for lace!
M

By the way, I’m now on Twitter, my username is mimknits. I tweet about what I’m working on, when a pattern is done, and what I’m inspired by, as well as random stuff like playing footsie with my cat. :) My feeds are open, so feel free to follow if you’d like.

M

I wanted to do another few patterns that would be good for handspun, to compliment Cleite (which I will eventually put in a compilation, but can’t yet due to contractual restrictions), and this was the first of the bunch. The repeat is 4 sts wide and 16 rows long, but has a natural break at 8 rows so it would be easy to adjust the size based on the grist of your yarn, and you could bind off once you only have a few yards left at any point in the repeat.

The yarn this is made from is lovely. It’s 10 strands of silk held together by root sizing. When you knit with it, it feels like a linen ribbon yarn or something akin to it. Flat, a bit stiff, and kind of crunchy. But after washing it a few times in warm water with soap, the sizing washes out and the yarn becomes round and supple. It’s quite captivating!

Pattern: My own, Transverse Scarf. To be released June 1st.
Yarn: Habu Textiles N-6B Konyaku Root Sizing Silk (100% silk) in colorway ‘copper’
Needles: 3.75 mm (US 5) Addi Turbos

So this one should be coming out on June 1st (look for some news about that date on Friday).

M

It was a really busy week! I spent the first few days getting Nefertiti ready for release and writing up a wider-version for Juno Regina so that the sample knitter could get going on it. Thanks for the great response to Nefertiti! I.LOVE.IT. So much. It is drapey and beautiful and just wonderful to wear.

On Wednesday I went to visit family. My sister L helped me baste my king sized quilt. It’s a disappearing 9-patch, in all shades of blue. The patchwork top is 116″ square. That is 9′8″ x 9′8″. That sucker is HUGE. But I’m excited about it. I might be crazy, but I am going to handquilt the whole thing. So don’t expect to see it for another 6 months at least :)

On Thursday my Dad, using his well honed carpentry skills, helped me make a warping board.

I told him I want his tools when he dies. That man has EVERYTHING imaginable tucked into a very small garage. The frame is made from 36″ poplar 2×2s, so it’s very sturdy, and it will do a 16-17 yard warp, I imagine. I’ll have to measure sometime. Hopefully by the end of the week I’ll be weaving some kitchen towels.

I have finished a scarf based on the Konyaku Silk swatch that I did in March. It’s turned out lovely, but I need to take some pictures before I can post about it. The pattern should be super simple and PERFECT for handspun yarn since the repeat is 8 rows and 4 stitches.

M

… but this is really just pure genius :)

Verses Scrawled on the Back of an Old Ball Band, Found Abandoned on a Street Corner in Nantucket

M

Named for the famous Egyptian Queen, Nefertiti. It is rumored that she ruled the Upper and Lower Kingdoms on her own after her husband’s death before her son Tutankhamun took the throne. With her husband she changed the polytheistic religion of Egypt to the worship of one god. This wrap evokes the sheer pleated gowns and serpentine vines found in carvings and artwork of Nefertiti.

Available in the MimKnits Online Store and also on Ravelry.

Yarn Requirements: 800-900 yards (120-135 grams) of Sweet Georgia Cashsilk Lace (45% cashmere/55% silk). Sample is colorway ‘Hydrangea’. 24 wpi
Suggested Needles: 3.5mm (US 4) 24 or 30 inch (61-76 cm) circular or size needed to obtain gauge.
Notions: 2 stitch markers (more may be used to mark the pattern repeats in the lace, if desired, see notes), tapestry needle to weave in ends.
Gauge: 18 stitches and 33 rows over 4 inches (10 cm) in first motif pattern after blocking.
Finished Size: 70 inches (178 cm) long, and 20 inches (51 cm) wide.
Techniques Used: Techniques used include knit, purl, yarn over, k2tog, k3tog, ssk, sssk, centered double decrease.

Available in the MimKnits Online Store and also on Ravelry.

I spent 30 minutes trying to find my recipe box this morning so I could make some gingersnaps. I had also been looking for it earlier in the week to find a bread recipe, but didn’t try very hard, and when I opened it, I found that the bread recipe wasn’t there. I have no idea where it is. I’m sure if my house were perfectly tidy all the time, it would have been in the box, but since I’d rather bake bread than keep my house super tidy, I will make do.

But it got me thinking about recipes a bit. I had been looking at Recipe software to keep things organized, so I will always have the recipes when I need them, easy to copy and paste and mail them to other people…. but I cherish the recipes I have in my grandmother’s handwriting. And it would be a shame to set those aside and not use them for the purpose they were created, you know?

I’m still on the fence about exactly what I want to do. I’m the kind of person who needs to make a decision to do something one way and then stick to it. I don’t do very well with having some stuff in one place and some in another. It sort of makes me crazy, so I need to make a decision for either recipe cards or recipe software. I value your input, commenters, so what do you all think?

M

At last I can show you the piece I did for Make 1’s 2009 Year of Lace club.

I got to design a colorway specifically for the shawl in conjunction with Beth Casey of Lorna’s Laces. We talked over what I had in mind and then Beth worked up some samples so we could solidify the vision. She came up with some really lovely stuff!

I wanted to make a shawl with a forest scene, where the branches came together between the shoulder blades, and I experimented with quite a few ways to get branches to work. I swatched and worked and tried really hard, but I couldn’t manage to get traditional yo and decrease lace to make branches with enough swoop. They just ended up looking flat and pixelated. One morning while having tea, it just struck me that cables would be the way to go. I swatched up some cables with eyelets, and LOVED the way the branches stood out from the fabric! So I charted the whole thing and got started.

The cable branches naturally pull the fabric inward more than the trunk area, which is just stockinette, with some eyelets and crossed stitches, so the most logical and organic thing seemed to be to block the piece with the edges wider than the center. I love the way it hangs off the shoulders because of this shaping, and wish I would have got a modeled shot before I sent it off.

This pattern will be exclusive to the Year of Lace Club for one year from publication date, so around April 2010, it will be released. It’s been getting some really mixed opinions on the ravelry forum, but I really like it. It’s very different than traditional lace, and I was concerned about it maybe not being well liked for people expecting the standard kit offering…. *shrug* I like it though :)

M

I’ve got a couple of new yarns I’m going to be working with, and I thought I’d share them with you. Both come from large and rather unlikely animals.

The first is Buffalo Gold.

Ron and company have been selling natural American Bison fiber for a while, but they’ve recently added some really amazing colored blends to their line, including “Lux”, this luscious blend of bison, cashmere, silk and tencel (45/20/20/15 respectively). Their “Buffboo” is also amazing stuff with excellent drape. The colors they offer are all lovely muted soft tones, but the silk and tencel in this blend give a wonderful sheen that is hard to capture in photos.

The second one is from Bijou Basin Ranch in Elbert, CO.

Carl and Eileen, who own Bijou Basin are so passionate about their fibers! They even comb the different colored patches of their yaks to keep the colors separate. I’ve got my hands on 2 different weights of 100% pure yak down yarn. The laceweight skein (200 yards per 1 ounce) is light as air and so soft! The other yarn is a fingering weight (100 yards per 1 ounce), and I’ve got a skein each natural white and natural brown. The natural color and the way they look together makes me really want to work them into some colorwork. But even separately they would be wonderful for lace! The fiber is bouncy and smooth and will block beautifully.

Bijou also has an absolutely scrumptious yak/cormo blend (50/50) that you’ll want to stuff in your pocket and abscond with!

I’m really excited to work with both these fibers, but first I have to finish the pattern for Nefertiti, and then I’m working on Swatch #3, which wants to be a nice spring scarf.

M

Holy Crap! How did I get so far along with stuff and forget to tell you, oh blog! I realized looking back that I hadn’t even shown you Desdemona let alone the new wrap I’ve finished today.

So without further ado…

Desdemona! Click the photo to see the whole album of photos of the shawl.

Pattern: Desdemona Shawl (ravelry link) was done up as a kit for the first installment of Wooly Wonka’s Shakespeare in Lace Subscription Club, but will be available for download and wholesale purchase on June 1.
Yarn: A really lovely Merino Tencel blend with a bit of Alpaca to boot. It won’t be available outside of the club as far as I know.
Needles: 3.25 mm (US 3) circular
Verdict: The shawl was a great knit, and I’m particularly pleased with the border. I tried a bunch of different things before finally coming up with this one. I just love it! I’ve got some plotting going on as June 1 is also my birthday. A giveaway will be in order, I think.

I also finished the Ancient Woodland Shawl for Make 1’s Year of Lace 2009, but since not everyone has received their kits, I can’t show you pictures yet. But I should be able to in about a week. If you are dying of curiosity, you can see people’s projects on ravelry, which give a pretty good idea of what it looks like. I’ll talk about it more when I can show you a few pictures.

I also finished a pair of socks for C, a pair of socks for me, and started another pair of socks for me which have ended up belonging to my sister. I’ll send them off to her when they’re done.

I also finished the wrap out of Sweet Georgia Cashsilk Lace.

Pattern: Nefertiti Wrap, soon to be released. I’ve got to finish writing it up today or tomorrow and send it on to Kristi for tech editing.
Yarn: Sweet Georgia Cashsilk Lace (45% cashmere and 55% silk) 2 skeins, although I used pretty close to all of those 2 skeins, so it might end up being more than that.
Needles: 3.5mm (US 4) circular needle
Size: 20″ wide, 70″ long
Verdict: I love this wrap! It’s drapey and beautiful. The yarn is really great and it turned out SO wonderfully! I’ll get some better pictures of it for the pattern release.

Hopefully I’ll be back to blogging pretty regularly.

M

I totally spaced one of the most important things about the revisions when I was posting! All patterns are now formatted to print on letter sized paper (which should print just fine on A4 as well) instead of having some pages on letter and some on legal. Thought you all should know.

It’s all download refreshing all the time around here!

The revised patterns are up, all of them in fact. The sample for new photography of Icarus isn’t forthcoming, so I just used the old photos. Plus the Woven Cable Scarf & Wrap has been redone with the same format.

I’ve also put the patterns up in my Ravelry store, so if you’d prefer to buy them through there, they are available.

I’ll be sending out an e-mail to everyone in the store database with the info and how to get downloads refreshed.

YAY!
M

This is my niece, Hannah. She is doing a Flat Stanley project for school, and since I’ve got friends and contacts all over the world, I thought we could give Flat Stanley a nice trip around the globe.

Time is tight and Hannah needs the accounts of his adventures back by the first week of May, so we are doing it a little differently. I’ve made a bunch of copies of the Stanley that Hannah colored and I’ll send them out to the people that volunteer, so instead of one Stanley, we’ll have lots floating around in the postal system. We’d love to send Stanley around the country as well as the world, so if you have time to go take a picture with Stanley somewhere and send a response back, that would be wonderful.

If you’re interested in helping out, send me an e-mail with your mailing address and I’ll start sending out Stanleys.

Thanks!
Mim

ETA: The deadline is looming, so we have stopped sending Flat Stanleys out. Thanks to all those who volunteered!

I’ve been nose-to-the-grindstone working on pattern revisions for about a week (although the project started long before that). Getting everything standardized, and making sure that the patterns are as complete and clear as they can be. There are a lot of things along the way that I have learned I like to have in patterns (i.e. US AND mm needle sizes; fiber content of the suggested yarn; a span of years from the first year the pattern was published to the most current). Those things I have added as I went along, but there are some things I am adding now to make the patterns more accessible.

1. Text translations of all charts. This is a big one. For all those knitters who prefer written directions rather than charts, this is for you. Or for those knitters who are trying to learn charts, but don’t want to mess up a complicated lace chart while learning, now you can work from either or both for all of my patterns.

2. Each pattern will have wpi for the suggested yarn, as well as weight and yardage requirements. This is for all the handspinners so you can spin with intent. Or if you’re not a handspinner, this will also help you substitute yarns.

3. Each pattern has a commercially available yarn listed. For Seraphim this required having the piece reknit and rephotographing it, and resulted in the slightest of gauge changes.

4. Every measurement will be listed in inches and centimeters to keep the non-US knitters from going bonkers trying to convert everything.

5. There are also overall format and layout changes to make the patterns more consistent and clear.

I am just doing a final once over with my checklist for each of the purchasable patterns (except Icarus, which is still being reknit for some photography), and then I’ll be putting them all up on the site to replace the older downloads. Once the revisions are up, I will send out an e-mail to everyone who has purchased through my online store to let you all know that revised patterns are available and how to get a new download authorized.

At that point I will also be putting the patterns up for sale on Ravelry and will begin taking wholesale orders again. If you could all tell your local yarn stores to carry my patterns, it would make me mighty happy :) I will also be putting the patterns up on the Stitch Cooperative website, which will allow LYS’s to sell my patterns via the Affiliate Program.

YAY! I am so excited to have this project so close to being done!

Mim

Thanks for all the input on the Isabo yarn. I’ll keep spinning, it sounds like another set of 3 bobbins should at least be a pretty good place to start from.
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I’ve got a bunch of the books up in my etsy shop. Please take a look. There are 2 embossed books on there now, and I’m working on a copper one to put up. Here’s just a sampling of some of my favorites.

I’m working on some other projects, including a whole host of books to go up in my etsy shop this week. Here’s a look at one.

It’s a lightweight aluminum sheet that I’m embossing. Then it will cover the bookboard and be bound into a blank journal. At the time of writing this, I’ve actually finished one cover and I’m working on a second one. I might even get a copper one out this week in addition to the aluminum ones. If you’re interested in one of these, but have a special request as to size, let me know.
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If you’ve been following along, you probably remember that I bought a fleece back in “ought seven”, with the plan tospin the yarn and design the sweater, so that it was mine from start to finish. It’s one of my “do before I die” projects.

I’ve been working on the spinning for a while now, with some long stretches of inactivity between, but on Sunday I finished plying another 3 bobbins (it’s a 3 ply sportweight), and weighed what I had. 490 grams, 10 more grams and that would equate to a full bag (10) of 50 gram skeins. So here’s where I need some input.

I have a 38-39″ chest (depending on the day and the bra), and I want to make
1) a Cardigan, with
2) a nice and rather bigger than normal sailor-type collar. Floppy and easy going.
3) Enough negative ease that I could wear it over anything in my wardrobe and also so it doesn’t pucker if buttoned.

So the question is…. is 490 grams enough to do that with or do I need to keep spinning? I washed and wet finished the skeins I’ve already completed, but haven’t started another spinning project in case I need to do up some more of this. Input is welcome.

M

I mostly wear dark, neutral colors. Most of my wardrobe is black or gray, with some splashes of navy or brown for good measure. Over the last year or so, I’ve been trying to add other, brighter colors in. But I still have my comfort zone that I tend to default to.

Given that, it shouldn’t have been a shocker when I went to block my 2 most recent sweaters and (amazingly) realized that they were basically the same color.

Manon, and Imogen, done, lovely, and warm.

Raveled Here
Pattern: Manon from Norah Gaughan, Volume 1.
Yarn: Cascade Ecological Wool, 2 skeins.
Needles: 4.5 mm, US Size 7
Modifications: I knit the peplum in the “correct” size first, but it was a good 7 or 8 inches too large, so I ripped it out and started reknitting it in the 30″ size, which would normally be SUPER tiny. I also added length to the upper body so the horizontal ribbing would sit below my bust. I also blocked the peplum out a bit to make it fit over my hips a bit better.
Verdict: I love it beyond all reason. I’ve ordered some clasps to put on the horizontal ribbing to hold it closed.

Raveled Here
Pattern: Imogen by Adrienne Thomas from Perl Grey
Yarn: Kraemer Yarns Mauch Chunky
Needles: 5.0 mm, US Size 8
Modifications: I started with the large size, but got halfway done with the back before I realized it would be too long that way. I reworked the back to use the large width, but the medium length. Then when picking up the fronts had to use the medium numbers for the fronts, while still using the large numbers for the shoulders/neck. I had to rework the numbers for the short row fronts.
Verdict: It’s super warm. SUPER Warm. I love the way it fits with the buttons (which I got from Josephine’s in Portland when I was there in November.

M

This fingerless mitt pattern follows the lace principles illustrated in the swatches from the lace structure tutorial presented at MimKnits.com. The pattern begins with pyramids of eyelets, then illustrates how moving the decreases changes the flow of the fabric. When you alternate the lace motifs, the pattern evolves into leaf lace.

These mitts can be made either long or short to fit a multitude of uses. The short version would be great for spring, or a drafty office. While the long version would be elegant and warm under a dress coat.

This pattern is To fit 7.5 (8.5) inch or 19 (21.5) cm hand circumference. Short version is 7.5 inches (19 cm) in length, Long version is 13 inches (33 cm) in length and 10.5 (11.5) inches or 27 (29) cm circumference at arm. These fingerless mitts are knit in the round from the hand to the arm, with thumb stitches knit onto waste yarn between rows 24 and 25. Thumb stitches are picked up above and below the waste yarn and the thumb is knit in the round. The Short version is knit using only Chart 1, while the Long version is knit by inserting Chart 2 at the indicated point. Chart 2 gradually increases in size on the under-side of the mitts, using repeats A & B as needed to get across the added stitches.

More detail and purchasing information available in the store, or on Ravelry.

This is the post in which I am reminded again of how difficult it is to take pictures of your own hands, even with a remote for your camera.

I’ve got a fingerless mitt pattern (in 2 sizes and 2 lengths) ready to go up for sale tomorrow if I can only get some pictures of them on some actually hands. Or at least modelled pictures that don’t look like random cell-phone-from-the-hip mugshots.

Here is the least-horrible one of the bunch to whet your appetites. You can read a bit more about it if you click through the photo to flickr.

The Evolution fingerless mitts pattern should be ready to go tomorrow or Tuesday, depending on when I can find a willing hand model.