Knitting on Impulse

Pattern's Up (could I drag out this design any longer?)

So I spent 2/3 of the day packing up orders for mailing (good).  By which time it was too dark and/or late to dye or take cool pictures of... much of anything. Most of the rest of the day was spent trying to work out the server root path for the pattern file (bad). Gave up and put it on Ravelry in 5 minutes flat(not that I wasn't going to anyway, but I do want it on the website, too.)

 

Leafy Mitts, a fingerless mitt pattern knit in Aran to lighty chunky weight wool.  Takes 95 - 110 yds, sized for hand circumferences of 6 1/2, 7 1/2 and 8 1/2 inches.  Tested and proofread by an intrepid team of knitters to whom I am eternally grateful.

Price: $2.50 Canadian ($2 or less US)

In the meantime, in lieu of other content, can I buy you off with this?

http://bewareofthedoghouse.com/video.aspx

Oh, and Rob would like to point out that he was the one who showed this to me, and is almost never in the doghouse.  Though he does fold laundry voluntarily.

Leafy Mitt Kits are up

Over here.

I know, I can hardly believe it myself.  Thought I'd get the photos formatted and the last few tasks finished up in an hour or so this morning.... it's now 8 PM.  Apparently my capacity for self-delusion is commensurate with my pathological perfectionism.

So... the pattern has now been test knit at least 8 times by 5 different people (plus me), gone through a final independent proofreading and edit, and is as ready as it's ever going to be!  The solo PDF will go up for sale tomorrow or Monday, depending on how difficult that process turns out to be.  I'm at the Winter Market for most of tomorrow, which reminds me - if you nab what you want by 7AM PST, I won't have to haul it down there :). 

Oh - I really do intend to do a proper picture post about the inspiration for Almost Holly... these quick and dirty self-promotional thingys are not really how I prefer to blog.  But I have a whack more yarn to reskein for tomorrow, and the kids to put to bed....

Yarn's Up

It’s up (well most of it)! 

There’s some BFL, a new sweater pack, superwash merino-silk, super bulky thick & thin, and the latest addition to the line-up: that staple of indie dyers, a nice springy fingering weight superwash merino.

There will be lots of Leafy Mitt kits tomorrow (as soon as I do the final pattern polishing).  There is also some Summit Sock and Silken Mist in this colourway yet to come – they required a little.... attitude adjustment.

Nice Thumbs

So I ripped the first mitt back to the ribbing and started to reknit it with the thumb set a couple of stitches into the palm side (because I can't really put a photo of it knit wrongly on the pattern), and while I was at it I thought I really ought to give the paired increase thing another chance, just to see if the aesthetic difference would justify the (admittedly small) increase in pattern complexity.

 

Hard to argue with that, eh?  So I just have to tweak that bit of the instructions, and then I thought that the different sizes really ought to be shorter as well as narrower, which means putting the thumb chart on a different part of the page so as not to confuse its alignment with the hand chart, which means a little more work in Excel and a little more hair-tearing-out proofreading activity...  

I don't know how people write whole entire sweater patterns.  (Though take heart, Colleen - the yarn for Little Knight V2.0 is presently drying with the rest of this week's work.  I'll get there!)

Disjointed

Someday I will go for long walks in the forest again and take pictures of what I see.  Someday I will relax and give myself time to breathe.  Someday... definitely by the 22nd, which is the day after the last selling venue of the season and the first day of school holidays (which means an end to the Holiday concerts, sticky crafts in dire need of parent volunteers, parent-teacher interviews, etc. etc.)

Today: I dyed approximately one bajillion skeins of yarn, which will probably not get rinsed and hung to dry until tomorrow because the minute the last skein was done I got all gussied up (well, showered and applied mascara) and proceeded to use up every speck of residual energy on "networking".  I do actually like people, I'm just not particularly good at being chatty with large quantities of them.  Actually, it's worse than not particularly good, I'm just plain awkward - I fidget, I say too little, or if the conversation interests me I get overly excited and wave my arms alarmingly.  A glass of wine helps, but not enough.  The one thing that has changed with age and maturity is that whereas I used to be recurrently surprised and mortified by my social ineptitude, I am now somewhat resigned to it.  And now that I have adopted the persona of "artist" in place of "uber-responsible representative of the establishment", my eccentricities feel more forgiveable.

Tomorrow: rinse and hang up the yarn (after working out where the laundry rack will go now that the tree has usurped its space), and THEN... rip the leafy mitts down the the cuffs and reknit them with the thumbs properly positioned so that I can take pictures, finish proofreading and PUBLISH the pattern!  There's at least 10 or 12 skeins earmarked for mitt kits - all in leafy colours of various sorts, most self striping (one palindrome for identicality!) and a few semi-solid.

By the way - thank-you for all the lovely comments on the scarves!  I was doing not too badly with my resolution to respond to 90% of comments, and then... the weekend happened.  Lame and cliched as it sounds - I LOVE comments - they keep me going when things are tough, and they make me feel connected and cared for even when I am too nervy and wrung out to reciprocate.  (I do, however, resolve to write back more consistently in the coming year.)

Anyway, I thought you might like to see how they were displayed (there was a strategy to the colour progression):

Crash

Most intense show of the year: complete

Living-room: furniture creatively rearranged to accomodate tree.

Christmas tree: up and kid-safe decorations clumped lovingly amid the branches (breakables yet to come - that's my job.)

Advent calendar pressies: purchased, wrapped, stuffed in the appropriate slots with multiple checks and fail-safes (heaven help me if they are not in precisely parallel order of coolness.)

Half the week's dyeing: done... kinda.  I need sleep.  A lot.