Knitting on Impulse

Productivity

Want to see my new office?

It finally occurred to me that my ridiculously slow pace of pattern writing (aka downright avoidance) might have more to do with my work environment than a stubborn character flaw. One of the most useful areas of introspection I've been doing of late is to ferret out the many variations on my ingrained assumption that all difficulties with Getting Stuff Done are due to a lack of Discipline and Trying Harder. Powering through the pain is an undeniably useful skill to have in one's hip pocket for times of disaster or extreme need, but it isn't a particularly sustainable tactic for daily living. (I had a good 20 year run at it - still feeling the effects.)

Anyway, I discovered yesterday that my wee laptop and I can be rather astonishingly focused and productive at a quiet library desk, especially when it abuts a picture window overlooking a soothing winter wonderland. And thanks to Microsoft's new live workspaces thing, I don't even have to haul around flash drives or buy a huge whack of new software. The internet connection at the library is free, and just slow enough that it doesn't impede work, but makes impulsive email / Twitter / Ravelry checking impractical. There's no piles of laundry mocking me, no heaps of toys or dirty dishes in sight, no one who wants to tell me "just one thing" at a critical conceptual moment.  Perfect.

So... I'm currently hard at work on the earflap hat, and after that the sampler shawl, and after that, some of the many long overdue designs like Little Knight... the possibilities are limitless! I likely sound a little over the top, considering the obviousness (in retrospect) of the solution, but with our wee space and limited resources, the tiniest increments of efficiency generally take great care and planning to implement. A big improvement that shows up all at once feels like Christmas!

Speaking of Christmas, this is the last week of school before the two week holiday, and I've been dyeing up a storm of new colourways... which means that I can put away the dyepots and hang out with the kids for that time, but still put up new yarn each week. We'll be home, so shipping will continue per normal (taking into account delays for holiday post office closures.) I think they'll be Wednesday updates though, as I don't fancy doing it on Christmas and New Year's Eves!

So I had this idea...

and I ran with it, because I didn't want it to get away.  Fingering weight sampler packs with 60 yards each of summit sock, mere sock, blissful sock, merino silk, bluefaced bliss, and merino fingering, for a total of 360 yards.  And then I sat right down and started doodling up a mini-shawl pattern, which will for sure not be ready to print by the time the samplers ship, but will be sent out by PDF once it's ready:

 

(There's also some of the regular sampler snack packs available in this week's update.)

As for other stuff, the brain fog is starting to clear (and along with it, the horrid tension headache that has been my constant companion for weeks). The essentials of daily life are firmly in hand and newly buffered against disruptors, and I'm starting to have energy to recapture the myriad of other things I've let slide, like - oh - blogging. Answering comments. I gave myself permission to be a hermit for the last six weeks - both in "real" life and online (though I think my online life may well be the more real of the two) and I have truly appreciated your forbearance. Personal re-invention takes a lot of focus and energy and this time I really didn't want to brush off the frustration and disappointment until "next time" and slip back into the comfortable rut of self-delusion - I needed to take on the task of creating my own peace of mind, my own safety net and making it real, making it stick.  It is an ongoing process, but I am feeling so much better.

Fudged For the Win!

Not fudged exactly, because I was actually on precisely the right track, I just forgot.  (It's the way my brain rolls these days - the subconscious doggedly getting on with things, while the conscious bit bumps around fretfully, wondering if this interminable headache will ever subside long enough to pursue a coherent train of thought.) After some consideration, I opted to add a completely new design feature all around the edge of the hat... and I think it looks great and fits exactly as I had hoped.

 
One great possibility of earflap hats is the ability to create a sort of cocoon around the head and cheeks without relying on elastic tension across the ears and forehead (the source of so many complaints of "itch") to keep it in place.  This is best accomplished by having zero to slightly positive ease in the initial iteration of the brim, then reducing the number of stitches a bit when knitting the all-around border. 

It could have used a bit of blocking to straighten out the garter stitch cross on the crown, but the necessary work surface was covered in gingerbread cookies and pots of icing, so it will have to wait.

I did take careful notes as I knit, except for the border, which I was rather winging as I went along, but since the girl child has ordered an identical hat in pink, I'll take notes on the border next time with an eye to publishing the design.

Yarn: Merino /Cashmere / Nylon in worsted weight - most of a 110 gm skein in Blueberry Skies. Every bit as lovely as you'd expect, and coming to the webstore as soon as I get the new category page sorted and a little more selection dyed up.

Work in Progress

This is what happens when you spill your guts (no traumatic allusions, I just thought it looked cool):

And this is what happens when someone's big sister gets gloves:

Except, instead of mindless stockinette, he wanted the motif to be "just like my sweater" (yes, the Little Knight pattern I've been promising for over a year and am working on a little bit every day.) Which meant I had to use my brain and doodle up a chart.  I think I can improve it a bit on the other hand - I'm thinking of these as swatches with fingers.
 

Coneflower Gloves

Knit to my daughter's exacting specifications and pronounced (by her) to be "way better than I ever imagined," these are basic knit-to-fit stockinette gloves garnished with a smidge of inexpert embroidery and two all-important pom poms.

 
"Knit-to-fit" in this case, incurred a certain degree of whinging about the four zillion fittings required to get the fingers of the first glove exactly right.

I don't think I'll win any prizes for embroidery, but you can make out a general petal-ish impression, right?

Not entirely unlike a Coneflower?

The recipient is thrilled, which in the end, is what really matters.

 
The yarn was a tragically knot-containing skein of Blissful Sock in Echinacea.  (There were actually two more, each with a single knot, that I kept back - I suppose if anyone is so inclined, I could knock off a buck or so for the knot and let them go....) I have to say, I really loved working with this sock yarn - the superwash treatment has done nothing at all to diminish the sheen and wooly softness characteristic of BFL.  Sheer pleasure to knit up.

Sampler Follow-up

Thanks so much for all the feedback on the sampler idea!  What I'm hearing here (and on the Rav group) is that:

1. Lots of people like the idea - both for the project and for the opportunity to try different yarns before committing.
2. Some folk don't need it and are perfectly happy to buy without feeling up the yarn first - and thank goodness, or an online yarn business would not be possible!
3. There is interest in more colour choice - it would certainly be possible to do say... warm colours, cool colours, neutrals, as well as a mix like the prototype. I would list each pack with a photo of the actual mini-skeins, so you'd know exactly what you were getting.
4. There also seems to be significant interest in sample packs of different colours of the same yarn, chosen for their compatibility in a project - also an idea I had toyed with, and totally do-able.
5. Feasibility? Admittedly, my creative ambitions have soared past the bounds of reality at times, so the caveat will be that the packs go up as they go up. No reservations or self-imposed deadlines (because those things are a direct signal to the Universe for somebody to break something, or fall ill, or schedule a surprise committment. Seriously - it's downright spooky.) I am learning (at times painfully) that a simple, linear system of "dye it, upload it, put it in the mail when it sells" is the way to go. 

So... the concept is a go... but since Rob does 99% of the skeining around here (he had to laugh at the comments that asked if *I* would find it too much work) and is at the sliding track 14 hours a day for the next couple of weeks, the first packs likely won't go up until after that. (On a related note, this week's update will be going up Friday instead of Thursday, which is almost over now, in any case.)

Sampler

I've been tossing around variations of this idea for ages, but I got a sudden impulse to just work up a sample (so to speak) over the weekend. I thought it would be nice for customers to be able to play around with the different yarns I dye before committing to larger projects, but at the same time, I couldn't resist the possiblity of doing a little more with it.

Here we have 10 yards of each of my wools and wool blends (I left off the super-luxury silk yarns for the time being) - merino in lace, fingering, sport, worsted, and aran; BFL in fingering, sport, and worsted, the three sock yarns (merino, BFL, cashmere-merino), merino-silk, Merino Whisper, and Cruiser:

I think I'd probably do 15 yds of each for the actual sample pack - a little more manageable, and would work out to a little over 100 gms of yarn in total.  Enough to swatch, fondle, play with, or.....

Make something.

 
What do you think?  Is there interest in something like this?  I think I'd price it around $25.  I could do mini skeins or mini balls (all labelled of course), though I think the mini balls are actually easier to handle on the receiving end. Although the concept of a feather and fan cowl is hardly original, the stitch does a fabulous job of mixing up varying colours and gauges, and I could include a wee pattern for this cowl version. Comments and/or further ideas would be gratefully received!

Bad Dog

I created a lovely yin/yang spiral shawl pin today from copper - hammered, filed, tumbled and polished it - set it on the dining room table, and turned my back for a moment.  It disappeared.  Now I freely admit that I am somewhat distractable and have been known to forget where I put things, but this was pushing it.  After a fruitless and increasingly frustrated search, I had a hunch, and sure enough, discovered a wee something carefully buried in the duvet:

 So... for the record?  Copper shawl pins are not greyhound-proof. They do a pretty sturdy job of holding together shawls and sweaters, but should probably not be used to entertain a large dog (or for that matter as a floatation device, safety harness for rock climbing, etc.  You know, just to cover the possibilities.) 

On the other hand, maybe I could sell it as genuine greyhound art... she did leave the clasp intact after all....

Winter-ish Ramblings

The thermometer hasn't changed by more than a degree or two, but overnight the air has transformed from crisp to bitter. 

Snow flurries swirl before a biting wind, stripping the trees of their autumn glory and leaving their winter skeletons in fading rags and tatters.  "Very Hallowe'en-y," my daughter cheerfully noted en route to the bus.

The puppy was shivering a little even with her woolly sweater, and the children reminded me for the hundredth time that new mittens are inexcusably overdue. I may have to stop noodling around on a new cowl and get to work.

After I get the latest stack of orders bundled off to the post office, that is - I haven't had a moment to work on them since the flurry of orders late Friday, (and the post office has been closed the whole time, in any case) but they haunt me with their Not Mailed-ness. I have a fraction of the anxiety I used to endure in the old life, but if anything will wake me up at 2 AM in a cold sweat of fretting it's the feeling of failing a customer committment. (That and the usual nightmares about something happening to one of the kids...)  Nevertheless, neither sleet nor flurries nor nasty winds will stop me from sending the hubby out the door with an armload of packages. 

Lest you think he has the worst of it, I should point out that our present experiment in electrical austerity has our indoors a little on the chilly side, too.  Not sure how long that's going to last (kids aren't buying the "put on a sweater" line) but in the meantime, it's a perfect excuse to appreciate the warming attributes of my lovely new mug:

I rarely ever buy this sort of thing for myself - we have no money, no space (we gave away two thirds of our mug collection when we moved here) and no good practical reason to indulge so.  But it came about that the potters are an older French couple, and we were next to them a couple of markets ago and had a lovely day of conversation and reminiscence about France (I was born in Nice, she in Paris). They engaged our children with the sort of gracious dignity and delight that is rare and lovely and makes me endlessly wistful for more people of that sort in the world. I loved her work, and it embodied for me a whisper of lovely things half remembered from a childhood in Provence, and... I splurged. Just a bit, but it makes my hands, my heart and my eyes very happy.

Thanksgiving

It was Canadian Thanksgiving today, and even though I said I'd be spending the day relaxing and goofing off after hell weekend, what I really deep down meant is that I'd be sleeping in a little and then trying to sneak in a full day's work while pretending to Just Hang Out. Until the phone rang this morning, and my SIL asked if they could pop up from Vancouver for a few hours. Since we like them a whole bunch, we said "Yes! (but the house is trashed and we aren't going to go nuts putting it right, so you have to love us as is.)"

We went to our favorite pub for lunch, wandered about the Village, and the cousins (as they always do) had a blast together.  We made a concerted attempt at group photos, with mixed results:

They all get along well, but the two eldest are hampered at times by their competitive and dominant instincts:

Whereas the two youngest just "get" each other, you know?

 

So anyway, I got NO work of any kind done, and it felt great. (I'm choosing to defer the aaaaggghhhh feeling of behind-ness until tomorrow morning.)

PS. Want a closer look at the pink hat?  I whipped it up this morning from a skein of Woolly Moguls that was a few yards short and consequently wound up in the seconds bin. She loves it.

 
As for the sweater, well, yes it's The New Sweater and I'm being sort of coy about a super detailed view because I haven't made up my mind yet whether to publish it.