How The West Was Spun

Rappaccini's Garden Shawl

If you follow my shop blog, you have seen these photos already, so I apologize for the cross-post, but I am so happy to finally get to show off some of the hand-knits I've been working on this year, you get to see the pics again!

This is the Rappaccini's Garden shawl, which is the first in a set of 8 patterns I'm going to be releasing between now and September 1st.  If you aren't familiar with the story, it's a Gothic tale by Nathaniel Hawthorne, you can read a version of it here.  I suppose I have a bit of a dark and gloomy nature, since this has been one of my favorite reads since I was a teenager.  

It's knit with 1 skein of Dream in Color Baby, which is 700 yards/100 grams of SW merino (colorway is Gothic Rose).  It would work just fine with any heavier laceweight or even a light fingering-weight; Baby is somewhere in between those two yarn weights.  The original took about 650 yards.

The construction on it makes it a fairly quick knit.  You cast on at the neckline and work down to the hem.  There are 5 sections - the left and right front and back are a fairly simple leaf lace, and then there are two narrow panels that run off the shoulders and down the arms with a pretty floral lace, which extends down onto the hem and forms the border. 

I have to have a big shout-out to my photographer, Kristen (of Kristen Brooks Photography) and my gorgeous model, Tori (who also happens to be a knitter!) for these photos.  It was in the 90s when we shot these, but you'd never guess it - Tori is such a natural behind the camera, and Kristen really "got" the vision inside my head for staging and was able to snag some fantastic shots of all the pieces in this group.

I'll mention there is a KAL happening for this shawl starting July 1st, if you have interest in knitting it - runs through September 1st, so plenty of time to knit it!

All for now....

 

Hyde Park Stole

I have a new finished knit piece I can finally show you!

This is the Hyde Park stole, and it's available in the summer issue of Spin-Off magazine.  This was my January deadline project that I was working feverishly on just after the holidays. (Photos courtesy of Interweave Press).

I spun up a 2-ply fingering-weight yarn (it wound up being a pretty close match for most sock yarns that weigh in at about 435 yards/100 oz) from a 60/40 blend of mixed BFL and silk.  I spun this basically worsted style for the singles and then slightly underplied to help keep the drape nice and soft when it was knit up.  

The stole is a long rectangle, knit from one end to the other (no grafting!).  It has diamond-shaped borders at each end, and that same motif flanks an easy central mesh lace border.  I used approximately 1100 yards for my sample knit.   Despite the fact that I knit and spun this on a deadline, it was actually a very comforting, easy-going knit.  Nothing super difficult about it and the lace patterns are not hard to learn and remember. 

And can I also mention it made the cover?  :)

All for now....

PORBI

In an effort not to leave anyone hanging, since I've mentioned the PORBI (Project of Really Big Importance) a few times here, if you are interested in details, please hop on over to the shop blog to check out today's post.

Hoping you are all having a lovely spring weekend - they say we may get a spritz of rain here tomorrow!!!!

Catching Up

I finally feel like I'm getting everything unpacked and put to rights after getting home from Dallas.  I finished up the last of the custom orders I took while I was there, and I've sorted and repacked the remaining yarn I've got to go back into stock.  I got my Texas state taxes paid and did some odds-and-ends paperwork that I needed to get off my desk, so I feel mostly caught up at this point. 

I had one sample you may remember I was working on before I left. I did get that sweater in the mail (all the way to the UK!) before I headed out, and that pattern went off to the editor yesterday morning, so I am down to one final magazine project, which luckily is relatively small, and I will have all of the proposals that were accepted this spring completed and deadlines for those met, which feels awfully good. 

As one of my quick travel projects, I designed and knit up a super easy, beginning lace-knitting cowl using less than one skein of my Aerten DK (the super soft MCN blend) - I plan to use that for the beginning lace knitting class I'm teaching at my LYS next month, but since I really liked it as a nice, quick and easy accessory, I also plotted out numbers for a larger version, so that's currently being test knit and will also be released into the wild in the next few weeks. 

I've been steathily working on a PORBI (project of really big importance - to me anyway!) and by the beginning of next month, I believe I'll be far enough along I can start to share some details with you.  I've actually been working on the concept for it since just before the holidays, but the details are finally starting to click into place and I'm very excited about it - I hope ya'll will be too!

All for now.....

What I'm Up To....

Whew!  Busy busy weekend here.  I'm in the final stages of preparations for the Dallas/Ft Worth Fiber Festival the weekend of April 5th thru 7th.  I'll be heading out on Wednesday, the 1st, to start the drive after work.  I've been busy getting yarn dyed and stored for that.  This year, I decided I'm going to take 3 laceweight bases, 5 sock/fingering-weight bases, one DK and one worsted, plus a bunch of patterns, and some small notion-y items like some project bags and stitch markers.  I've got about 60% of 2 of the laceweights done, and about 10% of the third.  I've finished up 2 of the sock-weight bases completely, and I'm about 60% done two others, and about 20% of the final one.  The DK is done.  The worsted is about 50% finished.

I'm getting there, but it's a lot of work!  I've got two more weekends (which is realistically when I get the bulk of my production dyeing done) to get everything finished.  I did get smart this year, and I'm now using the MagCloud print-on-demand service to produce all my color copy printing.  The quality is excellent, and after the initial hassle of getting everything formatted and uploaded, it's very easy to order whatever you need, from 1 to 100+ copies of something.

In the midst of that dyeing, and getting the last few kits together to go out for the next Heroines Club installment, I'm also working on a wholesale order for a new LYS in Santa Fe: Yarn and Coffee.  This is a great new shop - the owner, Deborah, is super nice and she has a wonderfully inviting store.  She's going to be carrying a selection of things, starting with sock and DK weights right now, from me.  So I'm busy dyeing sets of skeins for that to be delivered mid-April when I'm back from Dallas.

On the knitting front, I finally got my yarn for my project for the UK magazine, Knitwise.  I'm excited to be working with them for the first time.  Busily knitting on the sample - it really needs to be done and in the mail so it can make the trip across the Atlantic by the 1st of April.  I'm about 1/4 done with it, but it is knitting up fairly quickly, given the size of the project.  That's my priority right now, although I'll have another small deadline project due in May that just got added to the calendar.  (Which I will think about once I get things under better control on the dye list!)

All for now.....

Chrysler Scarf

I was delighted to be able to work with my friend, Kim, at The Woolen Rabbit for her 2012 yarn club.  The theme for this year (and for the upcoming 2013 club, if you are interested) is the Roaring 20s.  I love the Art Deco architecture of the period, so I chose the Chrysler Building in New York, which is one of the finest examples of this type of architecture.  

Kim dyed me up a steel gray on her Airy fingering-weight yarn, which is a lovely, drapey SW singles.  I decided to utilize the motifs from the cupola of the building, which are a series of triangular shaped sunburst arches, and to also take a motif from the 31st floor corner decorations, which are replicas of the radiator caps from the 1929 Chrysler cars.  I worked up a long, slinky scarf, which I envisioned over a simple black dress (and which could also be worn around your shoulders as a narrow shawl, if desired), and I bumped the bling up with a few steel-blue beads for the sunburst lace pattern. 

I was delighted how this pattern turned out.  I think it'd be a really versatile accessory - whether you wrap it around your neck and tuck it into a coat for cooler weather, or wear with a sundress on an evening out in the summer. 

While the Chrysler Scarf is available only to The Woolen Rabbit club members until October of 2013, if you'd like to know when it's available to the general public, please feel free to leave me a comment at the pattern page on Ravelry, and I'll add you to the notification list when it goes live!

All for now....

 

Progress!

I had a couch-potato-type weekend and knit and knit and knit (and did some reading, but really... I knit a LOT).  I finished up the extremely large sweater deadline project - it's blocked, seamed, finished, and ready to go.  THAT is a big load off my plate.

With that done, I turned my attention yesterday to the smaller project on the same deadline, and plotted out some numbers, and got that started. This is the yin to the previous project's yang - I'm already a quarter finished the entire project having only knit on it a few hours last night.  It's nice to have a little breather with something fun and easy, and that'll be my project for the next week. 

I'm still plugging away at getting my older patterns revamped and ready for new print copies to take with me to the Dallas/Ft Worth for the fiber show in another month.  And, as you might guess, I'm also working on filling up my storage bins for the show too right now!

I'm going to try to have a (for me anyway) quiet-ish week here and get caught up on some things, and I'll be back with a few more book reviews later this week!

All for now....

WIP Wednesday - February 13, 2013

A quick post today - I am making progress on the extremely large project I'm working on for the March 13th deadline.  Just over the halfway point, so I'm going to pretend that I can see the finish line, although whew! there is a lot of knitting left to be done.  I am happy that I will not run out of yarn (or so it appears, although I originally thought that might be the case - now I think I'm far enough into this I'll be okay).  I did skip ahead a little bit and have finished up the pattern for my tech editor to take a look over it.  

I'm planning on having a really quiet weekend coming up, and I'd like to make a big push towards getting this project finished.  While I do have another smaller one also on the same deadline, I feel like it's more mangeable and more like a week's knit rather than a 4-week knit. 

I think once I've gotten these big deadline projects finished, I'm going to try to get a little spinning done to finish up the yarn I need for another longer-term deadline project and give myself a break from the crazy knitting for a few days.  That'll be my carrot to try to get these pieces done and off the needles!

All for now.....

Kicking the Week Off

Did you have a good weekend?  I feel like I didn't do much this weekend and at the same time, was insanely busy.

I'm in the process of getting a lot of my older and/or handspun patterns revamped, with some new photos taken, and reformatting.  Seems like a fairly straightforward process, but the time involved is crazy!  My good friend, Christina, volunteered to find me a model and take some photos for me, so since we all had a bit of time, this weekend was scheduled. We had to dodge some snow squalls; nothing like trying to take pretty lace shawl pictures while it's freezing out, but our model was a trooper and I think we got some pretty nice new shots for the pattern revamp.  

We re-shot my MacBeth shawl (which I've only ever had dressmaker form shots of):


We took photos of my Posies shawl, which has been reknit in a shop yarn, rather than handspun:

As well as my Orbspinner Scarf:

I'm also going to be carrying a new base yarn that's a yummy, soft, drapey SW merino singles, and it worked beautifully in my Kelp Garden Cowl.

Despite the chilly temps and spitting snow, I think we got some winners in this group!  MANY thanks to Christina and our model for braving the elements to get these shots for me!  (All photos, as you might guess, courtesy of and copyrighted to Christina).  

All for now.....

 

WIP Wednesday - February 6, 2013

Not much to report on this week - or at least not much I can give you details on right now.

I did finish up the sample for the June Heroines Shawl club.  Still putting final touches on the pattern instructions so that can go off to be test knit, but it is nice to have that project off the needles. 

I got my yarn for the 3 Sekret Knitting deadline projects I've got to have done by March 13th.  I started on the first one, which is a sweater, and finished 1 sleeve over the weekend and started on the body.  This is a big project and I'm knitting on this in every spare moment of my day right now.  I have one other smaller project that I'll use if I need a mental break, or just try to sprint through when the sweater is done, and I consider myself extremely fortunate to have Most Excellent Knitter Friends since one of those MEKF's volunteered to help me out and knit the third project that's also due at the same time.   Otherwise I feel pretty sure I'd not get everything done or I'd be in the loony bin - or both - by the end of the month.   (I should come clean and say, yes, I submitted 3 proposals, but the editors never take everything, and I thought that'd be fine and maybe have one or two at the most, so no one to blame for this but myself while I knit until my needles catch on fire).

You'll guess WIP photos will be sparse until the projects are actually published, but that should be July or so of this year and I'm really excited about this publication and thrilled to be included. 

(I will have a bookshelf post sometime this week - tomorrow maybe?  I am at the point that I've knit enough repeats on the sweater I can read while I knit now, so I'm enjoying a new book that's set in AZ over near Winslow, which we drive thru whenever we head to the Grand Canyon, which makes it kind of fun!)

All for now.....