How The West Was Spun

WIP Wednesday: September 19, 2012

First up - I have finished the final Fall in Vermont collection sample - the unisex sweater.  It's ready to go for the photo shoot.  I'm still working on finishing up the last details on charts and instructions for the tech editor.  (I find I need to be brain-fresh to do this, and realistically after spending an entire day on the computer at work, the evenings are not brain-fresh times for me).  But with a little bit of luck, this'll head off this week to get reviewed.

I am in the home stretch on my little beaded shawlette.  I think one more evening of knitting and it'll be off the needles and ready to block.  Test knitters are busily working on this one, so I believe it'll be ready for an early October release!

With my big sweater project off the needles, I decided what I needed was a fairly brainless project, something pretty simple, pretty quick, and just for me.  I've done a lot of knitting this year, but haven't really knit anything that's gone into my wardrobe.  I will have the women's sweater from the fall collection for myself, but there is NO WAY I'm putting it on before the photos are taken - that's just asking for trouble.  So I decided to dig in the stash, find some yarn and a pattern and go to town.

Enter the Lore Hoodie, which I've had my eye on for a while now.  I had bought the Vampire Knits book specifically for this pattern and I had the called-for yarn marinating in stash.  Now... I have to admit, I don't believe I have ever knit something with bulky yarn.  I tend to be more of a small needle/thin yarn sorta gal, but on size 11 needles, this sucker is knitting up FAST.  (Why did I not realize this before?  Bulky yarn where have you been all my life?).  I'm knitting it in a really dark wine color, which I like very much for fall.

This is the result of just a couple of nights of knitting.  Hard to tell since it's sort of scrunched up, but it's all but 2 rows of the 17" skirt of the jacket finished (obviously pre-blocking).  I opted to start with the skirt first, rather than the sleeves, as the instructions have you do, but I'm going to finish the body up to the point the sleeves are joined, then set the body aside, work on the sleeves, and then get everything attached at that point.

While I have no specific deadlines/goals on this, it moves along so quickly, I'd like to think I'll get a quite a bit more done on it this week after I get the shawl off the needles.

My next deadline/design project is for Kim at The Woolen Rabbit, and the yarn she's sent me for that is beautiful!, so that'll go on the needles once the shawlette is off!

All for now.....

Early WIP Wednesday Post: September 11, 2012

Today you get to be entertained with an early WIP Wednesday post - since tomorrow I'm scheduled up on the blog tour for the fall Holla Knits! collection.  (Be sure to come back and visit and leave me a comment then - I'll be having a giveaway to a randomly selected reader!).

(fanfare of trumpets and general huzzahing!!)  I have finished the second and final sweater for the Fall in Vermont collection!  It's blocked and all put together, and ends are darned in.  So I am officially ready to pack the box to head to my photographer in another couple of weeks!  I am going to work on final number crunching for the pattern this week and try to get the pattern draft to my tech editor by no later than next week, so she's got time to work on it. 

With that off my plate, I've been working on the little beaded shawlette a bit so far this week, and I'm about a third finished with that.  I'm knitting it in a dark blood-red colorway, and my test knitter is using a dark midnight blue colorway, and it's really pretty in both of those, so I think it'll be a nice, versatile piece, no matter what is in your wardrobe that you want to coordinate it with.

Otherwise, I'm just trying to get back into the swing of working on dye orders and getting my patterns updated.  If you are a Patternfish newsletter subscriber, you might have noticed I'm one of their featured new designers for the month of September, so I'm working busily on getting all my patterns "upgraded" into the pretty new format, and you'll find several of those listed with the Patternfish site already, with more to come!

All for now......

Fall in Vermont Collection Sneak Peak

It's not officially fall yet, but I am SO ready for it!  I'm about a month away from having the Fall in Vermont knitwear collection photographed - my photographer has models selected, and we are fortunate enough to be allowed to do a weekend shoot at the alpaca farm from whence one of the yarns in the collection comes from, so I am really excited about it!  All the patterns (fingers crossed... mumbling protective juju at the gremlins in the walls) should be done with tech editing/test knitting by the time the photos are ready in mid-October, so I can just pop the pictures into the patterns and they will be ready to make their debut.

But before we get to that, I thought you might like a quick preview of the pieces.

If you like fun stitch patterns, this is definitely the group for you - lots of twisted stitches, some cables, some staggered rib patterns, and a bit of easy slip-stitch colorwork! 

Now... if I can just get this last sleeve done......

All for now.....

WIP Wednesday: September 5, 2012

A quick in-passing update on my knit projects.

First up, the second fall collection sweater: I'm working on sleeve #2.  I've gotten the cuff and 2 of the 11 pattern repeats done.  That's my focus this week as my October 1st shipping deadline is creeping up on me.  It was sort of a frustrating weekend.  I thought I had finished sleeve #1, but when I tried it out into the armscye of the finished body of the sweater - nope.  Not right.  It took two frogging trips but I finally finished that up, and could move on to the second sleeve.  The body is put together, and sleeve 1 is sewn up, so it's "just" getting sleeve 2 knit, put in place, and the collar picked up and knit.  If I can stick to the plan of a chart repeat a night, minimum, I should have this piece completely done in no more than 2 weeks. 

I also have been working on a single-skein beaded shawl design.  I had written the pattern, knit several inches of it.  Ripped that, re-wrote the pattern.  Knit it again.  Ripped it again, re-wrote the pattern, and now I think finally have it to where I'm happy.  That'll be my need-a-break pattern this week!

All for now....

Weekend Things

Did you have a good long weekend?  I'm never sad to say goodbye to summer - fall is more my style and I'm waiting for some cooler days here!  Not much special this weekend, as I worked Monday, but D and I decided on a nice, quiet weekend at home.

We did some things around the house, got his bike tuned up, and I did a bit of sewing.  I realized I have no pincushion.  Weird, right?  Easy to remedy, however, and since we had to run to Santa Fe on Saturday anyway to the bike store, I popped across the street where Santa Fe Fabrics was having a sale, and picked up some fun buttons to use on some simple pieced pincushions.

The fabric is from Moda's Salt Air collection.  I made two sets of simple patches for each side in a checkerboard fashion, stuffed and then topstitched the edges on them.  I then made a little tuck in the center of each, and applied a couple of pretty, interesting buttons.

Closeups?  You bet!  Cute button, eh?

And the back:

Since I made two, I've got an extra one that I've listed in my Etsy store, which I'm sort of using as a catch-all for small sewn pieces these days. If you love it and want one for your very own, you now know where to find it!

All for now.....

WIP Wednesday: August 22, 2012

It probably sums thing up if I tell you that I was trying to type a date in July for today's post. Where on EARTH has time gone?

I have no new spinning to show y'all, but I think maybe tomorrow I'll bust out some photos of a sewing project or two now that I have a working camera, so stay tuned.

In terms of my knitting and designing projects, I've gotten one of 2 swatches/proposals that need to go in the mail in the next 10 days done and I think finally FINALLY after a bunch of attempts and a lot of frogging, have the second one in the works to where I'm happy with it. 

My fall collection sweater is trundling along too.  I have half of one chart repeat to finish and I'm ready to cast off for the underarm set-ins.  That's a good feeling.  Can I finish it up before the end of the month?  I'd sure like to try - and then I'd just have the sleeve to do.  My tech editor can work on the numbers while it's being photographed that way.  We'll see, but I'm going to try anyway!

All for now....

WIP Wednesday: August 15, 2012

SPINNING PROJECTS

I'm going to take a break from reporting on any spinning for a while, simply because - I'm not doing any!  I have some fall projects earmarked, but I've recently gotten bitten by the sewing bug, so I'm doing a bit more of that in my limited free time, so that's eating up my random spare moments right now.  Stay tuned for updates this fall hopefully!

DESIGNING/KNITTING PROJECTS

I finished up the ribbing on the second fall collection sweater, and I'm working on the body charts right now.  I finished up the first chart repeat and I'm at just under 5" from the cast-on edge.  I am going to continue pushing along with this.  I'd like to try to get several more repeats done.  I need to get to about 13-1/2" before I'm ready to bind off for the underarm/sleeves.  Several more repeats will get me close.

I'm currently in the process of working on a bunch of sample swatches/proposals, so that's my other knitting project.  Not much to show for it at this point, but I'm working through my to-do list of those right now as well!

All for now....

WIP Wednesday: August 8, 2012

SPINNING PROJECTS:

Believe it or not, I finished plying the singles that have been languishing for a couple of weeks now!  Look for a spiffy Spinning Friday post on those on... uh... Friday. 

I currently (gasp!) don't have anything on the wheels right now.  Still working on an insane amount of dyeing for the Texas store, and in the bits and pieces of free time that I do have right now, I've gotten bitten by the sewing bug, and I have a few things to show you there, but I think my spinning is going to take a break for a bit.  The insane August heat isn't helping my spinning mojo either, to be honest!

DESIGNING/KNITTING PROJECTS:

I finished up my Whosian Scarf!  That's off the needles, all the ends woven in and it's ready for photos.  The battery issue my little camera had apparently isn't really the battery but rather the camera itself, so until I get a replacement for that (hopefully next week), I don't have a much in the way of pictures to share.

I finished the first half of the body of the final fall collection sweater.  I went ahead and blocked it, to double-check my numbers and those look in good shape, so I've cast on for the other half as of last night.  My plan for this week is to get the waist ribbing done and get at least the first full chart repeat completed, which should put me at about 5" or so up the body.  I haven't knit a men's-sized sweater in so long, I forgot how much knitting is involved in that!

Otherwise, I have some swatches I'm working on, but I've been flipping thru my idea notebooks and trying to decide what will be next on the needles.  I'm thinking maybe of a small shawl for the fall, something fairly simple, but with some lace, so I'm also planning to spend some time with my stitch dictionaries this weekend while D is on travel and see what sparks my imagination for that!

All for now.....

Pattern Re-Release: Hollow Oak Socks

A quick note to announce the re-release of my Hollow Oak Socks. I originally knit these in a sportweight handspun for the Ennea magazine, but I've reworked the numbers and redone charts to suit a more typical fingering-weight yarn (435 yards/100 g).

These are toe-up construction with a shaped gusset and heel flap.  The charts are reversible, however, so if cuff-down is more your thing, you could easily plug in the numbers and work them that way too.  The pattern contains two sizes for women's feet and is a fairly quick knit - the cables are easy to memorize and my super sample knitter finished hers up in about a week!

The samples in the pictures are knit using the shop's Rhiannon Sock in the "Oak Leaves" colorway, but I think would also be great in any semisolid/solid yarn to wear with jeans or khakis this fall!

All for now.....

 

WIP Wednesday: August 1, 2012

SPINNING PROJECTS

Nothing to see here, sadly.  STILL have not gotten my patiently-waiting singles plied up.  I am doing that this week, no matter what.  Geez.

DESIGNING/KNITTING PROJECTS

Making steady progress on the sweater.  I have back section of the body knit up to where I'm now ready to cast off a few stitches for where the sleeves will live.  I'm trying to get thru one cable repeat a night, which gives me about 2-1/4 inches of length each evening, so while it's sort of slow, it is progress.

My Whosian Scarf is headed into the home stretch.  I pick that up and do a few rows now and then, which obviously have been adding up.  I'm just under 3/4 of the way finished with this and hoping to have it off the needles in the next week for a photo shoot!

All for now....