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Dimorphous Options

Howdy do, readers (if there are any of you left)!

I just wanted to let you all know that I’ve added more options to the Dimorphous Mitten pattern, giving instructions for making gloves, fingerless gloves, and fingerless mitts to replace the Inner Mitten. All of these options are worked using the same cuff instructions from the original pattern, as well as the same gauge and yarn specifications. The add-on pdf is meant to be used in conjunction with the original pdf.

The Ravelry downloads have been updated so that if you purchase through Ravelry, both pdf files will be added to your library. If you purchase through the MimKnits Online Store, the downloads have been combined into one pdf. Ravelry purchasers have been notified of the update already, but if you purchased through my online storefront and would like the updated pdf with the add-on, please send me an e-mail INCLUDING YOUR ORDER NUMBER to orders AT mimknits DOT com, and I will reauthorize the download

I’ve been working hard, nose to the grindstone, on projects for the book, and trying to get organized for the winter. I’m coordinating the sample knitting, and working on the photostyling and location shooting stuff. It’s very exciting, but doesn’t make for very good blog fodder, I think.

I’ll put up another book preview post soon.

Posted 19 November 2009 † Mim § Knitting ‡ Comments (5) °

Club Opportunities for 2010

Just wanted to keep you all updated on forthcoming stuff….

I’ll be designing a piece for Romi’s Lace and Shawl Pin Club. The club itself has a great ala cart subscription. You can choose how many shipments you’d like, what metal you’d like for the pin, yarn content and color family, or you can go the traditional way and let Romi pick what color she thinks is best and send it to you with yarn, pin and pattern. Her pins are always lovely and well made. I own 3 or 4 of them myself.

Romi is running a promotional special as well. If you sign up by November 1st she’ll send you a surprise extra, but club sign-ups are open until December 15th.

I’ll also be doing the Shakespeare in Lace club again with Wooly Wonka. It was great fun this year when I did Desdemona and for the 2010 club I’ll be doing a lace piece inspired by the character of Ophelia from Hamlet. All the colorways in the series will be solid or semi-solid kettle dyed shades. Anne will be opening up the club to previous club members FIRST through the Ravelry Board early in November, and then later in November she will open any leftover slots to new signups through her Etsy Shop. You can keep posted on the Ravelry Board.

Both of the patterns will be available separately after a few months, so if you can’t do the subscription club, you’ll still be able to purchase the pattern itself later.

M

Posted 24 October 2009 † Mim § Designing § Knitting ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , ,

Five Whole Years

Teena in Toronto reminded me on Sunday morning that it was my 5th Blogiversary. 5 years. Holy Mother of Meat.

I’ve been meaning to blog again more often and this might just be the catalyst to push me to do it. A broken camera lens and a bunch of crazy are my excuses this time, but really I’ve just been relishing a quiet life as the seasons change. There was nothing so exciting going on that I just HAD to tell everyone. It has also been a bit of an adjustment to have a part-time job. I’m working at my LYS a couple days a week and doing their website. I have to get into some kind of routine again, and To-Do lists have been my friend, but I haven’t got to the point of putting blogging on that list yet. There have been other, more pressing things to do.

I’ve also got some teaching in the works…. if you’re local, you might be interested in some of the classes I’m teaching at the Black Sheep Wool Company. The full class listing is here, but the classes I am teaching are:

Top-down Triangular Shawl Class: Saturdays, October 10 from 2:30 PM 5:30 PM and October 24, from 1:30 PM to 5:30 PM
Instructor: Miriam Felton . $55 class fee
This class will teach you the top-down triangular shaping method. With the option of a knitted-on border, this class can be as simple or as complex as you want it to be. Choose one of the top-down triangular shawl designs by Miriam Felton, including Icarus, Seraphim, Foliage, Mountain Peaks, Adamas, Hidcote, Cleite, or Andromeda. Skills needed: knit, purl, yarn over, various decreases. Experience with lace or chart reading would be preferred.


Dimorphous Mitten: Saturdays, November 7 and 14, from 2:30 PM to 4:30 PM
Instructor: Miriam Felton . $40 class fee
Knit this versatile mitten for yourself or as a memorable gift. The inner mitt, knit in sock yarn, can be worked in a number of ways as a mitten, a fingerless mitt, or a glove, while the outer mitten, in Manos Silk Blend adds warmth and elegance. The pattern includes the mitten option, but fingerless mitt and glove instructions will be provided to you in class. This is a perfect project to play with color combinations.

Fixing Lace Mistakes: Saturday, November 21, from 10 AM to 1 PM
Instructor: Miriam Felton . $35 class fee
Do you dread finding a mistake in your lace knitting? This class will cover how to fix missing yarn overs, misdirectional decreases, and ways of undoing lace from ripping whole rows at a time, unknitting, and dropping down and reworking whole repeats.

More late. I’ve actually started taking my Self Portraits again for 365, but haven’t uploaded any of them yet.

Posted 07 October 2009 † Mim § Knitting ‡ Comments (6) °

Really out of it.

Coming home today from spending a week at my sister Laura’s house, canning large bushels of produce, basting 4 quilts, taking family portraits, and helping care for her children. Frankly, I’m exhausted and really eager to be home. As much fun as the kids are, they sort of remind me that I really don’t want my own. I think I’ve knit 2 rounds on a glove finger all week long. By the end of the day my hands and arms have been exhausted. The final accomplishment tally is:

2 twin sized quilts basted
2 full/queen sized quilts basted
22 quarts of peaches canned
20 pints of salsa canned
23 quarts of pears canned
300 family photos taken
innumerable poopy butts changed (one exploded all down the leg!)
2 rows of onions pulled up to dry
1 gigantic bowl of tomatoes picked
3 fingers on my left hand burned by cutting peppers that should have been mild, but clearly were not.

I have hardly knit anything while I’ve been here, and I feel so disconnected from my people. Margene has been in my thoughts and prayers, and I am longing to visit her and see how she’s doing. I miss C and my kitty, and while I was away the Property Management caused drama that I had to try to deal with long distance.

It will be nice to get back into my groove. Back to designing, knitting, cooking, working on the book, and being in my own space with my own things.

I did get to hang out with my Mom on Tuesday. We saw Julie & Julia, which I loved. I thought it was a great movie! Afterward we swung by the bookstore and I got Mastering the Art of French Cooking (thanks again Mom!). I can’t believe I didn’t have this cookbook! I’m really excited to try some of the recipes, although I don’t think I’ll be touching the aspics with a 10-foot pole. Meat jello doesn’t really float my boat, you know? I’ve never made a souffle though, and I’m excited to try. The whole dessert section is calling out to me.

Gotta pack up my things and get dressed to go.

Posted 17 September 2009 † Mim § Knitting ‡ Comments (5) ° Tagged: , , , , , ,

Stuffies for Princess Wiggles

My little brother (see here) and his wife are having a baby. For now they’re calling her Princess Wiggles. I might still make a sweater for her, but for now, 3 stuffed toys seems adequate 🙂

Details on Ravelry, from left to right: Elijah, Sophie, Otto

I just finished Elijah, pretty quickly after Otto. I modified Elijah a bit to give him a tail 🙂

A baby must be properly kitted out before she can make her appearance, yeah?

M

Posted 11 September 2009 † Mim § Knitting § My FO's ‡ Comments (10) ° Tagged: , , ,

Shop Bugs

Hi all, I’m having some trouble with my MimKnits shop SSL, and you may run into problems with it until I can get this web host thing figured out, so I would suggest if you’re going to purchase that you purchase through Ravelry.

Posted 02 September 2009 † Mim § Knitting ‡ Comments (1) °

An Unusual Weekend

When you get out of the habit of blogging, it’s hard to remember to start up again 🙂 I’ve been a busy girl, especially since this is canning season. This weekend alone produced 14 Quarts and 1 pint of dill pickles, a batch of amazingly wonderful honeydew and nectarine ice cream, and a growing crush on Gene Kelly after having seen An American in Paris for the first time.

The weekend wasn’t all fun though. On Friday night after we were asleep our car was hit (while we were parked, in the lot behind our building). We found it on Saturday morning. Not a lot of damage, but they left no note, so I called the police and filed a hit & run report. Later we found out it was a neighbor who also lives in our building. We got insurance swapped and all, but dealing with the insurance company, and waiting 2 hours for the police to show up, and trying not to be super mad at the neighbor for being an ass and not leaving a note kind of put a damper on the weekend. Today I get to bug people on the phone until they pay for the repairs. I did find a twee baby snail while I was waiting for the cops though….

I’ve got a few new projects on the needles. The sock for the Knit Purl sock club’s November shipment is in the works, and I’m working more on the as yet unnamed shawl with interesting construction. I refer to it as the Olivia Shawl in my head, because the colorway is called Olivia (I love it so much!). I’m gonna have a post for you in a few days about it, with pictures of the process and all that. And some book projects are coming along nicely.

More later,
M

Posted 31 August 2009 † Mim § Designing § In The Kitchen § Knitting ‡ Comments (7) °

The purpose of a lot of my secret knitting….

I’m writing a book. Or to be more correct, I’m writing a pattern booklet. After TNNA when I got to spend some time with Ysolda (who was on a grand tour of the US, doing signings and a trunk show of Whimsical Little Knits 1*), I talked to her about the process of self-publishing a small booklet, about what was working best, and some ideas that I had been mulling around started to congeal into a collection of patterns.

So the collection of patterns will be geared toward making the most out of a limited quantity of yarn, whether it be handspun, hand-dyed, or just something you can’t get anymore. I’m including patterns that can be bound off when you run out, or worked until you have half the yarn left, then worked in the other direction… designs specifically written to use up as much of a given yarn as possible, with small pattern motifs, and small repeats so that you can easily change the pattern based on the quantity of yarn you want to use.

I’m going to be self publishing the booklet, and I’ve got an awesome support team of people who have experience in the knitting, spinning and publishing world that I’m using as a sounding board for ideas and projects. I’m very excited about the result so far, and with every project I complete my excitement grows 🙂

Transverse will be included in this collection, as will the Thrums Shawl I showed you before. Plus a bunch of new pieces including these:

Motte Shawl

Colonade Scarf

I’m still not far enough along with the whole process to give you availability dates, but I’ll keep you posted. Some other questions I anticipate being asked:

1. Will the pattern be available separately?
Yes, the patterns will be available as downloads separately at the same time the book is published.

2. Can I get the whole book as a digital download?
Possibly. The answer to this question will be determined by whether or not Cleite is included in the collection. If Cleite is not included, then yes. Digital Download of the whole book will be available. If Cleite IS included, I might offer digital download of everything BUT Cleite. Still working it out.

Any other questions? Feel free to ask in the comments and I’ll respond in the comments.

*Whimsical Little Knits 2 will be released in the print version in a few months, but you can start getting the patterns from it now as downloads, go check it out!

Posted 23 August 2009 † Mim § Designing § Knitting § Self-Publishing § Spinning ‡ Comments (24) ° Tagged: , ,

Feeling the differences

I was hit in the face by the drastic changes of the last year (6 or 7 months really) today on the way home from visiting family. C had taken the week off for his birthday to relax and do some fun things, which necessitated a scaled-back work week for me, since keeping him company was key to the whole vacation endeavor. It was fun, and very laid back, but on the way home I realized that I was looking forward to the vacation ending and getting back to work. Not that I wanted the vacation to end, I just was eager to get working on the things spilling out of my brain. And it hit me what a drastic change this is from the sick stomach of Sunday afternoons just dreading going back to work at my corporate jobs.

I am immeasurably less stressed, I have time to exercise and eat healthy, I have the energy to pursue other activities besides zoning out in front of the television. I feel like the person I’ve been WANTING to be.

I have a fridge full of fruit that I’ve been jamming and bottling and processing and baking. But instead of feeling dread about getting it all done, I am filled with excitement. Worry has been replaced by creative energy and I feel like I’m producing some of my best work. I’ve finally broken down the self-erected barriers that I have surrounding designing sweaters and I’ve been looking over color cards to pick yarns to pair with the sketches I’ve been creating for years but never could get myself to design.

Frankly, I’m amazed by it, but if I was looking for a sign that it was the right career choice, I think this is it.

M

Posted 08 August 2009 † Mim § Knitting ‡ Comments (24) °

Paypal errors

Due to paypal’s downtime today, some transactions were not able to go through, or failed mid-transaction. If you purchased today and didn’t get an order confirmation or are unable to access your downloads, please send me an e-mail and I’ll get it sorted out for you.

The shop is up and paypal appears to be working now.

M

Posted 03 August 2009 † Mim § Knitting ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , , ,