Skip to content

AAAAAAHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!

I would love to tell you that the Aspen Grove pattern is done and ready to go out on October 1st, but it’s not. I got about 15 min. this morning to work on it before starting my new job (going well, but feeling overwhelmed). Plus I feel like I’m drowning in some legal matters that I’m trying to devote a reasonable amount of time to, but I just don’t have that much time. I am exhausted, but feel like sleep would be a waste of the precious little time that I have so much to do in.

A lot of stuff could probably be solved by having phone conversations with the right people, but I can’t take time away from learning my new job to do it. I’m just tired….

Anne, please send corndogs.

Posted 25 September 2007 † Mim § Totally Random ‡ Comments (8) °

Blue Waves

Thanks for all the great comments about the shawl! I’m glad you like it!

Amongst the shawl knitting and the being stalled with the shawl knitting, I knit a pair of socks.

Pattern: Mock Wave Cable Socks from Favorite Socks
Yarn: Regia 4-ply with wee stripeys. From The Loopy Ewe, included in my Loopy Groupie welcome package.
Needles: 2.25 mm (US Size 1) Plymouth bamboo dpns
Modifications: Part of the waving portion of the chart had a wonkyness that I couldn’t figure out the reason for. The wave is 3 sts wide in most places, but for a couple of rows, it’s 4 sts wide and although I can tell that they were knitted that way, I didn’t like it, so I just changed those few knits to purls and made the wave perfect 🙂
Verdict: I like them a lot. I thought they’d be too loose, being knit on 80 sts, but they fit nice and snug. Now that I think about it, I probably should have decreased just a bit at the toe before working the toe to make up for the pull of the ribbing so the toe didn’t pooch so much, but it’s still fine. They need a good wash to soften up a bit, then they should be perfect.

As soon as the shawl was done, since I don’t have any really looming deadlines, I started Kate Gilbert‘s Cinnibar Pullover from the Fall 2007 issue of Interweave Knits. Honestly, I think this sweater could have been photographed better. I didn’t realize until after reading the descriptions that the cuffs, hems and placket were all done in linen stitch! You could hardly tell from the photos. This sweater looked like exactly the kind of thing I’d want to wear in the cool autumn days and then layer underneath my coat on the deeply cold winter ones. Plus I’m really looking forward to picking out buttons! It’s not often that you get to pick out that MANY buttons for a knitting project.

So here’s a detail of the transition between the linen stitch and the stockinette. I’m knitting it in elann.com Highland Silk, having figured that the silk content could stand in for drape from cashmere while making the whole sweater much less expensive over all. 🙂

M

Theresa finished a gorgeous Icarus in a slowly variegated jewel-tone yarn that’s just amazing!

Dis finished her Koigu Seraphim and I’m plotting a way to gank it from her 🙂 Glad it could be a bit of solace for you in the crazy time at work! Miss you!

Birdsong finished her Seraphim as well and made a beautiful 2 color shawl out of what could have been a disaster! Go grrl! 🙂

Posted 21 September 2007 † Mim § Knitting § My FO's § Others FO's ‡ Comments (8) °

Aspen Grove Shawl Debut

The Aspen Grove shawl is done…. and I love it. It seems when I struggle with a design, I love it all the more when I block it out and see how beautiful it really is.

The shawl is designed in 3 parts*. Each of the 4 repeated wedges of the shawl begins with a gathering of leaves, then moves downward into the twisting, odd trunks of the aspens, culminating in the feather and fan edge, which reminds me of the strata of decay on the forest floor, shot through with the communal roots of the aspens above.

Pattern: My own Aspen Grove Shawl. Available October 1st as a kit from Wooly Wonka Fibers, but pre-orders should be up later today or early tomorrow Preorders are up now.
Yarn: Wooly Wonka hand painted wool/silk laceweight in Quaking Aspen colorway. Kit will also be available in Vermont Maples colorway.
Needles: 3.25 mm (US 3) 24″ circular
Verdict: I love it. It’s beautiful and light and drapey. I wouldn’t have picked the color to knit for myself, but it really compliments the pattern and the pattern works well with the natural variegations inherent to hand painted yarn.

I hope you all will enjoy it 🙂

M

*because threes make me feel right with the world. I even count my stitches in threes

Posted 19 September 2007 † Mim § Designing § Knitting § My FO's ‡ Comments (30) °

Test Knitters Needed

Okie, I need test knitters for the Serpentine Mitts. I will be offering 3 sizes and I need a knitter for each of them. Sizing is measured by hand circumference. I can have yarn sent to you, but then I will require the pieces back. If you want to keep the mitts, then provide your own yarn. They need to be knit it Louet Gems Fingering weight, at a gauge of 8 stitches per inch.

Test knitters must:

  1. Be able to knit to gauge
  2. Start immediately upon receiving the yarn
  3. Finish the pair within a week
  4. Mail them back to me quickly after finishing

If you used your own yarn, I will return the mitts after photography.

In return for test knitting, you will get a $10 gift certificate to my online shop, which goes into your account and sits there as a credit until you decide to use it or send it as a gift certificate to someone else. You’ll also receive a thank you in the Acknowledgments.

Preference will be given to local people so I don’t loose time in shipping.

I still need:

  • 1 knitter for 7″ hand size.

    • Should only require 1- 50g skein of yarn.

  • 1 knitter for 8″ hand size.

    • Might require 2 skeins, but hopefully just one.

  • 1 knitter for 9″ hand size.

    • Will probably require dipping into the second skein.

*ETA* All taken, thanks to everyone who volunteered!

To be considered for test knitting, please e-mail me (remove the ALL CAPS text and replace with the appropriate symbols). Please include which size you want to knit and your postal address.

Comments to this post WILL NOT BE CONSIDERED for test knitting.

Thanks,
M

Posted 18 September 2007 † Mim § Designing § Knitting ‡ Comments (1) °

Need some help with Adamas

Hi all,

Adamas is coming back to me and I’ll be offering it for free on my site. But I don’t want to knit it again just to take photos. So what I need is for someone who has knit it in KnitPicks Shadow, on the suggested size of needles, and with the specified number of repeats to allow me to photograph their shawl.

Preferably NOT in the ‘Oregon Coast’ or ‘Sunset’ colorways as I already have shawls in those colors.

Can anyone help? In return you’ll get a $15.00 gift certificate to my store and a package full of goodies. If you live in the states, the goodies will probably contain some jam.

*ETA* Thanks to Sarah, I’ve got it taken care of. Thanks!

M

Posted 18 September 2007 † Mim § Knitting ‡ Comments (4) °

A gathering of random

1. A moment of silence, please, for Robert Jordan and the Wheel of Time series. After battling a horrible disease, the writer of one of my favorite (and sadly unfinished *sob* fantasy series is dead). The thought of never knowing what happens with Rand, et.al. fills me with uneasiness, but thank you for the hours and hours of enjoyment you gave to me.

2. On the WTF front, A knitting basket that used to sit in a hospital waiting room encouraging people to knit a square for charity blankets while they were waiting has been removed. Due to “safety concerns”. Um.. yeah… because so many people have been killed by knitting needles in the past.

3. From the same news site, a man and woman are getting a divorce after they both were flirting online and then when they decided to meet up found that they were colluding with each other. Each of them is filing on the grounds of infidelity. Last time I checked it wasn’t infidelity if you were flirting with the person you were married to, even if you didn’t know it.

4. A whole day with knitting friends old and new, and the only picture I got was this one of Carole‘s hand 🙂

This picture, if it hadn’t been taken with the setting sun behind it, would have shown you that the circled area, which is an aspen grove that’s just beginning to turn, is EXACTLY the same color as the Aspen Grove Shawl yarn! Woot! The picture was taken from the deck of Silver Fork lodge where I had a lovely dinner with Margene, Smith, Carole, Cheryl, her husband, Blogfree Val, her sister Sharon, Kim, Kim, Teresa C, and JudyakatheGoddess. It was so much fun that I think we irritated all of the other deck patrons with our boisterous conversation.

5. The aspen grove shawl is finished and blocked as well *phew!* I just need time and a place to take the photos and then it will go up for pre-order. It was a struggle to get it together and working to my standards, but I love it and I hope you will too.

Posted 17 September 2007 † Mim § Designing § Knitting § Totally Random ‡ Comments (13) °

Horrah for the return of pictures!

To christen the newly returned camera, I blocked the alpaca Seraphim Shawl I’ve been studiously ignoring since I finished it in July.

Pattern: My Seraphim Shawl pattern, available through the store here.
Yarn: Wild Geese Fibres alpaca, 90% natural black and 10% dyed blue. The skein had 1300 yards and I still have a pretty hefty chunk of it left. You can get a better picture of the coloration of the yarn here.
Needles: US 4 Addi Turbo Lace Needles
Modifications: None except needle size and yarn. I knit the pattern as is without any of the size modifications that are given. I liked it well enough the first time around, I might as well do it again 😉 It did come out a different size though. It blocked to 76″ wide and 38″ deep, but that’s not so far off from the original now that I think about it.
Verdict: I’m happy with it. I love the subtle color of the yarn and I’m sorry it took me so long to block the sucker.

It took me so long to block it becausem first I was waiting to get blocking wires (they’re 3′ stainless steel welding rods and they cost me $20 for one pound of them, which equates to 36 rods), and then I was waiting to clean my house so I could have enough space to block it, then I was so busy with deadline knitting that I couldn’t allow myself to be distracted.

Blocking with the wires was super easy though. I enjoyed it and my fingers, which are usually numb from all the pressure on small pins used during blocking, are fine and happy and have as much sensation as they normally do. All in all, I probably used fewer than 20 pins, and when you consider that I used to use probably one hundred or so, it’s a lot of progress.

Speaking of shawls, I did finally get my comp copy of the Best of Interweave Knits.

It makes me giddy just seeing it there, but if you look closely, you can see that in all of the pictures the shawl is on the model wrong side out. hehe.

In that vein, here are a bunch of finished shawls that AREN’T wrong side out.

Nonnahs finally finished her Icarus shawl after a long hard pull ; ) It’s really beautiful dearest!

Materfamilias finished a beautiful RED Icarus! It makes me want to cast on for a red shawl myself!

Nicole also finished an Icarus with awesome green beads on the edge!

Posted 14 September 2007 † Mim § Acquisitions § Knitting § My FO's § Others FO's ‡ Comments (16) °

Lack of blogging as well as lack of pictures.

I keep writing posts, but I don’t think any of them should be published. They’re all complex insensible rambling about things I have to do or things I hate doing, or things I am having a hard time focusing on. I need to just spend some time getting outside of my own head, but it feels like a guilty indulgence when I’m so short on time and I have so much left to do before the deadlines hit and my only honorable option becomes ritual suicide.*

But my camera is ready to be picked up and I’m getting it this afternoon, so I’m hoping having a camera that works will help me step outside of myself and notice the outside world. I didn’t realize how much I love and appreciate that aspect of photography until my camera was gone.

I’ve also noticed that when I’m that deep inside my head I think of responses to what people say (like blogs or even in conversations) and say my responses to myself and think that somehow I’ve said them to others. It’s like a little explosion in my brain everytime I realize that I didn’t actually say something that I’ve convinced myself I’ve said.

Hopefully pictures will return tomorrow and maybe you all can help me with my shawl pattern. I’m sort of stuck and it’s freaking me out watching the deadline speed ever closer with this huge portion of the design still undecided in my head.

Oh… and adding to the stress is that I gave my 2 weeks notice at my job yesterday. I’ve got a bigger and better job waiting in the wings and I’m really excited about it, but now I’ve got what Anne labeled “shorttimers disease” where I have to argue with myself all the time because the apathetic self says that none of it matters anyway, while the proactive self says that leaving everything neat and tidy and tied up with a little bow is the right thing to do.

M

*I am just kidding. Mental health-wise, I’m fine. This is just my dark sense of humor manifesting and a way of reminding myself that killing myself isn’t really an option.

Posted 13 September 2007 † Mim § Designing § Knitting § Navel Gazing ‡ Comments (10) °

Things I love

and of which I think you should be aware.

1. This letterpress stationery from Paper Source. In fact, I love the whole line.

2. Fabric shopping bag made from the template of a plastic shopping bag! It’s even got a little pocket to fold it up into so you can carry it in your purse! Link via Rachel.

3. Disappearing 9-patch quilt tutorial. I have a pile of blue calico in my closet just WAITING for this quilt! I can’t wait to get started on it!

4. Twisty Faster’s Cancer Sampler. I’ve been reading her blog, I Blame the Patriarchy, for her way with words and her often eye opening (and “AMEN!” inducing) social commentary, but lo! she crafts! Her photos of the double mastectomy portrayed in this piece of embroidery are among the most powerful images I’ve ever seen.

5. Kyle Designs‘ metal wallets. I still plan to get one, but I’ve been procrastinating. I’m particularly partial to the ‘Craftsman’ option.

6. Nancy’s Knit Knacks’ Yarn Weight Data chart. I refer to this so often you would not believe me if I told you. It’s just GREAT to see that much info all in once place.

7. The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss.

Most fantasy isn’t really literature. It’s lacking in plot or lacking in character development and certainly lacking in praiseworthy writing. But this! This book is astounding. C is reading it out to me while I knit and there are times when I make him stop and re-read something so I can enjoy the beauty of the phrase, the poetry of the imagery or the just damn awesome way it was written. I plan on knitting Patrick Rothfuss some socks because this man deserves an award for writing such an amazing fantasy novel.

8. Rosemary‘s amazingly lovely silver earrings. I saw Margene’s on Thursday of last week and I’ve been coveting them every since.

M

Posted 07 September 2007 † Mim § Acquisitions § Knitting § Misc. Crafting § Reading ‡ Comments (12) °

Shawls FTW*!

I’m wearing Hidcote and one of the students came through and said I look very elegant today!

She said it looked like wiki(qiviut) though…

Vindication! HAHAHAHAHAH!

*for those not in the gaming “know”. “FTW” means For The Win!

Posted 06 September 2007 † Mim § Knitting ‡ Comments (4) °