What About Betty?

Betty must wait.

In my archives, there is a post:  Betty and Helene.  Betty and Helene are two little spring/summer type tops that I had just started as I wrote about them on May 7, 2012.

Helene, a lacy, linen top, became a finished object in October.  I love it very much and look forward to the spring when I can actually wear it.

Betty is a fingering weight wool top, and over time, I have come very far with her.

I worked on Betty when it was late, when I was tired, when my design work was not going well.  Betty has been many hours of stockinette knitting in the round on Size 2 needles.  (Which did follow a rather tedious 2.5 inches of 1X1 ribbing on Size 1 needles.)

My last modification was to increase at the sleeve edges on every 4th row (9 times) for a more gentle cap-like sleeve.  I like it better than the straight up sleeve opening used in the pattern.

Betty is in such a good place right now.  The very next step is to pick up stitches all around the top and work the Fair Isle yoke.  My favorite kind of knitting!

But Betty must wait.  I have a couple more months of what I call "knitting for teaching"...  I have two large projects to knit as I teach classes on making them...  Am I the only one who does this when I teach?  I make a shop sample... and then make one for myself while I teach... so that my students can see all the steps.  It takes time.

In addition, I now have two design project to finish as soon as possible.

Yes, Betty must wait, but this is what I have to look forward to...

like a bowl of candy.  It reminds me of what a student in one of my colorwork classes said,  "I am loving this knitting with color so much!  It's like eating candy!"
   

Colorwork Meditation #4

"Any ground subtracts its own hue from the colors which it carries and therefore influences."   ~  Josef Albers

Homage to the Square: “Ascending”, 1953.

  

Photo Credit:  http://whitney.org/Collection/JosefAlbers


Previous Colorwork Meditation: #3 (Braque)

My Current Palette

A swatch for my 'Mineral' Beauty.

I am making this as I teach a series of classes on knitting and finishing garments from the Knit, Swirl! book by Sandra McIver.  The yarns are Stacatto and Silk Cloud by Shibui in the color 'Mineral'.

Still to be scheduled at Gosh Yarn It!, will be classes on making a Taiga Cowichan vest, by Svetlana Volkova, with my own modifications including steeking the colorwork.

 
My photo of the class/shop sample is not the greatest, color-wise, but it gives an idea... I wished to stay with the green and purple of the original...

For my own Taiga, which I will be making while I teach, I decided to use Berroco Blackstone Tweed Chunky.  I quickly fell in love with this color combination...

'Cranberry Bog' and 'Steamers'.  (Interesting that Steamers is close to my Mineral colored Shibui.)  Unfortunately, the Steamers color has been discontinued.  The Cranberry Bog had already been ordered by Gosh Yarn It!, so I had to pick a new color to go with it.  None of the other neutral tones worked as well with the Cranberry, so I thought maybe a blue, but which blue?

First I decided it would be 'Narragansett'...

But then at the last minute, I picked 'Salt Water'...

It was a hard choice.  After it arrived I was having some second thoughts.  Then one night last week, I had a skein of each color on my little table, awaiting swatching, when I noticed that they closely resembled the colors of the latest issue of Vogue Knitting.

 It was like a vote of confidence.
 

Midweek Meditation

"Passion is above all remedy against boredom."   
                                                                ~ Joseph Brodsky, Poet
 

I Have Two Winners!

I am very happy to say that I did have more than two comments to my post, My Beginning -- A Blog Giveaway.  If you read my post you know that February 5, 2011 was the day I officially became a knitwear designer.  On that day I uploaded two of my knitting patterns to Ravelry.com.  Since then knitters everywhere have been able to download them for free.

My first two patterns were Both Sides Now...

and TATU (Try A Toe Up) Sock...

Two years ago, I worked late into the evening to get everything right.  Since that night "Both Sides Now" has been downloaded 876 times and "TATU" 1069 times.

Late last evening, I used a "random sequence generator", this one, to select two winners (from all who commented to "My Beginning -- A Blog Giveaway").  The winner of my first prize, one skein of Zitron Trekking 6 fach 6 ply in the variegated green colorway, is Retired Knitter!  The winner of my second prize, two skeins of Patons Classic Wool Worsted in the natural mix colorway is Emily!  Congratulations, Retired Knitter and Emily!  Please email your mailing address to me at ckknit@yahoo.com.

Thanks to everyone who participated!

Minerals & Steel

While at Vogue Knitting Live I purchased minerals and stainless steel.  And then I came home and purchased more minerals.

I would say that the way that Art Yarns packages their kits for a "Shawl for All Seasons" totally adds to the appeal.

 
I have always been a sucker for attractive little kits of all kinds.  This one made me want to buy it just so that I could see the yarn outside of the (sealed and taped closed) box.  The kit came in five different color groupings.  I liked this "Minerals" colorway much more than any of the others, and the vender at the VK Live market place had only one.  I was sure that if I walked away, it would not be there when I came back.  In spite of its price, I had to buy it.

The box has been opened.  The yarns are Silk Rhapsody Glitter Light and Beaded Silk and Sequins Light.

My other purchase at VK Live was at the Habu Textiles booth.  I have wanted to try knitting with some of their 69% silk, 31% stainless steel ever since I first learned that it existed.  I will use it with the (darker color) fine merino to make a "Kushu Kushu" or a "Hakusa".

While I look forward to working with these yarns in the future, I have started another, much larger, project.  I am now teaching a four session class in knitting a swirl sweater from the book Knit,Swirl! by Sandra McIver.  This is a repeat of a popular class that I taught last year.  If you have been reading my blog long enough, you might remember that I truly enjoyed working with a very enthusiastic group of swirl knitters, but I had some mixed feelings about the two finished swirls that I made.  Eventually I gave the one that I liked the least to my sister and she LOVES it!  I have decided this time around to make "Sheer Beauty".  I just bought the yarn at Gosh Yarn It! on Tuesday.  It is Shibui Staccato and Silk Cloud.

After I selected it, I noticed that the color is named "Mineral".

My BLOG GIVEAWAY (in honor of my two years in the design world) continues until February 5.  Please see this post and comment there if you would like a chance to win some yarn!

 

VK Live! New York

Last weekend I experienced Vogue Knitting Live in New York City 2013!

I took a two session class taught by Ysolda Teague:  "Approaching Design Patterns for Multiple Sizes".  It was mostly an introduction to using Excel spread sheet software to create tables and make calculations for all the different numbers used when writing a knitting pattern in many sizes.  Ysolda shared a great deal of design advice along the way.  She was lovely to meet in person and a very good teacher.  This was an excellent class for me to take at this time!  It is hard to believe, but I first heard of using spread sheet software in this way only a couple of months ago.

I attended a lecture "Thoughts on Design Development" with Norah Gaughan, and another lecture "Circle of Color Knitting" with Védís Jónsdóttir.  Both designers showed beautiful slides of their work and gorgeous images of their inspiration.

At the Market Place one of the first photos I took was of an appealing array of what some might call non-colorful yarn.

  
Of course there was every color in the world all over the Market Place.

I liked the hotel (right on Times Square) very much, with the possible exception of the carpeting.  I could see no reason for that carpeting, and it could be found (with several variations) everywhere.

The elevators in the hotel were very cool.

This knitted food -- fiber art -- was very popular and could be seen in the welcoming lobby from some of the glass elevators.  It was fun to explain what it actually was to some non-knitting elevator riders who remarked about how good it looked.

I will end with a couple of photos from Times Square, but we really did not spend too much time outdoors even though it was very warm.

My BLOG GIVEAWAY (in honor of my two years in the design world) continues until February 5.  Please see this post and comment there if you would like a chance to win some yarn!
 

My Beginning -- A Blog Giveaway

I became a "Knitwear Designer" on February 5, 2011.

It was on that date that I first uploaded two of my knitting patterns to Ravelry to make them available to knitters everywhere.  Before that I spent a great deal of time reading all the Ravelry help pages about creating a Ravelry store and setting up a designer page.  I thought a lot about how I did not want there to be just one pattern (it had to be two from the start), and I fussed with my photography.

Ravelry requires that patterns be .pdf files for uploading.  I do not have Adobe software to create or edit .pdf files, but I found and downloaded "Cute PDF Writer" software.  It converts Microsoft Word documents into .pdf files.  It has worked very well for me ever since.

I chose two of my "teaching" patterns.  I have been professionally teaching knitting since 2006, and I always like to teach knitting projects from my own patterns whenever possible.  A tech editor reviewed these patterns, but she changed very little.

 Pattern: Both Sides Now

Yarn: 310 yds Patons Classic Wool Worsted,

100% Pure New Wool

Color: 00229 Natural Mix

This first pattern was from my earliest teaching days.  The Classic Wool Worsted by Patons was one of my favorites at Michael's where I taught from 2006-2008.  I had two partial skeins of this yarn in my stash, but they were not the same dye lot.  I went to Michael's this past weekend and bought two new ones.  I was glad to see that they still carry it.

The second pattern I uploaded to Ravelry on that same day in February was one that I originally designed in 2009 to teach toe-up sock knitting.

Pattern: TATU (Try A Toe Up) Sock

Yarn: 300 yd Zitron Trekking 6 fach 6 ply

75% Wool, 25% Nylon

Color: 1809 Green Variegated

This pattern was written for a class that I taught at an LYS, Cozy Cabin, which has since gone out of business.  I have an identical skein of this yarn that my mother bought at Cozy Cabin.  (It has been keep quite safely in a plastic bin for the last three years.)

 
These patterns have been offered as free downloads for almost two years now.  They have each been downloaded hundreds of times.  People like free patterns.

Now for my BLOG GIVEAWAY in honor of my two years in the design world:
The two prizes will be the yarn shown in this blog post.  There is more than enough of each yarn to make my designs as shown.  All that you have to do for a chance to win some yarn, is to leave a comment to this post.  (It can be about this post or any of my other designs... or really anything at all!)  On the evening of February 5, 2013 I will gather the commenter names (I do hope that I will have at least 2!) and use a random sequence generator to pick two winners.  The first name that I draw will get the sock yarn (as it has a higher retail value).  The second name I draw will get the worsted.  The winner's names will be announced in a blog post on February 6.  (I will provide an email address at that time, so that winners may contact me with their mailing addresses.)

Good Luck and I am looking forward to your comment!!!

Midweek Meditation

“If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as a Michaelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, 'Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.”                                                              
                                        ~  Martin Luther King Jr., born January 15, 1929