Beautiful Fall

Last Friday I went with Eli's family to Starved Rock State park for some hiking.  It was so, so beautiful there.  I thought I would share some of my favorite photos from the trip.

 

 

  

I had had a really great time.  That mushroom had been picked by someone and left by the side of the trail, Eli and I decided to goof around with it. 

New Everything!

Hello welcome to the new version of the blog!  I just got it live and linked up today and I'm really excited.  The new layout is prettier and more flexible and now I can have pages!  Like a I have a REAL webpage!  Oh boy!  I had an exciting time making up a logo yesterday which I'm going to put in this post so I can link it to facebook.  I have a lot of exciting patterns coming down the chute and look for class schedules and and about me pages coming whenever I can get over my loathing about talking about myself.  I hope everyone enjoys the new blog!  Now here's the logo I promised.

 

Susie's Long Stockings

The test knit for these socks finished on the 19th and it has been a looong ride. It started when I saw these socks in the Christian Dior Fall show by John Galliano.  I had to make something similar, I just loved them.

I bought the yarn way back in March and began swatching, which did not go smoothly.  I had an good idea of what I wanted the finished product to look like, I just didn't know how to get there.  I also had the idea that I wanted to do some of the shaping with needle size changes.  I wanted a lot of verticality like the Dior socks.  The Dior socks had faggoted rib obviously but I didn't think it would look the way I wanted at the gauge I was going to get out of sock yarn. I tried a lot of lace patterns that had vertical orientations but they all seemed too stretched out on larger needle sizes, I needed it to be polished looking, smooth and sophisticated.  After another failed swatch of star-mesh lace from one of the Barbara Walker Treasuries I sat stumped.  My knitting buddies liked it but it had too much air, and too much bias to be what I wanted.  The ribs on it looked too messy for my taste as well.  Then it hit me that a twisted rib might be my answer.  It pulls the rib in tight and attractive when stretched out and when you do the purl stitches plain it gives and orderly but slightly lacy look in between.  I made a few swatches and KNEW I had it.  I also had a pattern that had a sort of diamond orientation going up the side of the legs to get a similar look to the Dior socks. I chose the Vandyke Leaf Lace from the Second Barbara Walker Treasury.

 

I had to make charts for the beginning of the lace, the ending of the lace and the repeating portion. The difficulty was in writing the chart on a background of twisted rib.  I did accomplish it well though and I changed some of the clunkier looking portions of the Vandyke Leaf Lace so that the pattern flowed better to my taste.  I used Open Office's spreadsheet program and a knitting font I picked up on the internet.  I was also going to do these socks toe-up as it is usually my preference but the leaves on the Vandyke Leaf Lace looked weird going from the bottom up.  This probably worked out for the best as the back of the calf decreases I used look really stunning in the twisted rib.

I decided I would make 3 sizes so that almost anyone can make a wear these socks and I also made a video explaining the double decrease I invented so the the decreases stayed in pattern.



I decided that since there was going to be no way for these socks to stay up on their own I should make a hem for some elastic to be inserted.  I had seen a folded over hem done on a child's skirt so I just used the same idea, and in pattern.  It worked surprisingly well.   So I had all the elements I needed and I knit the first sock, and it looked wonderful!   I started the test knit after writing it out and doing a preliminary layout.  I stalled on the second sock.  I had terrible second sock syndrome.  I'd already done it, why wasn't I finished?  There were other things I wanted to knit!  Why did nature give me 2 legs?    But I eventually got around to it and took photos in wool thigh-highs when it was 90 degrees outside.  I'll tell you though, the sweat really held them in place!
I have to give kudos to my wonderful test knitters who found all the mistakes in my written version of the chart (boy writing that sucked) and various other problems with clarity and and suggested what photos would be most helpful to them.  This pattern wouldn't be nearly so great with out them.

Here is the relevant info if you are looking to make these socks:

Yarn : Trekking Pro Natura - 3 skeins
Needles : US 4, 3, 2, 1
3 sizes, s, m, l - Medium will fit almost everyone, small is for size 4 and lower and large is for size 16 and up.

It was really important to me to be inclusive with my sizing, I want as many people as can be to show off their awesome gams in my lovely socks.

 

Meta Mittens

 On our way home from Buckhorn State Park last month Eli suggested we stop at a yarn store in Madison.  I am not one to say no to that so I did a google search on my iPhone and came up with Off the Beaten Path.  It wasn't too far from the highway and their website said they had locally produced yarns.   I ended up with some crochet thread and some rough, rustic wool that immediately said "make mittens out of me".  The yarn was Yaeger's Acres 2ply medium weight wool.  I got the natural and the black-brown   I felt like I wanted to have something related to knitting or wool on the mittens but I decided a yarn ball would be too abstract. I decided on sheep and did a big google image search on sheep so I could get a handle on what they look like and for illustrations of sheep so that I could understand how they are generally abstracted. I knit up a swatch in the round later in the week.  This swatch lied horribly, I must have been knitting incredibly tight because I ended up with 7 sts/inch on US 3 needles which I was never able to replicate.  Swatches Lie.  Do them anyway.  Always make a swatch especially if you are working with a yarn you have never used before, if only to get a feel for what needle size will go with it best.

So once I had my horribly off gauge I went and made some graph paper from my favorite graph paper making website (What? You don't have one?) Incompetech (see it even has a punny name) and input my gauge.  The website makes a pdf of the graph paper which I then opened in adobe photoshop.  I marked out the parameters of the mitten using the dimensions of a pair of Norwegian mittens I made a few years ago and liked.  Then I spent about a day or so dinking around with the chart.  The palm was easy,  as was the thumb, but making sheep that looked like sheep and made a good composition on the back of a mitten took a bit longer.  Once I was satisfied with the chart I knit up a prototype.  Which was sized for a child.

Good thing it doesn't take too long to knit a mitten, I thought, I'll just go up a needle size and add a little length and it'll be fine...

 Nope!

Still Tiny!  Urg!  I felt pretty frustrated with myself, but luckily I had plenty of yarn so I didn't have to frog either of them.  I went back and counted how many stitches were in that old Norwegian mitten I mentioned earlier and went with those stitch counts.   I finally finally got it the right size, yay! Here is a prototype progression photo with a 5" ruler at the side to show how tiny the small ones really are.

So, after knitting 4 mittens, only 2 of which were any good, I was ready to take some photographs.  It was 90 degrees outside so bundling up and going outside were a bit out.  I didn't want to get heat stroke, even for my work.  So I plopped on a matching hat and sat on my workroom couch and used the self timer gratuitously.  I think they came out pretty well all things considered

I really upped my game with photoshop on these photos.  I generously used the dodge tool to brighten and emphasize the mittens and to make the eye in shadow more visible. Plus I was having a really good hair day.   So I wrote and laid out the pattern, I went with a vaguely  German, 70s medieval revival sort of style that I think went really well with the mittens and made the pattern pretty to look at. It's for sale, if you'd like to  buy now

  buy now

Gilly's Big Bow

Way back in July I was sketching out an idea for a superbulky cardigan and the lady I sketched needed a big bow in her hair.

The next night, deep in the night, something silly was born. 

I went overboard.  Waaay overboard.  The thing weighed like a pound and would barely stay on the headband I put it on.  I decided I needed to downscale a bit. 

So I finally ended up with this

Yay!  It only looks slightly silly!  I wrote up the pattern, had it tested, and put it out as a fun little free pattern.  

You can download the pattern for yourself here: download now

Camping at Buckhorn State Park, WI

Last Monday afternoon we took off for Buckhorn State park. This is a fabulous place to camp with many campsites having their own private beaches. When we arrived we set up our campsite made dinner and jumped in the water. I think I spent the most time swimming since I was a kid. The water was lovely and warm.

The next day we rented a canoe for the morning and explored the shore. There were a lot of interesting fungi and tiny moss and lichens. I love taking pictures of little things the best. 

Lovely Grassy Forest

Our little red Canoe where we beached it to explore

My silly sun hat! 

 

 

Adorable mushroom in the moss

This one has grass growing through it!

Phallic

 

the ur mushroom

It was really really windy when we were out on the lake so we didn't get far and it started to get really hot so it wasn't the best canoeing time ever but it was still fun.  Eli didn't like it as much as me, he made faces.

Oh Eli!

I'll post about the rest of the trip in a later post, there are lots of lovely pictures to share. 

Lady Jane Gloves

So I heard back from Knit Picks today that they are going to publish my very first for-pay pattern!  I went ahead and uploaded it to Ravelry at the 1.99 price point.  I was waiting to upload it until I heard from them so I could decide what price to place it at.  The whole experience ended up being really fun.  My pattern testers were great, my model was awesome and things just really clicked with the whole project.  I think I've learned a lot and have really gained some confidence in my skills.  I have also sent 2 proposals to Twist collective that I'm really excited about so I'll get working on them either way once I know if they are interested.  So anyway, without further ado, here are some of photos of the lovely Michelle wearing the Lady Jane Gloves.

 

The photo shoot was fun but it was so hot and humid.  I'm glad I didn't do a heavier makeup on her because it would have just run everywhere.  The wind was a bit high too, but that just ended up giving the shots some drama.  These were taken in the area right outside my back door.  I love it because there are so many interesting buildings and alleyways to photograph.  

 

buy the pattern now