Because We Really Needed More Snow

It's Day 2 of Portland Snowpocalypse Fashion Weekend!

Today Chloe and I are sporting our lace berets and I've got on my favorite cowl. OK, it's my only cowl. Honestly, I think cowls are weird.

Chloe's beret is knit from Caron Naturally Caron Spa in Naturally (what a mouthful!) from the pattern Sirle by Suvi Simola. The yarn has been discontinued, which is truly a shame because it's one of my very favorite wool-free DK weight yarns, even if it's a bit splitty. Good thing I still have several partial skeins of it in my stash! This beret is a discarded first attempt at the Christmas hat received by one of my sisters-in-law, and even though the brim is a bit wonky, I love it as much as she loves hers!

My beret is knit from Knit Picks Gloss Fingering in Sea Spray from the pattern #24 Lace Beret by Kate Gagnon Osborn. 

My cowl is knit from Knit Picks Chroma Worsted in Mesa and Knit Picks Bare Comfy Worsted. The Bare (undyed) doesn't seem to be available right now, so here's the dyed version of Comfy Worsted. The pattern is the Herringbone Mosaic Cowl by Elizabeth Elliott, published in the Interweave Knits Holiday Gifts 2012 issue.

All this snow will probably be washed away in the several days of rain that is scheduled to arrive tomorrow with warmer temperatures, so I'm happy and grateful to have gotten the chance to take my little girl out in the snow and show off so many of our favorite knits! :D

Snow!?!?

Bust out the knitwear, everyone! It's SNOWING!  In PORTLAND! Imagine that!  Let me take this opportunity to put on a little fashion show for you!

My ushanka is knit from Knit Picks City Tweed HW in Snowshoe (how apropos!) - pattern #7 Cabled Hat by Deborah Newton, appearing in Vogue Knitting Winter 2010/11.

My entrelac scarf is knit from Knit Picks Chroma Worsted in Mesa. Chroma makes the most gorgeous entrelac projects. No specific pattern. I have developed my own method of doing entrelac that uses slip stitch edges and invisible lifted increases for the increase triangles. Perhaps a tutorial for that is in order, too?

Chloe's bonnet is knit from Lion Brand Vanna's Choice in Espresso and Burgundy, and Lion Brand Wool-Ease in Blush Heather. As you know, I test knit this pattern so it's not available yet, but I will link as soon as it is!

Smocking Tutorial

Smocking! It's one of the design features of my upcoming pattern for the chunky billed cap I designed for Tanya, and as it's not a super common technique, and my husband took such lovely close ups of my knitting hands, I'd like to share a tutorial here, just for you.

Smocking is a method of gathering two or more columns of stitches into a slightly pinched bunch, and looks like this --> 

It can be achieved a couple different basic ways. One is to create an elongated extra stitch to lay across the front of your smocked stitches. This stitch is then worked together with the first stitch in the smocked group to keep your stitch count the same. It also results in a slightly slanted smock, since the elongated stitch gets pulled upwards to be put on the needle.

Another method, the one I'll be detailing here and the one used in the Tanya cap at right, uses the working yarn to wrap around your smocked stitches before continuing on with the rest of your row. Because this doesn't create an extra stitch, there's no need to work any decreases before you continue, and the smock is perfectly straight.

In this example, I'm smocking 3 stitches together. First I'll show this using an extra cable needle to separate out my stitches to be smocked, and then I'll show you how to move the stitches back and forth to achieve the same end result if you don't have a cable needle, or just don't feel like digging one out.

Smocking With a Cable Needle

 1. Knit the stitches to be smocked. In this case, there are three. Transfer those stitches from the right needle to a cable needle. Your working yarn should be to the left of your stitches, since they have already been worked for this row.

 2. Bring your yarn to the front and wrap it left-to-right across the front of your stitches. Continue wrapping around the back until you've made a full circle.

3. Wrap the yarn once more so that you have two loops of yarn wrapped around your stitches. Transfer the stitches on the cable needle back onto the right needle and continue on with the rest of your row!

Don't pull too hard on the yarn - you only want the smocked stitches to look a little pinched, not strangled.

Smocking Without a Cable Needle - or, the Back and Forth method

 1. Knit the stitches to be smocked just like in the above method. Then, keeping the working yarn in front, transfer them back to the left needle.

2. Wrap the yarn left-to-right across the front of your stitches and move the yarn to the back.

3. Transfer the stitches back to the right hand needle and bring the yarn to the front. (Sorry, no picture of this, will try to get one.)

 4. Repeat steps 2 for your second loop.

5. And finally, move the stitches back to your right needle again so that you can continue on with the rest of your row.

Again, try to avoid strangling your stitches!

Lacy...

I'm blocking a gauge swatch for a new project! Can anyone guess what it's going to be?

I won't really be able to get officially underway until I make another Tanya Cap (maybe to be renamed?) and get the pattern for that written, but once I math it out, I'll be ready to cast on hundreds of stitches!

My Sunshine

Every year since I moved to Oregon, I've gotten to enjoy a unique meteorological phenomenon that I call, rather unoriginally, "February summer." For a week or two, or even three, every February, the sun comes out and temperatures soar well into the high 50's or 60's, until inevitably, the clouds, rain, and arctic chill come creeping back for another few months.  This year, it came a bit early, starting just after the new year, and as of yesterday, we've officially bid the teaser summer of 2014 farewell.

I got to take the photos of Chloe in her new blue sweater while the sunshine still lasted, and I was afraid that once the rain set in, it would be too late for a photo shoot of her in the fairisle bonnet I was test knitting, but it turns out my baby girl is a true Oregonian after all! We went out for a walk in the misty drizzle this morning, and I got some really great shots in the overcast light.

The pattern for this cap is by Nuria Pastor and will be available soon at http://www.bezencilla.com/en.

I also took the opportunity to snap some decent non-phone pics of the chunky billed cap I designed for Tanya. I'm nearly done writing the pattern out, but I'm going to have to knit another one before I can submit this pattern for testing, because I am going to need some good progress pics to illustrate some of the trickier construction points. I improvised some fairly non-standard  methods to get the look I wanted, and I think without photos, the pattern will make no sense to anyone who buys it. :P

Giving Back

My test request filled up in less than 24 hours! So exciting to know that five people are currently knitting the sweater that I designed for Chloe. Exciting and nerve-wracking. There has already been a bit of confusion with my chart design.

One person is modding the sweater to be a standard length suitable for a boy, and I'm really looking forward to seeing how it works out for her and incorporating the mod as a length option in my pattern! Woot!

In the meantime, a lovely mom new to my playgroup circle has commissioned a chunky cabled billed cap, designed by yours truly. She's sent me some photos to give me an idea of what she's looking for that but the realization of her dream hat is entirely in my hands!  Any commission work is awesome, but when I get to design it myself and maybe even create a new, publishable pattern from it? Score!

shh... work in progress

Simultaneously, I've decided to throw my needles into the ring as a beta knitter myself, and I've volunteered to test knit a nerdy fairisle bonnet for another designer. Yes, it's a tad bit overwhelming to think of juggling it all, but hats are small projects and it's all just so thrilling - I feel like I've really taken the next big leap in my knitting career, from pattern-follower to pattern-maker. It's kind of a headrush.

Intro to Designing

Yeesh, I am terrible at blogging. Sorry. I have resolved to do better.

And I mean that! I made several resolutions this year in the general vein of most people's resolutions - stay fit, eat more veggies, etc. But two of my resolutions were specific to my knitterly self - challenges that seem daunting and even perhaps a little tedious, but which I believe will pay off in so many ways if I can really stick with them!

One - I will stop ignoring this blog. Its little bookmark toolbar button taunts me, but I so often feel that I have nothing interesting to contribute, and even if I do, I've already written it all on some project page on Ravelry, or gone into lengths on Facebook, and I don't want to hash it all over again. But I so admire and adore those women who have truly found their home in the loving, knitwear-ensconced arms of their blog readers. Stephanie Pearl-McPhee! Rachael Herron! Kim Werker! I know I can make this blog into something better. Something not utterly forgettable.

Two, and this is where the rewards involve actual money (needles crossed!), I will publish a pattern. An actual, original design by yours truly. I will be a real designer.  I have dreamed of designing for years but I'm such a neurotic perfectionist that I could never bring myself to actually ask for money for anything I'd just improvised.  But, I've been a stay-at-home-mom now for over a year and a half, and failing repeatedly at selling handknit sweaters and scarves and hats, not because they're bad but frankly because they'e too good, and therefore too expensive for anyone who might stumble across my dinky little Etsy shop.  If I can make a pattern, a pattern that people love and lust after and will happily pay even $5 for, the return on my time and labors will be SO much more.

For over a month now, I have been working on a sweater for my daughter, with the intention from the get-go that this would be my first non-free pattern published on Ravelry. I took extensive notes, charted like a woman possessed, and did ALL THE MATH. SO MUCH MATH. I finally finished the sweater - what was supposed to be a sweater dress but turned out merely tunic-length - this week, blocked it, and took the niblet out into the glorious Oregon January sunshine, and took nearly a hundred photos.

Meanwhile, I have spent hours and hours (I didn't even keep track of how many) writing the pattern to a publishable polish. Creating the charts in a spreadsheet, turning them into images that could be popped into the pattern document. Adding in the photos of niblet in her new sweater. And then EVEN MORE MATH to make a larger sized version, since I feel like a jerkface charging for a pattern that only comes in one size.

And now it's been put out there in my pattern testing group on Ravelry for beta knitting and initial feedback. I am so nervous it's making me kind of ill. What if everyone thinks my style of pattern writing is totally incomprehensible?! I've never written down knitting instructions for someone who didn't live inside my brain! If I have to scrap large parts of it because they just don't make sense to anyone not me, I think I may cry. Or vomit. We shall see.

On the other hand, maybe my testers will think my pattern is genius! They'll tell me its clarity is refreshing, its layout is stunning, its charts are works of graphical spreadsheet wizardry.

One can only hope.