The Knitting Pirate

Day Seven: 3rd April. Your knitting and crochet time.
Write about your typical crafting time. When it is that you are likely to craft – alone or in more social environments, when watching TV or whilst taking bus journeys. What items do you like to surround yourself with whilst you twirl your hook like a majorette’s baton or work those needles like a skilled set of samurai swords. Do you always have snacks to hand, or are you a strictly ‘no crumbs near my yarn!’ kind of knitter?

I always carry a sock with me, and so if I have more than a few minutes to wait I can knit wherever I am. But when I’m at home, I shut myself into my cat-free loft room, settle in front of my laptop, and spread the yarn out on the table. Especially if it’s a project I’m slogging through, or not particularly enjoying the work on, I’ll force myself to knit so many rows or so many inches and then give myself a reward of checking Ravelry or another website. But if it’s a project I love, then I can’t wait to work on it. As soon as dinner is over, I dash off upstairs, tossing a quick “Going to knit! See you later!” over my shoulder to Pirate-Husband as he’s booting up the XBox or his laptop.

Knitting while watching TV (or streaming Netflix on my computer) is frustrating in that I can’t really pay attention to the knitting or to the TV show, but I sometimes put on music. More often, I work in quiet. My cup of tea usually goes cold while I work. While I often knit “alone,” I’m not truly alone as I almost always have IRC running and am chatting away with friends. Sometimes I go to the #ravelry channel and sometimes to another network.

Soon we will finish up the basement craft room and then I will have another place to sit and knit – but now I won’t necessarily be alone, as there will be plenty of room in the new space for Pirate-Husband and I to work together on our hobbies. I will have to get used to working along with his music, and he’ll have to get used to my muttering “44.. 45.. not now, counting! 46, 47..”

I do miss going to the weekly Stitch ‘n Bitch. Although I didn’t always get very much knitting done, and sometimes I had to rip back everything I did do while I was there, it was always a fun time to socialize with other yarn addicts. It’s unfortunate that I haven’t found another group as good as my old one!

Day Six: 2nd April. Something to aspire to.
Is there a pattern or skill that you don’t yet feel ready to tackle but which you hope to (or think you can only dream of) tackling in the future, near or distant? Is there a skill or project that makes your mind boggle at the sheer time, dedication and mastery of the craft? Maybe the skill or pattern is one that you don’t even personally want to make but can stand back and admire those that do. Maybe it is something you think you will never be bothered to actually make but can admire the result of those that have.

There’s very little that scares me about knitting anymore. Even the most complicated lace pattern can be broken down to doing it one stitch at a time. Turning a short-row heel, a process which once left me nervously knitting a scarf while procrastinating on the sock, no longer fazes me. Colourwork with three colours in one row? No big deal. (Slow going, but not intimidating.) Entrelac? Doesn’t interest me, but I bet I could do it. Steeking? Sure, why not?

No, for me the aspiration is design. I have so many designs in my head that I want to knit up and write up and publish. I have both well-imagined patterns and vague ideas to work from. But I knit slowly, and often get frustrated with poorly-written patterns. What really intimidates me now is the time it would take to figure out the complex patterns I want to knit, and the idea of knitting them not just from a poorly-written pattern, but from no pattern at all.

So what’s on my list to design?

The green lacy sock that I began in Cookie A.’s class several years ago
Several more simple sock designs, one with a little bit of colour and one with texture
A Winterlude-inspired hat and armwarmers or gloves/mittens set
A pattern inspired by the geometric shapes of a bridge I crossed on a road trip
A shawl that uses the same motifs in both a triangular and a rectangular version

It’s going to take me *years* to get these things done, and that’s what’s most intimidating about it!

Day Five: 1st April. And now for something completely different.
This is an experimental blogging day to try and push your creativity in blogging to the same level that you perhaps push your creativity in the items you create.

There are no rules of a topic to blog about (though some suggestions are given below) but this post should look at a different way to present content on your blog. This can take one of many forms…

ODE TO A SOCK

O sock, O most-loved knit garment
What joy there is in your embrace!
Such happiness I take in knowing
That while I run the daily race
My toes will stay dry and warm-

into the shoes you now must go,
Hide your delicate stitches from sight.
While the winter wind’s still blowing
My feet need not fear frostbite,
My mood will never be low.

People laugh, and people tease,
For socks may still be bought with ease.
But store-bought socks cannot be said
To bring pleasure like the socks I made.

(Okay, so I stretched the rhyme a little from the first verse to the second, but it still sort of works. Mostly. And as for that winter wind, even though it’s technically Spring, it’s freaking cold outside! I am indeed wearing handknit socks today.)

Day Three: 30th March. Tidy mind, tidy stitches.
How do you keep your yarn wrangling organised? It seems like an easy to answer question at first, but in fact organisation exists on many levels. Maybe you are truly not organised at all, in which case I am personally daring you to try and photograph your stash in whatever locations you can find the individual skeins. However, if you are organised, blog about an aspect of that organisation process, whether that be a particularly neat and tidy knitting bag, a decorative display of your crochet hooks, your organised stash or your project and stash pages on Ravelry.

Once upon a time, my entire yarn stash fit into this picnic basket. The top tray held all my tools, needles, and the ball bands from yarns I’d used. Underneath, I put all the yarn I owned. These days I laugh at that. The top tray of the basket still holds tools, but the main compartment is now completely reserved for handspun yarn – and it’s filling up!

I bought a bunch of large plastic totes at Costco, and sorted my yarn into them. One holds only sock yarn. Two are stuffed with raw alpaca fleece waiting to be carded and spun. A third has my collection of dyed fiber and a fourth has batts that I’ve carded and haven’t yet gotten the chance to spin. Yet another tote is for heavier yarns and leftovers from previous projects. I don’t have a picture of the totes, because it’s not really that impressive.

Right now all of this resides in my loft room, but the plan is to move them downstairs when Pirate-Husband and I finish building out the craft room in the basement. That should open up a lot of space for me upstairs. Who knows, I might even start letting the cats go in there!

Almost every yarn I own has been photographed, and each one has a listing in my Ravelry stash. That helps me to keep track of what I own, and when I’m having a bad day I can pull up the stash photos and think about the different projects that I’m going to make with all that beautiful yarn. I like making lists, so I’ve crosslinked my yarns with the projects in my queue. Of course, I don’t always work from my queue in order… but at least the organization is there.

Day One: A Tale of Two Yarns.
Part of any fibre enthusiast’s hobby is an appreciation of yarn. Choose two yarns that you have either used, are in your stash or which you yearn after and capture what it is you love or loathe about them.

Let’s get the bad out of the way first, shall we? Noro Kureyon Sock. I want to love it. There’s so much about it that I could love. The colours, the striping, the rustic thick and thin, the way it softens in the wash. But then… I just can’t stand knitting with it. It’s hard. It’s rough. It feels like knitting with cotton because it has very little bounce and stretch, so it actually makes my hands ache after a few rounds on the sock. But every time I see it in the store, I want more of it. And the Stripey Striped Sock really is gorgeous. Maybe it would be better if I crocheted it? Or maybe I should just never buy it again.

But then there’s Cascade Heritage Sock. There is nothing about this yarn I don’t like – except maybe that it’s difficult to find some of the colourways in stores. The Cascade website shows Heritage in a multitude of colours, but even WEBS doesn’t seem to have most of them.

I’ve already made two pairs of socks out of this yarn, and there are two more skeins in my stash waiting to be knit up. (One of them will even be for myself!) It’s smooth and soft, but machine-washable and sturdy. I used it to design the Cakewalk Socks, which gives it even more of a place in my heart. The same yarn is available in solid colours, and also in 150g/492 yard skeins. I think it would be great for colourwork socks, too, although that may be a little on the ambitious side for my current knitting schedule. Maybe I could use it for colourwork armwarmers instead… ah, there I go, dreaming about the future again.

Are you ready? Knitting and Crochet Blog Week is coming! Run by the inimitable Eskimimi, Knitting and Crochet Blog Week is a “week of blogging for knitters and crocheters, where individual bloggers could all simultaneously post about the same topics over the course of seven days, so that for one week readers might be able to read from blog to blog and enjoy a community of bloggers all talking about elements of their craft in their own unique way.”

I’m really excited for this. Not only is it great to have a week’s worth of blog prompts, but it’s so much fun to read everyone else’s take on the same subjects at the same time. I can’t wait to see what the topics are! Last year, they were released a little in advance to give us time to consider and maybe even write some posts ahead of time.

Once again, I visited my sworn-sister the Knitting Ninja (along with a bunch of other friends) in her hometown of Ottawa for the annual Winterlude festivities. In addition to the usual things we do there – eat stew at the cook-off, drink lots of beer, buy fancy cheeses and make a meal of them, watch the Super Bowl – we visited two yarn stores.

Our first stop was the new Yarns Etc., where I acquired a skein of Cascade Heritage Paints in the understated blues and grays “Thunder” colourway. Understated blues and grays… if you’ve been following along for a while, you may have guessed that this is going to be socks for Michael. (And if you haven’t, now you know!) I have no idea when I’m going to get to them, and first he has to tell me where the last pair of socks could fit better, but eventually there will be a new pair of plain ribbed socks for him.

Since it was within blocks of our hotel, we walked down to Yarn Forward. Last year I’d gotten two skeins of Lang Merino 120, a smooth DK weight superwash yarn, in black. This year I supplemented them with three more skeins, one each of cream, green, and blue-ish. The colours aren’t exactly wintery, but somehow they remind me of winter. Blue and green are more springlike, but with the cream in there they make me think of ice. So I’m thinking of designing a Winterlude-inspired hat and armwarmers set to be my very first for-sale patterns.

To that end, I wandered around the ice sculptures in Confederation Park looking at, and sneaking pictures of, people’s hats. There was lots of inspiration to be found, since of course in February in Ottawa it’s cold enough for nearly everyone to be wearing a hat, and many of them are hand-knit.

Many of them also have earflaps, which was my motivation last year to knit the hat that I didn’t want to buy. I finished sewing the lining into my Winterlude Hat(tm) just a day before leaving, and got the cords in with some help from Pirate-Husband, and was quite pleased with how warm it was while I traipsed around Ottawa. There are a couple of things that I would change, if I were to be making it again: first, I’d make the earflaps wider. They are wider than my ears, but still let wind in unless I tied the cords under my chin. And second, I’d make the lining a teensy bit larger, because it felt as if the hat kept riding up on my head unless I tied the cords under my chin. So third, I’d make the cords a couple of inches longer, because it was hard to tie them while wearing gloves. Even without those things, I absolutely love my new hat. Wearing something made of yarn I spun myself is so gratifying! The polar fleece lining kept me from having a terrible case of hat hair, which is definitely a good thing. (I know I’m squinty in this picture. It was very bright out.)

Speaking of gloves, there’s another finger to repair on my Fleeps. They still kept my hands warm, though I can definitely feel that they’re getting thin. Maybe I can wear them for another year, but then it will be time to make another pair for myself. Meanwhile, Michael’s new Fleeps made their debut and did their job wonderfully. He says he’s going to show them off to everyone, and I totally believe him. The magnet-snaps that I sewed in are seriously awesome. My next pair will definitely have those included.

As a designer, I love to get comments (and constructive criticism) on my patterns. It can totally make my day to see that notification pop up, and to read even the shortest of positive comments.

As a Raveler, I look almost-daily at the new patterns that have been listed and at the patterns my friends have queued or marked as favourites. I might pull up a dozen patterns a day to look at, and put some of them in my own list of favourites as well.

But I’ve noticed something recently that’s made me a little sad, and that’s the fact that I very rarely leave comments on patterns, even ones that go into my favourites or my queue. That’s not cool at all. So I’m resolving to leave more comments on patterns I like! The social aspect of Ravelry is one of its best parts, and I want to make the most use of that by letting designers know when I think a pattern is cute, clever or just plain awesome.

Will you join me?

Hello, 2011! I think you and I are going to get along quite well. The year started off just right, waking up with two little kittens snoogled up to my legs. (Sorry for the crappy quality of the cell phone picture.) Now it’s time to light a fire under myself, because I have lots of plans for the year ahead!

First of all, I know of four babies who are going to be born in the first half of the year, and I’m planning to make something for each of them. I’m well on my way to finishing a (secret) gift for the first one; I’ve already bought the yarn for the second and third and I have sweater patterns picked out. But I have no idea what I’m going to knit for the fourth baby, who is due to arrive in May. Something autumn-ish in a six-month size, perhaps, or maybe a toy.

Second, I want to learn a new skill this year: I want to learn to crochet. Not just to put edging on a hat, but to actually make things with a hook and tangly stuff, rather than pointy things and tangly stuff. There’s a bunch of kitchen cotton in my stash waiting to be made into new Swiffer mop covers, and I keep eyeing this Prairie Star afghan as something I’d love to have over one of the guest beds. (Hm! Maybe I will crochet a toy for the fourth baby, and kill two birds with one stone.)

Third, this year I am going to finish all the projects that are currently in progress. It’s time to get them done and move on, no matter how much I might dislike working on them. Maybe even the hibernating projects, like the Ostrich Plumes lace.

Fourth, I am going to design, knit, and publish a new pattern this year. It may be socks, or armwarmers, or a one-skein fingering-weight shawlette.

The fifth one is the real biggie: There are two rooms in my basement. The front room has gym equipment and a guest bed futon in it, as well as a TV for watching while working out. The back room has the washer and dryer, but other than that it’s been sort of a landing spot for unwanted things since we moved into the house three years ago. I want to rebuild that room into a crafting space. Pirate-Husband is totally in; he wants a space in which he can do leatherwork. How awesome would it be to be able to work in the same room on our projects? To be able to leave the carder or the sewing machine out and not worry about a cat shredding anything in the night? To have a dedicated carding station! And one for leather! And one for drawing, too! To have a lightbox setup that will make it easy to take great pictures! I want to make it a cozy and inspirational space, a room that I’d want to hang out in, a room that just calls out “spend time here! do wonderful things!”

In closing, I’m going to share with you the New Year’s wish that Dad sent, because I think it’s just perfect:

I hope that all of you have a new year filled with happiness, and health.
Set your goals, set your sails and head off.
Let honor and goodness be your guides
Let peace and respect be your muses
Enjoy the journey as much as reaching the destination.

Happy New Year, everyone!

End of year tallying-up post!

Incoming fibre in 2010:
3572 grams / 7.8 pounds – some handpainted top, some natural roving. Nearly four pounds of wool and one pound of alpaca were unexpected gifts to me! And I won a lovely 4 ounces of combed top in the Tour de Fleece, pictured here. It’s the brightest fibre I think I’ve ever owned.

Outgoing fibre in 2010:
Spun 450 grams / almost one pound. Participating in the Tour de Fleece sure helped with that number, but I’m hoping and planning to spin even more next year. Knitting with handspun yarn is a wonderful thing, and therefore I must make more yarn so that I can knit with it. This three-ply Corriedale would make great thick armwarmers, and I have some foresty green and gold merino/silk that would be wonderful as gloves or socks, and some bluesy-green Falkland that would be perfect as a hat.

Incoming yarn in 2010:
28 skeins in, which seems high, except eleven of them are small skeins for the twins’ sweaters.

Outgoing yarn in 2010:
19 skeins out, if I include the almost-done projects in my count. That might be cheating a bit. Twelve, if I only count 100% finished projects.

Here are the things I knit this year! Five pairs of socks, three of which were gifts. One pair was made from my very own handspun yarn. Two baby hats and a pair of baby booties, and an adult-size hat. Three more projects – Michael’s Fleeps, a hat and a secret baby gift – are very close to completion. Wow, I only finished two things for myself this year? Crazy.

Favourite project:
If I have to pick a finished project, Pirate-Husband’s Paraphernalia socks were the most fun to work on. Keeping them secret was part of the fun, and so was modifying the pattern to fit his feet.

If it’s not cheating too much to pick a project that’s not 100% completed, I’m going to say the Winterlude Hat(tm). It’s knit from two-ply Jacob yarn I spun myself, it was a fun challenge to do the colourwork and get it even, I learned how to do a crocheted edging, and it’s going to be the warmest hat ever after I line it with polar fleece.

Least Favourite project:
If I have to pick a project that I finished, I think it would be the Gnome Hat and Booties. Not because there was anything wrong with the pattern, but because the yarn was no fun to work with.

Since I liked everything I finished this year, I’m going to go back to an unfinished project and say the Kureyon socks. I love how they look, but knitting with the Kureyon sock yarn is no fun for me at all. Perhaps I will buckle down in 2011 and get them done, already, and never buy this yarn again. Some people really like it, so I’ll leave it to them.

Patterns Published:
Two! First the Sibling Socks, a fine-gauge sock that grew from the need for a suitable pattern to use with Trekking XXL at 45 stitches per four inches. Then, in a more sensible gauge, the similar Cakewalk Socks.

I’d like to release at least one new pattern in 2011, and maybe even two of them! I’ve got plans in mind, it really will just come down to having enough time to sit down and work on them.