One benefit of tech editing

I started tech editing for real in May of this year, after an online class and a bunch of practice in an apprenticeship. And I love it - it appeals to the analytical side of my brain, and to the "this isn't perfect here's what you should do" voice inside my head that I try very hard to keep internal instead of external most of the time.

While I was pretty sure that I was going to enjoy tech editing by the time I started, there has been an unforeseen benefit: namely that I get to see a whole bunch of really, really cool patterns before they're generally available. Sometimes I can't help myself, and I have to ask the designer if I can cast on right away because I just can't help myself.

Two recent patterns I haven't been able to resist: Tabetha Hedrick's Fée Shawlette

Nautilus shawl...

I edited this pattern just about the time I started thinking about a present for Boo's Year 2 teacher. This was knit out of less then a skein of Kettle Yarn Co's discontinued Falkland/Tencel blend, so it's got fantastic drape and a lovely sheen from the Tencel.

Boo was a most enthusiastic model (my little hambone)...

My latest tech editing project is the Santa Maria Scarf from NorthbrooKnits. 

The pattern isn't up on Ravelry yet (although I know it's been released), so I won't give too many details. I'm using my precious one and only skein of A Verb for Keeping Warm yarn. It's their Annapurna base in "Root" (dyed with madder) and was part of the Knit Love Club in 2010. I figured that any yarn with cashmere belonged on my neck, not my feet, but hadn't found the right project until now. 

Pattern is addictive, yarn is luscious, Porpoise is happy. The end.

Reboot II

I am slowly emerging from a fog of post-holiday, moving-induced chaos. There are still boxes everywhere, although many of them are now empty. We don't have wardrobes (somehow all of our previous UK houses have had built in wardrobes so we haven't had to get any), and Boo needs a different bed for her very small room. The loft conversion is full of all of the crap that I don't know how to tidy away yet.

And my office/studio is in a state of right disarray. I can actually move around in the space now (as opposed to before the weekend), and I've got almost all the dyeing stuff up there, if not put away. Its a complete disaster for the most part.

But there are glimpses of what is to come, and it's very exciting.

Porpoise Fur fiber and random stash yarn storage

Personal fiber stash plus bins of yarn for designs.

This room is so much bigger then my previous office space, that I'm having to stop myself from rubbing my hands together in glee every time I look around it. Plus, the floor sends me in to transports of joy whenever I look at/walk on it (we hates carpets my precious...).

Forgotten handspun stash begging to be knit up.

More handspun goodness.

I'll post some more photos when I've got everything in place and sorted out. In the meantime there has been some knitting behind the scenes...

FO blocked and waiting for a photoshoot.

In the meantime, the needles are ready to go!

Everyone stores their straight needles in an empty single malt container, don't they?

Reboot

The last few weeks have been a whirlwind of various life transitions. We've been in the UK as expats for the last five years, but at the beginning of May, Himself's company said "You're going back to Houston at the end of July." To which we replied with a resounding "Hell no!" (OK, maybe that was mostly me). In any event, the decision to stay in the UK was followed by deciding whether Himself was going to change jobs (he's not), and has now been followed by the necessity of finding a new place to live (which had the buy vs rent dilemma, followed by the Hoo boy, we will have to sell a kidney and/or a child to get a down payment right now realisation).

With all this madness going on, I have been seeking refuge in Other People's Designs, and enjoying it tremendously. A couple weeks ago I cast on for Veera Valimakki's Juniper on a long plane ride, in some lovely dark red merino I picked up in Florence with my sister-in-law.

All was going swimmingly, if quite slowly. The sweater is in reverse stockinette, and even though there were directions FROM THE DESIGNER HERSELF in the Unwind Brighton KAL Ravelry thread about how to do it inside out (so mostly knitting instead of mostly purling), I decided to be a freaking purist and do it as written. Purling. Lots and lots of purling. Add to that the fact that I had chosen a pair of blunt and unpleasant hard plastic circulars (the better to deal with airport security) and the result was an unhappy project.

I sat on my couch on Friday night, looking at this sweater yoke. And thinking to myself "Self, you could switch to those lovely zippy metal Addi Turbos you've got upstairs. And while you're at it, we could start over again and do this thing in stockinette."

Juniper is cruising along now.

The next thing I knew I was sitting in the midst of a pile of bumpy red spaghetti, casting on for the neckline again. However, two days later, I'm past where I was when I ripped it out, and am zooming ahead. It's not going to be done by the end of the KAL (that would be tomorrow...), but it should be done well ahead of the worst of the British "summer".

It's good that I've resigned myself to not finishing this for the KAL, because yesterday morning, my lovely friend Allison completely and totally blindsided me with another fabulous Veera pattern that made me drop everything, buy the pattern, print it out, wind up the yarn and start swatching, all before 10:00 am on a Sunday morning (there may have been vast quantities of coffee involved. Don't tell anyone...)

The pattern I'm so excited about is Whispers, a gorgeous ethereal little summer top, knit in fingering weight on large needles, with a loose drapey fit through the body, fantastic fluttery sleeves, and pleats above the bustline. Allison had called me with a sizing question, and when I pulled up the pattern on Raverly, I gasped out loud. Must Have It Now. So we're having an impromtu KAL of our very own. She's using sweetgeorgia Tough Love sock, and I'm going with my second yarn idea: Scrumptious Lace in Cherry, double stranded.

Is that not the most gorgeous red you've ever seen?

My swatch is dry, and the gauge is right on. I can't wait to get started. 

I guess we can call this my Red Period. Either that, or my Homage to Veera Period. Maybe both...

Other people's sweaters

I spent the weekend on a whirlwind trip to western Massachusetts for my 20th undergraduate reunion. When packing for the trip, I ran into that ever-present knitter's question:

How many projects do I need?

The answer to which is, of course: as many as you can pack and still have room for clean underwear. For my three day trip, I took four projects. Two unfinished and two to cast on in case I found myself shockingly without anything on the needles.

The first of my unfinished projects, a shawl for Boo's Year 2 teacher, I finished sometime during my viewing of "The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug". Since my other unfinished project was in my checked baggage, I was forced to cast on something new. Woe is me...I had packed a couple of balls of this lovely yarn,

Firenze fingering in a gorgeous blood red...

so I cast on for Veera Valimaki's Juniper, which is running as an Unwind Brighton KAL. It is such a pleasure to knit someone else's pattern, I can't even...this is a good sign that maybe I've been doing a bit too much on the design side of things recently, although I suspect that most designers don't get to knit other people's stuff. In any event, I cast on in the plane, and have made some progress.

Juniper in progress with funky Instagram filter to make color nutty

I'm enjoying it, although I keep screwing up the teeny tiny cable crosses along the shoulder line. You would think that I would be able to count to four. Apparently you would be wrong. Very, very wrong...

I'm dubious that this will actually be finished by the end of the month (see above mention of presents for teachers!), but I am having fun working on a project that doesn't require that I do any math. Or rather, any math beyond counting to four...

Rhaeadr

The designing process is a funny thing. At least it is for me... Sometimes I get a glimpse of a stitch pattern, or see an intriguing piece of a building that I want to translate into knitted fabric. Sometimes it's something as simple as a shape that makes me spend countless moments daydreaming about how that little piece might work in a larger garment, and puzzling out how to get there.

But sometimes, the image of the finished piece appears fully formed in my head, something akin to Athena's birth from Zeus's forehead. Those are the designs that scream at me until I get them on the needles and out of my brain space. Rhaeadr is one of those screamers, and it started from one simple comment at the October Plug and Play Pembrokeshire retreat a couple of years ago. A comment about the rarity of top-down, textured shawls in the Ravelry pattern database.

From that moment I knew I had to design such a shawl: a shawl that started at the nape of the neck and flowed down the back and over the shoulders, covered with sinuous cables that looked like sunlight dancing off the ripples on the surface of a stream as it flows on its merry way. Those cables would give way to cascading sheets of ribbing, ribbing that evokes the rush of water cascading over the edge of a cataract, hurtling down through space until it explodes in a wild tangle of mist and spray and water droplets flying every which way.

In celebration of the release of this pattern, and the fact that I'm heading off to the US this weekend for my 20th (!!!) college reunion, I'm going to offer 10% off all of my patterns through midnight, Sunday 15th June. And since I'll be in the States, we'll make it midnight EST. Just enter the coupon code "RHAEADR-FF2014" in the appropriate space when you check out, and the 10% will be automatically deducted.

Thanks to SweetGeorgia Yarns for yarn support, and Allison Thistlewood for photography. The photos were taken at Thames Barrier Park and the Cutty Sark in Greenwich, both in East London.