Writers Guild, and a lovely gesture

My old friend, Bev Letsche (not that she's old- she's younger than I am, but we've known each other for 35 years or so- we worked together in the OT department at the State School) is a member of a writers guild in Miller. I've had an open invitation to attend meetings for a long time, but it wasn't until yesterday that our schedules meshed properly. I totally misjudged the mileage between here and Miller, which means that I arrived a half hour late, but the guild members were forgiving.

I don't get to sit with people who do what I do very often- it was wonderful to spend an afternoon with fellow writers.

They let me give the first chapter of MG V3.0 a test run, and I got to hear some wonderful short story excerpts, and poetry. And, as Tory Bauer always knew, the pie in small cafes is wonderful. I don't know if I'll be able to go to the meeting next month, but I'm going to try.

Blog reader and Raveler, Anne, has knit a pair of wristers from my pattern, for a young woman who was severely and permanently injured in a distracted driving accident. Aren't they lovely? And isn't that a wonderful gesture? Thanks for sharing, Anne.

This 'n That- Part 2

American Idol is on three nights this week, which means I'll be writing late into the night tonight, tomorrow, and Thursday. The Top 12 Guys are on deck tonight, and it'll be an interesting evening (especially since Casey got out of the hospital in time to perform). As usual, AI cuts into regular blog time and space, so this will be short and sweet.

My world is still white, but the driveway has been plowed, so I can get in and out. I have done very little driving in the past month- it's sort of nice to be able to do a solo grocery run again:

I finished a small size Winter Garden Hat, and have enough left of the Rowan Colourscape yarn left to knit another this size, if I want to. So far, all of my BT'oKT hats have been adult sized, so it's good to stock up on a few for kids.

And blog reader and Ravelry friend, Georgienne, taught my Fair Isle Fingerless Mitten pattern at the Knitters Retreat at Sauder Village, in Ohio, this month.

Her class used the Freebie Friday pattern to knit their own fingerless mittens. Above are Georgienne's pair.

And then she adapted the pattern to regular mittens. I love how they came out!

Thanks for sharing, Georgienne!

As always, if you'd like to share anything you knit from any of my patterns (from the blog, or any of the books), I'll be happy to post pics!

Quickly

It's not like I've been going anywhere (what with the ice and snow, and it only being about 6 degrees outside), but I still seem to be rushed these days, and way behind on my List of Important Things I Do Every Day, like post here.

I tackled the final Doll sweater with matching fingerless mittens (for both the doll and the Girl). I finished the other three sets long ago, but somehow got stuck on this one, with 1 1/2 sleeves and the front band left to knit. I finished the set last night while watching Mike Rowe butcher a cow (now there's an odd combo).

Frog Girl is getting this set for her doll (and herself). She dyed this yarn well over a year ago- it started out as one of Knit Picks sock blanks. I think I was working on the class samples for the '09 SAFF when it was dyed, and she helped me with that chore, so she got to choose her favorite colors to dye some yarn. If she was choosing these days, I think the yarn would be Neon Yellow and Orange. But she still has a soft spot for pink. I love how it came out, and I think she will too.

And I finished one of the Fortissima "Mexiko" socks (the quotation marks are not ironic- Fortissima's Socka line looks exactly like Opal's Mexiko yarns, and these socks are being knit specifically to replace a missing Opal version). I do love this yarn- and I'm happy that I'll have another pair with this colorway in my sock drawer.
Tomorrow- we have guest paper dolls! Woohoo!

p.s. Small health update: I finally finished the inhaler treatments, and I am feeling okay, not great. However okay is a vast improvement over the last two months, and I am more than happy with okay-ness. Now I just need to remember to take it easy, and rebuild my strength (and get back into running shape) steadily but slowly- I don't want to visit Relapseville.

FO's

I spun and plied a bump of undetermined white roving (which I later determined to be Romney, or a similar long-wool. It's low crimp, not terribly soft, and has a lovely sheen. At the very least, it's Romney-ish), which came out to 5.9 ozs, and 272 yards of 2-ply. And it's going to be socks, of course, though I may have to tinker with my usual sock recipe since this yarn is not quite as thick as worsted, but heavier than fingering. I have at least one more bump of this wool, which I will spin soon.

Pretty, no? And truly, I should be saving the spent marigold blossoms that I've been tossing out, for the dyepot. They make a lovely gold yarn.

And I finished the 80's Blech Colors doll sweater, and it looks much better as a sweater than the fingerless mittens (and please, do not notice that the bottom buttonhole ended up in the wrong place. And no, I'm not tearing it out and respacing it). Who knew there was yellow in the mix? That didn't show up in the larger fingerless mittens at all.

The fingerless mittens turned out cute too.

and here's the whole set- 3 down, one to go.

Still with the Spoonflower and Doll Sweaters

I got another fingerless mitten/doll sweater/fingerless mitten set done. I finished the sweater awhile ago (I wasn't sure where it would end up) and realized that I had enough of the leftover yarns to complete the set. So this group is going in the Christmas pile too. I think the girls will like having matching gloves with their dolls (I would have at that age, and that's generally my guideline. My inner child knows dolls).

Next week's Spoonflower (link in Stash Enhancers) design contest is a Cheater Quilt- a yard of fabric that is designed to look like it was made up of lots of fabrics already assembled- in other words, a cheater quilt. It took me two weeks to put this together, with many many steps (creating the grid, creating each of the colored backgrounds, creating each of the letter blocks, working on the border etc), and though it's not hard to work with a canvas this large in Inkscape (it was 6300 x 5400 pixels), it's very difficult to work with the image in Paint or my other graphics programs. The computer wants to freeze when I try to work on it (and there are some things that I needed to do in Paint, in order to finish it).  I'm glad that the next couple of contests will use a smaller area.

This is a simple design and I will enter it in their contest, but I don't expect it to garner much interest. I want to make it up myself, and I thought I might as well enter it. I already ordered a yard.

And these are the compantion background fabrics (and the backgrounds to the individual letter squares). There's another one too- a peach block- that I forgot to adapt and order. I'm getting a yard of the yellow for the borders, and I ordered swatches of the other 3 colors just to see how they look in person.

I don't think I'll get a Nautical Theme design done by Tuesday (the deadline), mostly because I can't think of one. But the contest theme after the Cheater Quilt is Travel, and I already have a notion for it.

My Son The Artist sent me an old version of Adobe Illustrator, which I will install soon. I've been looking over the book, and I think it'll do a lot more than Inkscape does, and the process is similar, so the transition isn't going to be too difficult. I hope.

btw- this was my first version of the above Cheater Quilt, but I decided it looked too much like one of those Color Blindness Tests. One of the lovely things about Vector Drawing, is that every element is separate, so though it took time to change the color of all of the letters, it wasn't difficult.

Freebie Friday- V-Neck Cardigan and Fingerless Mittens for an 18" Doll

It's been awhile since I posted a Freebie Friday pattern, so it's fun to have one I can share with you all again. The body of this simple v-neck cardigan is knit in a single piece with fingering weight sock yarn and size 3 (3.25mm) needles, with the sleeves picked up and knit in place (though you could cast them on and sew them in afterward, if you want). The matching fingerless mittens complete the set.

My finished sweater weighed (buttons and all) 51 gr, so you may be able to knit the entire sweater with 50gr of sock yarn. But if you want the fingerless mittens, you might want to do the ribbings in a contrasting color if you are using new yarns and don't want to dip into a second 50gr ball for a few yards of yarn. This pattern is ideal for leftovers- make it in stripes, or knit all of the sections in entirely different yarns for a glorious mis-match.

Here's the drill, for those who are new to the Freebies: you may knit as many of these as you like, you can sell them... I don't care. Please don't repost the pattern though- if others want it, direct them here for downloading. If you post pics of the sweater, please post a link to here too. And if you want, send pics to me and I'll post them too. Click on the page images (2 for this pattern) to enlarge, save as jpgs, and then print from any graphics program.

Enjoy!

Sweater Sets and Robots

Short-repeat self-patterning yarns don't lend themselves very well to back and forth knitting. The patterning changes too quickly, so that the beginnings and the ends of the rows (which in this case, mean the fronts of the sweater because the body is knit in one piece) don't match at all. But it's still cute. I do believe that I'll write this pattern (sweater and doll-size fingerless mittens) up and post it this week, for the first Freebie Friday in a very long time.

The whole set includes fingerless mittens for the Girl, a v-neck cardigan and fingerless mittens for the doll. All 3 knit from 100 gr of sock yarn (there wasn't enough left over for a doll hat. I always forget how much yarn these 18" doll sweaters take).

are these cute, or what?

And here's the latest installment in the Spoonflower Obsession: a set of 3 color/cut/sew Robots. I've ordered a sample, and it should be here soon. If the robots go together properly, I'll offer this one through Spoonflower too. I was tickled to discover that someone already ordered the Skirt/Vest/Bag color/cut/sew fat quarter. I'm about halfway done with a Cheater Quilt design (quilt in a yard) for another Spoonflower contest. I haven't tackled the Nautical Theme design yet.

Yeah, I said *obsession*, and I meant it.

Aprons Aweigh

I did finish my apron-in-a-yard design in time to enter the Spoonflower contest. I'm pretty thrilled with it, and I learned a lot about vector drawing as I put it together. I ordered a sample yard, so I'll know fairly soon if the pieces will go together properly (it was designed entirely by pixels- 150 per inch for so many inches wide... etc). After sewing the color/cut/sew doll outfit, I think that Spoonflower's quilting cotton (a lovely fabric for quilting and regular sewing) might be too thin for an actual working apron, so when my sample arrives, I will line the body and pocket (not the ties). That'll make it more durable.

The next Spoonflower contest is a Nautical Theme, and it doesn't have to be a full yard, or even a fat quarter, so though the design will still be plenty of work, the canvas will be much smaller. I have something in mind already for my entry.

In the meantime, I realized that the Grandboy might also enjoy a color/cut/sew item. So I think I'll put together some robots for him. I'll post my progress.

On the knitting front: the Grandgirls' feet are growing exponentially, so I've put sock knitting for them on hiatus until their shoe size stabilizes. In the meantime, I've started on Christmas presents. They have all admired the fingerless mittens that I keep on my desk for chilly mornings, so they'll each get a pair, with a matching doll sweater (and probably fingerless mitts for their dolls as well). I can knit all three things from 100gr of sock yarn, and probably have enough yarn left over for a doll hat as well. And in the name of Stashbusting, I'm using only yarns I have on hand- I feel so very virtuous.

I'm nearly done with the sweater that goes with the above mittens. The short repeat self-patterning yarn is making for an *interesting* sweater, but it's still cute.