No test anxiety involved

Shh. Testing is in progress. But no worries, no stress or anxiety involved because there are no right answers.

Or maybe there are right answers in knitting. I don't know: unless the answer is a knit '42.'

Finished the write up for Tettegouche last week and sent the call out for testers via 'the testing pool' on ravelry. A few preliminary findings:

• Checking the charts over and over again before inserting them into the final document was a great way to save headache and extra editing in the end.
• Remember: break at the section to change the direction of the pages for extra long charts (and it's okay to have to look up this formatting on google every time I write up a pattern)
• Super cool trick: 'edit' choose find > replace - you can find certain text and replace it with other text. That m3 I decided should be written as k3into1 ... SO EASY TO CHANGE! This made editing the written section so much easier. I dread hunting through to find the mistyped stitch to replace it. I must have used this section 5 times already and I know I will use it again!
• DO NOT post for testers on a Saturday morning. Lovely people did contact me and several are testing ... But if I shall be gone all day Saturday it means I can't respond to people until the following morning. Sadly this resulted in several ladies committing to other tests.

But the PDF is sent, and knitting shall commence. This is a fun time, I enjoy seeing the yarn that others choose and seeing the pictures as people post and compare. I've often had testers ask if they can change the weight of the yarn or size of the needles. This would only be a problem if all the testers made this change. When one person changes the specs of the pattern for their knit ... It is educational. It lets me know that the pattern works in different yarn weights. It helps in the decision of which needles to recommend or whether more notes are needed on a gauge.

While the test happens I have a simpler knit along with the second sample of Tettegouche. The new knit is buttonwillow in yellow. So of course I called it butterwillow. The testing is a fun phase stage of the design process and so a new fun knit is required.

Hope everyone else is also having fun.

Be excellent to each other!

Pattern writing ... The font of creative ideas and procrastinating

Tettegouche sample #1 is off the needles. The yarn for the final knit is chosen and started.

The photo is from knit group on Sunday morning. Behold the glory of coffee in the background.
Here's my checklists for Tettegouche and starting a test knit on time (two weeks):

1. Select final yarn for test knit (for photography) -DONE
2. Do another edit of charts for pattern. -DONE
3. Begin writing the instructions and giving some sort of story to pattern. -DONE
4. figure out how to change the orientation of pages within document - did it last time and totally forgot how it works.
5. Finish writing chart section. -DONE
6. Finish writing up the written section.
7. Stop procrastinating on writing the written section.
8. Advertise test knit.
9. Coordinate with knitters.
10. BEGIN!

So, the list is going well. The writing is begun, but the worst is yet to come.
I don't knit from written directions - I am a visual person and work from charts, all the time. Formulating the written section of the pattern is always the hardest and always includes the most mistakes. But it can be rewarding. Especially when I finish and it has no mistakes (after correction from the lovely testers).
The list of Tettegouche is begun. And today ... Today I fell into the trap that is "pretty shiny oh want!" that is a new idea for a pattern.
At Yarnover last year I bought one thing. Buttons. They are glorious, made from vintage linen they satisfy so many loves, recycling, antique things, pretty pretty fabric, and BUTTONS! The goal with these lovely buttons has always been to knit a lovely cardigan to accompany their awesomeness.
Today, while procrastinating on the Tettegouche list, I drew a pretty picture!

AND! With my beautiful buttons I plan to use my beautiful handspun cormo! Can't you just see it? Squish it? Smell the fresh and comforting aroma of handspun wool?
I can. And someday when I should be writing up Tettegouche I will be starting this sweater.

Be excellent to each other!

Picking yarn by smell

Tettegouche sample knit #1 went very well. I love the color variation. But I am very well aware that the color variation will not photograph well and represent the stitches and texture of the shawl.

So I must knit the shawl again - mwahahaha!

I traveled to my local yarn shop for the purpose of finding that special skein of yarn that MUST become this shawl. I looked, I hunted, I asked for help. Both lovely gents at the store pointed towards different yarns. One started pulling skein after skein down and piling them on a table for me to dabble in.

As we picked yarns and created a larger and larger pile on the table I realized I had a problem. All the yarns were in aqua, blue, teal, emerald and seafoam. They all matched previous knits: Leaves & Trellis, twin leaf socks and Flores Gloria! ALL OF THEM! GAH!

The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem. I put down the twisted sister and three Irish girls. I admitted I had a problem and the lovely gents came to my rescue. Among a box of glorious blues and oranges was a solitary skein of Dragonfly Fibers in Ye 'Ole Chestnut.

Pine, Lake Superior, fog, campfires, hikes along dirt paths, moist earth - I can smell all those when looking at this yarn. It is Tettegouche in essence. At 475 yards it will make a glorious second knit.

The yarn is glorious. The snarly terrible mess that was winding the yarn was painful. It's like they has wound separate sections around different niddy-noddies and then combine them all together in random clumps. As you wound you would sometimes be pulling from the top section, sometimes from a winding further down ... And then to the top again. The strands were crossing! GAH again!

After several breaths and a round of a game with hubby I returned to the skein and found a solution in putting the hank around my knees and slowly pulling it apart by hand and then using the winder. An hour long process - but it worked. Knitters are nothing if not steadfastly determined to use beautiful skein.

The wound skein is sitting in the project bag waiting for the pattern to be written and testing to begin. Again, hopefully mid-October. The charts are about done, I just have to determine on garter or interesting edging. Interesting always wins, I just have to find the shorthand for a single stitch cabled over two other stitches. C1F2? Like the edge in the picture below?

Once I figure that out the rest will write up really easily and then if the fun of testing! Fun!

Be excellent to each other!

Designs and donuts

An eventful weekend has come and gone. The weather cooperated fully. Saturday morning saw my lovely red bicycle loaded and ready for the 20 mile round trip to a friends to make homemade apple cider donuts! Doesn't your mouth just water thinking about tasty fresh donuts.

Following the success of Saturday I attended a new knitting group on Sunday morning with a friend of my new roommate. The people were amazing! A diverse group of fiber enthusiasts, people knit, spun, crocheted, and just came for the talk. Plus, any group that gets together on evenings to watch doctor who or swaps vegetables for canning supplies - they're shiny.

On this particular Sunday I had extra cause to be joyous. The first version of Tettegouche is finished! (Not blocked). Without blocking the lovely blueberry stitch and wavey edging aren't that easy to see: but they are there!

With the first knit off the needles I'm beginning to refine the charts (make sure there are no mistakes) and, more excitingly, hunting for the next yarn for the final sample knit. I'm torn between more Madeline tosh light and this lovely dream in color smooshy. I think Steven Be is in my future. Perhaps for some slate, blue grey yarn. I think that will be right color.

 

Adversity leads to creativity ...

Last Thursday I came down with the crud. Probably the flu. Whatever it's name it laid me flat and stomped all over my poor respiratory system. I spent several days on the couch and bed, eating soup for every meal and pounding more tea than humanly possible.

Today, I've finally recovered enough to work and write.

With the prolonged periods of couch time I spent some fruitful hours working on the much neglected Tettegouche shawl pattern. Pouring over books and knitting swatches I finally came up with an edging I like.

Behold!

It's a really bad photo taken on my lap, but you can sort of see the undulation of the edge. And you can definitely see the lattice like formations between the body and edge. It will look sweet!

In my mind, I see this shawl also in a silvery green/blue color. Like slate. The color of the rocks up on Lake Superior.

Now to try and find that color to knit this shawl again as a test of the pattern and create a solid colored piece for photographing for the final PDF.

My new self-imposed deadline is to start testing mid-October. Interested?

Also, if you know of a lovely wool yarn in a slate green/blue that isn't too dark and would show stitch defnintion really well, please!

 

Be excellent to each other!

 

I think I can ... I think I can ...

Two + years and counting. The galadriels mirror shawl has been on my needles for two plus years. I wrote about this shawl last time, how I was going to finish it, how it was beautiful, how it was terrible for my tendonitis.

It is terrible for tendonitis.

The twisted stitches are brutal, the k2tog twisted stitches are the speed bumps in my knitting road.

And it is still unbelievably gorgeous. I've been knitting every few days for a few weeks now, and it feels as if I have been 10 rows away from the end for the entire time. The photo was taken two weeks ago, and it still looks like that today. I've knit tons of rows.

Someday it will be done. Someday I will bind off and then find somewhere to block the enormous 80" shawl (I'm guessing, but I think it will be that big).

When I finish I will finally return to the shawl I am designing name Tettegouche. When I finish I will ice my hands for a week and stow this shawl away for the MN state fair creative arts competition next year. When I finish I will applaud every other knitter who has finished this amazing pattern. And then I will spend the next month only making dishcloths - before I decide to tackle another amazing and complicated pattern.

 

Packing the knitting

We're moving! Everything gets packed.

The other day all the knitting said goodbye to the light of day.

The sad part of this story is that the knitting is going to live in these containers when we move. We will have slightly less storage space and space overall. So my lovely shelf, upon which all the yarn didn't fit anyways, will now be used for linens and the yarn is going to live in the dark, under the bed.

At least it will have the knitting machine for company. And sometimes the cat. He likes to sleep under the bed.

Happily, I found a project that I had hidden at the bottom of a project basket. It is Galadriel's Mirror by Susan Pandorf.

This project has been in progress for two years. It is an exquisite design ... But unhappily for the tendonitis knitter it involves twisted stitches, wrapped stitches, and bobbles/nupps. Both twisted stitches and bobbles/nupps require working on the wrong side as well. If you don't twist the twisted stitches on the WS too they look funny. But bobbles are tedious. But I cheated and did nupps, which create five new stitches in one. And then on the WS you purl all five stitches together creating a lovely rosette looking bobble. And I cheat further and use a crochet hook to gather the nupp stitches which make them lean left instead of turning into a rosette. But at least my hands aren't so badly abused.

Also, never ... Never ever use any sort of cotton blend for a large complicated shawl if you have terrible hands problems. Never ever. That is half the reason this shawl was difficult. The yarn has no bouncy give. Nothing. But it does look smashing in person. Lovely cotton/silk blend of Lyndon hills Bristol yarn gallery in grey. Lovely in person.

My hands were mostly abused when doing the main body. Which is why this lovely shawl has been sitting in the bottom of a basket for a solid year. Poor thing. It is now in the light of day, and I've finally reached the knit and purl edge section that occasionally has knit togethers and yarn overs for shaping. Moving along slowly, but ... This year ... This year it can be done.

So, fair warning. Go slow tendonitis knitters. Use stitch markers. And most important ... Do not shame yourself, feel badly, or bemoan those projects that languish under the basket of other pretties. Sometimes they just need a bit of time to percolate, and think about how badly the non-springy yarn treated your hands.

 

Be excellent to each other!