On hold and dreaming

As I sit here listening to Stephanie Dosen‘s dreamy, whimsical music, on hold with something for work (frowns at phone) I decided that this would be the best time to update everyone on what’s going on in my fibery world. My dream of a scarf that would show off complementary handspun yarns and be cool and cute is nearing completion. The Betty & Veronica Scarf is in it’s testing phase! I’m still looking for testers, so if you are interested, go check it out here.

It took a lot of prototypes to get it exactly right. One of the first things I realized was that I couldn’t block the scarf, because it only flattened out the ruched look I was going for:

My next foray was great, except that I pulled the ribbed edging together too much, making it look rather ruffled instead of simply having a gentle edging:

Now that I’ve knit this scarf four times, I’ve finally figured out how to make it look “juuuust right,” as Goldilocks once said. After everyone finishes testing it and gives me feedback, I’ll be able to tweak the pattern and publish it for everyone else to make! Ok, the phone is ringing and the music has ended, so I’m diving back in!

P.S. – Almond Crush Pocky is delicious.

Image by Robert Otani

I am officially published!

IT’S HERE! MY FIRST PATTERN! I DESIGNED IT ALL BY MYSELF!

Ahem, and now back to your regularly scheduled programming. No seriously, I am very excited about my pattern. People have been favoriting and queuing for a couple days now, and I was getting anxious because after I wrote it up, it occurred tom e that I needed test knitters to check my work and make sure I didn’t make a mistake! So I dawdled, people found my errors, and now it is finally ready to go, a day late. I’ve been having so much fun watching people favorite and queue the pattern – I’m up to almost 80 hearts! – and cast on and knit it as well.

This was so freeing – I feel like I can design anything now! Now go check out my work, and knit it up if you so desire!

Ruched Sleep Eye Mask

Rainforest mask

Hester made me a shawl in 2008, and along with it she gave me the remnants of the Alchemy Silk Purse she used, about 40 yards. I’ve not known what to do with it until now. The first ruched sleep mask I made was out of cotton, and I like the idea of a fanciful silk one as well. Based on how much worsted yarn it took to make my other prototypes, I wanted to attempt a DK weight and see what the difference would be. I knit this yesterday, and, as usual, it worked up quite fast. This yarn seems more like a heavy fingering or sport weight than a DK weight yarn, so I had to knit it on size 4 needles! Shoot me now. I cast on 23 stitches, and surprised myself by only using 22 yards!  However, this yarn proved to me that the mask really does have to be knit with worsted weight yarn. I had hoped that a DK weight yarn would make for an even lighter, fluffier mask, but the DK is just too thin for filling in all of those holes between the stitches and its limp as well. It’s meshy even when knit tightly. Since I had the extra yardage, I decided to make up a backing. I cast on 19 stitches, knitting it flat, and used up about 17 yards of yarn. I’m going to alter this backing and add it to my final design as an “extra” element. It’s gorgeous, but not really as useful as my last eye mask. It’ll be a nice eye pillow.