Monday Making

As a freelancer, I occasionally have to take time to assess where I am and where I am going. I think of these assessments as incredibly fruitful and certainly a lot more thought-provoking than when I used to get assessments in my pre-freelance working days! As a result of this past week's re-assessment, Fourth Edition is now part of my on-going thought process, so you will begin to see new content creeping into the corners over the next few weeks. Don't worry - I will still be waffling on about knitting, sewing, making, and books on my blog. The new content will be straightforward things such as a list of the craft classes and courses I'm teaching etc. I might even add a diary of said courses some time this decade! Steady on! Mondays tend to be my weekly day of relaxation - funnily enough I am often at my most productive on Mondays too. It is almost like I relax by making things!

I just cut out the pieces for my Crepe dress. I'm using Nigerian wax-print cotton. It is going to be quite .. loud, I think, but also rather funky. There are some very cool Crepe dresses in the Flickr photo pool. I hope to make a second, dressier version of this dress for a summer wedding next year, so I am essentially treating this version as a fancy toile/muslin version.

Note to self: next time make sure the fabric is wide enough for the skirt pieces. The cotton is relatively narrow and I had to be rather clever about how to cut out the pieces along the grain line.

My autumn knitting project, Norn, is knitting up quite quickly. I have been taking a couple of days off from knitting due to my on-going wrist problems, but up until Friday I had managed to get a couple of rows done here and there.

I am absolutely loving this: the yarn is soft and fascinatingly heathered; the pattern is easy and intuitive; the result is just beautiful. All projects should be like this. I've used 3 balls of the main colour so far and I'm halfway up the body. I should be fine with the amount of yarn I have, then. Phew. Incidentally, I'm knitting this using my usual two-hand colour knitting method. I get stared at a lot (yes, I'm back knitting in public).

Finally, I cannot show you pictures of a design-in-progress but here is a photo which may (or may not) provide you with a clue.

I am in two minds about using myself as a model in my patterns. At my last knitting group session I was sitting next to my friend KOS who is currently working on Karise. It was rather unnerving to have my own face stare back at me throughout the knitting group.

So, if you are an aspiring model/actor/musician living in Glasgow and you need something to pad out the old portfolio or CV, I'm your lady. No money involved, just the chance to impress the knitting community. Or maybe I'll just need to come to terms with the entire staring-at-myself deal.

What You Can Do With Kaldred

One of the best things about designing and writing patterns? I get to see what people do with my idea. It is immensely gratifying and so, so, so cool. My crochet bracelet pattern, Kaldred, has been the subject of a crochet-along on Ravelry and people have come up with really fantastic projects.

And it was all kick-started by Merri who arranged the crochet-along after seeing Debi's this stunning version:

Crochet cotton with beads. Debi chose very earthy, bronze-like colours for her Kaldred and I think her Kaldred looks flirty and fun.

Colour choice play a huge part in determining your look. Denise of FabEWElous chose to make her Kaldred out of black crochet cotton and added jet-black beads for effect. I think this version does indeed look fabulous: very chic and very gothic.

Shelley of CrochetedSass has made several Kaldreds, each with their own style. She even made one as an ankle bracelet! I really like this particular bracelet, though. Shelley explains that she thinks this one is more a cuff than a bracelet and I agree: this chunky Kaldred looks casual and contemporary.

Thank you for allowing me to use your photos, ladies!

I'm sure there are many other ways you can use the Kaldred pattern. Why not use it to make a necklace or a headband? Use a very chunky/bulky yarn and make a scarf? Add sequins or buttons? I think it is one of those patterns you can vary endlessly.

ETA: Oh, my word. I just love this version crocheted by Anne (aka FrozenP) in gimp. So textural:

Swatch Done; Now Moving On

One crap Johnny Depp film later, and I finished my Rowan Fine Tweed sampler/swatch. I still need to steek and block it, but I'm very happy with how it turned out. I also learned that I have to watch my tension on the diagonal stripes section as it does pull in a bit. I cannot wait to start knitting the jumper in the DK weight.

The yarn is very soft - softer than I thought it would be, actually. The red shade - Bainbridge - has lovely tiny flecks of orange running through it. I love that about it. However, I'm wondering if the single-row stripes shouldn't be a third colour? Navy? Apple green? Brown? Brown might just work.

We watched Roman Polanski's The Ninth Gate which I remember seeing in my favourite Copenhagen art-house cinema back in the late 1990s. I remembered it as a real Euro-trash turkey and I was right. However, I had forgotten its high camp value which went some way towards making it watchable. Look! Depp has grey temples! Now he doesn't! Oooh, the bad stunt double is flying and you totally cannot see the wire-work!

I remember liking the book, The Dumas Club, on which The Ninth Gate was based. I also remember the book having a great of interesting sub-plots which had been completely exercised from the Polanski film - most notably the The Three Musketeers sub-plot which gave Pérez-Reverte's novel its title. Oh, when bad films happen to decent books.

Speaking of books, I am current reading Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle. I shall be forever grateful to Lori that she made me pick up a Vonnegut book in the first place. I'm having a slow day, a day off, and I shall now return to my favourite reading space with a cuppa tea, my favourite blanket and Cat's Cradle. August is off to a good start.

PS. thank you for your comments on swatching/not swatching. You are a bad bunch - just as bad as me! - for not always swatching!

Blogging & Mainstream Media

The British newspaper, The Guardian, want bloggers to become part of its Life & Style network. I have a lot of time for the Guardian. It is the only newspaper I buy on a regular basis and I admire its recent editorial stance on the UK phone-hacking scandal. But I'm not so sure about its call for bloggers. The Guardian wants to hear from "[p]rospective partners [who] will need to have traffic figures of at least five figures". This is the really interesting bit:

The first possibility is a non-commercial content-sharing model, where we swap stories. (..)What's the advantage to you, as a blogger, you ask? The Guardian site has a huge reach (..). Your content will appear on our site, which we hope will give it the showcase it deserves, and get you higher up those all-important Google rankings than you might otherwise be.

This wouldn't bring you any money, though. For that, there's a commercial possibility, where the Guardian Select team sell premium advertising across publisher blogs and sites.

So, The Guardian gets a blogger with a proven demographic readership. From a marketing point of view, that is excellent news. The blogger gets to be associated with the Guardian brand. If I read this correctly - and I may not do so, because I do not know anything about detailed textual analysis mixed with cynicism - it does sound very 2004 to me.

I think it was Ewan Spence who pointed out that some bloggers have more of a readership than some regional newspapers. Food for thought: is it worth a blogger's while to associate him/herself with a newspaper?

In other news, the podcaster from A Playful Day has responded to my reluctance to knit in public and Fridica has responded to both me and A Playful Day. I'd be interested in hearing from other people's KIP experiences - both good and bad.

A Mountain of Garterstitch

Summer in Scotland is over after three glorious days of sunshine. Thankfully damp weather makes for excellent knitting weather.

This is my Sea Glass shawl. A mountain of garterstitch. Beautiful, earthy, bouncy garterstitch. Perfect for knitting group and late-night knitting when I just need something brainless to work on. The rows are long although I'm just one-third through the shawl. It is so therapeutic just to knit, though.

July has not been a fun month. It has been a long, hard slog of a month and just when I thought July was improving, things just went downhill again. I shan't be sorry to see the end of this month. Onwards and upwards. Autumn knitting is nigh and that is a cheering thought.

Speaking of which, Levenwick. It ticks my boxes. I even have a lot of Rowan Silky Tweed in a wonderful mustard yellow kicking about. However, I did buy that particular yarn with Acer in mind.. and I want to start knitting Finna as soon as I can get my hands on the book and the yarn. Decisions, decisions..

Thank you all for the thoughtful comments on knitting in public. I am still going to take a break from knitting in public, though. I feel the need to be vaguely invisible in public right now - I am one of those introverted types, you see, and I need solitude more than I need interacting with strangers. So, I'm going to stick to reading and I won't even choose outlandish books. Quiet and unassuming, that'll be me for the foreseeable future..

.. a bit like garterstitch, really. And hopefully I can get all bouncy at some point too (beautiful and earthy will be a stretch).

Knitting In Public No More

As a blogger and a social media type, I think frequently about privacy issues. It matters to me even if my face is plastered across Ravelry and my full name is easily uncovered. Yesterday I joked I was going to sue if my little private gathering of knitters were declared 'the next cool thing' in Scottish newspapers. Well, we just ended up having our photo tweeted by some UK television personalities. I might have thought it a fun little interlude (just like when we appeared on TV) if they had actually asked our permission before taking the photo. They had not and I am not amused. I respected their privacy; it would have been nice if they had afforded me the same courtesy.

(ETA Wednesday lunchtime: They have pulled the photo with an apology. I really appreciate that. Thanks.)

And then tonight I was knitting on the bus home. A rather thuggish group of ladies congregated around me and stared as though I were juggling sharp knives. That was a very long bus ride.

I think it is time to retire my knitting in public, at least for a little while. I'm tired of being a circus performer for other people's blooming amusement.