J'existe!

I do exist, it's true.

New skills recently acquired:

(1) Helical knitting:



Grumperina's tutorial says it all. It's easy and it makes you feel like a stud. Also reasonably in style at present.

(2) Latvian braid:



See the dark blue bits? That's a Latvian braid. I learned from the instructions in the Victorian Christmas Stocking pattern (such a lovely pattern), but the Ohdessa Knits tutorial looks pretty good. Plus she's got these bright pink manicured nails.

3. I can't knit dishcloths to save my life.

Seriously. I can do some pretty nifty stuff, knitting-wise, but the simplest of projects leaves me flummoxed. In fact, I have a Rav friend who is similarly challenged - she even designed this remarkable shawl pattern - and so of course I've challenged her to a duel of ugly dishcloths. We've each agreed to make two dishcloths by the end of March to demonstrate our inability to make a simple square. I've got one down, and I'd show it to you, but (a) you don't need to vomit on your keyboard, and (b) there's going to be a voting round, and we've agree to keep the dishcloths more or less under wraps until the time comes.

But seriously: wait for it. These are gonna be hilarious.

Yarn Ho 4 Life

One of the many reasons to love Hill Country Weavers is the owner, Suzanne. In an email to the SHELTER design group today, she said (and I quote with permission), "I have had 30 years of being a Yarn Ho... It is hard to shut it off."

Suzanne has been instrumental in bringing the SHELTER design project to life, and it looks like there will be more design projects from the same group of lovely Austin designers, among whom I'm privileged and a bit astonished to find myself counted. I'm going to sleep every night with color schemes and pattern ideas in my head.

For now, check out Brooklyn Tweed's blog post from today and his mention of the design project. It's exciting to see our work featured so elegantly.

In other news, I have also learned a new skill: entrelac!

Generally, I don't like to complain about tech issues in my blog, because that seems discourteous to the readers. I should have just figured it out, y'know? Well, 30 minutes later and I can't understand why this picture is showing up sideways:

The other shot seems okay...

But then I realized. It's entrelac: duh. The internet magically understands that entrelac goes first one direction, then another. It's just helping me stay on message!

It's a long story why the Michael Chabon book appears in the image. Just know that it is a positively superb book full of intrigue and imagination, and you should all read it right away, right after you visit Brooklyn Tweed's blog.

HCW Gift Certificate for Grabs

Psst. Head over to TT820's blog for a giveaway contest. She's one of the other designers in the Shelter project. You could win a free pattern from her store plus a $50 gift certificate to Hill Country Weavers. Good stuff!

Hill Country Weavers Releases Shelter Patterns

What a delightful Christmas gift, to wake up and see that Hill Country Weavers now has all of the Shelter designs available for download and hard-copy purchase.

Back at the beginning of the fall, HCW approached a handful of local Austin designers and asked us to design a project using Brooklyn Tweed's Shelter yarn. I am flattered and, frankly, still a bit amazed to discover myself among such talented company, and if I were more excited about this design project I'd be tap dancing on the Christmas ham. (Wouldn't go well, there's a basting sauce.)

Allow me to present my pattern Sarah Rose:

As you're looking around, please check out the patterns from the other designers as well. (Sweater-ophiles like me will get stretch marks in their queues from all the sudden growth.)

The yarn itself, Shelter, is sturdy, versatile, and soft. Even high-end wools can bother my neck, but this yarn didn't give me one bit of itch the evening I wore it. (I confess to spoiling the surprise to the trick-or-treaters on Halloween; I figured that was safe as knitting has yet to take off in the under-10 crowd.) While I'm often the first to go looking for substitute yarns, in this case, you should really look into ordering the yarn that's called for, because it's such a treat to work with.

Happy holidays!

Betrayed by a Towel

Hi there!

So tonight, I'm talking to a friend and teaching her to knit (inject quick dance of triumph and glee), and I mentioned some story or other. She said, "Right, I remember reading about that on your blog."

And I said, "I have a blog?"

Not really. But you know.

Tonight, I'm going to interject quick pictures of knitting - mostly WIPs, 'cause that's all I got - with a story that I personally find hilarious.

My husband has been sick the last few days with a fever, poor thing. (That's not the funny part.) Last night, he felt so achy that in a fit of desperation, he slathered himself with Icy Hot.

Unrelated knitting picture #1:

Later, I followed him to bed. I washed my face, and reached for a towel to dry myself off.

Unrelated knitting picture #2:

My first thought was, "This towel smells like Icy Hot."

Unrelated knitting picture #3:

My second thought was, "WWOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWW!"

My husband managed to get a picture of me:

(I bore a strong resemblance to Tommy Lee Jones in Batman Forever, I think.)

See you soon, Kid 'N Ewe!

We're headed to Kid 'N Ewe tomorrow morning, bright and early - and not just to shop.

We're running a whole booth full of hand-dyed, handspun yarns. Strand Fiber Reserve debuts this weekend with one heckuva showing!

Say hi if you see us at Kid 'N Ewe!

Sorry, Rangers. I'm Ambrosia.

We went to a Rangers game (regular season, nothing fancy) a few weeks back. I brought some knitting. Lately I've been committed to working on a few larger projects, so I found myself running out the door with only a few minutes to find something portable. This is right after the most recent Knitty came out, and I just so happened to have 2 balls of Noro Silk Garden sitting out. I decided to work on a Spry hat.

Now, some might say that intarsia is not the best choice for a live sporting event. Perhaps. The concrete floor was sticky, and I was more worried about dropping one of the four mini-balls of yarn on the ground than I was about the game. Still, I pulled it off.

My fella might beg to differ. Josh Hamilton hit a home run and got something like two runners in? I'm not sure, because everybody in the whole stadium stood up and cheered except me with my four mini-balls of yarn in my lap that I didn't want to spill in the beer puddles.

"What are you doing?!" my fella demanded. "This is incredible!"

"I can't, I'm doing intarsia!" I told him, desperately stuck to my seat.

This didn't go over well with him. He brought it up again on the way home. "No, no, no," he mimicked. He did his imitation of knitting, which looks kind of like a baby playing with chopsticks. "Sorry, Rangers, I can't stand up and cheer, because I'm ambrosia."

At any rate, I survived the game and later finished the hat:



Here's a shot of the intarsia:




(Intarsia isn't that horrible. Really. It just gets a bad rep from knitters whose husbands have tried to take them to a baseball game.)