Tools

Like any trade or craft, the tools you use can make all of the difference. They can make your experience pleasant or frustrating, satisfying or infuriating. Knitting is no different, the tools can make or break the experience. Believe me, I have knit cheap acrylic on old metal needles and I have knit cashmere blends on handmade wooden needles - there is a difference, a ginormous one.

I have a confession: Three years ago, I didn't realize that you could buy yarn places besides the big box craft stores. Yes, really. Stop laughing.  I realize this is ridiculous, but there it is. I remember looking at magazines like Interweave and wondering where people were getting these yarns like Berroco and Malabrigo, since I sure wasn't finding them at JoAnn's.

Enter me finding a local yarn shop (lys) near me through a friend (who has now since become a partner in the lys, how awesome is that?). I walked in and started fondling squishing the yarn they had there. That, my friends, was the paradigm shift that shall never be reversed. Once you have felt and knit with quality yarn, you will never want to go back to the cheap stuff. Ever. There are affordable nice yarns, acrylic blends even, that I use, but they are not cheap in the sense that they are of inferior quality.

Long story short, I walked out with a sweater's worth of nice yarn, became a regular customer of that store, never even went to any other lys, and now I work there. It's just perfect. I get to be with pretty yarn all day, help people pick out the right yarn for the project, help them fix mistakes that come up, and I get to pet all the pretty stuff that gets shipped in. My version of heaven, right there.

Where was I? Tools, yes, tools. Yarn is definitely an integral tool, and I have some favorites for sure. Three Irish Girls was my first indie yarn crush and it will always be at the top of my list. Yarn Love is another awesome indie dyer, she makes some amazing colorways, and they have an amazing depth and richness. Madelinetosh is another fave, along with SweetGeorgia. I am a sucker for rich colors that aren't super bright, and all of these companies fit the bill for me.

My other tool necessity is good needles. I learned on old fashioned aluminum straights, but found them clunky and not super fun to work with. Clover bamboo needles were the next step, when big box was my only option, and they did the job, but they have been in exile for a few years now. You see, when I found the good yarn, I also found the good needles, and WOW what a difference! I did that first good yarn sweater on Addi Turbos and was amazed at the difference.

Those are great needles, but I have been lucky enough to find my perfect needle since then - Dyakcraft They (a husband and wife team) make their wooden needles BY HAND in Vermont. Seriously, the awesomeness knows no bounds here. They have a huge amount of color choices, different needle lengths, interchangeable sets (which are my favoritest in the whole wide world. I may or may not have two sets on order in addition to the ones I already own). They also have their Heavy Metals which are the only sock sized interchangeables that I have ever heard of, and they are also awesome. I ordered a couple of tips to try out in a size 0 (yes 0, they are sized from 0-3) and I really enjoyed working with them. and then there are the Northern Lights metal needles in same sizes as the wooden needles, plus a size 3. I have these too (big surprise, right?). They were my first Dyakcraft needles, and served as my company Kool Aid. They aren't available right now, but will be again (hopefully) soon.

What could possibly be so great about knitting needles? Two words: swivel cables. Oh yeah. No fighting the cable on your circulars anymore, it rotates freely in the ferrule that attaches to the needle and it means easy knitting for you. The tips and finish on the needles are amazing too - all done by a person, not an automated robot.

I should note that I don't work for Dyakcraft and don't get anything for waxing poetic about the awesomeness of their needles. I'm totally open to that, don't get me wrong, but this post is just from a fan.

Darn Pretty Hazelnut needles playing with Three Irish Girls yarn - Curiouser and Curiouser above and Enna below

The process of a pattern

On Wednesday, my first pattern was published with Three Irish Girls. It was a very long process and I am still in awe that it has actually happened. I thought it might be fun to look back over the entire experience and recap it for anyone who might be interested.

It all began with a blog post by Sharon of Three Irish Girls. It was a call for designs that would feature her yarn, which just happens to be my favorite yarn. I had been wanting to start designing for a while, but hadn't been able to totally pin down any concrete ideas, and I wasn't sure I could do it.  This call just seemed like it was meant to be - yarn I want to work with, collection I would love to be a part of, and the timing was perfect.

Task one: prepare a submission. Super simple, right? You just write about your idea and make a little sketch and you're done - yay! Except no. Not simple. Well, maybe it is for some people, but it wasn't for me. First of all, there are a LOT of decisions to be made for each design and you really need to have them all made before you send off your proposal. What yarn, what gauge, what silhouette, what construction method, what details, what kind of fit at different points on the body, what kind of neckline, etc, etc. Let's just say I had a lot of work to do since I was starting from a very not specific place. As in, what I had at the outset was 'a cute girls' sweater'.

I wish I could remember exactly how my idea formed, but I really can't (in my meager defense, the design call came out in November of 2011). I am glad that it came together though! I poured through stitch dictionaries to find the right details and checked through the Ravelry database to make sure I wasn't reinventing the wheel.

Things actually clicked! I found what I was looking for and I even had an idea of how I wanted to do it. Given my tendency towards indecisiveness, this was huge. I knew I wanted to work the sweater from the top down, somewhat because of my preference and somewhat because that seems to be the preference of most knitters lately. Set in sleeves, since a raglan line wouldn't work as well for the square neckline I wanted. Gathered bodice, patterned band at the underbust, cables down the sides of the body. Slightly puffed sleeves with a patterned band at the bicep, and a cute ruffle at the cuff.

The Side Cable

Bodice Plan

Whew! Lots of decisions! But, they were made and I was really excited about the whole thing. Hard part of the submission is done - or not. There was the small detail of sketching my design. I can't draw. At all. Lucky for me, you can find these things called croquis online that can give you a body shape to work with, that helped a lot - it saved me from trying to draw a sweater on a stick figure. It took an embarrassingly long time, but I finally had a sketch that didn't look like a 3 year old drew it and that got the idea across of what I wanted to do.

It was a huge relief to have that part done, now I had the parts of my proposal, and it was time to put them together. Unfortunately for me, formatting in Word did not go smoothly, but after lots of different attempts (and a lot of four letter words), I had everything I needed in the format required. It was both exhilarating and terrifying to hit the 'send' button and officially throw my hat in the ring. I knew it was more or less a Hail Mary, but you never know if you don't try, right?

Submission was sent at the end of December, and at the end of January I had a response in my inbox. I clicked and saw a line thanking me for my submission. Huge exhale, brace for the 'thanks, but no thanks'. Except it was a 'thanks, we loved it!' I seriously almost fell out of my chair from the shock. My then 9 month old was the only one in the house that I could share my news with and, to be honest, he wasn't all that impressed. I, on the other hand, was on cloud 9 for days.

Then reality sets in - I have to actually write a pattern. As in, completely figure out how to make this idea in my head appear accurately in yarn form and then have instructions clear enough that other people can make the same thing.

That's a daunting task, especially for someone like me. You see, I don't seem to be a typical designer. I didn't spend years always changing or tweaking what I was knitting. I followed the pattern - always. I knew I could change things in theory, but I was always terrified of screwing something up. So, this whole start knitting something from scratch with no predetermined pattern? Terrifying. Fear is not the boss of me, however, and once I have decided to do something, I am going to do it. Stubbornness for the win!

My first attempt didn't work. This was a bit of a blow because it was supposed to work. Because I wanted it to. The yarn didn't get the memo, so I started over, pouring over my copy of Barbara Walker's book Knitting From the Top and was determined to do better. Thankfully, I did. I created a sweater from an idea in my head and it fit an actual human - the one it was meant to fit even! It was not perfect, but I was thrilled.

Good first version, but there were things that needed to be tweaked: neckline is a bit too narrow and needs a little something above the gathers, and the sleeves are bordering on ginormous.

Back to the drawing board to fix those things. It was easier to go back and rework the details that needed it than it was to figure it out the first time, thank goodness.

I got my shipment of yarn from Three Irish Girls next and it was time to get started on the REAL DEAL sweater. Oh, and that minor thing called writing and grading (sizing) a pattern. No biggie, it just totally determines whether or not the whole goal of the project is a success.

Enter many, MANY hours spent focused on tables of standard sizes and my notebook as I calculated a gazillion different measurements. I was really happy to find a Craftsy class on grading that taught me how to use Excel to grade the pattern - saved me hours of work! I finished the pattern, finished the sample, took a few pictures of it, and sent it off - I actually DID it!

I had a few months to enjoy the satisfaction, and then came the editing. Let me just say that I am SO, SO thankful for my friend Trisha who wound up being my technical editor. She caught my silly mistakes, helped me fine tune some areas that needed it, made sure things were consistent across all sizes, and plain old taught me a lot. My pattern is so much better now and I have her to thank.

Fast forward almost a year (this was not the original plan, but life happens, even with publishers, and there were a few delays) and publication comes to pass. It was surreal to see my pattern for sale. It's still surreal to see it on Ravelry. I hope this feeling never gets old.

I am grateful that I had this chance. I'm not sure I ever would have pushed myself out of my comfort zone to try it if it hadn't been for this opportunity with Three Irish Girls. Sharon took a chance on me, she knew this was my first pattern. My knitting life has been forever changed by this in the most positive of ways.

I am the boss of my knitting.

I am the boss of my knitting. Most of the time.

I am knitting a beautiful sweater for my mom. She is undoubtedly knitworthy - she taught me to knit when I was a child and is the first one I turn to when I need someone to watch my kids. I saw a pattern on Ravelry and it screamed 'MOM!' at me as soon as I saw it. I got yarn that would work in a color that she liked and knit on. It goes quickly, I finish the body - yay! I am ready to move on  to the collar and find this direction: Sew shoulder seams.

It seems like such an innocent sentence, doesn't it? Simple, to the point, can't be that hard. Seriously, the shoulders are each 9 sts wide, so there is minimal area to screw up in, right? Wrong. I sewed the darn shoulder seams somewhere around 10 times and was very unhappy with how not neat and tidy it looked. If it had been an underarm seam, I may have just let it go and moved on, but the shoulder is pretty visible and my failure would stare me in the face anytime I saw this sweater, so I was determined to beat sew it into submission. I may be a wee bit stubborn sometimes. Maybe.

What to do if the 10 ways you tried look crappy? Call in the big guns - like a friend who owns a yarn shop and knows a lot about seaming. I get the tip to keep the pieces laying flat instead of trying to do it with right sides together in sewing. I get a diagram and it seems like it will work - yay! Until I try it. it looked like this:

Seriously, this was the best one. I was underwhelmed too. So, off I go to my lys for backup. It starts off well, but then that bumpy part on the right comes out again. Apparently it was not caused by my ineptitude (by itself anyway, I totally admit that I may never have seamed shoulders before - I can't remember). So, it looks like the stairstep bind off is the culprit, and I leave feeling slightly vindicated.

Plan: undo the last stairstep that is 2 rows higher than the others and retry.
Execution: not great. I can't make it look good after the first few stitches. Apparently I do not play nicely with stairstep bind offs.

New plan: Rip back all the stairsteps and short row those babies. That way, I will have a smooth row to seam.
Execution: 2 sets of short rows added to each shoulder section. Brilliant idea hits - ditch the seaming and use a three needle bind off instead. Brilliant idea actually pays off and the shoulder looks like this now:

 

Ignore the little hole on the top half, that is gone now that I wove in my ends from adding more yarn. Short rows used more yarn than the original bind off.  Totally worth it. I may not have used seaming, but I totally was the boss of these shoulders.

Learning new things.....

I am a sponge. Whenever I have dove head first into a craft - which has been often throughout my life, though never as completely as the current knitting obsession - I can't get enough. I want to read about it, try new things with it, and basically wrap myself up in it.

For past few years I've been completely obsessed with knitting. Needles, yarn, patterns - you name it I've bought and used it. This may have something to do with the fact that this is the first knitting phase that I learned you could buy knitting supplies somewhere other than a big box craft store. The difference in quality is astounding and once you've found the good stuff, you'll never want to go back!

So much of knitting is old hat for me, I learned the basics from my mom and the knitting magazines she had when I was a kid, maybe 8 or 9 years old. Knit, purl, rib, decrease, increase, I've got it. But the great thing I've found is that there are always new and different ways to do some of the same things. There are books out now completely dedicated to hundreds of different ways to cast on and bind off, hundreds!

I took a chance to try something new while I was knitting on my current project (Ease). I had found information about the tubular bind off and decided I could use it on the bottom hem of this sweater. It is not a quick process. At all.

Okay, I take that back. It wouldn't have been nearly so time consuming if I hadn't decided to try this out on a hem that consisted of 200 stitches. I tend to jump into things instead of trying them out on somethings small and safe. It's a sickness, but I'm dealing with it.

Back to the bind off - it is worth it. This is the blog post by TECHknitter which explains it step by step. (If you check out that post, poke around on her blog for other topics, she's a knitting savant with a gift for explaining things to the rest of us). So, I sat down and went to work. The set up rows went pretty quickly, the separating of the stitches was a bit tedious, but I kept at it. The kitchenering took an entire episode of Downton Abbey. Still worth it.

After the 4 setup rows, the sts are separated onto two separate needles

A neat edge. Or non-edge almost, it's like the knitting just wraps over the bottom.

As you can see from the pictures, I change from 'daytime yoga pants' to 'sleeping yoga pants'. I love these pants.

Yumminess!

A friend of mine pointed me to this recipe for homemade graham crackers yesterday and I had to try it - I LOVE graham crackers. A lot.

Learn a few things from me:
1. Do not ignore that little voice that tells you maybe you should buy more parchment when you are at Target.

If you do, you will have enough for one cookie sheet only and will have to figure out another solution. For the record, these bake perfectly on stoneware.

2. Do not try to use your Vitamix to mix the dough. Don't do it. Seriously.

I was trying to avoid dirtying my mixer bowl since I wanted to make bread later and thought 'Hey, I always hear that the Vitamix can do whatever a food processor can do, I should use that'. The motor started smoking. This is actually impressive considering how powerful the motors are, I may deserve an award. It is also possible that there is a special way to mix stiff doughs that I don't know about - I used the regular canister, not the dry blade one. Not sure if I'm brave enough to try it.

3. Don't let your dogs taste these. They will become obsessed.

I would like to say, in my meager defense, that I did not purposefully give these to the dogs. One fell off my cooling rack as I moved it from the stove area to the island and dog #1 got one. Dog #2 got part of one when tiny boy had one in his hand and I couldn't tell if she licked it or not. When in doubt, I always get the kid a new one!

4. If you want these really crispy, roll the dough out closer to 1/8" than 1/4".

My thinner ones have a nice crunch, the thicker ones are chewy. I never thought of my inability to roll dough out evenly as an asset, but look what I learned without even trying!

Homemade Granola Bars

I originally found the base recipe for these on Money Saving Mom, but I am having a hard time finding the original link, so here is the version I make (this is double of what the original called for since the original was pretty thin, the picture above is actually quadruple - everyone in my house LOVES these).

1c. Peanut Butter
2/3c. Honey
1/2c Coconut oil
2c Oatmeal (I've been using old fashioned, but any kind should do)
1c Sunflower seeds
1c Raisins
1/4c mini chocolate chips

(you can use any mix-ins you like, you will just want it to add up to 2c.)

To save time and cleanup, I usually heat the jar of coconut oil in the microwave to liquify it and then pour it into my liquid measuring cup. Then, once you have that poured into your pot, you can reuse the measuring cup for the honey and it will slide out nicely instead of being a sticky mess.

In a medium pot over medium heat, melt honey, peanut butter, and coconut oil until everything is all melty and combined.

Take it off the stove and stir in oatmeal and your mix-ins.

Spray a 8x8 pan with cooking spray or grease it with butter and then spread your granola bar mixture in it with a spatula. Sprinkle the mini chocolate chips on top and press them in gently so they adhere nicely (the back of a spoon works well for this).

Cover and place in the fridge for a couple of hours until firm. Cut into squares and enjoy :).

Chicken Wild Rice Soup - Mmmmmmmm!

So I had some wild rice and I wanted to make some soup. I searched for recipes and found one as a good starting off point here. I then proceeded to follow basically none of the directions and alter amounts and add ingredients.

Here is my version:

1/2c butter
1c diced onion (more or less, dice up a small one and call it good)
1c diced carrots (again, more or less, not exact - I used 4 mediumish carrots)
1t salt
1/2t pepper
1/2c flour
4c chicken stock (I used a box of broth from Trader Joe's, I love that stuff)
2 c water
1/2c wild rice, rinsed
2c cooked chicken, diced
1/2c cream
1/2c milk
more salt and pepper if desired.

Heat a large pot over medium heat and melt butter. Add onions and carrots and cook for a few minutes until the veggies are beginning to soften. Stir in flour, salt and pepper and cook for about a minute to cook the roux (butter/flour mixture) and keep it from having a raw floury taste.

Slowly pour in  broth, stirring while you do it to help incorporate the broth into the flour/veggie mix (a whisk can be handy for this, but isn't necessary). Pour in the 2 c water and the wild rice. Turn up the heat to bring the soup to a boil, then turn it down to low and simmer for about an hour. You want to simmer it until the wild rice grains have softened and started to open up.

When the rice is cooked enough, stir in the chicken and the milk and cream. Take a taste and add salt and pepper if you'd like. I  added about another teaspoon of salt here, but my broth was low sodium (not sure why I had that kind on hand, but I digress).

Serve and make lots of yummy noises as you eat it. This soup would be out of this world with some homemade bread.