If you are knitting or have already knit a pattern that I’m talking about, leave me a comment and I’ll update my post with a link to your version. If you’ve written up a pattern and you want me to link to it, send me an email or leave me a comment and I’ll post it! It makes the list longer and my job easier.

• This Wellenreiter scarf (literally rider of waves) looks fun and easy.
• These cute glitter socks are retro but not obnoxiously so.
• I’ve been looking forward to these Drunken Bees Socks for so long! OMG!
• This Stitch Catalog has been around for a while, but I thought it would be good to keep a record of it. It’s catalogued by stitch count, which is useful.
• The Kusha Kusha Scarf from Habu is cute.
• These Swirl Socks are also cute.
• This Chunky Cable Scarf is also suitable for labelling by a positive adjective.
• Silver Belle has a lot of really cute cables in it and a pretty a-line (a-line, is that right?) silhouette. Example here.
• These Teddy-boos are a-dor-a-ble. I know it’s a sewing pattern, but you could easily find a knitted bear pattern for the bear part and use the Teddy-boo instructions to shape the sheets around the bear you’ve knit.
• She writes that she feels sorta cheap for offering this pattern (and she should) but I’ll forgive her because I like her and she wrote her post all funny-like. Here’s a pattern for a scarf in Fir Cone lace with a garter border, otherwise known as the Stashmina.

FIRST! A question.

I’m taking a vacation in Florida (primarily Fort Lauderdale and Miami, the “foreskin” of Florida) and the Caribbean, and I need some tips. Tips in two forms. Form A: tips on where to stay, what to eat (I’ll try anything once but my favourite food is Thai/Vietnamese/Moroccan/German* and I’d like to try some seafood because I hear they’re good with seafood down there), what to see (museums/architecture/science-y things), and where to shop. Form B: tips on where there is YARN! I need Floridian/Caribbean crafty tips, and I need them ASAP! Also, I could do with an algorithm for converting from Fahrenheit to Celsius and vice versa, because I know it’s going to be hot and I’ll otherwise have no way to complain about it. I only know how to convert to Kelvin, and “mother-loving cripes, it must be 310 Kelvin in here!” does not translate very well.

In return, here are some pretty pictures:

By Liralen Li.

Read the rest »

As you folks might remember, I was gone last week in Northern Ontario. I wanted to post something but didn’t have the time to take photos until now. Here the highlights:

• 8 days
• 5 deer
• 2 adorable baby raccoons (fluffy tails, little masks)
• 3 snakes (two babies, one momma)
• 2 porcupines
• 1 vulture
• Harry Potter 5
• Harry Potter 6
• Chapter 31 of Harry Potter 7 (since finished)
• 3 camp sites
• 1 beautiful sandy beach
• 20 mosquito bites on my right foot alone
• Approximately 50 bug bites in total, give or take
• 3 shots fired
• 2 holes to the right of the bulls-eye
• 2 planned dishcloths
• 0 finished dishcloths
• 3 shades of grey and 1 shade of red:

That’s my artsy brooklyntweed shot, revealing several shoes and some recycling.

Here’s a breakdown of the week:

The first stripe was started on the Thursday or so, but not seriously worked on except after it got too dark to read my Potter. On the trip back, a light stripe was knitted onto that accidentally and then ripped back. Fortunately, there were twelve hours in which to knit, so it wasn’t a huge loss. I spent an hour working on a paper and then knit knit knit until we got to Kingston. It was pretty grueling. I think 3 of the remaining 11 hours were spent trying to sleep to avoid having to boringly continue on the sweater with nothing else to do but listen to the CBC’s boring diatribes on the history of Simcoe Day. Honest to goodness, it’s referred to as “Civic Holiday” by most of Ontario. That’s its actual name. From this, you can extrapolate how boring it was to listen to their coverage. YAWN.

If you’re looking at this and wondering why there are points at the beginning of the armholes, that’s because my gauge swatch was off from the beginning (despite hours and hours of swatching and re-swatching!) and I didn’t realize how seriously off it was until I’d knit 4 or 5 stripes. Seeing as I didn’t have anything else to do except listen to “John Graves Simcoe was the first lieutenant governor of Upper Canada” for the 15th time, I just kept knitting and hoped it would work out. A few days later I decided to accommodate by knitting a larger back section and have the seams shifted forward or backward a little bit. The seam shifts under the arm, which I’m calling a “design feature.” This may be a huge disaster, but it’s my first sweater, so I wasn’t really expecting it to work out anyway. I’m exploring! It’s an adventure.

Someone emailed me asking for a list of Yarnival “back issues,” so I threw together this list. I’ve been trying to link to issues whenever they come out, but I’ve been really busy this last year so I didn’t manage to do it sometimes. Hopefully it’ll be a little better from now on. At the very least, I’ll try to keep this list up to date.

Issue 18, February 15th, 2008: Miss T’s Mystery House of Yarn & Horrors

Issue 17, January 15th, 2008: Confessions of a Misplaced Southern Belle

Issue 16, December 15th, 2007: Fleegle’s Blog

Issue 15, November 15th, 2007: Wry Punster

Issue 14, October 15th, 2007: Stitch ‘n Sue

Issue 13, September 15th, 2007: kelp! knits

Issue 12, August 15th, 2007: january one

Issue 11, July 15th, 2007: Knitting Without Needles

Issue 10, June 15th, 2007: Fiber Fool

Issue 9, May 15th, 2007: Fiber Dreams

Issue 8, April 14th, 2007: mega(k)nits

Issue 7, March 15th, 2007: NotScarlett

Issue 6, February 15th, 2007: The Purloined Letter

Issue 5, January 15th, 2007: Carole Knits

Issue 4, December 17th, 2006: Fricknits

Issue 3, November 15th, 2006: january one

Issue 2, October 2nd, 2006: Needle Exchange

Issue 1, September 5th, 2006: Needle Exchange

I’m once again not impressed with the preview for Interweave Knits’ Fall 2007 issue.

I like the styling for the Hedgerow coat, but I don’t think I’d ever wear it. The Placed Cable Aran looks boxy and shapeless (enough with the boxy and shapeless!) and did they even block this sweater? If they blocked it, they still have some work to do. Maybe it’s the yarn.

I love the cables on the Dickinson Pullover, but again, it’s a bit grandmotherly (that may just be the collar and the photography) and I’m not sure I’d choose it over the other more stylish sweaters I have on my list. I love the little details on the Tangled Yoke Cardigan. It looks a bit short, but that could be modded. I wish I could see the picture of the Concentric Vest, but they only have about 20 pixels of information there. The Minimalist Cardigan is ok and the Luna Dress is quite pretty, but… I seem to be getting the feeling about all of these designs. None of them really spark my interest. Which is too bad, because I was really looking forward to Eunny Jang’s first issue. Oh well, I guess you’re only as good as the best design, and the best design is Eunny’s. (I want to qualify that by saying that it’s just my own preferences; some of the designs are beautiful, just not my style.) I just want more stuff like the Gatsby Girl Pullover, y’know? Why didn’t I just buy that issue instead of bothering to subscribe? Oh well, guess I’ll have lots to put on the destash blog. I’ll wait a few weeks in case some beautiful versions pop up on the blogosphere, but I’m not holding my breath.

Side note: is there anything that Wenlan Chia has designed that doesn’t use her specific brand of yarn? This is starting to annoy me.

I’m back from the Sault*! I’ve got a more lengthy post planned for tomorrow but I just wanted to leave a quick note to confirm my escape from any possible camping-related peril that fate had in store for me, and also to mention that I’m looking for editors for September’s Yarnival and beyond. Cara will be putting out the issue on August 15th, so I’m hoping to get someone sorted out by then so I’m not suddenly showered with submissions that I’d have to forward on.

Let me know if you’d like to edit an issue and I’ll set you up!

* We had a 12-hour drive back yesterday that left me completely exhausted and also completely tired of knitting the sweater I started. Now I’m not sure if I should rip back those 12 hours of progress, but more on that sordid tale later.