I want to clone this

This is just close up of the stitch pattern. I've had this sweater for 15 years or so and love the fit, pattern, buttons, so I think it's time to recreate it.

Cecily jacket

I've been wanting to try a beaded cardigan for ages now and I stumbled onto this http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/cecily-jacket
I have enough KP Gloss in concord grape OR pumpkin to make it in my size. Both discontinued colors.
SQEEEE!
Not sure these are the exact beads I want so I ordered a bunch today. Love the seed beads, buy everything you think you might want and still spend $8.00. More soon!

Color ideas

I have tile work on the brain and I love these colors - fair isle vest anyone?

In the kitchen with Dinah

I used to sing that song a lot as a kid.
A very long suffering person I work and knit with has been making Rowan's Dinah for the better part of a year now.  This is the sweater.  I don't know why they photographed the poor model in that pose - makes her look kind of insane and the sweater really doesn't show to much effect.  But, if you have a Ravelry account, you can search it there under patterns and see some handsome FO's (finished objects).
Anyway, this poor woman I knit with is making Dinah with handspun, so not only has she had to redo the gauge, but handspun is wonky.  If you've ever knit with it you know; it leans, it does a craptastic job of making shaped sweater pieces, and so the whole project has been a nightmare, but she's almost done and it will be lovely when she's finished.
Perhaps I'm morbid but her struggles have inspired me.  I don't think I gawk at traffic accidents, perhaps I give myself too much credit.
I want to try Dinah myself and here's my materials list:

• Aloft black 
• Gloss blackberrry 
• And size 6 beads.

I think this pattern has a lot of potential, but is fraught with peril, too.  Here's why:
Color placement can wreck it - light on top, dark on bottom or you'll look like a house.  Too light of a color (pink) could make it look bed-jackety in a very unappealing way (for me).  I think those who have actual figures (I kind of look like a 12 year old boy) might want to avoid this pattern.  And for god's sake, don't let the change in fabric happen directly in the middle of your bust!  Doing that a.) draws attention to your boobs in a way that's just going to ruin conversations for blocks around and b.) will make you look like a house.  Think empire waist dress, not mohair waterfall off the chest.
So now that's I've tempted the fates in every possible way with my knitting arrogance, I'm going to make this puppy.  I'm going to reduce the poof a bit and use beads very sparingly to weight the curtain of Aloft.
And yes, this is going to have a bow!  If you know me, the bow idea will be a hoot and a half.
Happy Friday!
p.s. I'm working with my loud Aloft making a scarf - I'll take a picture soon, it's LOVELY - not sheddy, easy to work with, fantastic colors.

Vest!

See where I'm going with this?

It's starting to come together for me.

Fish

New idea, mainly plain black with color patches with fish line drawn in black - I'm playing with images of Japanese fish. Hm.

Progress for that Knitpicks thing

Okay this might seem like decent progress given it is beaded knitting, but actually it is a very easy pattern I've devised.  And I couldn't tell if I liked it or not all weekend.  I'd work on it, hate the bead placement, rip it out, redo, work for 2 hours one night, get up the next morning convinced I was going to trash it.  Somehow it survived my basically having something like KMT (knitting-menstrual-tension) all over it until today when I could take it to work to get coworker feedback.  They made me feel better about it, that the multiple motions meant to give the idea of small waves lapping a beach were working, one even had the brilliant idea to take it outside to see if natural light brought out the sea glass-ness of the beads.  Thanks guys! So, I'll take an outdoor shot once I get a bit more done.  I also want to do it in gray with grey green beads as a scarf  . . .   Here's what we have thus far, plus my hand for scale (sorry if the light nail polish makes me look like an alien - [see number 6 in that link, I first saw this as a teenager back in the 80's]):

And, lucky me, I needed vacuum bags and what do you know, Amazon to the rescue.  So, I went for the extra that got me free shipping - it's LOVELY, totally worth the 19 bucks!

Oh yes, and finally, on the fate of the Lion Hat.  The nice people who commissioned that totally random piece of baby-ware?  Apparently they loved it - honestly.  I was totally prepared to have to do a re-do (they wanted the background in white or something) as one needs to be prepared to do when designing for folks who don't knit or do any of this stuff, but no need I guess.  Now I have leftovers.  Maybe I'll make a baby sweater . . .
Oh, got another idea - an intarsia shawl, lined with silk, with a fish pattern on a black ground . . .

Back from vacation

So I'm still swatching, so no pic of that yet.  I didn't take the swatch with me to NC as I didn't feel like fussing with stupid tubes of beads.  Hopefully tomorrow.
Ashville was nice, Mount Mitchell was amazing.  Highest point on the east coast at 6,684 ft.  Lovely.  Look, no fooling. Don't know if I've mentioned this, but I have this ambition to put together a collection of patterns themed around East Coast hiking.  The how to get it published was what kept me from doing it.  I guess I now have no excuse.  Hiking this weekend gave me ideas for 'Mount Mitchell' a men's aran in dark green heathered yarn and 'Trail to Craig' (this pictures were taken from Mitchell, Craig and the trail between them) which would be a bohus style cardigan done in forget me not colors - bright and pale greens, light tan, soft blue and yellow.   There are many other ideas and hikes - sadly, I didn't have a good camera back when we hiked those.  Better get my butt in gear, age doesn't make hiking any easier.

Pattern request

I got a call from my mom who has been asked to come up with a baby hat that riffs off the Lion's mascot - the parents to be are big fans.  This might work better as a little sweater or a set????  So she asked for my help.
My first excuse to play with Comfy Fingering!  yay . . . .

FInished!

October is DONE!  I'll get someone to take a snap of it on soon.
I want to design some cabled mitten next . . . I have some pine Stroll that I wanted to make socks out of.
Oh hell, here we go AGAIN.

I need an intervention.

Yeah, wait, diary entry

Fun ideas, combine fun fabric (Balis, batiks, etc) with knitting - you see, I love fabric but kinda suck at sewing:

1.) Use some of that leftover Cotlin to make small shoulder bags lined with something fun, maybe use heavyweight interface for a structural part dividing compartments?

2.) A coworker has been working on these childrens' dresses with knit tops and fabric skirts. Maybe with some very lightweight fabric, silk or rayon or even cotton, for an adult?

While I'm at it - River Stole

Flash on, flash off, you get a slightly more developed sense of the colors with the flash off.

Weekend stuff

Finished the first sock, not sure if I like the three needle bind off for the ending of the sock, seems like it would be lumpy and uncomfortable if you wore these with any kind of shoe, so I might take it out and graft it later.
But we also have this crepe myrtle by the house, I've never seen it so colorful and cool looking - not only are the leaves changing, but they're changing in this pretty patterns and the older fruits make patterns and have their own colors as well.  I think I might need to dye some "fall crepe myrtle" yarn and make something leafy out of it.

So maybe something smaller

I sort of got de-stashed on by a coworker (yay, thanks!) and I was thinking, maybe work these up paired and just do a scarf, keep the beading at the ends, maybe do a gradual creep up the body of the scarf (I"m not describing this well, more beads towards the ends which won't be on the neck and will show and gradiate them up to there being none up by the neck part).  A basic lace pattern scarf takes 300-500 yards and I have 440 if I work these together,
Whaddya think?

Doodle Flower

6 months of thinking, 130 seconds of scribbling.
Back to work.

Neighbor, can you spare a cup of time?

Soccer season has started! Which is tons of fun. This is a great age.
And there goes any illusion of time.
So, I'm working on a written instruction version of the Peacock, which is slow going, and Putnam's shawl is lovely, but not quick. I'm nearly done with the mittens, and I find myself coming up with zillions of new things I want to do. Oh, and I have one or two friends I want to catch up to someday.
So here's why I started this blog in the first place, so I can use the internet as my external harddrive back up!
I want to design a shawl in Gloss Winter Night and design it in a water/wave pattern. I had thought blue beads, but maybe white or grey instead? Or would that look like lint? Such a fine line between clever and stupid, to quote Spinal Tap.
I want to design Adria, which will have raised leaves with just a few beads for sparkle, in dusty pink. Need to dye that yarn myself. Have yarn, not time.
I want to design the Posies shawl, shaped like the Peacock, but with small stylized flowers in it, inspired by Yarn Or Death's doodles. I have the YO pattern and everything.
I want to design a beaded cardigan, using the wave pattern I used in the peacock, only it would mostly be plain st. st. with edge beads and patterns - too much and it would be heavy (and so stretch out) and not comfortable.
I want to get busy with the Olympian pull over - I really love that yarn.
Most folks want more money, which, I admit would be great, but I really want more time. And I'm not one of those cool folks who sleep 3 hours a night.

Olympian pullover

Here are my test swatches for the Percy Pullover. After much hemming and hawing, I think I'll work it RS facing, stripy, but not too stripy. The wrong side is nice, but too muddy, methinks.

The sea god and other thoughts

Mmmm, still thinking about City Tweed. We've been reading Rick Riordan's books about Percy Jackson (if you have a kid 7-12, they're pretty fun, and then you can go back and watch Clash of the Titans and the Sinbad movies and talk about mythology) and I was thinking of making a pretty simple pullover that used various City Tweed colors together so you would get gentle color movement throughout the sweater as a whole. Percy could be Porpoise, Poseidon and Orca mainly, with lesser amounts of Enchanted, Splash, and Morning Glory. I think Grover (browns and greens) and Thalya (wine, purple and blue (sp?) have colorways in there too. Anyway, occurred to me over the weekend.

Hmmmmm

Okay, the linen stitch pull over, I want to do it again, in wool, for fall. Inside out st. st. this time and I'm really taken with Knitpicks City Tweed.

But what color? Colors?
A bunch of the blues and greens or browns and greys? A V pattern with a march of colors up the body, or get 2 and work together into a marl?

Help!