Monday, August 27, 2012

Not-Identical Twins Shawls

Test knitting and final editing is complete, so I have (finally!) released the not-identical twins shawls patterns.  Rather than keeping them as "A" and "B" I have appropriately renamed them Lucy and Claire after my own girls.  It conveniently worked out that "A" was the lighter weight DK shawl and Lucy, my first-born baby A, is also smaller and lighter than her sister. The Claire shawl is worked in a worsted weight yarn.

Lucy Shawl


Despite my best attempts I was unable to combine all the charts for Claire in one Publisher document, so I settled on releasing the patterns as free and each page of that chart as its own PDF.  I have yet to master how to play with my Excel charts AND have all the pages easily legible when the charts are large.  It's easy with small charts.  The Claire charts wanted to default to some monstrosity that would require the user to glue pages together...I fixed that at least.

Claire Shawl

Both are semi-circular shawls with similar design elements, but they employ different yarn weights and different shaping methods.  Lucy is roughly based on Pi Shawl math while Claire is almost 3/4 of a circle with about 3 equal repeats - almost.

These patterns are unlike my other designs because I have actually included complete row by row written instructions! fewf.  Only because that's how I wrote the designs.  However, I did also chart them because I couldn't imagine sharing a design without charts.  Or, wait, that's not true. My scarf patterns are written, but that's simple repetitious stitch patterning. And the hats and the doll skirt... okay, so only my shawl patterns are fully charted. 

On to editing and then test knitting Homeward Bound (as soon as I find some missing notes) and Corey shawls.  Corey also is a written and charted pattern. Actually doesn't really need charts, but once again I couldn't imagine sharing without them.

Sunday, August 26, 2012

always enough

You can never have too many projects on the go. Provided you finish them.
That's my motto.
It's always okay to start another project.
With the proviso that you are finishing projects.
Can't have simple startitis without some ends.
Unless you have an infinite number of (or cash for) needles and spindles. (Hooks are easy to use on multiple projects and are thus the exception.)
I've got a "few" projects on the go.
[As an aside, I don't typically count my scrapbooks as projects although I'm sure others would.  Mine aren't fancy enough to really qualify as proper scrapbooks by any scrapbooking stores' standards. They're primarily photo albums with stickers. Granted, in the age of digital photos, I think that any attempts at organizing and displaying printed photos is not insignificant. I do so love looking back through the books I've made for my daughters. However, I shan't focus on such craftings here.]

Here's where I'll share progress on my projects. Or, such is my intention.  You know how blogging can be when it's not a top priority in one's life. My priorities are
  1. Family - including a preschooler (b. 2008) and new twins (b. 2012). 
  2. Knitting - for my sanity
  3. Keeping in touch with family and friends
  4. Designing - because I may as well share my patterns and earn a little paypal money that I can use to support small yarn and fibre vendors on etsy and fellow designers on Ravelry
  5. Blogging - not that I officially rank it, but for the sake of this post I thought I should include it somewhere
  6. Finishing up old research projects... we shan't talk about that. Let's just say I'm still recovering from a lifetime in academia, that I haven't given up my research interests, and that I intend to eventually find another outlet for my research and work experience - when the twins are a little older.
 I'm not sure about the exact order of things after number 1, but you get the idea.

I think I may try to import some of my old posts from the other family blog here. If I can.

But let's just consider this as a starting place.