Tour de Flee...pause, rewind: a Letter to my Daughter

So right about now is when, historically, I would be posting scads of pictures with piles (small or large!) of handspun yarn that I've been cranking out over the last twelve days. However, this post is going to be about, and to, my oldest child:

Dear Devil,

Yesterday was your last day of school for the year. That is an exciting thing, but this year I think it's particularly important to stop and take stock of what you've experienced this year, and acknowledge that it has been Very Hard.

In September, you bravely set off to start Year 3 at a new school. Hard enough, right? But further complicated by the fact that you were moving from a school with one class in your year group (of three year groups) to a school with five classes in your year group, and six (!) years worth of students. In other words, from a school of about 55 kids (not including the Nursery because really, they're too young) to a school of more then 300.

The first time you cried in the car on the way home because your best friend said she wasn't going to be friends with you anymore was in late November, and it absolutely broke my heart. We had endless discussions about how sometimes people say things, without realising they may really hurt someone's feelings, and that it was important to remember that friendships fluctuate, and people change. It's helped that the time course of relationship changes in your peer group is on the order of hours or days rather then longer, and who your best friend is can change over the course of lunch.

Over the course of the last two terms your attitudes and responses to the vagaries of 8 year old girl social dynamics have changed so much that I feel a bit like I've gotten whiplash as you've rushed by. Now, you can tell me about who your new BFF is, and who is friends with whom, and who's not, and all the intricate ins and outs of the social hierarchy with relative equanimity. I can not begin to express how big this is for you, and how much time and work you've put in to getting there.

But here's the thing: for an extremely bright, self-confident little girl you have a remarkably thin skin. I don't think I realised how sensitive you are until this year, when my approach of "Oh well, never mind, she'll be friends with you tomorrow..." was met with floods of tears and general hysteria as if the world was ending. Because for you, the world was ending, in a way: it is critical to your happiness that you have a best friend, someone you can count on to have lunch and play with on the playground and sit with in class. Maybe it's the age, maybe it's the change in the size of your peer group, maybe it's the combination of Very Strong Personalities amongst the girls in your class in particular, but the whole mix has been something of a perfect storm of pre-teen drama.

The most important change I think I've seen in you this year is this: your sensitivity, while still there, has been tempered with a bit of distance, and the experience that even if J says you're not her friend anymore today, by the end of the week the two of you will be thick as thieves again. You are a lovely, loving little girl who has managed to come through a serious social challenge with her confidence intact and strengthened. And I am so proud.

Love you kiddo,
Mummy

Tour de Fleece: Beginnings

Happy Fourth of July! This week has been some kind of perfect storm of the end of the school year, plus rushing to get a bunch of stuff done at work before school ends next week, divided by my desire to spend every waking moment spinning my brains out for the Tour de Fleece. So far, I have managed to spin...not so much. I have, however, been keeping up with taking pictures and posting updates in various Ravelry forum threads. To recap:

That, right there, in pictorial form, is all the spinning I've managed over the past 6 days. It's not a lot, but there's been a lot of other stuff going on. However, I have grand hopes for next week, when the girls finally finish school, which means no more working for me, and Himself will be away on a business trip, so I won't have to be a grown up when the girls are in bed. Plans for next week include the Shetland fleece, and whatever other bits I fit in around the edges when I get tired of carded Shetland. How's your TdF going?

It's a big week for patterns: Denbigh Cowl in Knit Now Issue 23!

This week, the latest issue of Knit Now hit the stands, containing my Denbigh Cowl pattern.

Photo credit: Dan Walmsley

This pattern grew out of a designer challenge, where the editor of the magazine sends around a call for patterns that utilize a specific yarn (usually with only enough yardage for an accessory). I came up with the idea for this cowl after seeing Kate's Pinterest board for the challenge, which featured lots and lots of graphic designs with strong contrasting lines.

The yarn is from Blacker Yarns - their Swan DK and Pure Teeswater DK. This was my first time working with yarns from this company, and they were absolutely gorgeous.

Something I didn't realize beforehand, but that ended up working out perfectly for the design: the Swan DK is on the heavier end of the DK range, while the Teeswater DK is practically a sport/fingering weight! This meant that the yarns fit perfectly into my plan to use the Swan DK (made from Falkland merino) as the background color, thereby putting the softer yarn against the skin, and put the more drapey Teeswater yarn into play as the accent color.

There's my swatch, edged with i-cord that's worked as the cast on and cast off for the cowl. It's a bit easier to see the stitch pattern here - it's a very easy pattern to work, with only two rows where anything happens that you need to pay attention to. And it is totally addictive!

While the pattern is currently only available through the magazine, I will be releasing it in the fall with an additional, larger infinity cowl size. And once I decide which colors I'm going to use, I'll be getting some more of that gorgeous yarn!

It's that time of year again...

There seem to be two major events during the year when I go into absolute crafting panic. Event #1: Halloween, which usually sees me creating homemade costumes at three in the morning on October 31th.

Event #2 is now upon us: the end of the school year, and the need for teacher gifts. A few years ago I got all fired up and knit six of the same shawl for all the teachers and babysitters in just under four weeks. This time around, I've left myself (ehem) less time. In the interests of sanity, I've also decided to only do two gifts this year - one for each of the girl' form teachers. And since there is now only two weeks until the end of school, that means it's time to bust out the neglected loom and the pile of packages from Spunky Eclectic to whip up some scarves for teacher.

For Dev's lovely, young, hip Year 3 teacher:

And for Boo's also lovely, less young, Year 1 teacher.

Both of these projects have the advantage of being plain weave (uncomplicated!) and woven using an 8 dent heddle (big yarn!). I spent the afternoon warping for project 1, and have started on the weaving.

If the universe smiles on me, I might actually get this whole thing woven up tonight (Himself is away on business and gets back late tonight, so once the girls are in bed I don't have to talk to anyone). And get the second one warped over the weekend. Which leaves me a week and a half of Tour de Fleece craziness in which to weave another scarf.

Fingers crossed that I can actually tear myself away from the wheels long enough to get it done!

PS - Don't forget, you have until 15th July to enter my contest to win a copy of American Sock Knitting. Just go comment on this post and you'll be entered!

PPS - 15th July is also the deadline to buy one of my Travelling Hat patterns (or the full ebook) and have all the proceeds go to One Fund Boston. So far your generous purchases have raised $165 for the fund - let's see if we can get it over $250!

It's not brain surgery

In the past few weeks, I've had to come to terms with the fact that a couple of the sweaters I've finished recently have been unsatisfactory. Most of the time, I'm able to get past any perceived errors and be happy with the finished product, but this time it just wasn't going to happen.

First up: the sweater I made for a friend's Dad:

While this sweater was a perfect fit around the chest, it was also sadly a bit short in the body. Since I didn't want to start over from the beginning (it was knit in the round from the bottom up), I decided a bit of cut and paste was the most efficient solution.

Step 1: gather the materials.

I took the remaining yarn, cast on a new sweater body, and knit the ribbing and approximately 3 extra inches of sweater body before moving on to Step 2.

Step 2: prep the patient

I took a small needle (something like a US 3 I think) and picked up all the stitches in one row.


Step 3: the incision/excision

I then cut the yarn a few rows below the row where I'd picked up all the stitches on one needle, and picked out everything, leaving a body with live stitches and a cast-off, abandoned ribbing.

Step 4: suturing

I then lined up the new ribbing section and the old sweater body, took a needle, collected several adult beverages and gathered my courage before grafting the 200 stitches together. This took approximately four days (many adult beverages!), and Kate Atherley's excellent post about grafting stockinette, reverse stockinette and cables.




Step 5: off to recovery

Sweater was reblocked and is now back with its owner, several inches longer then the original.

The only real scarring is in the cables - I didn't manage to line up the stitches perfectly, so there is a half-stitch disjointedness on each side. However...I'm pretty sure he will never notice, and it's not such a big deal that I'm willing to go back and redo the whole thing.

With that under my belt, I gaily sallied forth to treat Patient #2: my Whisper cardigan

The construction of the Whisper cardigan is pretty interesting. You first knit a shrug, then pick up stitches to knit a wide band of ribbing. A bunch of the ribbing stitches are cast off for the neckline, and the rest of the stitches become the back and sides of the finished sweater.

Sadly, somehow in my zealous fervor to get to the body, I managed to end up with a cast off neckline that was waaaay too tight. In steps my handy internal surgeon, yet again. This time, since there was no adding of length to be done, we started straight off with Step 2: prepping the patient:

Tiny needle, picking up all the ribbing stitches along the neckline.

Step 3: Incision, or in this case, the ripping/picking out of the cast off stitches.



Step 4: Suturing, aka binding off again, this time with Jeny's SSBO.

Step 5: all better!

Collar lays flat, no riding up or binding, looks much better.


And I desperately need a haircut. Better get that done before Saturday!