Oh...shoot!

     The stitch pattern for Dorothy has an interesting (and sometimes annoying) feature.  The stitch pattern I used is mostly patterned on the right side, but every 12 rows there are decreases on the wrong side.   This feature makes for a slow going, as it's hard to get the rhythm of the pattern.  I found myself forgetting about those purled decreases more often than not.

     Here's a solution I came up with to avoid tinking back every time I forgot the darn decreases.  You're happily knitting along, beginning to think you're memorizing the pattern, get to the next right side row aaaaaaaaaaaand...the stitch count is off.  You count, recount, freak out (you know the drill), think about PMing me, posting it to the group and then you check the charts and realize you forgot the decreases on the previous row.  Shoot!

    The mistake can be seen inside the red circles on the image above.  What to do?  The first reaction is to tink back, redo the last wrong side row (paying attention this time) and move on.  That is all fine and dandy when you're on the first or second repeat, but what happens when you're already 10 repeats into the pattern and you had to tink back 6 of those???  It happened to me and I got tired of tinking so I came up with a patch.

Random news

     Blogger had a major hiccup on Friday the 13th.  Many people (temporarily) lost posts.  I don't think I've lost any, but did lose comments.  If you don't see your comment here, it's because it got lost during whatever happened to blogger - I didn't delete it.

     I've started spinning again :D.  I had some red/black singles on my wheel for so long it was getting dusty.  The other day I was directed to a spinning discussion and the need to spin hit me.  I went back to the wheel (poor thing has been giving me sad looks for so long...feeling abandoned), finished spinning the fiber, plied it and started to spin the batt of fibery goodness I had in a bag since last year.
     There is someone who is very dear to me who is going to get the yarn I'm spinning right now.  I put together all kinds of soft, shiny, beautiful fibers I had into a gorgeous blue batt: mohair,silk,merino and some angelina for bling.  It's a pleasure to spin.

     It's been a cold, wet week around here.  I need to go grocery shopping, but don't want to leave the house.  I want to sit by the wheel and spin some more.  I also want to knit on the shawl I found the other day on Ravelry:  My heaven.  Am I crazy to also want to spin some yarn for a new Dorothy I'll be knitting on the KAL?  Oh, yeah!  I also want to paint at least the front porch floor this weekend.

Dorothy KAL

     We'll start a KAL for Dorothy in a few days, as an incentive I'm giving a 20% discount on the price of the pattern for those who join.
     You'll need to have a Ravelry account, so you can get the coupon code.  Here is the link to the post.

     Come join us!  It will be fun.

P.S.: Joining Ravelry is free, fast and fun.

How to block Dorothy

     Dorothy might be a bit of a problem when it comes to blocking, so I decided to write a tutorial showing the most important steps.  This is a very image heavy post, so I decided to go with smaller pics here.  The photos are all linked to my Flickr, so if you need to see more details, just click on them.

   


     First of all, we need a flat, "pin-able" surface, a bunch of pins and a spray bottle.  Since I knit from a cone, I soaked the shawl in very hot water with some shampoo in it (to take the sizing off the yarn) over night.  I then put Dorothy through the spin cycle of my washer to take the excess water out and placed it over my surface in the approximate shape it would have after blocked:

Dorothy is done!

    I just released the pattern for Dorothy a few minutes ago :D.

     Whenever I publish a new design I get all worried that I'm going to do something wrong.  My heart starts beating fast and it takes me a few hours to wind down afterward.  I always feel like I'm going to push the wrong button and delete the entire Ravelry.
     After that comes the doubt about the file: did I upload the right one?  Does it have mistakes?  What if people start buying it and then demand their money back???
     I know it's silly and if something goes wrong I can fix it - eventually, but every single time I add a new pattern and then upload the file I have the same doubts and fears.  The craziest part?  I think I'm enjoying it.  But you knew I was crazy already, right?

Renovations

     If you came by yesterday, you might have noticed that I added a page to the blog.  It's still a WIP, but I hope to add content to it on the next few days.
     The idea is to gather information about each one of my designs in a single page (stuff like what kind of yarn, needles etc..).  I thought that since we're doing renovations to the house, I'd do some to my virtual house too.

     On other news, my two awesome test knitters finished knitting Dorothy and I'm hoping to release the pattern early next week.  I'll check and edit the files today (after I'm done procrastinating around here) and then send it to my also amazing tech editor.

     I've also knit another design since I needed something simpler after doing Dorothy.  Turns out, it wasn't as simple as I thought - mainly because I'm not used to the construction method.  So, it will eventually be knit again to get everything to work well together.  It will take a while until I get back to it, though, as I've started two other projects - a triangular shawl from the neck down and a circular one.

     Right now I'm in desperate need of at least another set of arms, another brain and a driver so I can do everything I need to do.  After knitting the two shawls OTN, I need to chart them, re-knit and chart the one already done so I can move on to the next three ideas that are keeping me up at night.  Oh, yeah, add to my list of needs more hours in the day. ;)
     On the bright side, if I manage to design/knit everything I want to, I'll be able to achieve my goals on the 11 shawls in 2011.

Random

...facts that aren't worth blogging separately.

• Yesterday I partially felted the lavender Dorothy while attempting to spin it in the washer (so I could block it again and do a photo tutorial),
  
• a few months ago the folks on Ravelry came up with a way for us to sell our designs on yarn shops throughout the planet. I don't know yet how well it will work, but I'll keep you posted,
  
• after adding borders to one of Dorothy's charts, finding out they were in the wrong place and wasting time editing the image on another software, I found out I can erase the borders by holding down the right button of my mouse as I trace over the border,
  
• for the last week or so I've been knitting a new shawl pattern and am thinking about trying my hand at all the different construction methods I come across (which will, hopefully, lead to a bunch of new designs),
  
• the ghosts of ideas are haunting me again. They've been keeping me up at night for 3 or 4 nights already. And now they're coming in pairs!
  
• I really, really want to start working on these ghost ideas, but need to put the final touches on the pattern for Dorothy and finish the new design that is OTN,
  
• I've redone the charts for Linda using Intwined and was amazed at how fast it went. Now, I need to re-write it.

The secret is out

     I suck at keeping secrets...I came up with the idea for my latest design sometime last year, but due to other obligations, had to sit on it until now.  I'm so glad I don't have to keep it a secret anymore.