What I'm doing

     Last weekend there were two art fairs going on in town - despite the fact that Kansas' governor apparently want to exterminate all kinds of arts from the state.  On Saturday we went to the Haskell Indian Art Market, were we met one of Joel's best friends. 
     On Sunday, we walked across the street for the Fall Arts and Crafts Festival, where I bought some yummy alpaca fiber.  The fiber felt so soft, I had to start spinning it right away.  The first skein is hanging in the shower stall as I write this.  I still have another 4oz of the most amazing brown fiber in a bag, awaiting to be spun.  I'm thinking of turning it into some sock yarn, but I'm not sure yet.

     I'll try my best to remember to ask Joel to put the latest socks I knit him on so I can take some pictures and also take some photos of the bag I made him.

     Things are still quiet on the knitting front, with very little to report.  So far none of the ideas I had screams "knit me now!", so I'm calling this a vacation.  I'll try to organize my stuff better and see where it takes me.

Random thoughts

     The other day I read about some controversy going on with licenses when using a certain craft tool.  It made little sense to me and I'll refrain from going into details as it isn't related to knitting, but it did remind me that I had never talked about what I allow (or don't) on my patterns.
     I do not allow distribution (and or reproduction) of any of my patterns.  I do allow people to sell items made from my patterns, though.
     Let me make this very clear: I make profit from selling the patterns - not the items.  I don't think you will be competing with me by selling the finished items, as we'll be catering to different audiences: I sell patterns to people who can (and want to) knit, you sell items to people who can't (or don't want to) knit. ;)
     I might, eventually, sell the samples done to advertise (and/or illustrate) a pattern, but by the time I do so, the pattern itself will be available already and other people might already be knitting or listing the finished items.  No big deal.
     Do I charge a special fee so you can sell the items made from my patterns?  No.  Your skills, your yarn, your time = your profit.  This also applies to my free patterns.  I believe in spreading prosperity:  the more money is flowing around, the more chances I'll make sales on patterns.
     You don't need to contact me asking for permission, but I'd love to get a line from you telling me how your shop is doing.
     One final note, if you want to put together a kit with one of my patterns and your yarns, you'll have to get my permission first and I will not allow you to do so using free patterns.

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     We're finally getting cooler days and I can no longer blame the weather on the lack of knitting.  In fact, I finished a felted messenger bag for Joel and a little rug with cables for the kitchen (pictures soon).  I've also started a pot holder which will have - gasp - color work and picked up the never ending shawl again.
     So, if I can't blame the temperatures anymore, why am I not talking much about knitting?  Ideas.  I've had a bunch of them - most not knitting related.  I need to do some organizing inside my head and around the house to be able to implement some of the ideas I had, but for now I just keep on talking about them...:P

Obsession

     I haven't worked on my designs and have been knitting very little.  The reason being, I'm obsessed with a quilt I'm doing.
     I've never done a quilt before and like some of the knowledge I have, it was purely theoretical until I started sewing this quilt.  Since I'm crazy and ambitious, this quilt has complex blocks, some of which are paper pieced.  I've learned a lot from it (and I've only done 3 blocks so far) and am hoping some of the techniques can be crossed over into knitting.
     The obsession was so bad, that the other night, I got out of bed to sketch a block that would go between the main blocks...sigh.  This is something I avoid like the plague, as that's the way to (complete) madness.

     There was a lot of things going on in my life since I released Dorothy and the combination of stress, figurative headaches and fatigue managed to shut the ideas on the design front.  The good news is that things are slowly going back to normal and the ideas are coming back.
     I need to finish writing down the pattern for Linda (and knit it again) and re-chart, write and re-knit Maria.  I also have an idea of making some of my already published designs into different shapes and release them as e-books.  Note to self: start writing down your new ideas already!
     I could have used the time when the ideas were quiet to re-knit the two shawls, but, in my defense, it was too hot to knit (and I'm working on the quilt!).  So, I'll have to wait until I run out of fabric - very likely since this will be a queen size quilt and I made many mistakes - to go back to knitting and designing.

     I've also done some dyeing - a new idea that had occurred to me that will yield a yarn with long color runs.  I've done one skein in shades of blue that needs to be steamed and have another one that still needs some more colors.  We'll see how they work out.
     It's odd, though.  One of the reasons for buying a house with a basement was so that I could have a smoke-free environment to do my dyeing.  Now that I have the free space, I don't use it.  Again, I have a good excuse: the basement is still cluttered with moving boxes and we don't have enough surfaces to work on down there.

     Well, now that I've laid out all the excuses, I'll go back to life - and the quilt.

Not much knitting

    Two weeks ago today I packed up the cats and a few needed items and moved from the apartment to the house.  Life has been chaotic ever since and my head followed suit.
     There are so many things we need to do, so many things I want to do, that I find myself frozen, going into auto-mode, doing only the necessary to live (cooking, cleaning, doing laundry - exciting, ain't it?).

     My knitting took a back seat as I sat around, looking at the trims we need to paint, the floor that needs to be cleared of paint and dry wall stains, the garden that needs tending to.  It was a big surprise for me to go to bed last night and be assaulted by a new idea.  I have a commission to finish, some yarn I spun which I want to make socks from, the cotton Dorothy to knit and two designs to write down, yet, the new idea haunted, nah, nursed me to sleep last night.
     It was really odd, since usually new ideas pester me, keep me up.  I guess I longed for something new so bad, that a new idea was comforting to me.  I slept very well.

     I was without an internet connection (and TV) for a week, so, to keep me busy, I spun - a lot.  I spun a blue lace weight yarn that was sitting in the bin for almost 6 months, spun a purple roving that was in the same bin for more than a year (also lace weight) and almost a pound of brown fiber from The Sheep Shed, bought maybe two years ago.  The latter became a bunch of sock yarn.
     Isn't it funny how some fibers want to become this or the other?  The purple fiber, for example: when I picked it up last week, I was wondering why I hadn't spun it before.  As I put it through the wheel, the answer became clear - it wanted to become lace yarn, but I didn't have the skills before to spin as fine as the fiber wanted...
     The brown fiber?  It was meant to be sock yarn.  After I spun the fiber, I remembered that I had done it before and all the yarn produced with this fiber was sock yarn :P

     No pics today, sorry.  I want to finish this commission already so I can focus on other projects ( I see a lot of woodwork in my future).

WIPs

I have two new designs on the needles right now - a triangular shawl from the neck down and a circular one. I also have one finished new idea that needs to be written down. All three of them use the same design element, used in different ways and I'm having a lot of fun creating them.
I needed to stop working on those new designs because I got another commission to knit a sample :). I can't go into details, but it's a cute, fast knit and I'm almost done.

The biggest WIP at the moment is the house. Joel finished all the kitchen cabinets and I painted almost all of them (which gave me white hairs - from the paint). The construction crew is fantastic and are working very fast. We can walk in the kitchen and bathroom area without fears of falling through the floor and when we left on Monday, the electrician was installing lights in the basement.
When we were discussing lights and outlets position in the basement I got the funniest looks from the crew. I kept on telling them I needed this or that because I'll be dyeing in there. Every time I said that, they would look away from me and change subjects really fast :P.

To do (or not to do) list

     I've been busy working with a great group of test knitters, trying to get the pattern for PPaola ready to publish.  As the mistakes are corrected and less issues arises, my mind begins to drift towards other things I want/have to knit.

     I wanted to knit a pair of flip-top mittens for my BIL, like the ones I did for Joel last year and the FIL the year before.  I say wanted, past tense, because the SIL and MIL came up with some silly secret Santa where we have to give gifts that are traditional to some geographic area and tell the others about that tradition (sounds like school work, doesn't it?) - the giver chooses which tradition they want to follow.
  I'm leaning towards disregarding the silliness and doing it anyway.  If I think about it, most people who celebrate Christmas have a tradition of giving garments and in most places above the equator line it's very common to give winter items, is it not?

     I'm planning on knitting another set of flip-top mittens and a hat (if I manage the time well) to give to the UPS guy.  Just today I got some boxes sent through them and the poor guy was shivering...
     Then, there is the shawl I came up with a few weeks before starting the test knitting.  I've already knit one, using some handspun I had for a while (almost sport weight), but didn't like the edging (or lack thereof).  I have since, come up with some prospects for a good edging and now the shawl is screaming to be knit again - with cobweb no less!

     So far, very doable, but wait!  There is more.  There is this idea for a cabled stole that I'm too lazy (or too fed up) to chart, the Wonderful Wallaby I was knitting for the nephew (that I might frog and knit again in black - the one I was doing is white...sigh), the Fireside Jacket that I was knitting for myself and lost my place, which I'll frog and start again aaaaaaaaaaaand another idea that has been haunting me since Spring.
     I want to do a raglan sleeve, top down, in the round sweater for myself and I want to do it in brioche st.  I've played with the idea earlier in the year, but it was taking forever, so I frogged.  Today I saw the most amazing sweater on Ravelry and decided to give it another try.
     I know that for my idea to work, I'll have to take some serious measurements and swatch and that is what is holding me down - for now.

     I still need to finish the second PPaola I'm knitting, but am waiting for more yarn to be delivered.  There are a few other ideas for new patterns, but I think I'll wait until the holiday knitting is done (or when I get tired of fast ST st) to begin working on those.

     Now, if you excuse me, I'll go cast on for a hat ;)