Pattern Sale!

All patterns in my Ravelry shop are 30% off through December 31, 2011.

Amazing Trieste

Where my trip started. 

Remains of a Roman arch

A street of very old paving stones

Remains of the Roman am

Cattedrale di San Giusto rose window

Theater

Piazza Nuova

Display in the window of an optometrist's office

Boat on the Grand Canal

The Grand Canal

A working fountain

A typical form of transportation

In case you need a bar

It's been too long

I didn't realize that almost a year has gone by since my last post. I'm still knitting and designing sock patterns. I just need to write up my notes about these patterns so that they will make sense to everyone else. I also need to get pictures and then marry the photo to the written pattern. And then post them in my Ravelry shop. In other words, I have a lot to do and I'm better at the knitting part than at the writing up the pattern part.

I've spent the spring and summer riding my bike a lot. My bike has taken me places I won't have gone had I not taken up cycling again last year. I have taken my bike all over northern and central California. I rode my first half century in Solvang in March. A few weeks later, I rode the Cinderella Classic, which is a metric century (65 miles) around the base of Mt. Diablo. In May, I rode the Wine Country metric century. In August, the Tour of the Napa Valley metric century called my name. However, the highlight of the summer was the trip I took in July.

I went on a cycling trip through northeast Italy and Slovenia. It was an amazing eight day tour that started in Trieste, Italy and ended in Bled, Slovenia. I did all of this with a wonderful tour company called Ciclismo Classico. After the tour ended, I returned to Trieste for a few days and then joined my boyfriend in Verona for a few days of cycling there. Then we spent a few days in Venice being tourists since it's impossible to ride a bike in Venice. We have both been to Venice before so we spent time in museums and neighborhoods we hadn't explored on previous trips.

We traveled with our bikes. There is nothing like riding your own bike in a foreign country. We attracted a lot of attention in Trieste when we were putting our bikes together. Northern Italy is bike crazy. I ride a Bianchi named after the velodrome in Milan. I was asked a few times if I knew that my bike was named after a famous velodrome. Fortunately, I'd done my homework and could honestly say that I knew where the name came from. I attracted even more attention taking my bike apart in the same alley nine days later so I could pack it. I gathered it was a bit unusual for a woman to be taking a bike apart on her own.

After my bike was packed, I took a walk around Trieste. Trieste is James Joyce crazy in addition to being cycling crazy. There is a bronze statute of JJ on a bridge crossing the Grand Canal. The Grand Canal isn't at all like the Grand Canal of Venice, which is what I picture when I think of the Grand Canal. There are bars and hotels named after JJ. I even stayed at the James Joyce Hotel. You can walk around the city following a James Joyce itinerary. Of course, there are the well known spots he frequented while he lived, taught English and wrote in Trieste. I've never seen greater JJ love outside of a university English Department!

Time Flies

Earlier this spring I bought a new road bike. I've been riding an average of five days a week. This has meant less time for knitting and spinning. At first, I was concerned about this. As I got more time on my bike, I realized that I had been needing a serious break from writing sock patterns, knitting and spinning. I had become seriously burnt out and that was a bigger threat to my continued interest in these things than giving myself a much needed break to recharge.

I rode my bike a lot as a teen. I'm one of those rare Californians who didn't get a driver's license the minute I turned 16. My bike was my transportation. I loved the freedom it gave me. I gave up my bike when I moved to San Francisco in the 70s because I'd had too many close calls with cars. San Francisco wasn't remotely bike friendly then. I love the way I feel on my bike; I'm using my own power to explore my surroundings. Cycling requires a set of skills in the same way that knitting and spinning require. The more I practice the better I become at it. I've also come up with some ideas for new sock patterns while I've been out on the road. I wouldn't have come up with these if I wasn't out on my bike.

Now when I knit or spin, I enjoy it more. I'm no longer feeling that I have to produce constantly in order to be a "real" knitter or spinner. I know that I am those things and I feel good about that.

Sunday photo

Not socks

I love the images I've seen of Sufi whirling. The cable in these mitts remind me of this movement. These started life as an idea for a sock that just didn't work. I couldn't let go of wanting to use this specific cable. I just couldn't figure out where else I could use it. So the unwearable socks languished hidden in a drawer for about six months. (And, I do mean socks; I had to knit a pair to prove to myself the design really didn't work.) I moved on and worked on other designs. One night while doing mental inventory of my designs, the idea of using the cable in fingerless mitts hit me.

I knit these out of A Verb For Keeping Warm Creating in Supernova on US #1/2.25 mm needles. They use less than a 100 gram skein of yarn and are fast to knit.

The only tricky bit is the cable. It is a ribbed cable over 11 stitches. An 11 stitch cable is a bit tight to work on the cross simply because of the number of stitches crossing one another. Because it is worked over an odd number of stitches some of the knit stitches become purls and some purls become knits. If you follow the directions, it works--you just need to forget what your brain tells is logical and trust that it works as written.

Dervish was test knit by members of the Free Pattern Testers Ravelry group. Michael Del Vicchio provided the technical editing. The pattern is available in my Ravelry shop.

Knitting from the stash

I went stash diving a month or so ago and re-discovered this Socks That Rock medium weight yarn in Mesa that I bought at Stitches West 2006. Socks That Rock was the buzz of the knitting blogosphere that year. This small company out of Oregon seemed to have come out of nowhere, was represented by The Fold at Rhinebeck 2005, and was suddenly the most sought after yarn in the world. And I had to have some.

I got to Stitches early Saturday morning and immediately headed for the Blue Moon booth. It was nearly empty--in that, there was very little yarn to be had. All of the light weight STR was sold out. There were a few skeins of medium and heavy weight STR left. There were plenty, relatvely speaking, of skeins of Seduction, a merino/tencel blend that wasn't named after types of rocks. I walked away with the Mesa STR and two skeins of Seduction--Prove It All Night, which became a Swallowtail shoulder shawl and Lucy in the Sky. Lucy in the Sky is still in my stash waiting to become something fabulous.


This yarn tried to be many things. In the end, it worked best as a variation on my Basic Shaped Arch Sock pattern. I used US #2 needles and cast on 56 stitches. The ribbing is a 1x1 twisted stitch rib. I mixed up the heel a bit by using eye of the partridge instead of a standard heel stitch. I love the way eye of the partridge looks with hand painted yarns that have a lot going on color-wise.


I also love the way the triangle that is formed by the gusset and the arch shaping really highlights the angles the yarn is going in. This was a fast sock to knit compared to the socks I usually knit on US #1 or #0. I really like the way they turned out. I think this will be my fall back pattern for all of the really colorful hand painted yarn in my stash.

A new addition to the collection

Please welcome Adrienne into my small, but growing, collection of sock patterns. I named these in honor of my friend Adrienne, who is fun, warm, giving, and a very important person at A Verb for Keeping Warm.

I used A Verb for Keeping Warm Annapurna for this in the color Vermilion. Adrienne features left and right twisted cables in the cuff that continue down the side of the leg and travel across the instep, mirroring the arch shaping. The yarn is a yummy blend of merino, cashmere and nylon. I knit these on US #2/2.75 mm needles.

I was inspired by the many variations I've seen of socks with clocks. Plus, I wanted a design that really allowed the yarn to be the star. I wanted to incorporate arch shaping since I like the way that shaped arch socks fit. It took me several attempts to get the cables integrated with overall design. Needless to say, these were ripped back to the heel flap numerous times (the yarn held up beautifully!) before the cables looked right to me.

While not a complicated sock to knit, you do have to keep track of quite a few stitch markers while shaping the arch and cables. I'm not a big fan of a ton of stitch markers but just didn't see how else to keep track of arch stitches that move as well as cables that travel. A bit of disclosure here: I typically knit my socks using 5 double-point needles and arrange my stitches so I don't have use so many stitch markers. If you choose to follow my lead, be sure to keep the markers for the arch shaping and the traveling cables on the instep.

This pattern has been test knit. Technical editing was provided by Michael Del Vicchio.

It's been awhile

The design bug has bitten me again.

Coffee is definitely a necessary part of my design kit.

A few stitch dictionaries for inspiration plus my graph paper notebook.

A scrawl of notes.

Weird, in a good way

I'm terrible, vain actually. Ever since the Winter 2009 issue of Knitty came out, I've been stalking the internet for comments about Pyroclastic. I can't help it--being published is really new to me. The best thing I've found: there is a geologist named C.C. Knitter who studied and wrote about pyroclastic flows!

Knitty

I can hardly believe it. Pyroclastic is in the Winter 2009 issue of Knitty. I never thought I would be published in Knitty a year ago. I don't think I can ever express my gratitude to everyone who encouraged me though the past year. Thank you!!!!

Pyroclastic was born at Sock Summit 2009. I started by charting the repeat and began knitting it in a class with Cookie A. The yarn I was working with was pretty but completely obscured the design. Cookie walked around the class to see what everyone was doing and to answer questions. When she got to me, she asked "Are you sure about that yarn?" My initial reaction was these are only for me and I need to use this yarn from my stash, which I only said in my mind. So I rooted around in the bag of sock yarn I had with me and found something much more suitable--A Verb for Keeping Warm Creating in a color called Bolinas (Pictures were not taken of it because it didn't seem as if it would photograph well; it's really pretty in person.)

I was really busy for the rest of Sock Summit and didn't really get back to my sock until the ride home. I was lucky enough to be ride sharing with Kathleen (KatDee on Ravelry) and Michael aka Wonder Mike. Michael and Kathleen drove the first 2/3's of the way home while I sat in the backseat working out the pattern placement for the heel and instep fueled by Voodoo Donuts. This was a bit tricky because I knew I wanted to have a shaped arch, which has less give that a straight forward foot and instep. You see, the shaped arch biases the fabric so you need a few more stitches than usual to get it on your foot. I was doing all of this on the needles because I couldn't find my notebook and only had the sheet of paperI'd charted the pattern repeat on, which was pretty scribbled on at this point.

Once home I finished the prototype, wrote out the directions, and knit it again in Lorna's Laces Shepard. Meanwhile, Kristine was busy knitting it out of the Burnt Embers colorway of AVFKW Creating. When we finished knitting our respective socks, I set about formatting the pattern in Knitty's style.

Kristine and Adrienne went to our local cemetery to take photos. Kristine did a bang up job of photography. Adrienne was our foot model. We had so many photos to choose from, it was difficult to decide which to submit to Knitty.

A few days later, I submitted the whole package to Knitty. Then the wait began. I tried really hard not to think about it. Every once in awhile, Kristine would ask if I'd heard anything. I started new designs. In October, I received an email from Amy Singer saying my pattern had been excepted. I was in a state of disbelief for about two days.

After that, it was a push to write the pattern for a second size since I was asked for at least one other size. Yes, this meant more math! I had to think about how the sock could be knitting using something other than my beloved dpns. I had to rewrite the pattern without reference to specfic needles. In my mind, I knit these socks on two circs and using magic loop. I had imaginary stitch markers that had to be tracked. I got stuck more than a few times with visioning what happens on magic loop. But in the end, I worked it out with great advise from my technical editor.

Then I waited some more and now it's really here. It's been a great experience and I want to do it again!



Photos in this post are copyright Kristine Vejar.

Back to the notebook

My last idea failed miserably once I got to the instep. I still like the basic idea; just needed to figure out a different way of execute it. I think this time I've got it right. I am finding that the more time I spend designing, the more I learn. In the beginning, I wanted every idea to work out perfectly the first time. Of course, the design process doesn't work that way. I have a few failures tucked away in my sock drawer as a result.

Now I am much more comfortable with ripping out and starting over again. I just don't quit because it didn't work out perfectly the first time. I've learned to fail and be alright with it.

A taste of something to come

The last six weeks or so I've been occupied with something that's not ready to show you yet as well as catching up on all of the knitting that got neglected when I started getting ready for Sock Summit. So I have been knitting and spinning; it just hasn't been blog worthy. During this time, my creative juices got a chance to recharge and I recently started working on a pattern idea I've had for a few months. The yarn is A Verb for Keeping Warm Annapurna, a yummy cashmere and merino blend. The color reminds me of raspberry sorbet.

Errata for basic shaped arch sock

Row 12 of the turn heel instruction should read:

Sl1, P15, P2tog, P1, turn.

Row 14 of the turn heel instruction should read:

Sl1, P15, P2tog (18 sts remain).
Knit across these 18 sts so that ndl is in postion to pick up sts along the right side of the heel flap.

1300.3 miles later

Sock Summit. What can I say. I had a fabulous time.

Last Monday, my dining room table was covered in sock patterns and knitted samples. Not just any patterns or samples; my designs with my new logo on the patterns. When I was finished putting all of the patterns in their sleeves, I had an almost filled bankers box. I also had my fingers crossed that the patterns would be well received.

On Tuesday Wonder Mike, Kathleen, and I met Kristine and Adrienne at the Verb studio to help pack up the van with the entire Verb store. We were on the road by 10:00 a.m . Kristine and Adrienne in the van. Michael, Kathleen and me in my diesel Jetta. We stopped in Ashland for a few hours to take a break. Of course, we went to Websters. I bought more sock needles as if I was going some place where such a thing wouldn't exist. We walked along the creek while drinking iced Stumptown coffee. Then we got back on the road to our destination--Eugene.

The next morning Kathleen drove Kristine and me to Portland. We arrived with time to spare before we had to unpack the van and set up the booth. We checked into our hotel and then met the call for coffee. Near the Oregon Convention Center Starbucks has a monopoly. So we had Starbucks.

Within about 6 hours, we unpacked the van and set up Verb Portland. The booth was right inside the front doors of the marketplace, which was awesome. Kristine and Adrienne did a bang up job of planning the set up--we had maps and everything! Once we were done with the set up, we draped the booth and left it looking like this.















Thursday I took a full day class with Cookie A. on sock design. It was really interesting to hear Cookie talk about her design process. The class was a perfect compliment to her book. After a few false starts, I left with a new design that I'm really loving.

Immediately after class, I went to work in the booth. Where I met a lot of people and talked about my patterns. The highlight of the evening for me was meeting Amy Singer of Knitty. Amy encouraged me to submit a pattern to Knitty. It was so awesome that I wanted to cry!

Friday morning I took a class with Star Athena. Star's class was also on sock design. It verged perfectly into what I learned in Cookie's class. Star and Cookie have very different approaches to design. My approach is somewhere in between the two. Later that day I got a chance to chat with Star and discovered we went to the same university. Ten years apart, but still. Star is a fine artist. Her hand drawn charts are works of art. Mine are an absolute mess by comparison.

Friday, Saturday and Sunday's marketplace a more than a bit of a blur. I worked the booth and talked to a lot of wonderful people about Verb's yarn and fiber. I answered quite a few questions about my sock designs.

I released three new patterns at SS09. Kristine, which uses a new base of 70% superwash merino and 30% silk called Metamorphosis. Kristine is a combination of cables and eyelets and has a regular shaped foot. Caitlin's Lace Anklet, which is a simple lace anklet and perfect for commuter knitting. Oliver, which was originally designed for the Men's Knitting Retreat Spring 2009. The guys attending the Fall retreat will also receive a copy of this pattern.

I didn't buy much at SS09. Two sets of Signature Needle Arts 6-inch double pointed needles in sizes I use most often, a bag from Queen Bee Creations, clogs, a lotion bar from Ildanach Limited, and a wee bit of fiber from Knitifacts.

Monday Kathleen, Michael and I drove back to the bay area. It is good to be home and sleeping in my own bed. That said, I wouldn't trade this experience for anything. Thank you Harlot, Tina and the ST-1 and ST-2 teams!

Update on SS09 pattern give away

I've changed my mind about which pattern to give away at Sock Summit. Instead of the shaped arch sock, I will be giving away a choice between

Slipstream or

Caitlin's Lace Anklet.

Slipstream combines a lace panel and cables with a shaped arch. Caitlin's Lace is a simple allover lace pattern with an eye of the partridge heel. I will giving away up to 50 patterns total with the purchase of a skein of A Verb for Keeping Warm sock yarn.

Socks and more socks

I've no excuses for not posting since May. The beginning of summer has flown by because I've been occupied with a few things: new sock designs, sock knitting, working my regular job, working at A Verb For Keeping Warm, getting to know Kristine's friend, Babu better, seeking test and sample knitters, and having a pattern tech edited.

Oh yeah, and getting ready for that little thing known as Sock Summit '09. I will be attending two classes, both on sock design. I will be working the Verb booth as well. Right now, I am working with Adrienne on putting a professional polish on my patterns and getting them printed for SS09. I'm really nervous and excited at the same time.

I will giving away copies of the Basic Shaped Arch Sock pattern to the first 50 people who buy a skein of AVFKW sock yarn.

The Men's Knitting Retreat 2009 sock pattern will also be available for purchase as a show special. It will then disappear for a short while and become available for purchase (through Ravelry as a download or in hard copy from AVFKW) September 1, which coincides with the Men's Fall Knitting Retreat.

Here is preview of patterns in the works:

This is called Caitlin's Lace Anklet. I knit this up using some sock yarn I dyed last year after taking a dyeing workshop with Scout.

Meet Kristine; knit out of a wonderful 70% merino 30% silk blend in a color called Patina. This is one of newest AVFKW yarns and it is yummy.

Roses

Today was a sad day in California. The state Supreme Court upheld Prop 8. The initiative process is broken. It's time to call for a Constitutional Congress and rewrite the state Constitution so that the majority cannot terminate the rights of minorities.

Looking at roses cheers me somewhat.

Keep the Fleece

Creating

One of my secret projects. The yarn is A Verb for Keeping Warm Creating in Supernova. The cute stitch marker is from Girl on the Rocks.