Let’s Hold Hands…(review and giveaway)
Open Kate Atherley's newest book, Knit Mitts, and you'll quickly realize two things. Kate lives somewhere that gets seriously cold, and she isn't afraid of numbers. Spend a few more minutes with the book and you'll start to see that she's decided use her fondness for figures to make absolutely sure you can keep your hands warm this winter! She's done this in two ways. The first is by writing twelve awesome patterns. There are mittens, gloves, and fingerless gloves (all in a truly impressive array of sizes), and they're adorned with a lovely mix of cables, colorwork, and lace. But [...]
Wanna pet the knits?
So every now and then I pack up a bunch of knitting, offer up a small sacrifice to whatever spirits keep things safe in the postal system, and send trunk shows off to yarn shops. This is your periodic reminder that if you want one to turn up at your local yarn shop, you can have them get in touch with me (just send them to tinynonsense.com, there's wholesale info there). I know it sounds a little funny, but a lot of my best yarn shops found me because their customers came in knitting from my patterns or showing off [...]
Behold…an actual slipper
So first came a few decreases. Then everything got all joined up. And then it really started looking properly slipper-like! Now I just have to remind myself (firmly) that my foot is a wee bit longer than the foot form and do one more repeat than I think I need to, and we should be done. And really, the toes on these are going to be unspeakably adorable. Promise. Oh, and this seems like a good post to point out that the blog happens on a bit of a time delay (one post is often a few days of knitting). [...]
Round and round or back and forth
So the way these slippers go together, you work flat for a while and then you work in the round (they're built a lot like Quiescent if you played with those). And whenever you go from working flat to working in the round, you need to pay a bit of attention. The first thing to watch is your gauge. Many people have a different gauge in one or the other, and you'll want to do what you can to make it match. (How do you know if you do? Your swatch...it's always your swatch!) That can mean using a different [...]
More Wovember Woollies
Still having fun with this... Still cold outside... Still a tiny bit gloomy outside... Still not out of hats! You can see these day by day (at least as long as I last) over on my instagram account. Oh, and if you’re wondering about any of the hats, clicking the pics will take you to their rav pages!
The Bucket…
I think I've explained before just how much of my organizational scheme depends on buckets. When I start a new book, it gets three buckets. As yarn comes in, it goes in bucket one. Once I've swatched it, the swatches and tags go in bucket two (while the yarn itself usually goes out to Super Stunt Knitters for the actual knitting). When the pieces are finished, they go in bucket three. Once bucket three is full and bucket one empty, it's photo shoot time! I have a similar situation for individual patterns, just a bit less structured. That less structured [...]
Leaves are sneaky
Leaf patterns are sneaky. Usually (not always of course, knitting offers very few cases of always) leaf patterns have you closing off the last leaf at the same time you're starting up the next one. That means when you've knit one repeat, you have two half leaves...and absolutely zero whole leaves. It also means it looks like nothing much to write home about... It's not until you finish the second repeat of the stitch pattern that you actually have one whole leaf. And it's often not until you've done two or three more repeats that you can really start to [...]
Wovember
I have a talent for only hearing about these various hashtag festivities well after the fact, but I managed to catch the #wovember / #wearwoolforwovember business before the whole blasted month is over. So I'm totally using it as a little prompt to go digging in the woollies and wear something other than just what's still in my coat pocket as I go out and take a walk! So far so good. I mean I am fairly well stocked in the hat department. I don't think I quite have enough in the current bin to do a different one every [...]
Well heeled
So the heel flap is done (this one is taller than usual, a full 56 rows, because I wanted the slipper to come up a bit higher on my ankle). And the heel turn is done...and reminding me of nothing so much as a tiny pirate flag at the moment. But I'm sure that's just the yarn fumes talking! Next I pick up a bunch of stitches and start doing the fancy bit...and then at some point not too long from now, it will actually start looking like a slipper.
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