Knitcircus Magazine Giveaway

Jaala Spiro, editor-in-chief of Knitcircus magazine, or as she is beginning to be known at my house, the Great Northern Beneficent Knitting Goddess, has generously donated a copy of the pattern directions from the Spring issue of Knitcircus to be given away on this blog.Here’s what we’ll do.  You go to the magazine site and look at the issue.  (You can also get there through the homepage where you can get on the mailing list. ) Then post a comment on this site telling me your favorite of the new patterns.  I’ll do a random drawing and notify the winners with an invitation to download the Instruction PDF.

I’ll leave this available until Sunday night and will announce the winners on Monday.  This is a great opportunity.  Don’t miss it.

On a Rant

This came in today’s email!!! I retyped it because I couldn’t figure out how to get it in here otherwise.

Your mind may be ready for summer.  Is your body?

Beach weather will be here before you know it.

Procedures like breast augmentation, liposuction, lifts and tucks can help you show off your confidence as you show off more skin.  And even though you’re still wearing your winter coat, it’s the perfect time to do your research, ask us questions and schedule your treatments.

Charlotte Plastic Surgery

You.  Renewed.

There was a  beautiful woman pictured and the whole thing was in tasteful shades of mauve.

ARG-G-G-G-G-G-GH!

I accidentally hit the link to their practice’s web site and I just wanted to punch out all 5 of these guys.  I know times are hard.  A friend who recently had some plastic surgery told me that today the surgeons will throw in extra procedures because they are desperate.  I recognize that someone has to pay so these folks can go to Third World countries and save children, but Dear Lord, do they not know how ads like these hurt women.

If you have the cash and want this surgery, fine.  It’s your business.  I just hope you don’t really think it will give you confidence.  Real confidence comes through achievement, not skin.  But ads like this just ad to the myth of beauty and youth in our country and leave so many women disappointed and despairing.

Getting old isn’t fun.  I look in the mirror and wonder who the hell that is.  Inside I feel eternally 30ish and womanly.  Outside I see my crone years.  But the crone stage is an earned thing.  You get here by battling life–winning, losing, mostly learning.  Confidence comes from that as well.

Beauty?  Well, it can have some wrinkles.  It comes from spirit, from attitude.  Believe in yourself and what you know and can do and have done, and beauty just glows through the physical.  Could anyone be more beautiful than Katherine Hepburn in her 80s?

In my humble opinion.  I always have one.   Thanks for reading.

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I got an email from Laura at www.craftzine.com.

This is Laura, from CRAFT. Hello! I am trying to get the word out about a little book giveaway we’re running, for the book “Mason-Dixon Knitting,” by Kay Gardiner and Ann Shayne.

If you think your readers might be interested, please feel free to post about it. To enter the contest, you just have to leave a comment on the blog post. The giveaway ends on Monday, March 1.

http://blog.craftzine.com/archive/2010/02/book_review_giveaway_mason-dix.html

The paperback edition of this marvelous book has just been released.  If you don’t own it, go over and post a comment.  You just might win.

Knitcircus

While you are frolicking each day at your job, I am here in my retirement slogging my way through the internet just to find things to entertain and enlighten you in the world of knitting.  It’s a dirty job, but someone’s . . . .I have discovered a new magazine–well, new to me— that I really like.  It’s called Knitcircus and is produced by a group of women in Wisconsin.  Editor Jaala Spiro does a wonderful job of combining mostly knitting with a bit of sewing and cooking and whatever to create a very slick and entertaining magazine.  I immediately wrote them a fan letter and got a really nice response from Jaala.  She also took time to let me know when my order was mailed.  This personal touch means a lot to me.

I stumbled on this site from another blog and stayed to look at the back issues and even order two of them.  I was particularly struck by the designs from Elizabeth Morrison.  She also does most of the photos (all of these)  and they are lovely.  In Issue 3 I found this shrugwhich I really want to make———–and I don’t even like shrugs.  The fair isle vest on the cover of Issue 4 above is also a draw, but I really think I ordered that issue because of this photoIt’s a recipe for Spinach Chicken Pasta.  Yeah, I know that you know that I don’t cook.  But I do eat, and this looks amazing.

I was pleasantly surprised to find the issues I ordered were produced on slick paper and done folded letter-size so they fit neatly into any knitting bag.  Very good print quality.  That being said,  Knitcircus has morphed into the digital world in a clever way.

Beginning with the newest issue, #9, the entire magazine (minus the pattern instructions) is online and available to everyone. You can read book and yarn reviews, interviews (Wait until you see the pics of Lily Chin in some of her famous costumes.), an article about a sheep farm, one on spinning, lots of great designs, a neat pillow cover to sew and a recipe for cookies.  Elizabeth Morrison is taunting me with some more fair isle patterns (a hat and a laptop envelop) but my favorite is a scarf called Bebop Scarf from Miss T.  I can’t figure out that stitch pattern and I really love it.  You can just hear the music.

Purchasing the pattern directions is easy.  It’s a pdf download you can get through Paypal.  I love paypal.  All 17 patterns are only $7.50.

If you read to the back of the magazine, they give a mini bio of each designer and you see they are drawing from many other places now.  Maybe a few of us Southerners need to send some submissions to share with our creative Northern sisters.

Best thing about this magazine for me is that Jaala brought together a group of knitters and took a risk to share their love of our craft.  I’ve bookmarked everything for you so visit these sites and enjoy.

If you know of other magazines, especially tiny ones, please share.

New stuff–yarn and pattern

Remi has a new yarn at Charlotte Yarn that just sucked me right in.  It is Queensland Haze.

The corn fiber was what got me.  Erica loves her corn fiber socks and begs for more, so obviously she needs a shell made from this new corn and cotton yarn.  The color screams Erica.  A really lush, soft rose with hints of blue in it will make her baby blues pop.

We all know the problems with 100% cotton yarns.  No memory is the big one.  The corn fiber in this yarn gives it terrific stitch definition, but, alas, no memory.  I tried the tiny needle trick and loved the result in this swatch.  It has been washed and the results were great.  The hand is really nice.  It’s soft but has a tiny crispness like linen.  The color didn’t fade at all in the washing as some cottons do.

I found a stitch pattern in Creative Knitting that I liked and started a shell.  I will see her soon and thought I could fit her if I had the back knit.  This looks okay, but doesn’t solve the no elasticity problem.  I knit it with a size 3 needle (ball band recommends a 6) and love the feel, but when I woke up this morning, my elbows were hurting.  Uh oh.  Already did that surgery.  Must find a way to use a larger needle.  You probably won’t have this problem.  I just knit so *&^*& k loosely.

Later—Well, now I’m trying this.

Back to the drawing board for me.  I’ll let you know what I discover.  In the meantime, go by Charlotte Yarn and hold this stuff for a bit.  You’ll probably succumb, too.

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So after all this, I took the yarn and my enthusiasm to Georgia to show to DD1 and her response was to talk about the way her current scarf sheds on her coat and could I just use this yarn and make her a new scarf.

I am going to look great in the shell I am going to make for me out of this great yarn.  You know, mostly you should just knit for yourself.

On the needles

The Sleepy Hollow Sock which knits the gusset as you knit the heel flap.  I discovered this on Yarn Harlot’s blog (great photos) and immediately ordered it and Persephone from here.  I rarely buy sock patterns, but when I see a new technique that interests me, I go for it.  I’m using a size 0 needle and CTH Supersock from the stash.  Love the leaves.

Olympic knitting.  The armscye looks promising, but I need to get further to see.    The front maple leaf is self explanatory, but the area below is mogul tracks.  This is a design as you go sweater.   Also, I’m worried about having enough yarn.  Ain’t life grand?

Started a sock yarn blanket.  I did say “Start.”

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New linen skirt is snoozing and new Saddlebag Vest is resting until the Olympic thing is done.

Also have two new sock patterns, but I need pics before I release them.

Hope you are staying busy.

Meghan’s Lace

This is a new pattern inspired by my younger daughter Meghan.  First it is green, which she loves.  Her husband gave her a Pashmina for Christmas and she wears it all the time with the ends hanging in front like a necklace.  Since she wears so much black, this gives her a bit of color.  So this shawlette/scarf is designed to hang to the front, but doesn’t have to.  Finally, it’s a bit of lace in a very simple design.  The lace is only a four row pattern and the edges are not frilly or fussy.  Here it is in the blocking stage.I couldn’t resist adding some scallops in the pinning of the edge.

The top edge of the scarf is shaped so it won’t fall off the shoulders like most triangles do should you want to wear it as a shawlette.

This is the tip.

Pattern available soon.  I’ll also be teaching a class at Charlotte Yarn later in the Spring.

I used one 100 g skein of Cherry Tree Hill Supersock

Updates and Injuries

Steve gave me these for Valentine’s and I am hanging some guilt.  These daisies are my favorite flower and I love any yellow flower.  He had to sneak these in the house on Friday and hide them in the Bat Cave (his workout room) in order to give them to me when we got home from Georgia on Sunday.  That was a lot of planning and thought.

What did I give him?  Nada.  What with all the chaos of leaving town, putting up class schedules, Olympic knitting—I just forgot.  Slacker!  How does this good man put up with me?

Speaking of Olympic knitting–seven inches into the top down sweater.  But here’s the real story. 

I’m blaming this on cold weather and dry skin.  I will change the bandages before I go out in public.  I will NOT stop knitting.

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Check out the blog called Knitting on Impulse.  She is a knitter who happens to live in Whistler, Canada and is helping with the Olympics.  Her photos are great and the insights from a local are neat.

New website to follow up on the sock blanket post.  This isn’t a sock blanket and it is crocheted instead of knit, but it has the same look and it is very clever and I just love the name of the website.

http://www.tangledness.com/pdf/patterns/chameleon.pdf

Visit and take a look at this lovely pattern.  It’s a reason to learn to crochet if you don’t already know how.  Maybe Turtlegirl76 will make it in sock yarn for us.

Toby’s Jacket

This was knit by my friend Toby.  While visiting for coffee I offered to sew it together for her.  I love to sew knitting together.  It didn’t hurt that it has the same drape as the vest pattern I’m working on.

Sun and Sky Draped Jacket from Ironstone Yarns

Designed by Debbie Miller for Ironstone Yarns

Knit & Style–April 2007 Back Issue available at KnitnStyle.com

Bulky weight Noro

I don’t know which of the Noro’s this is, but how could any Noro be bad?

Here’s a detail.  The jacket is made of 3 rectangles and 2 sleeves.

This sleeve detail that Toby knit  is my favorite detail.  You just decrease every other row on both edges of the sleeve  for about an inch and leave that last inch or so unsewn.  Looks dapper when you fold it up.

This is the front of the magazine where she found the pattern.

Olympic Knitting

Here’s the swatch.  I am following Yarn Harlot rules for the Knitting Olympics and am allowed to swatch because that is like training.  Since I’m designing this sweater myself, I feel charting also falls in that category.  I had planned to knit a traditional gansey just like my first one and did the planning for that using Beth Brown-Reinsel’s magnificent book Knitting Ganseys.I also planned to use the same yarn as before–Cotton Fleece.  Kept the yarn because I love it, but last night I had an epiphany.  Why not design this gansey as a raglan and test my theories about how to shape it to fit the body better and to eliminate that bulk under the arm?  I mean this is really supposed to be a challenge, not just an excuse to knit.  So I slept on it and woke up thinking about it and spent the last 5 hours drawing and thinking and here is where I am today.The first 63 rows!  The front and back will be identical and will have centered maple leaves in knit/purl pattern to honor the host country Canada.  The sleeves will have a snowflake centered down the top of the sleeve.  I may change that large knit area on the sides and put in a pattern, but I have a few rows before I have to decide.

After this, it isn’t yet planned.  Maybe a ski slope like pattern in the middle section, maybe not.  I have 17 days.  And if my theory doesn’t work, I’ll need them all, nights,too, to rip and retry.  I did much more planning than I usually do before I start knitting so I hope that will teach me something else important.

Now I am sitting around waiting for the Opening Ceremony time so I can cast on and try out my ideas.  Wish me luck.

I really hope it doesn’t snow.  I want to go to a basketball game in Georgia tomorrow.