alisonknits

the very life of life

Sitting here on my little deck, watching bees and other insects buzz in and around a beautiful flowery tree, I suddenly thought of one of my favorite readings from the back of our Unitarian Universalist hymnal:

Look to this day!
For it is life, the very life of life.
For yesterday is but a dream
And tomorrow is only a vision
But today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness
And tomorrow a vision of hope.
Look well, therefore, to this day!

~Kalidasa

May it be so.

It Only Took Two Years

My website is finally live! Go check it out and tell me what you think.

Now I just have to work on getting more of my patterns up there.

I've been extremely busy with knitting work lately, but unfortunately almost none of it is for my own line.  However, I have been working on some cool stuff.  I have a pattern coming out for J. Knits, and also did some pattern-writing for Knit Picks.  (Not really my own design.  Basically they sent me a sketch and some yarn, and I swatched it, did the calculations, and wrote up the pattern, which they're sending to a test knitter.) 

The coolest thing I've been working on is still hush-hush, which is torturing me a bit, because I hate having a secret.  Especially a really awesome secret.

The most pressing deadlines I've been under are mostly over, so I'm hoping that I can get my Rapunzel sweater finished and up for sale soon.  I'm re-doing part of the front & back of the sample, because my first pass at it didn't have the wide neck of the original, which I think is an attractive element of the design.

I also have another pattern to finish writing, and some tech editing to do. 

And then there's my day job.  I've come to like my day job.  But it's just a job.  A day job.  It's perfectly pleasant and I think I'm even sort of good at it (or would be, if they would give me more hours, except that I don't want more hours, because the knitting is what I really care about).  But it's my day job.  Hey, it pays the bills, much more than the knitting work at the moment.

But fame and fortune is right around the corner.  Right?

Leap Day, the Sabbath, and forced rest

A few weeks ago when we had the leap day, I came up with this theory.  My idea is that Leap Day should be set completely aside from the rest of the calendar - it shouldn't even fall on a day of the week, like it would go, Wednesday, Thursday, Leap Day, Friday, Saturday... etc.  You wouldn't be allowed to make any appointments or go to work.  (My husband pointed out that there are some professions that this wouldn't be able to apply to, like, the hospitals would still have to be open.  I say, he is a spoil sport and should just go with my little fantasy here.)

In this frenzied world, is it too much to ask that once every four years, we have a day apart?  A complete day of rest?

Then it occurred to me that there is in fact a name for this.  It's called the Sabbath.  Once upon a time most people in the western world actually observed a weekly day of rest.  Many still do.

I was talking this over with my knitting peeps the other day, and as I did, I realized for the first time in the four weeks that I've been at my new job that I'm working seven days a week again.  And I didn't even notice!  My schedule isn't actually so grueling as it sounds, but it is true that most weeks, I do work every day.  Monday-Friday 2-5pm at the "day job," plus whatever knitting work I can manage to get done, most Saturdays teaching one or two knitting classes, and Sunday nights working with the yoots at church.  So where does that leave me with my desire (need?) to start taking the Sabbath seriously?

In fact, I can manage it.  I can even do it on the Christian Sabbath, which is funny since I'm not a Christian.  (For a while there I took the Sabbath on Monday.)  I don't work on Sunday mornings anymore (which continues to be all that I'd hoped it would be), so I can go from about 5pm on Saturday to 5pm on Sunday.  Heck, some parts of the year that's even sundown to sundown.  How very traditional of me.

As I've been thinking this week about these ideas of having a true day of rest, the universe knocked me on my ass with a terrible head cold, forcing me, after several days of trying to push through, to take to my bed.  (From whence I write this post.)  I've only done a teensy-tiny bit of work from my bed.

Well, I can't go cold-turkey, now.

A Smattering of Good Things

It was a long week, culminating in going to bed at 9pm on Saturday completely exhausted, but today I feel completely invigorated.  Here are some good things in my life:

• I have a new job!  I'm now the Guest Services Coordinator at Rolling Ridge retreat & conference center in North Andover.  It's a beautiful place, situated on 38 acres of land on Lake Cochichewick.  I worked a lot of hours last week and think I'm going to really enjoy my work.
• A couple months ago, I started attending services at North Parish, also, coincidentally, in North Andover (right down the road from my new job, in fact).  The first day I was there, they announced that they were starting a new beginner bell choir.  I've always been fascinated by bell choirs, and joined up right away.  It's a lovely way to be spending my Sunday afternoons.  If you've never seen (or heard) a bell choir, basically, each member of the choir is responsible for just a couple of bells, and everyone has to ring their bells at the right moment in the music.  Our set of bells spans 3 octaves.  I'm playing A and B above middle C.  On Palm Sunday, we're playing "Morning Has Broken," and I even get a few notes of the melody.  Woo hoo!
• I just finished my first professional graphic design assignment - an ad for J. Knits that will appear in Interweave Knits.  I'm really happy with how it turned out, and I enjoyed working on it and learning more about Photoshop, Quark, and what makes a good layout. 
• My little gift to myself to congratulate myself on my new job:

This lovely little teapot from Special Teas, along with some decadently flavored black teas: Chocolate with Chocolate Pieces, and Caramel with Caramel Pieces.  Mmmmmm....

Deja Knit

I'm in the middle of not one, not two but three projects that I have knit before.

First, I started another pair of Bird in Hand mittens.  When I knit a pair for my sister last December, I knew I had to have a pair of my own.  However, since I'm really trying to focus on my professional knitting, and not spend a lot of time knitting just for fun (not that knitting my own designs isn't fun too), I decided to teach a class on the mittens.  I asked for and received Kate's blessing to use her pattern for the class (with the students purchasing their own patterns, of course), and last month I knit the first mitten as a sample to advertise the class.  I reserved knitting the second mitten for demonstrating techniques during the class.  It was in three sessions, and the final session is tomorrow.  It's going great!  We even got Betsy, the shop owner, to take the class.  I'm going to try and get a photo of everyone's mittens at the end of the class.

I'll be embarrassed to admit to the class tomorrow that I've not been modeling good homework-doing.  I want to have the thumb done for class tomorrow so that I can demo the embroidery, but there's no way I'll finish the whole thing.  My revised plan is to get past the thumb gusset, then put the hand stitches on a holder, then knit the thumb.  But even that is a bit ambitious, since I have some other non-knitting work to do today as well.

Anyway, next we have my Rapunzel sweater.  This will be the next design I publish, and I have to say, I think this is my favorite thing I've ever designed.  I knit the prototype for myself last year, and now I'm knitting a sample to photograph, which will live at A Loom with a View when I'm done with it.  Betsy picked the color, and while it's not a color that I would have chosen myself, I actually really like how the pattern looks in this shade.

Sorry for the crappy photo (actually, all my photos for this post are kinda crappy, but I took them at 11pm last night and did the best I could).

The sizes are all worked out (that's the 8 sizes I mentioned in my last post), and the pattern is partially written out.  I still have to knit another sleeve, knit the top edge, sew it all together, finish writing the pattern, photograph the sweater, get the pattern edited, and layout the pattern.  Wow, when I say it like that it sounds like a lot, but hopefully I can get it all done within a couple weeks.

The third re-knit is a version of my Artemis Stole.  I want to teach a lace class this spring, and I've finally learned my lesson that people like a project-based class (rather than just practicing the techniques), so I'm knitting up a scarf version of my stole pattern and will use that to teach lace techniques. 

I'll keep the scarf when it's done, so I'm knitting it out of lovely, soft Malabrigo Lace yarn in a favorite shade of blue.  They call it "jewel blue," but I don't think it's a jewel tone at all, it's more of a sky blue.  In fact, it's the same color I painted my bedroom as a teenager, my office when I worked at NYU, and I'm thinking of painting my current office/study in my home.  I did my best with Photoshop to approximate the color, but in reality it's a much softer color than what appears on my screen in this photo.

So... maybe after all these are done I'll actually invent something new to knit!  A girl can dream.

Almost, but not quite

I have been hanging around the house for the last couple weeks (2? 3? I don't even know anymore...) I'm in between temp assignments. I interviewed for a p/t job that would have gotten me out of the house 3 days a week, leaving me time to work on my knit design business and all that other good stuff. It went very well, they checked my (apparently excellent) references, I had a 2nd interview, which (I thought) went very well, but I don't think I got the job, because I was supposed to hear by now. Poop.

Well, it wasn't meant to be, I suppose.

Also, I recently submitted a very sweet little baby sweater I designed to a popular venue for knitting patterns. I heard back yesterday that they like it, but don't have any room left in issue I submitted for, and would like to hold it for possible publication in the next issue, or the one after that.

I guess that's okay.

My own website is so close to being ready to go live that I can taste it! (It tastes like raspberries.) But I have a little more content to put up, and my hubbo web designer has a few more things to do on the functionality end of things.

We hope to put in more work on it this weekend.

(BTW, I'm thinking about a contest to celebrate once we finally get it up for all the world to see. Stay tuned.)

So, what do I have to show for two (or 3?) weeks without work outside my house? (Not counting all those times I've brought my laptop to Starbucks or my favorite tea house because I'm getting stir crazy.)

Bupkis.

Not exactly true. I put my Christmas decorations away, finally, on January 28. I knit the back & front of a sample for a sweater pattern that I'm hoping will take the knitting world by storm in a few weeks, and I calculated all 8 (8!) sizes. I did a little freelance tech editing, and started along the steep learning curve of using Adobe Illustrator. Look what I made yesterday:

Yes, my heart is a little bit blue.

Almost.

New Pattern: Chalice Cable Handwarmers

The latest pattern I'm offering for sale is the Chalice Cable Handwarmers that Cate was kind enough to test knit for me last month (thanks Cate!).

These fingerless mittens make a lovely, as well as inexpensive and quick-knit, gift. The graceful cable includes one row that utilizes two cable needles – a fun little maneuver that you don’t see every day!

Size: To fit adult woman - hand circumference approx. 7.5”.

Yarn: Approx 170 yds DK weight yarn.

Gauge: 22 sts and 32 rows = 4" in stockinette stitch.

Sample used 1 skein Rowan Felted Tweed (50% merino, 25% alpaca, 25% viscose; 191 yds. per 50g ball) in color #141. 

Alternative yarn suggestions: Classic Elite Inca Alpaca or Inca Marl; Debbie Bliss Cashmerino DK.

Needles & Notions
- Size 5 (3.75 mm) double-pointed needles, or size needed to obtain gauge.
- Two cable needles
- Stitch marker
- Small amount of waste yarn
- Tapestry needle 

PDF download available via PayPal for $4.95

A Return to Form

Something that people who've met me in the last few years don't realize is that I'm actually a short-hair person.  However, a few years ago I got lazier and lazier about cutting it, until finally I just gave in and decided to grow it out.  So for a few years now (including all the time I've been living in MA as an adult), my hair has looked like this:

But, for about a year now, I've been meaning to cut it.  (Yeah, that's how I ended up with long hair in the first place.)  In honor of my new start this year, and my renewed commitment to a creative life, I finally made the appointment.  And tada! I am back to my old self again, only with gray streaks in the front:

Look how much happier I look!  I love my haircut.  And, I really liked the hairstylist (at Apple Salon in Newburyport, his name is Justin), which is great since now I actually have to get haircuts regularly again.

I'm donating my hair to Pantene Beautiful Lengths, which makes free wigs for women who have lost their hair due to cancer treatments.   People keep telling me how nice that is... I guess I would feel more virtuous if I had grown out my hair specifically for that purpose.  But hey, at least since I'm not using it anymore, someone else can!

New Year, New Directions

On Saturday, I spent the entire day - from noon to midnight - putting together a submission to Knitty.  I learned some nifty, new-to-me tricks with Photoshop, taught myself how to size patterns using Excel (so cool! reminds me that I actually like math & formulae), and progressed further in my skills using Quark (a page layout program), which I used to create my schematic.

As exhausting as the day was, it was a lot of fun.  I actually really like desktop publishing, as I'm discovering doing the layout for my self-published patterns, and I want to do more of it.  The Husband is a graphics guy professionally, and this morning I suddenly thought how cool it could be for us to start our own business.

The more I work in offices, the more I realize that it doesn't really matter how great an office I work in, I just don't want to work in an office.  I want to work at home.  I want to do something creative with my time.  I want to be my own boss.

Scott gave me a really cool book for Christmas, called Crafting A Business.  It profiles about 20 women who started their own businesses as artisans, and I'm finding it quite inspirational.  It's so encouraging to see real examples of craftswomen who are making a living doing what they love.  In the second half of the book it has a lot of practical information for starting your own business, and I'm looking forward to getting more into that nitty-gritty section.

There's something especially exciting about starting a new year with all these ideas and possibilities.  Now if I could just win the lottery or get an inheritance from a long-lost relative, I could quit temping and really get down to it!  (Or, I could turn off the TV in the evenings - there's nothing on anymore anyway! - and accept that doing what I love is going to take a lot of hard work.)

More Christmas Knitting

In addition to the mittens I posted about yesterday, I also knit a pair of socks recently, as a Christmas gift for my dad.  I was so good about knitting gifts from stash this year, I'm quite proud of myself.  (It wasn't that hard, since I only knit two gifts.)  These were knit out of some yarn that I knit into an ill-fitting pair of socks several years ago.  How silly am I that I knit the first sock, tried it on with difficultly, because it was done in a cable pattern with these weird wrapped stitches that caused it to only go over my heel if I tugged and tugged, and then went ahead and knit the second sock anyway??  But I did.  They actually fit fine once they were on my feet, but I decided I was not interested in battling with my socks to get them onto my feet, and so I threw them in the sock yarn bin to recycle someday.  And then I actually did!  Eventually.  Isn't it amazing when "someday" actually comes around?

I started to believe the yarn was cursed, because I started these many times before finally getting them right.  First I was going to knit Ann Budd's Mock Wave Cable socks from Favorite Socks, but knitting the large size, they were coming out ginormous, even though I was using much smaller needles than the pattern calls for.  And the small size was going to be too small.  I tried various ways of adjusting the size, but wasn't satisfied with any of them.  Then I mucked about with some improvised patterns, but none of them panned out either.

Finally I settled on Thuja, which I think is a perfect Dad sock pattern.  Interesting enough, but still quite understated for conservative Dad taste, and super easy to work.  Since I was using fingering weight yarn rather than the DK called for in the pattern, I knit the sock on 64 stitches and adjusted the heel & toe accordingly.

Dad reports that he likes them very much.  I actually had never knitted him socks before.  But before you start pitying my dad, keep in mind that he owns two whole sweaters that I knit for him, and one of them is Henry VIII.  And a cashmere hat.  (Do I sound defensive?  I feel defensive.  I guess I'd better knit more socks for Dad.)