The best-laid plans

You weren't imagining things: Blogger deleted my post and so I had to go back and try to reconstruct it as best as I could.

I have a finished object (quilting edition) to show you. This is a quilt I just finished making for Boy Twin. It's not at all the quilt that I thought I was going to make when I began, but I quite like it, not the least because it's the first full-sized quilt I have made.



Boy Twin has bunk beds in his room, and it seemed like the perfect chance to make a quilt for him. I had picked up some boy-ish printed fabric here and there. I laid it out to cut squares, and I quickly saw that that the fabrics seemed to be naturally falling into two specific color themes: one was chambray-ish, denim-y blues with red, and the other was brighter with orange, yellow and deeper blue as well as red. I decided to let the recipient of the quilt decide and he immediately picked the brighter colors. Which was good because I really love the space-themed fabrics I got at Spool.



I didn't want to overreach on my first full-sized quilt, so I cut blocks. I was originally aiming for a "scrappy" look, without intending to have any sort of deliberate pattern. It looked okay but didn't knock me out. So I tried cutting some blocks in solid colors -- I had some yellows and orange and red, and added a couple of blues, too, just to see what would happen. I liked it better, but it still seemed a little meh.

I went poking about the Internet looking at quilts and came across a really striking quilt on a Flickr feed (I can't find it now to link to). It used white blocks on one side to set off a sunset-themed quilt, with the colored blocks going from darker at the bottom to lighter at the top. I decided to try cutting some white blocks and seeing if an arrangement like this would work. I ended up adding some darker navy blocks at the bottom, and voila!



When I had the center blocks cut, sewn and pressed, Mr. Go-Knit-In-Your-Hat weighed in. For some reason he was ambivalent about the white section of the quilt. He strongly suggested a border, preferably in a deep or bright color, to frame off the white. Mr. GKIYH has pretty good judgment when it comes to aesthetics (he married me, didn't he?) so I opted for the dotted frame, which I think works well.



Lest I bore you to death talking about the quilt, I do have to mention one other thing that I think makes this quilt special. I wanted to include at least some piecing on the back of the quilt. After ogling the stuff on Spoonflower, I had a brilliant idea. The twins have been drawing a bunch of comics starring a character they invented called "Fred the Starfish." I surreptitiously scanned a comic, used Photoshop to isolate the individual characters and clean up the lines a little, and arranged them in a row so it would work as a panel. I had a fat quarter printed up and Boy Twin was thrilled to see Fred and friends on the back of the quilt.



I tied the quilt for fear I'd never finish it -- and by this time, Boy Twin was so excited about the quilt, he'd been repeatedly asking me when it would be done. I used a binding with leftover pieces from some of the brightly-colored blocks.

I'm really excited about the finished product and am already hard at work on the next one....

Seeing patterns

I've been playing around with sewing and quilting in the last few months. It sounds funny, but since so much of my knitting is centered around deadlines, I find that having a creative outlet entirely separate from the knitting/spinning world is refreshing for me. What's been especially fun: seeing how things have changed in the world of fabric -- or maybe it's more a function of my having had outdated ideas about what fabric and quilting and sewing are all about. I've been knocked out by the wide variety of fabric choices out there -- traditional ones, like checks and dots, but in all sorts of colors; fun ones, with aliens or mermaids or dancing vegetables; lush, vibrant florals like the ones created by Kaffe Fassett; Japanese imports; organics; and even a whole new world of print-on-demand fabrics via places like Spoonflower, where you can upload designs and get them printed in small quantities (or order fabrics from indie designers who sell via the Spoonflower site). I'm really fortunate to have access to a bricks-and-mortar shop like Spool, and I've discovered some terrific on-line sites and blogs -- True Up is one of my current faves.

It's also been fascinating to see what's happening in the world of quilting design. Everybody has their druthers when it comes to style and I've found that I"m no different. Not surprisingly, I find myself infatuated with color and how expert designers combine colors and patterns. Of course there are the incredible designs by Kaffe Fassett and Liza Lucy --the colors and combinations of colors they use make my heart sing. It was also fascinating for me to see the work of Jane Brocket; her quilting book uses lots of lush fabrics but in larger swathes of fabric rather than many small shapes pieced together.

But I've also been looking at a lot of quilts that go by the name "modern" -- and without stirring up a whole debate about what's modern and what's traditional, I'm talking about quilters who play with the use of solid or nearly solid fabrics, make sashing a design element, and incorporate pared-down geometric shapes-- often larger rather than postage-stamp sized, pieced quilt backs and free-motion quilting. (I've found this Flickr feed to be especially full of interesting stuff.) I hadn't realized that there were quilters out there doing this sort of thing, so it was a revelation to discover a whole thriving community of them with nary a Sunbonnet Sue in sight.

As someone who's been immersed in a subculture of the craft world for so long, I've been finding some of the parallels between the knitting blog0sphere and the quilting blogosphere to be interesting. The role of the internet plays in shaping the craft? The need to support local bricks-and-mortar shops as well as on-line businesses? Indie designers versus large companies? Whether designers should give patterns out for free? Process versus production? All of these issues are explored in both the knitting and quilting worlds. Recently there was a blogging brouhaha arising out of the suggestion that quilting was being "dumbed down", and I couldn't help but think about similar debates in the knitting world that erupted during the time when novelty yarn scarves were everywhere or when people were obsessed with quick-knitting super-chunky yarns and nothing else. (Pretty please don't debate these issues in the comments.....they've been done to death elsewhere. Me, I think people should do what makes them happy. For some, that will involve pushing the envelope and constantly trying new things; for others, that will entail a less intense approach to a craft. For me, it will involve both, depending on what kind of mood I'm in. To use a phrase that I am sick of hearing, "it's all good.")

Anyway, if you happen to notice that I'm showing you photos of fabric-related projects, don't be alarmed. Much of what I'm knitting is on deadline for future publications, which means I can't talk about it yet here. So in the meantime, allow me to distract you with these photos of some pillow covers I made recently.

Fabric by Scarletfig (Etsy shop here)

I was, of course, infatuated with the bunny

French Window Pillow pattern by Patty Young (free here)

They are already a teeny bit wrinkled, but that's just a sign that they've been used and loved. Which is really what it's all about, eh?

Blog Tour: More Knitting in the Sun, by Kristi Porter

Just in time for warmer weather (in this hemisphere, at least): Kristi Porter has published a sequel to her lovely book Knitting In the Sun: 32 Projects for Warm Weather. Appropriately enough, it's called More Knitting in the Sun and this time it features projects for the kids in your life. Today we're a stop on the blog tour (more details about the blog tour at Wiley's blog here), so let's take a closer look at the book.

As knitters we tend to think of our craft in terms of cold weather -- knitting wool sweaters and scarves and mittens and suchlike. But Kristi Porter, who lives in the milder climate of California, has done us a great service by reminding us that there are plenty of fabulous knitted items we can wear in warmer weather, too. Her first book featured women's garments -- short-sleeved and sleeveless tops, lightweight cardigans, even a bathing suit -- and now she's turned her eye to warm weather garments for kids.



More Knitting in the Sun (Wiley 2011; MSRP $22.99, available for $15 as of the time of this writing through the link above) presents 32 patterns for boys and girls. Porter explains her goals in selecting patterns for the book:

Kids want knits that aren't too babyish, but aren't miniature versions of adult designs either. They want clothes that are comfortable and easy to wear. Kids need to run and jump and play without fussing with their clothes. But they still want things that suit their own personal style, whether they are a girly girl or a hundred percent boy.

Milo (Carol Feller)

The selections in the book are geared for warmer weather -- featuring lots of lighter-gauge yarns and cooler fibers -- but Porter points out that even if you don't live in a climate like California's, the garments can be worn in cooler weather by layering them over tees or leggings or turtlenecks. She's right; my daughter sometimes opts to wear a favorite sundress over a long-sleeved tee-shirt in cooler weather, and that makes the investment of knitting time for these adorable patterns even more appealing.

Mashenka (Faina Goberstein)

The book begins with a short introduction and then goes right into the patterns (there is a section with specific knitting skills and abbreviations at the end, along with contributor bios, but the vast majority of the book is devoted to the patterns). The pattern section begins with Accessories, and contains a beach cover-up, a lacy poncho, a beach blanket, a fishing hat (so cute & clever!), a cloche hat with bow, and a lightweight backpack-style carryall.

Huck (Kristi Porter)

Next up are bottoms, including cargo shorts, board shorts,

Kimo (Kendra Nitta)

a tiered bubble skirt, and my own peasant skirt design:

Trixie (me!)

The "Sleeveless" section features two adorable sundresses, a pleated empire-style top, a sweet tank top with lace, a racerback tank, a lace-collared top, a boy's vest, and a swing top with collar.

Pippa (Mary C. Gildersleeve)

"Short Sleeves" contains a hooded top with eyelet trim, a t-shirt with lace sleeves and inset panel, a striped baseball-style top, and a cap-sleeve top with eyelets.

Vashti (Talihta Kuomi)

"Long Sleeves" features a henley-style pullover, a top with ruffled sleeves, and a cropped pullover.

Lucy (Tabetha Hedrick)

"Cardigans" includes a very cropped shrug, a zip-front hoodie, a zip-front yoked jacket, a tie-front robe with intarsia flowers,

Satsuki (Sarah Barbour)

a cropped lace jacket, an openwork cardigan, and a short-sleeved cardigan with empire-waist shaping.

Charlie (Kristi Porter)

For my statistical fans, I counted the following:

• one beach blanket & one beach cover-up
  
• two hats
• two skirts
• two shorts
• one poncho
• one backpack/carryall
• two sundresses
• three cropped sweaters
• two tank tops, plus three other sleeveless tops
• one vest
• four short-sleeved pullovers
• two long-sleeved pullovers (one of the cropped tops is long-sleeved, too)
• four cardigans/jackets, plus the remaining two cropped cardis
• one robe

Jack (Lisa S. Rowe)

As you can see, there's a wide variety of garments, and a spectrum of styles, from boyish hoodie to lacy cardigans and dresses and skirts, to appeal to both genders and all sorts of tastes. (Moms of non-girly-girls rejoice: lots of these selections will work for your un-lacy girl, including some of the choices shown on boys which are really unisex). Sizing runs from a children's 2 through 12 (there are slight variations from pattern to pattern) and yarn weights run from aran through sportweight, with lots of DK offerings.

The photography by Stephen Simpson is lovely; I love the way he captured the models acting like real kids in the photos, running, jumping, splashing on the beach. In another thoughtful touch, each pattern is named after a character in children's books (for example, my pattern is named "Trixie" after Trixie Belden, one of my favorite teen sleuths when I was a kid). You'll find schematics, lace charts, color charts for the colorwork motifs, and one thing I think will be helpful for newer knitters: a "Skills Used" notation for each pattern, listing the skills beyond basic knit and purl that the pattern uses to help knitters gauge difficulty level.

Trixie (me)

If you're looking for some fresh ideas for your kids, I think More Knitting in the Sun is well-worth checking out. With its wide size range and its variety of good-looking garments, you're sure to find something to knit for the kids in your life -- and if you're sick of knitting your kids scarves and mittens, think about knitting them some lighterweight items that they can wear other times of the year.

The blog tour continues tomorrow with a stop at Miss Knitta's Studio....

Photos copyright 2011 by Stephen Simspon.

Koigu Magazine

Earlier this week, my friendly UPS man (with the good-looking legs that all UPS drivers seem to have) brought me a most welcome envelope: it had a copy of the first ever Koigu Magazine in it. Regular readers will remember that I have a very special place in my heart for Koigu. The first hand-dyed yarn I ever knit with was Koigu, and it's not an exaggeration to say that loving my experience with this yarn helped spawn my love of handpaints.

Fireflies (Kathy Merrick)

Every once in a while, I'll hear a knitter ask "What's the big deal about Koigu?" Well, here are a few reasons why it's one of my desert-island yarn picks:

• Koigu is one of the pioneers of the handpaint industry; the Koigu folks were creating their beautiful & unique yarns long before many of us handdyers had ever mixed our first pot of dye.
• The colors and color combinations are exquisite and varied -- solids and nearly solids, muted multicolors, wild multicolors, just about anything you could ask for in a handpaint.
• Koigu tends not to pool, a big plus especially for knitters new to handpaints.
• It's extremely versatile yarn. The original Koigu, KPM/KPPM, is technically about fingering weight, but it knits well at multiple gauges. You can do lace, or you can knit it at a tighter gauge for socks, or you can knit it at a looser gauge (like 5.5 or 6 sts to the inch) for a drapey effect. You can double it and it knits beautifully, even triple it.
• Some of the newer base yarns that Koigu has added, like Mori (a blend of wool and silk) and Kersti (a slightly heavier gauge wool) add even more versatility while still giving you luscious Koigu color.
• Maie Landra's multcolored designs, which include lots of multidirectional knitting and knitting with multiple colorways of Koigu, are beautiful and unique.

Pixie Dust (Maie Landra)

With all of these advantages, it probably shouldn't come as a big surprise that so many knitters and designers love working with Koigu. And that means it shouldn't come as a big surprise that after 25 years of making gorgeous yarn, the Koigu folks decided to produce a magazine devoted to the many ways that a knitter can play with and enjoy Koigu yarn. So let's take a closer look.




Koigu Magazine (MSRP $12.95) is full color, with 25 designs. For this inaugural issue, Koigu aimed squarely at the ladies: all but four of the designs are ladies' garments. (The remaining four are a scarf and a cap which would work for either gender and two throws.) You'll find a little bit of everything, from pullovers to lace stoles to dresses to accessories. I counted the following breakdown:

• 2 rectangular stoles
• 8 pullover sweaters
• one scarf (unisex)
  
• 5 cardigans/jackets
• 3 dresses
• one skirt (shown with a matching sleeveless sweater)
• 2 vests
• a beret and glove combo
• 2 throws
• a unisex cap

Kiki (Maie Landra)

Likewise, you'll find a lot of different techniques used in the garments. There are two lovely fair isle/stranded designs,

Deep Sea (l) & Sheep (r) (Maie Landra)

lots of lace (including lacy stitch patterns and lace edgings), modular garments, intarsia style knitting, a cabled garment, lots and lots of use of multiple colorways, some solid garments, one beaded stole, and several garments that experiment with double- and even triple-stranding. While most of the patterns are knit, about four or so are crocheted, including this spectacular throw by Friend of GKIYH Sally Watson Cushmore

[Sally's Bigass Blanket Comfy Cozy (Sally Watson Cushmore)

the aforementioned unisex watch cap, and a fetching beret/glove combo by Friend of GKIYH Kathy Merrick.

Frenchie (Kathy Merrick)

Given the variety of styles included -- from fitted, like this cardigan by New Zealand's Mel Clark

Scholar (Mel Clark)

to flowing, like Maie Landra's Allegra dress,

Allegra (Maie Landra)

it's hard to pick favorites, but I do love the mitered blanket

Squares Cubes & Blocks (Taiu Landra)

the lace stoles

Tumble Leaves (Maie Landra)

and Mel Clark's second cardigan:

Skipping Stones (Mel Clark)

Given the many colors that Koigu yarns come in, it's fun to imagine playing with patterns using different colorways and types of colorways. For example, my own pattern in the issue, called Thistle, is shown in a multi as the main color with solids used for the trim; interestingly, when I originally swatched the design, I used a semisolid for the main color, and a mix of solids and multis for the stripes. I think both work beautifully and I'm awfully tempted to make a version myself playing with more combinations.

Thistle

Because of the eclectic nature of the designs, the style of patterns varies from designer to designer. Some of the patterns are presented in a single size, others in multiple sizes, and of course some of the patterns (like the scarf, stole and throws) don't need multiple sizes. Charts are given in color for the fair isles, lace is charted, and schematics are given for some but not all designs.

Koigu lovers, rejoice! There's a magazine hot off the presses just for you. Taiu Landra promises that the second volume of Koigu Magazine will be out this fall. More Koigu & Koigu designs can only be A Very Good Thing.

We'll miss you, Goat Boy.

Remembering with great sadness and much love Steve, a.k.a. Goat Boy.


I hope you are surrounded by a flock of the finest celestial goats, Steve.


Rest in peace.

Happy Easter!

Wishing a happy Easter to those of you who are celebrating it...


with many bunny kisses from Charcoal....

The week continues

After the minicupcakes (lots of work for minimal cupcake -- and you can imagine what the kitchen looked like with three sugar-crazed kids slopping cake batter into teeny weeny cups)



I fled in panic to my mother's. First up was bowling


then ice cream, then a quick trip to the Wyoming Monument, which marks the spot of a Revolutionary War battle in which badly-outnumbered colonists were killed by British and Iriquois fighters. Unbeknownst to me, the Wyoming Monument was struck by lightning a while back and was being repaired.


But the cannon were still perfect for a photo op.

In the works

an exciting new project that I'm working on, but can't be clearer about for a little while. (Hint: it involves the publishing world...) Stay tuned!

I guess I picked the wrong week to give up sniffing airplane glue.....

So the week I resolve to blog regularly again happens to be the week that all three kids are home from school for spring break. Which means that instead of a book review, you get fabric chicken making


and egg dyeing



and even a Dipped Infinity yarn pack going up in the shop (this one is Violetshimmer):


I will spare you the Perler bead-ing -- it's only Monday.

Must get blog rolling again.....

Okay, I don't want to become all "wah wah wah" here....so let's just say that I'm surfacing again, with several deadlines met, and the rest (I hope) more or less under control. Now I've got to get this blog rolling again.



So let's play catch-up with an overdue book report. Somehow I haven't done a single one this year, so here's January and February combined. With all the snow and a lot of deadlines looming, I found myself gravitating toward escapist reading, which for me mostly consists of mysteries & police procedurals. I did, however, continue to explore some young adult titles and found two winners there.

I'd Know You Anywhere by Laura Lippman. Lippman writes the Tess Monaghan series of books, a detective series set in Baltimore, but I've been reading some of her freestanding suspense books because my library always seems to have them. In this book, the main character is a woman who was kidnapped with her sister when they were teenagers. Eliza was held captive for a lengthy period of time before she was found by a state trooper pulling over her kidnapper's car for speeding. The book explores some of the issues that have arisen in cases like Elizabeth Smart, when an impressionable teen is kidnapped, held for a period of time, and although technically has opportunities to escape, has been psychologically conditioned to stay with her captor. More disturbingly, the book also explores the issue of survivor's guilt, through the eyes of a kidnapping victim who witnessed her captor kidnapping and killing another teen. The only part about the book that didn't ring true with me was the plot device that gets the whole thing rolling: Eliza is an adult, with a family, living happily in a Maryland suburb when she gets a creepy letter from her kidnapper insisting that she get in touch with him so he can make amends before his execution. (I think I'd be inclined to tell the guy to go to hell, but maybe that's just me.)


Bloody Crimes: The Chase for Jefferson Davis and the Death Pageant for Lincoln's Corpse by James Swanson. I read Swanson's previous book, about the manhunt for John Wilkes Booth, a few years ago and really enjoyed it, so when I had a chance to snag a free advance copy of this book, I jumped on it. In "Bloody Crimes," Swanson juxtaposes two key events that took place in the days immediately following Abraham Lincoln's assassination: the quest to capture Jefferson Davis after General Lee surrendered on the battlefield, and the bizarre-yet-heartrending funeral procession as Lincoln's body was carried by train through the northeastern U.S. on its way to burial in Illinois.

The background of Lincoln's funeral procession is macabre and fascinating, but there comes a point when Swanson just overdoses on detail, providing lists and lengthy quotes from letters, and so much minute information that the drama of this extremely emotional event -- the beloved president who kept the "united" in United States is mourned by the people who loved him, bringing flowers and other tributes to his coffin, lining up along train tracks to watch the railcars carrying his body go by -- is drowned out. The events that Swanson seeks to parallel with it -- Jefferson Davis's stubborn insistence that the war wasn't over, followed by a half-hearted flight through the south to evade capture -- just don't pack the same emotional wallop. Again, Swanson overloads the reader with details, quoting too many letters at too great a length, and losing the thread of the narrative in the copious details.

I learned a lot about the days following the Civil War in this book, including a great deal I'd never heard about the Lincoln funeral processsion, but I ended up skimming through some of the excessive dry detail. I think the book would have greatly benefited from a brutal editing, and I also think that perhaps the structure of the book was inherently flawed in that trying to base an entire book on the parallels between the funeral procession and Davis' flight just didn't work.

When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead won a Newbery Award. This is one of those YA books that my oldest kid read first and recommended to me. I really, really enjoyed it. It's a very fast read but the plot is interesting. (Also it features my favorite game show ever, The 10,000 Pyramid.) The book takes place in 1978 New York. The main character, Miranda, has just had a big fight with her best friend, and even her favorite book, A Wrinkle In Time, doesn't completely console her. She starts to receive weird notes that say they want to save her life. I won't spoil it by giving away any more of the plot.

I blew through This Night's Foul Work and Seeking Whom He May Devour both by Fred Vargas. They are part of her series set in France, featuring quirky Commissaire Adamsberg. I've been enjoying this series a great deal and am looking forward to reading more of Vargas when more of herbooks become available in the U.S. I also read The Ice Princess by Camilla Lackberg, which Amazon insisted I would like because I read so many Scandinavian mysteries. In this book, the first to be translated in the US by Lackberg, a Swedish writer goes to a small coastal town to go through her late parents' belongings and prepare their house for sale. While she is there, an old friend commits suicide. The writer is compelled to investigate the suicide along with a local police officer. I found this a diverting enough thriller, but not as well-written as some of the other Scandinavian authors I've read. Likewise, What Never Happens by Anne Holt (a Norwegian author) was a solid thriller but again, more plot-driven and less literary than some of the other Scandinavian authors I like. Last on the mystery rota was Dissolution by C.J. Sansom, which was a bit of a departure; it takes place in Tudor England and features a hunchback lawyer who is sent to investigate a strange death that occurs in a monastery -- during the time during which Henry VIII's ministers are dissolving monasteries and taking the property & riches therein.

Trapped by Michael Northrup was another quick YA read about a group of teens getting snowed in by the blizzard of the century. The kids miss their rides home on an early dismissal day, and get trapped in their high school when a nor'easter socks their New England town with feet of snow. Lots of suspense, but a rather abrupt ending. Perfect for the "reluctant" boy reader in the family.

Last was my favorite, The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly. This book is aimed at the "independent reader," kids around grades 4 to 6. I was completely charmed by the book, which was a Newbery runner-up last year. The title character is a girl growing up in rural Texas at the end of the 19th century. Callie is smart and something of a tomboy; she is the only girl in a family full of boys, and she chafes at the expectations society (and her mother) place on her to be more "feminine." She'd rather catch tadpoles and write in her nature journal than practice cooking and sewing, and as the book begins, Callie discovers that her grandfather is immersed in studying science, particularly natural science. Callie and her grandfather form a loving bond as they explore science together.

I loved this book in the same way that I loved books like "Anne of Green Gables" and "The Secret Garden." They all feature heroines who are spunky, smart and outsiders in some way, but who manage to forge bonds with those around them while remaining true to themselves. There's lots of humor, and some bittersweet parts, too, as Callie starts to face growing-up issues -- seeing her beloved older brother fall in love, feeling her younger brother's pain at realizing his pet turkeys are meant to be Thanksgiving dinner.

Last but not least, I updated the BBF shop with 20 skeins of beautiful BFL Tight Twist, a fingering-weight blend of 75% blue-faced leicester and 25% nylon, with generous 450-yd skeins. Here's a peek:

Piazza

Assassin

Stained Glass