The Selfish Knitter

I normally knit for myself. The whole "designing and writing patterns" thing has sprung from a desire to have things for me that are exactly what I want (well, and also to accommodate my penchant for buying yarn independent of patterns, which invariably results in my having not enough yarn of the right type for a particular pattern). I have knit a couple of things for my kids, and a couple of things for other people's babies, and the odd scarf as a gift, and one pair of socks for my sister-in-law. But really, mostly, it's all about me. Which makes it particularly odd that I finished not one but two items last week that were designated for other people. Even odder, both projects ended up requiring modifications to avoid running out of yarn, and still ended with less than a yard of yarn left over. Whew.

The first big project to come off the needles was my second Sahara. I knit the first one for myself last year, and Miss Jene, one of the caregivers in the infant room at Zack and Becky's school saw it on me and asked if she could pay me to knit one for her (for those of you on Facebook, this is the sweater I'm wearing in my profile picture). Because she asked in that particular way, and because she's been really, really good with/to/for both my kids, and because I actually really enjoyed knitting the first one, I said I'd knit one for her for the cost of yarn. I couldn't find more of the color I had used for mine, so we decided on a gorgeous lime green. I ordered the yarn, it came, I proceeded to knit 70 gajillion other things. I finally got going on the Sahara and actually thought I'd have it done two weeks ago, but then I decided to do the kitchen floor instead. But it is finished now and delivered. I know she was planning on wearing it last weekend, but didn't get a chance to talk to her Tuesday -- I hope it went well!


That bit of string at the top is all I had left over.

I may end up knitting yet another one of these for myself. It's an easy knit, this yarn (Berrocco Touche) works up beautifully with the pattern and comes in lots of pretty colors, and I love the way it looks on. We'll see -- I've got a lot in the queue ahead of this.

Once the Sahara was off the needles, I focused my attention on the half-finished Clapotis I was knitting for Kristi (the fabulous, fantastic, freakin' awesome person who created/writes/directs/runs Otherworld). It was a just-because gift...I had been thinking about knitting her some socks or mittens or something, and I had also cast on a Clapotis with Great Adirondacks Sireno in the Magnolia colorway. It's a fabulous yarn to work with (though it does catch a bit on the drops, so if that's what you enjoy about knitting a Clap, I don't recommend it), and the colorway is really beautiful. But as I was knitting it up, I just felt like the color wasn't really me. And then one day while I was working on it, a little light bulb went off and I realized the colors would be gorgeous on Kristi. So it became Kristi's Clapotis. I had intended to get it done in time to give it to her in San Francisco (remember I went there way back in March?), but I got distracted by socks. So then I was going to give it to her at the staff picnic last weekend, and I almost made it, but fell a few rows short. I showed it to her at the picnic Saturday, then took it home and finished it up Sunday. So it's ready to gift next time I see her.



The funniest thing about being short on yarn for this one is that at one point I actually thought I was going to have over half a skein left. [This next bit will mean nothing to you if you're not a knitter, and even if you are a knitter it probably won't mean much if you haven't knitted a Clapotis.] I ended up being about 3 repeats short, so I ripped back to the last stitch drop before running out of yarn (mostly because I was almost a full repeat further on) and then worked back up, but this time decreasing on each end of every row instead of just at the end of every row. I dropped when I hit a stitch that needed to be dropped and really, it's hard to tell unless you know what you're looking for that one end is different from the other. I'm definitely going to knit another one of these for myself.

And now I'm working on finishing up my Leaves and Berries socks (you will remember that I had to start over due to yarn issues) so I can get that pattern published. I discovered a group of free pattern testers over on Ravelry, and I'll admit I was a bit trepidatious, but really, they were amazing. I got really great feedback and criticism and suggestions from everyone who tested for me. The pattern is now written, and I'm hoping to get the knitting done in the next week or so, with publishing to happen shortly thereafter.



I've also started swatching for a sleeveless summer top pattern that uses an interesting lace pattern and a couple of different yarns. I've got a bunch of half (or not even) finished projects languishing about, but they're really all winter sweaters and I want to get something done for summer (and yes, this one's for ME). Here's the yarn:



I'm almost certainly going to self-publish this, so I'll post pics in progress here as well.

posted by Laura Y. @ 11:39 AM