The Design Process: Finishing Up

Posted by :Annika On : April 17, 2013
1

Category: knitting patterns

Guess what! I just released Dorothy Cloche, that hat I’ve been talking about the design process of over the last..um…year and a half.

dorothy-side
Photo by the lovely and talented Leah Coccari-Swift.

Catch up from the beginning:
Inspiration | Swatching | Rough Draft | Starting (almost) From Scratch | Too Many Samples?

In brief:

I was inspired by this gorgeous image.
417752279_rfScxqAc_c
According to this blog, the image is from 1923, by Ernesto Cabral, a.k.a. “Chango,” and was a magazine (?) cover.

I swatched and knitted a prototype. I lost my notes. Time went by. I began a new prototype. I made a lot of mistakes. I reknit it. More than once. I came up with a better way to work the short rows. I redid the brim and grafted it to the hat (only a crazy person would do that, probably). I wrote the pattern, had it tech edited, and did a photo shoot with Leah. I sent the pattern to a couple of friends to test knit.

And today, I release it into the wild.

dorothy-duo

If you’re inclined that way, you can add to cart or

I made that.

Posted by :Annika On : April 12, 2013
0

Category: Gracie

grace_0493

grace_0492

I was going to use one of these as the photo of the day, but she is so beautiful I couldn’t choose.

I feel pretty-ish.

Posted by :Annika On : April 11, 2013
10

Category: fashionista, Stuff

I’m really struggling lately with having NOTHING to wear. I have ONE outfit that I love, which I wore today:

sp_0497

I usually wear a necklace and/or scarf. Today I wore Damson wrapped around my neck, but I took it off before I thought to take a picture.

sp_0495

As you can see, I lack a full-length mirror and the ability to pick up messes before taking photos.

I need more outfits that make me feel like this. I need enough nice things that I can mix and match instead of wearing the same things together all the time. (Although it would be pretty funny if someone got deja vu because I did that.) It’s time for a wardrobe makeover (or wardrobe opera, which is the result of a typo–not mine–and is the best idea ever).

I’m making a checklist of pieces I own and things I want. The latter is a little overwhelming, and it’s just basic stuff. I won’t post the list, mainly because I lack the energy to make it a nice tidy table, but here are a few of my observations:

  • I have literally ONE pair of shoes right now. I think I need a second.
  • I have ONE pair of jeans that fit me, and my only black pants are actually Will’s and I need black pants for roller derby (reffing, not skating).
  • I have plenty of tights, which surprises me. Target clearance FTW.
  • I have t-shirts, but no tops.
  • I have (semi-)dressy dresses but would really love a jersey sundress or two.
  • I am quite lacking in sweaters of both the pullover and cardigan variety, which is a bit distressing as a knitter.
  • I love this skirt–so why don’t I have any other skirts I actually wear? I need more skirts like this one.

My main problem is figuring out where to start. My budget is approximately $0 but I do have a little work coming my way which will translate to a (very modest) budget down the road.

So how do I do this?

#1 of 13

Posted by :Annika On : April 5, 2013
2

Category: knittery

catkin-detail

This is not actually the first shawl I completed this year. (Well, technically the first of my 13 in 13 is a cowl. But why confuse things.) As it is the first one that I photographed, however, it gets the #1 spot.

Believe it or not, I did not knit this beauty for myself. It’s for my friend Mandi. Normally I do not knit for other people, and I’ve only made a very few exceptions, but Mandi is deserving of handknits. This here is Mandi’s wedding gift.

Let’s just ignore the fact that the wedding was five months ago.

catkin

Mandi and her husband Michael are very dear friends of ours. They game with us. Sam and Grace adore them. I can call them if I need help–like the time my car was in the shop and Mandi picked up my CSA box for me, or the time our TV broke and they gave us their old one. One time we discovered that they had two PS3s and we had two Wiis, and we swapped.

We were not able to attend their wedding, which made me very sad. Knitting this for Mandi made me feel a little better–and she loves it. Win!

catkin-side

Advice from your friendly neighborhood me

Posted by :Annika On : March 15, 2013
7

Category: Sam

Sam just said this to me:

“So, Mom. If a spider eats me, that will make me be Spider-Man, right?”

Folks, talk to your kids about mutations before they learn about them on the street.

Shawls Shawls Shawls (and cardigan)

Posted by :Annika On : March 11, 2013
8

Category: knittery

I haven’t been posting about my 13 in 13 project for two reasons. 1) I don’t think I’ve been knitting enough shawls to make it (can I switch to 13 hats in 2013? I’m probably halfway there), and 2) I don’t yet have any pictures of the progress I have made, and who wants to look at words about knitting? (Scroll for photos of someone else’s knitting.)

So my mom closed on her new house last week. She is back in Woodstock. This paragraph really needs some exclamation marks but I can’t seem to work them in naturally. Please just take my word for it–I am SUPER-PSYCHED. I’ll be visiting her in the fall. Like, the third weekend in October. Knitters, you know what I am saying, right?

(I am going to the New York Sheep and Wool festival, aka Rhinebeck.)

So obviously I need to get moving on my Rhinebeck Sweater. I decided on Woodstove Season and bought the pattern (plus the matching little girls’ pattern because duh) but I’ve been stalling because I am nervous about the fit. I don’t know what size to make and also I historically look rotten in raglan sleeves. Um. Should I forge ahead or just buy Bloody Mary?

And then I will need shawls. I am not certain I can even finish one sweater, so there’s no way I’ll make one for each day, but I can make shawls. I recently acquired this stunning skein of yarn which I believe you will agree NEEDS to be around my neck, and will go quite nicely with the sweater yarn.

aquae hide-n-seek-league

I’m basically decided on knitting a shawl by verybusymonkey and have possibly narrowed it down to these two:

paralucia

coast starlight

The first is Paralucia and the second is Coast Starlight. They are both shaped like Damson, which is my most wearable shawl, but Coast Starlight’s edging is knitted on side-to-side.

Votes?

Black Forest Cake

Posted by :Annika On : March 5, 2013
1

Category: Clever Girl

More than anything*, I want to find a way to combine the things I am good at and passionate about. Designing knitting patterns comes close, but it’s a very specific sort of creating and I wish I could stretch myself a bit further. I also really miss telling stories. While I try to convey a sense of story with the photographs I take for my patterns, it is not the same.

This video was a revelation to me. A REVELATION.

Black Forest Cake from Marion Ber on Vimeo.

Now I need to come up with an idea that clever. Who wants to collaborate with me?

*More than anything after my family’s happiness and health.

So, this happened.

Posted by :Annika On : March 1, 2013
1

Category: Gracie

“Mommy, I drew a picture of Wall-E!”

Grace has not watched Wall-E in months. She loves to draw but her art is pretty abstract.

grace_0249

Uh. I mean was.

Shit or Get Off the Pot

Posted by :Annika On : March 1, 2013
2

Category: Stuff

I didn’t realize until I was in my 30s that I have a dimple. Not dimples, just one. It’s on my left cheek and I am surprised every time I see it. I don’t know if I always had it and didn’t know, or if it only made an appearance once I’d gained weight in my late 20s and early 30s from quitting smoking/having a baby/having another baby/being depressed (in that order).

Last week I felt like I was coming down with something. I had sinus pressure like a bad head cold, but zero phlegm. It’s not that I’m complaining about not having a snotty nose, but it felt…incomplete. Getting sick used to be a quick affair, but now it drags out for weeks. This time I was “lucky,” in that the sinus pressure and wooziness stuck around for a few days but never got worse and went away fairly quickly. But I find that I am still just waiting to get sick for real.

I am so much happier than I was a few months ago. It is night and day. But I still feel tired all the time and overwhelmed about half the time and I just feel that I must be missing some puzzle piece that will make everything right.

People talk at me from the moment I wake up in the morning. I am not a morning person. At all. But I have two small people and one big person who all go from 0 to awake in significantly less time and with significantly less caffeine than it takes me to wake up.

I feel like I am always trying to catch up.

There are so many things that I want to do with myself, with my time, with my life. I am doing so few of them. There isn’t enough time.

I am happy but I am perhaps a little bit dissatisfied.

I’m working on it, but I’m impatient.

Conversation I just had with Grace

Posted by :Annika On : February 22, 2013
0

Category: Gracie

(Context: I was scrolling through Tumblr and she came and sat on my lap. Liz Miller posted a photo of the helicopter outside YouTube space.)

G: Can mine go in that red helicopter?

A: I wish we could. It is a very nice helicopter. I have never ridden in a helicopter, have you?

G: Yes!

A: Really? When?!

G: Soon!