The heat heard me asking if it had gone, and came back with a vengeance. Oof.

Fortunately I thought ahead and knit a tank top.

Pattern: Elvira (all grown up) by Sanne Bjerregaard
Yarn: Knitpicks Comfy Fingering Weight in Blackberry (with thanks to my local yarn friends for helping me break out of my green/blue color rut), 5 skeins
Needles: US1.5/2.5mm and US2.5/3mm Knitpicks fixed circulars and Addi Turbos, respectively
Buttons: from the stash, three small vintage metal seashells
Mods: Full modification notes are on Ravelry; I used a smaller gauge and added bust and waist shaping to keep it from looking like a pretty purple potato sack. Also, I sewed the back of the yoke closed (but added buttons anyway because come on, this is me we’re talking about here. I love buttons.)

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go lie in front of the fan and put all thoughts of wool out of my mind.

Okay, seriously. Something about the first summer heat wave just melts my brain completely. I’m behind on blogging, my inbox is a mess, I have packages to mail out that are refusing to walk themselves to the post office. But! The heat broke last night, and it’s gorgeous out now (I even had to turn my fan down), so I think I can finally brain again.

Er. Maybe.

So! There’s a lot to catch up on here. First things first, my seasonally inappropriate sweater, let me show you it:

I love, love, love this sweater. I love, love, love when something just comes together as it’s supposed to with a minimum of fuss. (The pattern writing is a different story—but my test knitters are on it.) And hopefully at some point soon I can get together with Ellen for some photoshoot fun.

Then I decided I needed a quick diversion project while waiting for yarn on a secret project, so I cast on for a modified Hyrna Herborgar. Er, which I finished five days later.

Of course then I realized that (unblocked, at least) it looks like a giant lettuce leaf when wrapped around my neck, and I hate lettuce. So I’ll send it off to someone who will appreciate it! The modifications I made were stupid simple; I really love the double yarn over columns that the first part of the chart makes, so I just continued working that over and over again until I was just about out of yarn, at which point I did the transition charts just to close the columns into tidy little points. This is definitely a version I’ll be knitting again. But not for myself, because I never seem to knit any variation of Hyrna for myself.

And my secret yarn still isn’t here, so I cast on for a tank top.

A tank top which looks awfully small, though I’ve tried it on several times and it does fit. I suppose we’ll see in a few days when I finish and block it! (And please pardon the terrible picture. It was knit night, there was alcohol, I was giggling too hard to hold the camera steady.)

That’s all I’ve got, really; the site’s undergoing some clean up and re-organizing in preparation to finally launch the on-site shop, I’m hoping to catch up on some email today, and maybe if I’m very, very lucky, my secret yarn will get here. I’ll let you know how it goes!

(I actually don’t think this is going to become a thing; contrary to all evidence presented in this post, I don’t actually knit socks that frequently.)

I’m kind of in that in between period where I have a new project to start, but don’t have the yarn yet (it’s in the mail), and don’t really want to start anything else ’til it gets here since I don’t like to have too many WIPs going at once. I know—gasp, shock, horror, the ugly truth is revealed: I’m a monogamous knitter. But I did have my emergency purse knitting that I got to finish:

and despite naming them the ‘ugly socks’ I’m actually rather fond of them; they’re super comfy and should wear well.

And then of course with that done, I felt the urge for some new socks, but something a little more interesting. None of the patterns I own really called out to me, so I figured, hey, why not make my own? It’s not like I’ve ever done that before (uh, twice). So I grabbed my design notebook and immediately focused in on some not so original socks—

inspired by the ever popular February Lady Sweater. Garter cuff, gull lace leg and instep, short row garter heel and toe. Couldn’t be easier or more addictive—I zoomed through the first in less than thirty hours and am well underway on the second, now. I’m not really planning to release a pattern for these, especially since it’s already been done, although those don’t have any garter stitch at all, which is a damn shame given how prevalent it is in the FLS and the original February Baby Sweater. Still, it’s nice to be able to work on something fun and patterned without having to take detailed notes and figure out how to properly explain things along the way.

Also vaguely kind of sort of sock related, Dani sent me some of her precious Bugga that got chewed on by her ballwinder; poor thing was in a sorry state.

Somehow both ends had gotten pulled through the center and were wrapped around each other and the ball and pulled through the center again and yikes. But 45 minutes of careful, patient untangling and re-winding solved the problem with no damage to the pretty yarn.

Though actually now that I think about it, I should’ve left it tangled; then I wouldn’t have to send it home! Ah well, I’m sure Dani will turn it into something gorgeous.

Speaking of Dani and the things she makes, you can listen to us chatter on about all manner of things if you like, no socks involved.

I’m doing something a little weird. (I’ll ignore comments from my family and friends about how everything I do is weird.)

See, I knit this here sweater, and wrote a pattern for it, and then sent it off to test knitters. And then I started getting emails. “When will this pattern be available?” “Can you tell me what materials I’ll need so I can buy them and start as soon as it comes out?” “I’d like to swatch—can you tell me what gauge you got?”

Now, while I’m always happy to answer queries of all sorts and I do appreciate the response my little sweater is getting, I was beginning to spend more time talking about my knitting than actually, you know, knitting. I was also concerned that there was this rush of interest going on now, but there was no guarantee that it would stick around for another two or three weeks while I let my testers finish their work. And I don’t want to rush my test knitters, either, because I want it to be a good pattern and it won’t be if they aren’t meticulous.

Then last night, just before I slipped into a cough syrup induced snooze (I’ve been stricken with my usual change-of-season cold, again), a thought occurred to me: pre-orders! I realize it seems a little silly to expect you to buy something now and not receive it ’til some not yet determined date in the future, but people do that all the time, don’t they? Granted, it’s usually for books and DVDs and other tangible stuff, not single PDF patterns. But I think the idea still applies: you buy this pattern now and receive a preview PDF with pictures, a material list, gauge and fit info, and schematics. Then when the pattern is finally ready, you don’t have to worry about remembering to purchase it because it will magically appear in your Ravelry library, thanks to their handy auto-update feature.

Easy, right? Just a few things though:

1) You have to be a Ravelry member for this to work. If you’re not, you can still purchase the preview PDF, you just won’t receive the automatic update. If you want to pre-order and you’re not on Ravelry, email me (jesh at jeshknits.com) and we’ll work something out.
2) The pattern won’t get an official page on this here blog until it’s actually released; I don’t want to confuse people more than I probably already have. That means if you want to find it later you’ll either need to bookmark this blog post or look it up on Rav.

$7.00