… So woefully under-prepared, in fact, that this blog post has been sitting open for the past three days waiting for me to finish it. So here’s the deal: Oolong and I will finish getting ready for this weekend’s show (she’s become quite the helper with my spinning)

You’ll come visit this weekend if you’re in the area (Garden State Sheep Breeders Festival—I’m with the Union County Crafters in barn 4), and next week after I recover I’ll fill you in on all sorts of fun things that are going on this and next month.

Step up your small shawl game!

Inspired by a beloved childhood film, this shawl is the perfect companion, both for knitting and wearing. A complex leaf lace motif at the hem gives way to a simple, delicate top border and soothing garter stitch, while an unusual edging-first construction provides entertainment even for more advanced knitters. The laceweight yarn and small needles give the fabric a fantastic squishy feel, great for draping over short sleeved shirts on breezy late summer evenings, but also wonderful for scrunching around your neck as the chill of fall and winter moves in.

Shaping in the lower body of the shawl rounds out the bottom edge, and creates a wedge that might just become the keyhole to your very own secret garden.

7 page PDF, with both charted and written instructions as well as a small tutorial for the sideways cast-on technique used in pattern.

Pattern is available in the shop and on Ravelry.

And, to be honest, maybe even more than being tired of the trend, I was tired of feeling left out of it. I have no interest in either designing or knitting these types of shawls, which left me rather lost in all sorts of discussions over pattern, yarn choice, KALs, and all sorts of other things. So, rather than pout about it, I took it upon myself as a challenge to design a shawlette with some of these features, while putting an interesting twist on it.

I bought some yarn on our trip,

And did some swatching in the car from some stitch pattern notes hastily thrown together before we left.

And I liked what I was getting, but still couldn’t quite get a grasp on how to construct the shawl itself, even after hours of thought.

Then, one night while fighting with the terrible internet connection in our hotel room, I stumbled upon Lee Meredith’s rather fantastic tutorial on sideways edge cast-ons, and it made me think about my knitting in an entirely different light. Or should I say, an entirely different direction. There are certainly shawls out there that are worked from the bottom hem up, either starting with the point and increasing ever outward, or are simply a reverse of the above (tiresome!) construction. But I was envisioning something a little stranger. So I knit a very long piece of edging,

and then I started in on the body, turning the straight strip of lace into a curved hem. (Every once in a while I would have to lay it out and arrange it the way it would end up when I was finished just to convince myself I wasn’t crazy.)

Fortunately my fears were unfounded, because after a few days it started to look like a real shawl.

And last night I hit the home stretch—it is such a gratifying feeling, let me tell you, after working some very long rows at the beginning of the body, to finally get to the neck, where each row is like, three stitches long. (Not really, but you know what I mean!)

After a wash and block, it’s exactly what I wanted; fits the trend without being trendy, basic enough to wear but interesting enough to hold my interest while I knit it. (Plus, it’s teal. In my attempt to get away from green I seem to have transferred my affections to this color instead. Oops?)

Pattern: My own, available shortly
Yarn: Mountain Colors Winter Lace, colorway Harmony Lake, less than half a skein
Needles: US4/3.5mm Knitpicks Options
Notes: Scroll up!
On Ravelry here.

The cats tell a different story, of course.

But we ate a lot of delicious food

(the Clifton Mill is well worth the visit if you’re passing through; I would’ve loved to do a knitwear photoshoot out there, it’s gorgeous!)

and saw some really… interesting things

(the Kohler Design Center is also totally worth a visit, even if it’s out of your way, and would also be a great place for a knitwear photoshoot, though for completely different reasons.)

and quite possibly hit up some really nice yarn stores, including this lovely shop in Springfield, IL:

They just moved to their current location two months ago and still have one of the greatest layouts and best selection I’ve ever seen in a yarn store outside of WEBS. Everywhere I looked, there were shelves and cubbyholes from floor to ceiling, each packed with yarn.

And I may have fallen for some ridiculously blue laceweight there.

Not entirely sure what I’m going to do with it other than perhaps use it as a pillow, and stare at it obsessively, but hopefully I can find a pattern worthy.

There were also some, um, button acquisitions.

Fortunately they were gifts (my stash is too out of control for me to be buying any), but showing those, and the knitting I accomplished, is going to have to wait—I’m so behind on work! Patterns to edit, swatches to re-do, knitting to cast on, festivals to prepare for… is it time for another vacation yet?

For the moment I’ll leave you with this ridiculously charming sink basin:

I guess now I’ve got to find a new project (or twelve) to take!

All physical objects in the shop are disabled while I’m away; you can still buy patterns and math for knitters, though my availability for support will be limited. I’ll do my best to blog from the road and we’ll be home on the 16th. See you then!

I’ll talk about my travel knitting in a few days, and in the meantime, here’s a glimpse at what’s taken up so much of my time this month:

But I don’t see what the big deal is—moments later it turns to this!

Apparently it freaks out other knitters, though.

So about a week and a half ago, at about three in the morning, I said on Twitter that I wished I could teach a math for knitters course; I love math, I love knitting, I really love teaching, so it seemed a natural extension. Immediately after tweeting, I thought to myself, why the heck can’t I? So I started putting together a class list and all of these ideas on what I wanted to teach, and even generated an outline for the first class. I figured within a month or two I could even start posting the classes for sale.

Then Dani showed up here on her Craft Culture summer tour, and, in a terrifying take no prisoners tone, told me that I would be publishing the first class by Sunday. As in tomorrow. I told her she was crazy, but we went to my usual coffeeshop on Thursday, where we spent 8 hours working and chatting.

By the end, my class was pretty much done, and she had written a book proposal, which made me feel both really accomplished and also like my life is really, really ridiculous, because this is what I do for a living.

But the upside is, now you can have a class!

Math for Knitters

There are plenty of tutorials, calculators, and other helpful guides out there to instruct you on how to customize patterns, how to shape a sleeve cap, how to calculate rates of increases and decreases for a proper fit. Here’s the thing, though: for the math-averse, it can be overwhelming! To be told nothing more than to take x stitches over y inches and make that equal to the ratio of z stitches over some other seemingly made up number… it’s mind boggling. And worse, when it doesn’t quite turn out the result you intended, it can be nearly impossible to figure out exactly what went wrong—and how to make it better.

These classes are designed to demystify the math and make the logic behind the numbers easier to understand, as well as provide insight into what makes knitting go. Rather than simply providing formulas or instructions for how to calculate your way through your knitting, this course seeks to examine why and how these equations work in a friendly, non-intimidating format. It is not about understanding knitting through math; rather, it’s about understanding math through knitting.

Highly recommended for those of you who love to learn and are looking to get more out of your knitting.

CLASS 1 (available here)
Pre-algebra and an introduction to knitting math; full description available at the product page.

CLASS 2
Algebra and gauge math, including but not limited to discussions on swatches, ratios, basic upsizing and downsizing, and yarn substitution.

CLASS 3
Geometry and fit, including but not limited to how to allow for curves, measuring for the right fit, and short rows vs. darts.

CLASS 4
Advanced algebra and shaping techniques, including but not limited to working with stitch patterns, knitting as word problems, and keeping track of several different pieces of shaping at the same time.

CLASS 5
Math for designing from scratch, including but not limited to complex shaping and systems of equations, sleeve cap math, and grading patterns to fit a variety of shapes and sizes.

CLASS 6
A full tutorial on a completely custom fit, choose your own adventure sweater.

All of these classes will be available in the shop for $10 each. Purchase of any class includes free support via email on all of the mathematics presented in that class, as well as a discount on my mathematics consulting services. Those who purchase the first five classes will receive 50% off the final class; when the series is completed, it will be compiled into an e-book, available for $55. (Those who have purchased the entire series previously can also receive the full e-book at this time for no extra charge.)

And if you’d like to hear me blather on further about it, I talked a bit about it on this week’s episode of Dani’s Craft Culture podcast.

There are still a few minor details here and there to tweak with the cart software, and I’d love to have your help—so anyone who purchases something today from the new site and tells me how it goes will get 25% refunded from their purchase price. Happy shopping!

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.