In Which I Find I Have a Lot to Say

Apparently I’m not very good at updating everyday, even though I am managing to keep up with my paperwork and art/craft project. Yesterday I managed to double and triple check, and polish, and tweak the patterns for “Climbing Trellis” and the “Arrowhead Stole” and get them sent out to the first test knitter. Because they are my first patterns I’m sending them both to Lara for her to test knit first, and then to other test knitters, once the huge kinks have been worked out. Today I charted and printed the re-designed “Birdy Shawl” chart, and created a first draft of the chart for a new stole design. At the moment I’m calling it The Cables & Lace Stole, but that will hopefully change throughout the design process.

This new stole is now waiting in the wings, along with a pair of arm warmers, to be swatched. Once I have one or two projects much closer to completion than they currently are. On the needles at the moment I’m in the middle of, or towards the beginning of, 4 lace projects. This means that swatching probably won’t happen for a while, and by the time it does happen I’ll probably have a whole stack of designs to swatch and cast on rather than just two.

Yesterday I started and finished this ATC as my art/craft piece for the day. It’s made using a pre-made by me ATC blank and markers. Over the last school break I made up a whole bunch of ATC blanks by gluing scraps of paper onto a piece of card stock, and then cutting the whole thing into blanks. This produced 9 (I think) unique blanks that all still tied together. I ended up making 6 or 7 of card stock sheets. So now I have a whole stack of awesome ATC blanks laying around my room and tucked into the notebook I carry around everywhere.

Today I actually finished two art/craft objects.

First up is a project for a theatrical design class. It’s a ground plan (not to scale) for “A Streetcar Named Desire.” This was done using a number 2 pencil in a 8.5×11 sketch book. More designs from this class will probably make their appearances over the next week or two. There will most likely be 2 costume renderings for “Hamlet”, 2 (maybe 3) costume renderings for Streetcar, and maybe a mood piece or two, also for Streetcar.

The next thing I finished today for my art/craft was spinning and plying 2 oz of a 70% Alpaca, 30% Silk blend from Gale’s Art, in the colorway Ruby Swirl. I got the fiber at this past NY Sheep and Wool Festival, which I went to for the first time this past fall and had an absolute blast. Technically this yarn isn’t finished because it hasn’t been washed yet, so I don’t have all the stats.

I’ve been trying to figure out how I was going to count finished knitted and spun objects, because while they aren’t technically finished until they have been blocked, washed, etc. I don’t do all of that finishing while I’m at school. This is partly due to space and partly due to the fact that I have a roommate, and I already make the room constantly smell like coffee, so I don’t want to add wet wool to the mix. So I’m figuring that these objects will count towards my art/craft project once they have been knit/spun and are put away until I go home again. Then once I get home and everything is washed, blocked, and dried I’ll post pictures again, along with all of the technical details.

I’ll leave it at that, and get my butt in gear to do homework and maybe some much needed knitting.

Holly