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June 2013 Archives

June 13, 2013

Get off my lawn

As you may or may not know, I suffer from a chronic illness called, Early Onset Curmudgeon Syndrome [EOCS]. There's no cure, but most people suffering from EOCS, live long and cranky lives. No need to start up a fund raiser, just send truffles. So, when I saw this "Hi-Falutin'" whiskey, I knew I had to have it, even if it tasted terrible.

Whipper Snapper Whiskey

It neither treats nor alleviates the symptoms of EOCS but it tastes just fine and dandy. Why not enjoy a lovely adult beverage while telling the neighbors' children to pull up their pants and turn their music down?

When I have a flare up of my EOCS, I find the best remedy is a healthy dose of this:

Oregon Coast -- June 7, 2013_23

Because afterwards, I get a few days of this:

Oregon Coast -- June 7, 2013_26

And, if you are so inclined, a splash of whiskey while a few tired mutts curl up next to you on the couch, isn't so bad, either.

June 26, 2013

Marnie en EspaƱol

about interview.jpg

Pilar Mendez over at About.com's Spanish site, interviewed me by email, last month and the results are online.You would think, being married to a native Spanish speaker, that I'd have been able to converse in Spanish, or at least read the interview, but I'm afraid I know only the words that are found on your average Mexican restaurant menu and a couple of choice swear words I've picked up from Leo. Pilar seems like a lovely person, though, so I trust that she's done a great job translating for me.

If you are a Spanish speaker or don't mind muddling through a computer translation, you can read the interview here.

Oh and there are just a few days left to use the redesign13 coupon code to save 20% off of everything in my ravelry store.

promo.jpg

June 20, 2013

Designing Lyssia


Photo Copyright Jane Heller

I created the original submission for Lyssia, over a year ago so I don't remember what originally led me to the idea, but I do remember grabbing a nice big ball of Cascade 220 superwash and knitting the entire ball of yarn into a swatch.

GinormousSwatch.jpg
Swatch of unusual size

Actually, I really need to back up a step here, because I didn't just magic those motifs on the needles, they required some pre-planning in Illustrator. Like Deciduous and Cercis, I wanted to create motifs of knit stitches that popped forward on a purl background, but knitting is a bit particular about that. You can stack knit stitches in columns, next to columns of purl stitches and the knits come forward. You see this with ribbing. But what happens when you have horizontal rows of knit stitches between horizontal rows of purl stitches? The knit stitches receed as you see in garter stitch. That means that, for my purposes, stitches could move up and they could move right to left with cable crosses, but I couldn't have perfectly horizontal rows of knit stitches and maintain the bas-relief effect I was going for. And while cable crosses work great for moving stitches side to side, there is a limit to how far you can cross stitches before they begin to pucker and change the gauge of the fabric, so I was limited to crossing no further than 2 stitches over 2 stitches when absolutely needed and I primarily moved stitches only one stitch over, in either directions, to ensure an even fabric. With these limitations in mind, I created the largest motif and then tweaked it to make the two smaller versions.

If you look at the monster swatch above, you may notice, especially with the smaller motifs, that I had originally put purl stitches just inside the outer edge of the motifs. I think it worked OK in the largest motif but really didn't look right in the smaller sizes so the final pattern has only knit stitches filling the motifs.

After swatching, I had three ideas for how I could use the motifs. Because the swatch ended up looking like half a cape, when I was done, that ended up being my first inclination. I also imagined using only the smallest motif to create a yoked design.

Capelet.jpg YokeCardigan.jpg

But the idea I most hoped would be picked up was the third design idea I had, where the motifs would be sprinkled in a seemingly random pattern around the garment.

Cardigan.jpg

This would be the most challenging of the three designs. I had to make sure that the layout I chose for the butterflies would look uniformly well placed in all sizes, without making the pattern unnecessarily long. Those are the sorts of challenges that keep designing interesting when they don't drive me to drink.

I could have done layouts for each size or range of sizes but instead, I decided to base butterfly placement on way points in the garment. The big butterfly is centered on the side, just above the hem, another motif hits right below the neckline and a few stitches away from the placket, another is centered on the shoulder, next to the front neck. I made a schematic of the largest and smallest size and drew, to-scale outlines of the motifs, so I could see if my plan would look balanced at the two extremes. That sounds like a lot of work, but I ended up using the small version for both a reference graphic in the pattern and as the basis for the schematic, so that little extra effort didn't go to waste.

As fun as all the knitting and designing was, my favorite part has been seeing the projects popping up in ravelry. In the end, that's what designing is really about.

About June 2013

This page contains all entries posted to Marnie, speak! Good girl. in June 2013. They are listed from oldest to newest.

May 2013 is the previous archive.

July 2013 is the next archive.

Many more can be found on the main index page or by looking through the archives.

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