My friend needs me, and that is taking most of my time this week, keeping me from my blog and my business. I am delighted to help her, as others (including this very friend) have helped me in the past. Just the same, I wanted to touch base with you folks who are so loyal.

No time for a real post, but here are two photos of the August Chicago trip. One is produce at Patel Brothers grocery on Devon Avenue (Indian/Pakistani corner of town), and one is a street scene downtown (Argo Tea is on the far right corner).

I had a plan for today. It all changed very quickly and that meant I did not work at home today. I dropped my plans to help a friend, totally worthwhile. I did teach two computer classes, too, later in the day.

Since I did not spend lots of time on my computer, I don’t have recent photos for you. However, here are a few random photos I developed in the last few months but never posted.

The squirrel who had been so hot this summer… found a nut and made enough noise eating it that I went out to investigate. Same exact spot. This was maybe a month ago, actually, when the leaves were still green:

The parking ramp at Lansing Community College, where I had my class this weekend. I think this view of the exit ramp is quite striking, if unreal in a city-sort-of-way:

A view of the lakeshore (the west shore of Lake Michigan) in Chicago, from the viewing deck of the Sears Tower. I usually get dizzy up there (not on the Hancock building, oddly) but this day it was not windy (we could not feel the building sway as usually happens). It was misty and cloudy which may also have helped, perhaps being able to see too far is also dizzying. We got up there in the 15 minute timeframe that whole day when people could actually see something through the clouds.

This was in late August, I went with Altu and a young Ethiopian friend who had never been to a city of this sort…. and who was enthralled to be there.

You know, I adore Chicago from many angles. At this height, the horizon looks a little bit curved. So cool!

Ewe-niss posted a thoughtful comment the other day. First, she noticed my very colorful knitting needles. Those actually were my brother Eric’s idea… he and sis in love Diana gave them to me out of the blue the other day. I got two sets of double-pointed needles. One is size 4 (good for fat slipper socks, hats and wristwarmers) and the other (in the photo) set are size 10-1/2 which are great for felting projects. Love ‘em.

Teaching Knitting to Beginners

She also pondered the teaching of children and what style of knitting? I had a group at a magnet school last year who I decided to teach using the continental (left hand holding yarn) method. I had maybe a dozen kids. In the end almost half just did not have the manual dexterity to control the yarn in that way, at that age. In fact, the difference between 6 years old and 8 years old is remarkable no matter what style you teach.

With the group at the magnet school, teaching half one way and half another did not really bug the kids too much, they knew there was more than one method, but then when they would help one another it made things a little harder. In the end I decided that in order to use my time as efficiently as possible I would go back to the good old way that Mr. Johnson taught me in 1969.

It is a little more complex when teaching adults. I ask if they crochet and/or if they are left handed. If yes to either question, I teach continental method. If not, it depends on the situation what I do. Often I show them the right hand way first, and show them continental pretty soon afterward as an alternative. They at least know that there are two ways, and you never know which way folks will choose.

Sheer Enjoyment

In the end, knitting is not about speed. It’s about the comfort of making a loop, then another loop, then another. In my opinion we should absolutely love how the yarn feels in our fingers, and we should enjoy the making of loops. The speed of making loops is not as important as the enjoyment of the process. Yes, we often knit because we want an end product, but I would guess that an end product is just not enough for most folks to stick through as many loops as are required. You have to love the process.

Social Knitting

Today I spent some time with Erin at Schuler Books, after the rest of the knitting-for-others group had already left. I had a cup of very strong English Breakfast Tea and we chatted happily as she made a hat and I worked on a sock. We talked pets and places to live and jobs and computers and yarn and relationships… and food… and more. Such a nice time. Thanks, Erin.

Computer Class

My InDesign class went pretty well. At this point I can only use the program on my old laptop, while I wait for Adobe to decide that I have in fact purchased my software legally. It takes multiple phone calls and faxes and letters from seller to purchaser and and and and… more phone calls. And so far I’m approved at every phase but there continues to be another phase every time I call them. Sigh.

ZigBagZ Report

Karen, my cousin in Houston who is knitting a BurlyZig Bag for me, has sent preview photos of the base of her bag. I’m using the photo of her yarns and two photos of the base here for color and interest (she used the right-hand skeins for this part of the bag). With any luck I will have her completed bag for photographs, perhaps later this week. For now, enjoy the colors!!!

I took an Adobe InDesign workshop today (it continues tomorrow). All I can tell is that yes, it’s a great program, and yes, I’ll be learning it forever.

With word processing I know there are things I don’t understand, but that does not bother me since everything I need/want to know, I have figured out down pat.

But page layout has always been hard for me. After all, I spent how long as a secretary? And how much longer as a word processing instructor? I still teach word processing one day a week part of the year. It seems word processing and page layout have significantly different ways of thinking about text.

I have no problem that typing more stuff makes things pop to an extra page. That is just fine with me. But Word flips out when you place too many photos… all of a sudden your 6 page document is 15 pages and corrupted. Or the third photo you place on page one somehow lands on page 7. Ugh.

I must get with the program. Except I know so many hints and tips and tricks and work-arounds in Word… and I know almost nothing about Adobe InDesign.

I have done PageMaker (never made sense even after classes), and Publisher (the interface was Microsoft but it’s far too simple a program), even CorelDraw 4, for one single project (the CD art for our In The Garden CD, which Brian planned/designed and I put into the program acceptable to the CD manufacturing company).

InDesign is clearly better than all of the above for laying out knitting patterns. I can only hope that I will learn enough to start using it immediately when class is complete.

The leaves are still beautiful, and they have not all fallen yet. Even with all this rain, they are hanging on. One hard frost and we will be bleak and colorless, but for now it is a fiery sky on every street. Really, really beautiful!

Enjoy your fall weekend, whatever it brings you. Mine is bringing me learning and color. That’s a pretty good weekend, I’d say.

Photos: more of the trees in the few blocks behind our house. The city is full of beauty but these trees often are some of the best. This year, it is doubly true. So beautiful! So ColorJoy!

It occurs to me looking at these photos just now, that they are every bit as majestic as some of my favorite photos that I took in Africa.

It has already been a too-full day and it is just barely past noon.

I went to bed at 2am or so (a little early for my typical schedule) after posting a blog entry. I got up at just before 8am and ColorJoy.com was not responding. Ack!

I have known that the woman I’ve had handling my domain name was selling her business. I got a note from her and then I thought a note from the folks taking over. Wrong. Of course I could have read the note better and that part is my fault. The end result was that my domain went silent, probably around 6am.

Thanks to my ever-helpful life partner/spouse Brian, and an email to the woman who has held my domain name since the beginning, I’m up and running again. I was probably only down for about 4 hours.

I was so tired, so cranky, so disrupted this morning. I burned *two* batches of oatmeal while running between the kitchen and the computer. I am sad to say that I was not as nice to Brian this morning as he deserves… I think I need to bake him a pie or something, very very soon. It is my belief that one should be kindest to those who are in their closest inner circle. I did not stick to that belief for an hour or so this morning.

But now as I write this, I’ve had some caffeine, some lunch, some time to decompress. I have a working website/domain name again (if you sent me an email during that half-day, please re-send it). And I’m ready to go back to class for the afternoon, rested and refreshed.

One day at a time, one hour at a time. Back to class!

Brian and I were outdoors today and I found my eye drawn to a particularly colorful maple leaf that had fallen on the ground. I really enjoyed looking at it.

That took my mind back to my childhood. I loved the leaves, I would collect all the prettiest ones I saw on the way home from school. It took me an eternity to make it home from school those days. I would have an entire handful of beautifully colored leaves, sort of a bouquet, by the time I got home.

And then my mother consistently told me I had to choose only a few to bring into the house. I was crushed. They were all so pretty, it was painful to choose. I am sure it took almost as long to do that as it did to wind my way home!

Mom would try to console me by promising to iron the chosen ones between two pieces of waxed paper. Theoretically that would seal the leaves and make the colors stay nice longer. However, I knew that I would have to view those colors through the wax and paper. This effectively made them barely-colored as far as I was concerned. I was not consoled.

Today, I found two lovely leaves, looked at how beautiful they were, and enjoyed their colors fully. Then I left them in the yard (noticing that we have a few blooming wild violets again in the side yard). And I came inside.

I hope I still love the colors every bit as much as I did as a child. I just do not love cleaning house. I think I understand now, where mom was coming from.

Photos? I took these in the several years I have been blogging… since 2003.

I am taking a computer class (Adobe InDesign) this weekend and so I saved time by going back and finding lovely leaves from previous years. They illustrate my point perfectly, though they are long gone at this point.

Non-knitters, you will want to skip this post and visit me again tomorrow. Thanks for coming by!

You do not want to know how I work at my desk… I’m relatively messy and inefficient much of the time when it comes to paper. But as a knitter, I work relatively efficiently. I have learned many ways of holding my yarn over the years, and every way was my favorite for a while. Who knows if I’ll change my mind again.

I first learned to knit by controlling the yarn with my Right Hand. This is referred to as American or British/English style. Even within this style, folks sometimes wrap yarn around a finger or two on the right hand, and some (like me) pick up the yarn long enough to wrap the needle, then drop the yarn until the next wrap. This seems absolutely normal to me and is how I teach kids these days (though some go on to ask about how I currently knit and I show them that as well).

Mind you, I learned to knit in Mr. Johnson’s class in 1969. I learned a backward-loop/half-hitch cast on and the knit stitch. I do not remember binding off, but I figured out if I took the yarn tail and worked it through all the last row’s loops, the scarf would not unravel. This is how I knit scarves for 20 years. Nothing but garter-fabric scarves with fringe. I loved how relaxing it was. I must have known that some people knit sweaters but I did not. It never interested me.

So when I was a young married woman, probably around 1990 or so, I had a friend from Germany who knit a lot. She would not knit for me (good girl) but said she’d pick up yarn for me in Germany when she went back. I signed up for a class. I learned to purl, to increase and decrease, cable and rib. Maybe more, too. But the coolest thing was Continental knitting, where I learned to hold the yarn in my left hand and not drop the yarn between stitches.

When I was knitting my 6th pair of socks ever (one yarn), I listened to a Norwegian woman talk about doing stranded colorwork. She said she held both yarns in one hand. So when I found Nancy Bush’s book Folk Socks, I picked out the Lithuanian Amber socks as my 10th pair of socks ever (see photo, pink with black designs). And I tried to hold the yarns in one hand. Since I used more pink than black, the yarn tangled. I decided I did not enjoy colorwork, which was a sad decision.

Later I found out that the Philosophers’ Wool folks had a book out where you held one yarn in each hand over the whole row. I tried that and it worked great. Loved it. I knit my 13th pair ever, using this technique. That pair became my pattern which is called Eva’s Socks, my first pattern ever (see photo, blue with red/yellow/green).

Then long after that, I took a class on Norwegian Mittens from Beth Brown-Reinsel (see photo). She showed me how to hold both yarns in my left hand, but to wrap the yarns around different fingers so they can feed at different rates. Oh, wow!

I knit pretty darned fast already. I can knit nearly as fast with two yarns as with one now. Yahoo! Well, that is as long as I’m in the light and I can look at my knitting as I go. I can knit with one yarn in each hand, without having to look down very often at all. With two in one hand I need my eyes to be sure I do not pick the wrong color at any moment (the yarns are very close to one another as I work).

But this two-in-left-hand thing is really quick for me. And as a professional, speed is more important than relaxation with some projects. I’d like that to not be true, but work is work… although I do love what I do more than when I worked in an office. There are knitting deadlines now, though, rather than paperwork ones all the time.

Here is a photo of my left hand with two yarns held on one hand. I wrapped the green yarn first… over index finger, under middle, over ring finger, under pinkie. Then I wrapped the peach colored yarn. Over both index and middle, then under ring finger, and over pinkie. The tension happens between the fingers, which are held together, touching each others’ sides.

It works well for me. If you wrap the yarn fully around any one finger, this method may not work as well for you. My fingers are never fully wrapped, and they stay down, touching the left needle. They do not go up in the air at all. For me this method is just about perfect. I am really clear that everyone will have their own favorite way. Or they will choose knit/purl texture over colorwork. For me, the color is much easier.

I almost lost faith there for a while, that the ZigBagZ collection would ever actually happen as a pattern (perhaps booklet, as now there are 5 bag designs planned in one publication). I was feeling low… thank goodness for those who keep pushing me forward when I slow down through discouragement.

Fortunately, I now am signed up for a page layout/Adobe InDesign class at the local community college this coming weekend. Therefore, the limitations I’ve had (particularly when I have tried to insert more photos than the system could take) will not be an issue. My learning curve and lack of experience in the program will take time, but the program will not be an anchor dragging me back as Word has.

Yes, I realize that Word is not made for layout. The issue mostly was that I know Word so well from the years I spent teaching its tiny details to corporate clients, that I could force it to behave. Mostly. And that did not require the learning curve and financial outlay that InDesign and the class required.

I am doing a lot of letting go this fall. I gave in and I’m changing programs. I also have a new computer this year which is still not making me happy but I’m adjusting.

I also got a new cell phone this week (which has such a confusing voice command system that I can not get it to work even with help from friends… and of course the book tells how to take photos and play music on the phone but doesn’t tell me how to dial hands-free. Why am I expecting a phone to be a phone these days? LOL. I’m obviously behind the times.

But I digress. I’ve been working on the text for this five-bag collection. This weekend I can start placing the text and photos in preparation for a print run. At the same time, my cousin Karen and my sis-in-love Diana are knitting the final sample bags. Diana is making a sample and Karen is testing the text (she gets to keep her sample when it’s done).

I showed the before/after yarn choices and bag base for Diana’s/Rae’s bag yesterday. Today I’m going back in time and showing you my own bag, the zigzag sides. I’m showing again the yarn and the finished knit fabric (in this case after felting/shrinking, yesterday’s sample is before).

In this case, on my screen, the deep teal (dark turquoise) shows up as a little lighter here than in real life, though the other colors look about right. The bottom right teal is MC1 (main color/solid) and the multi sitting above it is the contrast used when knitting the teal. The solid pink bottom left is used in contrast with the blues/greens multi on top left.

Perhaps you can see that if the lines slant toward the left, I am using the solid teal and the multi pink. When the lines slant to the right, I’m using solid pink and multi cool tones. Can you see it? Perhaps it helps to see the base as a checkerboard for reference. The base was done in the teal/MC1 and the pink multi. Now can you see it?

What’s fascinating is that the stand-out colors are those which are neither teal/blue nor pink/orange. The yellow and green and nearly-black tones are what show up from this distance. Cool! It looks even more involved than it is.

I love this bag. I’m really pleased, very proud of the design. And finally I can see that maybe there will finally be a finished product. My goal had been November 1 and I’m seeing that maybe I did not give my knitters enough time… but it will definitely be November.

Maybe I’m jumping the gun… please don’t ask for the pattern just yet, though I’d be honored if a few someones put this on their “queue” of possible projects coming up. But today I feel like showing you the photo Rae took of me with the BiggieZig bag when it was fresh out of the washer and still a bit damp.

This BiggieZig bag is tall and wide but it has a slim profile. This theoretically means I won’t be taking up too much width when attending knitting events and trying to squeeze by others also carrying knitting bags.

The BurlyZig, believe it or not, will be larger than this. It will be the same height and just a little wider, but the depth will increase enough so that this can hold a whole sweater in progress or much of an afghan on the needles. Or that is the plan.

Stay tuned and you will get blow by blow information on this design, as it develops further. At this point it’s clear we will have a printed product. We just do not know exactly when…

Whew! One day at a time.

What a day! I started early and ended late on Tuesday. I go back to my normal schedule on Wednesday. I miss the CityKidz a lot, it will be wonderful to see them again.

Diana wrote with an attached photo of the bottom of her BurlyZig sample bag (which will eventually live at Rae’s Yarn Boutique). The bottom of the bag is checkerboard although the sides are a zigzag pattern. (There are smaller bags in the collection which will call for only two yarns rather than four.)

The base of the bag is made from the dominant Main Color 1, and its appropriate contrast color. The first “zig” will also use these colors, and then the “zag” uses a different Main Color (solid) and a different contrast. Of course the zig/zag pattern is not shown here, though you can have a peek at this previous post.

I’m showing the four yarns she will use in this bag in the yarn photo below. MC1 is top right, and the contrast for it is top left. I think for some folks it’s very hard to tell how things will knit up, by looking at the yarns in balls/skeins. Voila! Diana has solved this particular mystery for you today.

Sunday, Brian and I walked to the diner in the neighborhood for breakfast. We used to do this often, now only a few times a year. It was a nice little morning date.

The day started chilly, though by late afternoon it was 79F degrees, warm for this time of year. I was glad I took my camera, because the five blocks between our house and the diner are always beautiful in the fall. This year seems even more beautiful than usual.

The photo of me, Brian took. I was barely awake… this is how I look when I throw on something quickly to go on a walk first thing. I’m wearing a hat I made years ago, and my Kristi Comfort Wrap that Diana knit for me, plus the legwarmers I made from a thrift-store find, a Ralph Lauren crewneck made of Manos del Uruguay yarn.

But the leaves? So brilliant that no ColorJoy wardrobe can compete. The sky made them even more obvious. And now Monday looks the same. Woohoo! Now if only I could spend some time on the porch today… something happened and the utility company is digging up the front yard of my next-door neighbor, so the porch is not peaceful today.

Enjoy the leaves…

I still have photos from Washington, DC that I haven’t shared yet, and now seems the time.

The first photo is a photo from Jenny’s condo, a second-floor efficiency on Columbia between 16th and 17th in the Adams-Morgan neighborhood. You are seeing the view toward 17th Street here. Those little shops across the street are mostly family-owned small shops, many of them playing lively music sung in Spanish to attract the attention of passers-by.

It seemed that on the near side of the street I saw more restaurants and food vendors, but truly there were plenty on either side. The place where I ate on the way home with the best eggplant ever) was Old City Cafe, on the near side of the street just past the corner of 17th.

This building at Mozart and Fuller had all the windows cheerfully painted in a deep turquoise color. I parked just beyond the view in this photo, for the last day I was in the neighborhood. I love the turquoise with the brick color, but then as you know, I no doubt love all turquoise anything!

I’m sort of going backward in time here, but on Sunday Jenny and I walked to the Ethiopian restaurant Dukem which was on U Street. We walked through this park on the way there. At first as we entered the park, we saw this peaceful scene below the crowd (the bulk of the park is raised up most of a story above the street).

We climbed the stairs, passed some guys who appeared to be playing craps or some other dice game at a quiet part of the park near a bench or two, and continued toward our destination, the part of the park where there is a drum jam session every Sunday.

It was incredible… all ages, all ethnic backgrounds, all types of drums. This was a larger crowd than could be attracted in my smallish city, and there were folks there just to listen as well as drummers participating. Across from the drummers was a raised platform (no doubt a stage) where two dancers were rehearsing, or otherwise doing some sort of choreographed set of moves. That was my favorite part!

On the far side of the park we descended back down to street level, really enjoying the peace of the water pools/garden area just before we found ourselves back on the bustling street. You see, in a city with good public transit, people walk a lot. Everywhere you go there are walkers on the street, waiting for buses, people everywhere. In my city (where we build automobiles and have for generations) there is a bus system but in general if you are walking it is assumed that you need a ride, that something happened to your car).

Once we were back on street level, I snapped this photo of lovely homes in a row, really pretty places with beautiful architectural detail. I love beautiful buildings and these qualify.

We met Jenny’s beau at the restaurant and had an enjoyable and leisurely dinner. After we got out of dinner, the light was getting low but I gave a try at capturing the night view of Lincoln Theater and the surrounding area. I’m pretty pleased with how that photo turned out.

I must say, that to me a big part of going to a big city is eating good food. I had a good Chinese/asian meal, then Ethiopian, then mideastern. I also got to go to the National Museum of Women in the Arts, which to me is a spiritual experience. I had time with people I love, including my friend Alison who lives in California, and my sis-in-love Jenny who lives in DC and shared her home with me for 4 days. It was a good trip.

Slowing Down

Wowie, it looks like I mostly lost a day or two here on my week off. I guess it was good to have no appointments.

Thursday morning I fell down the two last stairs as I descended from the bedroom first thing in the morning. I landed on my left wrist and jammed my arm up into my shoulder fairly hard. I didn’t break or sprain anything, and I was grateful. This happened at 10:30. At 3pm I could barely move my left wrist. Some Excedrin and a brace and cold compress later, I felt better but was not able to dye yarn or wind yarn, I just babied the wrist.

The next day (Friday), the wrist felt better though the shoulder was sore. And then I got one of my famous allergy headaches. These come frequently in the fall, once leaves fall and we get rain. I lost a whole day to that headache. At least the trees are beautifully ColorJoy right about now!

Family

I did go with my mom to meet my brother Eric and his wife, my Sis-in-Love Diana (who knits for me), for what we thought would be a late lunch. It turned out to be an early dinner. The headache made me almost impossible company, though I was determined to see them.

Eric and Diana live in Ypsilanti (near Ann Arbor), just a little more than an hour from Lansing. Mom and I piled into her car to go meet them in Howell, which is normally about 30 minutes from Lansing. The highway was slow, about 30 miles per hour, even though it was not yet a time for rush hour delays in this area. We figured there must be construction so we decided to take the old road there (Grand River, which was the highway before the limited-access interstate system). The restaurant we wanted was on Grand River, anyway.

Nature’s Wrath

We did not realize what was really happening. The night before, we had very bad weather. There were tornado sightings at least three times that night and many sirens and warnings. Well, in Williamston (a town where I lived for 12 years, about 25 miles east of Lansing), they had horrible damage. They do not know whether a tornado touched down or whether it was wind damage, but it was incredible.

We were not allowed to drive through town, they detoured us around a long way, to Linn Rd. west, to Zimmer North, to Haslett East and then 59 south back to Grand River. We saw fences blown across roads. Then we saw trees snapped off a foot or so above the ground, like tinder. And on Haslett Rd., mom saw a refrigerator in the ditch. Then we saw a pile of tinder that had been a house without a basement. From reading the paper later, it appears that this was the modular home which was dumped into the pond in its front yard (two residents died, so sad).

At one point I saw the remains of a strong highway sign. The uprights were 4-inch I-beams which would then hold a large instructional sign aloft. It looked as though first it had been twisted in a spiral, and the sign itself had flown away.

I think when I see things like this, I learn again how important my relationships are. How those I love are the most important thing in my life. I was glad, headache or no, that I was with my mother going to have dinner with Eric and Diana.

Because life can be short, and we are not in charge. I’ve said it here before and I will say it again: If you love someone, you might be glad if you told them. Take time for lunch or a phone call. You never know if the opportunity may pass.

Friendships and Food

Friday night when I got home, Brian and I decided to go to New Aladdin’s restaurant in Frandor to watch Melissa and April dance. I did not feel like cooking dinner with that headache, and supporting friends is a good thing. Folks turn out when I dance, as well. What a visual conflict, the destruction of nature early in the day and then the beauty of my friends while dancing! But contrast is part of life, and thank goodness we can have both images in the same day.

It’s Saturday now, and the sun is shining. I still have a “shadow” of the headache from yesterday, but I think I will be able to function today. My shoulder is still sore but my wrist seems fine. Today is a new day. The yarn from 2 nights ago is finally dry, so I will do my best to wind it for you folks and get that up on the website.

My New Dyed Yarn

I tried a new feltable yarn this time. It is a standard worsted weight yarn and is pretty soft while being springy as well. I am encouraged by it. Color does not stick to feltable wool the same way that it sticks to superwash, and I will need some adjustment time to see what I can do with it. I have a couple of skeins I saved out for myself, to experiment with. It should be good fun.

Photos: Colorful trees on the way to lunch, April dancing at Aladdin’s Restaurant.

For those who are not knitters and who read this blog, I need to explain a little. There is a new online community for knitters (sort of like MySpace for musicians but without the non-musician participants) called Ravelry. It is still in beta testing, which means that there is a waiting list to “get in” and some folks have been waiting a long time. I haven’t mentioned it here much yet because of that not-yet-inclusive angle.

However, I am on the system and my username there is ColorJoy (no surprise). Since I am home this week, I decided to get on there and really be sure my work is properly represented. I loaded all of my patterns (under designer name Lynn DT Hershberger) that were not already loaded. I loaded current and ongoing projects (including those knit from my patterns, with photographs) under my personal page.

And then today I started a group. It’s a lot like a Yahoo group but the correspondence is on a web page and as far as I can see you can’t get the correspondence sent to you as email. My group, again, is named: ColorJoy!

If you are on Ravelry, please say hi… add me as a friend if you wish, and please feel free to join my group. Say hello if you have a minute to write.

If you are not on Ravelry, I’m sorry to write something that excludes you… they think everyone will be invited aboard very soon and I hope you can join us at that time. You can go here and sign up to be included. Soon, very soon.

Nancy wrote me this morning that she had finished a pair of Fast Florida Footies. She attached a photo, and approved my use of it here on this blog. I did airbrush it so that the socks have nothing else in the photo to distract.

I think these are lovely. They look as though they may have been knit in Cascade Fixation, the yarn I originally specified in the pattern. Lots of folks do these in other yarns, but I am pretty sure the reason the pattern is so popular is because of the yarn.

There are not too many patterns for socks specifying Fixation, which is a cotton/lycra blend. The FFFooties take very little of the yarn and are definitely a quicker knit than most. I am grateful the combination has been so good for me and the pattern.

Thank you for sharing your photo, Nancy!

This is actually a photo from a few weeks back, but it is worth sharing. To be honest, the knitting is from a few years back and I just got the photo taken this fall.

Three years ago next month, I went to East Africa (Ethiopia, Kenya and Egypt… yes, Egypt is in Africa) at the invitation of my friend, Altu. She wanted to take me home (she was raised in Ethiopia though she is a US citizen now) and show me where she was from. Actually, since the government changed many years ago her parents are in a different part of the country from where she was raised, but she wanted me to see Africa.

I had a bit of a miracle, got a financial windfall just in time to say yes, and went to Africa for 38 days. That’s more than 5 weeks of no work, no obligations, nothing from my normal life. I was with people who normally do not speak English though most of them knew it quite well (to interact with me when I was the focus). However, much of the time they were chatting in their primary language about many things that did not directly concern welcoming me to their world.

I spent a lot of time watching my African friends chat and laugh, tell stories and laugh some more, and truly enjoy one another. I had a lot of time to sit, observe, and often knit.

I knit 10 pairs of socks in Africa. Most were fingering weight, many were a standard 7″ or so in leg height. Two pair were extremely fancy, at least three colors of yarn in stranded patterning, sometimes three colors in one row. One of those pairs was inspired by Ethiopian Baskets (follow link). One pair was inspired by Kenyan Gardens. (I can not seem to find a photo of these, though Terese and Altu both express love for the design with regularity.)

By the time I got to the last week of the trip, I was running out of balls of yarn which were large enough to do a solid-color pair. I determined to make a pair of footies for Altu out of most of a ball of red, and smaller balls of yellow and white. In order to maximize use of my remaining yarn, I made a striping pattern which pleased me and determined that I would use an afterthought heel.

This pair was my 107th pair that I finished knitting. To be honest, I didn’t finish working in the ends at the time, but I did finish the knitting part. The very last bit of the knitting was completed back in the USA, in January of 2005.

When I got home I decided I might like to write the pattern for these footies. I kept the socks until the time when the pattern was written. I even started writing the pattern, and then got distracted.

And the footies sat for nearly three years. Last month was Altu’s birthday and finally I worked in the twenty-plus yarn ends and presented them to her for her birthday gift.

Altu’s foot is larger than mine… I’m an extra-small and she’s closer to a large. The photo here is shown on a sock blocker that works on my foot, so it’s not properly stretched for your viewing enjoyment. I didn’t have time to fully block the socks before I met Altu for lunch that day, so this is the best view of the socks I will ever have, unless I knit another pair.

She loved them. And since she knew they were for her three years ago, I think she was relieved to know she actually got them after all this time! More finishing, you know? It feels good.

Photos: Altu’s sock; Dancers at a wedding in Mombasa, Kenya; bread delivery man on bicycle (bread balanced on head) in Cairo, Egypt; Market scene in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (Africans are not afraid of color!).

This week of no appointments is turning out to be good for me. I made sure all of my patterns were up and described on Ravelry. I cleaned up a little housekeeping on my shopping cart (more needs to follow but it was a significant start). I did some dyeing (it’s cooling off slowly in the basement dye studio as I type this). And I finished a few projects.

Sometimes in this knitter’s life, there is a compulsion to start new projects. Thank goodness there is also the corresponding mood which is a compulsion to complete things. I’m in that mood right now. This is good, because I have many things up in the air and I distract easily.

I finished a larger BottleZig prototype before I left on the trip. I finished one set of cabled (!) wristwarmers in cocoa-colored washable camel/merino (from Rae’s) for a gift… then realized I needed another pair as another gift and fast.

They are essentially the same experiment twice, with slightly different cables. The ones you see here I like a little bit better, but they are both fun. I don’t knit cables often and I’m overdosed on them now for a while, but I think this yarn really is good in cables even though it’s really super fuzzy which hides a little detail. The yarn is wonderful, super soft but a bit pricey. Wristwarmers are a good use of the yarn, I got three wristwarmers out of two 50gm balls.

The first pair I finished just before I left for DC. The second pair I started while I was on the road and finished up this morning, they are still damp from blocking.

I actually also knit an unmatched pair of wristwarmers for myself in a green/magenta single-ply self-striping Diaketo I have had in stash (from Threadbear) for over a year. The colors please me but they knit up just enough different that I’m not quite sure I like how they turned out. This yarn would make a gorgeous Watercolor Bag or multidirectional scarf, but it’s a bit odd in wristwarmers.

I am quite sure I’ll do some embroidery on them to help the colors unify (they are huge unmatched stripes as they are). I have been missing embroidery for a long while, and after I got Kristin Nicholas’ Colorful Stitchery book last week I’m itching to get on with it. This will be a good project for it.

While I was in Gwen Bortner’s class at the knitting retreat a few weeks ago, we had to come up with a “stitch pattern” for an exercise she did. I was sure I would not enjoy that process (I am not really fond of purl/knit patterns, preferring stockinette in the round and colorwork of any sort over texture). I decided to go for it anyway, just because I was in class and classes are for learning and pushing past our normal boundaries.

Well, the textured stitch turned out wonderful and now finally I think I have the answer to a long-posed question. I have a bunch of Cascade Indulgence yarn… some I bought and several skeins were a gift from Rob of Threadbear a few years ago.

This yarn is so perfect, it’s alpaca and angora. We are talking soft and even softer, without the spring of wool but the drape and luxury you can’t beat. It needed the absolute perfect project so I waited for inspiration.

The textured stitch pattern I created in class looks very promising as far as my Indulgence stash. I really wanted to knit something that would replace a wonderful wrap I got in Egypt 3 years ago, which is perfect except that it’s acrylic and pilling. The texture and weight/size of it are incredible and I probably have enough of the Indulgence yarn to knit something almost as big. So now I will need to swatch to be sure. I’m very hopeful.

I think once I get that started, I will be able to lug it around as waiting-room knitting rather than socks. And now that I have a BiggieZigBag I can use as a portable project bag, I can carry it for a while before it gets too big to lug around.

What else have I finished? Hmmm… I think the biggest thing is the dyeing. I have two BurlyZigBagz being test knit right now. I will need to work on the text for the pattern this week, as well. The pattern is more of a collection than a single pattern. There will be a small bag, two bottle bags (I think), two project bags. These include three different handle types (stronger for larger bags). There are two color charts, one for smaller bags and one for larger. I find myself wishing for the symbols of music (D.S. al Coda, for example) to help me explain which sections need knitting and in what order. The structuring of the information in the pattern collection is a real challenge for me right now, maybe more than the instructions themselves.

But for now I just need to really focus on what I actually have finished. Here is a photo of my cocoa-colored camel cabled wristwarmers. Here is also a photo of my “Toe-Up Mittens” which start the same as my First-time Toe-Up Socks pattern. There is no pattern for the wristwarmers though you could adapt my current Wristwarmer pattern by adding cables to it, I think. The mitten will eventually become a pattern but for now it will be a class I am piloting at Rae’s next Thursday.

I should show you a bunch of the other things I mentioned, but I’m falling asleep at the keyboard after that long dyeing session. Trust me, I’m taking good advantage of a free week without appointments. I will have lunch with Altu on Thursday as usual, but that’s the only committment I have until next Wednesday afternoon.

Nighty-Night!

Dang. Brian reads Boing Boing and he told me there was a link to a Plastic Pocket Protector online museum listed there. I tried to Google it but the page calls it a webseum rather than museum. I found myself at a History of the pocket protector.

Apparently one Hurley Smith, born in Bellaire, Michigan, applied for a patent on a plastic pocket protector in 1943. It was granted in 1947. He was an Electrical Engineer and was living in Buffalo, New York at the time.

In 1949, he moved his family to Lansing, Michigan (my home) and started production of the Plastic Pocket Protector here. I wonder where his factory was?

Too funny. You know, I spent 6 years as a computer trainer and another approximately 4 years doing freelance computer consulting/Y2K work. When I was a trainer, my boss gave me a pocket protector for Christmas one year.

I loved it! I had been graduated into the truly geeky. I kept my whiteboard markers in it for a long time. I know I did not toss it, but I don’t know where it is right now…

Sometimes life takes a U-turn when we look the other way. It turns out that registrations worked out not as planned… I won’t be teaching at Rhinebeck next weekend as I had expected. We’ll do it another time, instead.

I found out about my schedule change while I was in DC. The truth is, I would not have gone to Stitches East/ Baltimore/ DC if I’d not expected to go to New York. I’m very glad I had the Stitches/Alison adventure and then a full lovely day with friends/family on Sunday.

The trip east was work-related but felt a lot like a vacation. (Food in any city makes me very, very happy… this time I had Chinese, Ethiopian and mideastern meals.) I slept like a baby Sunday night, found myself some great lunch on Jenny’s street Monday, and then turned my car toward home.

You know, I’m self employed. This means that I don’t get time off, I don’t get vacation time, it’s just go-go-go for the most part. Now I have 7 days where nobody expects me to do anything, no appointments at all. I’ll probably go to lunch with Altu on Thursday as we do whenever we can.

Other than that, I get to actually catch up on things I normally do not get time to do. I hope I can make myself mostly just stay locked in at home for a week and see what I can accomplish. I have felt so behind lately (especially in the pattern-writing realm) that a week is a real gift.

And I will definitely be dyeing yarn this week. Yeah! Look for details soon on that.

I will also be running a comment contest with my own handpainted yarn as the prize. More on that when I figure out exactly what the terms/prize will be. Please stay tuned!

I decided to not go back to Stitches on Sunday, but instead to spend the day with loved ones in DC. I had tea for hours, with an Ethiopian friend. Last I saw her, it was December 31, 2004, when a crowd of us went out for New Year’s Eve dinner in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. We talked and talked and talked. It was so nice to see her again.

Then I adventured with Jennifer (Brian’s youngest sister, who astonishingly lives exactly 2 blocks from the friend I had tea with… I only know 2 people in DC and they are 2 blocks apart). We went to the National Museum for Women in the Arts. It’s a spiritual place for me, I get choked up every time I go there. There was an exhibit of photographs others had taken of Frida Kahlo, and some background information on her life, though no artwork by her. It was fascinating.

Afterward we met Jenny’s beau for dinner at an Ethiopian restaurant on U Street at 12th. We walked from Jenny’s place and cut through the park nearby, where there was a drumming circle going on. There were dancers and all sorts of drums, and bystanders of all ages and cultures. I took a few photos which will need to be properly edited, but it was very cool just being in the middle of it all.

The meal was very good and chatted with energy the entire time we were in the restaurant. I really enjoyed my day. I fell asleep before midnight, an unusual occurrence for me. I had made a good choice of how to spend the day, it was full and satisfying.

Again, the computer does not want me to edit photos. I’m going to just post so that I can get on with my day. It’s sunny and beautiful in DC on a Monday afternoon and I’m going to take advantage of that!

Wow, that was fun! I went to Stitches East for one day, ran into my friend Sharon P/Knitknacks from Lansing, and a bunch of other fiber friends I’ve met at previous fiberart gatherings.

But the reason I came east was to see Alison Jeppson Hyde, my friend who lives in California. She wrote a book, Wrapped in Comfort, which has circular knit-from-the-neck shawl patterns… and the stories which go along with the creation of the shawl.

Alison is very relationship-focused (as am I) and her stories and shawls illustrate this facet of her very well. The shawls are very wearable, very lovely… and the stories are quite touching. Her blog is http://spindyeknit.com if you want to follow the stories of the week. She always seems to be knitting for someone else, she enjoys giving gifts very much, often as a thank you.

I was gifted with an Alison shawl Saturday. Mine is the softest baby alpaca in the purest white. It’s the original Peace Shawl (story about 9/11 in the back section of her book). I resonate with this idea. Alison knows I dye yarn and she invited me to dye the shawl. I would like to actually paint it with dye and a paintbrush. She will be sending me a little of her leftover yarn from the shawl so that I can test how the fiber takes the dye before I put any color on the finished shawl itself. This will be a joy. I am deeply honored to have an Alison original.

I couldn’t find time to actually knit for Alison so I gifted her with some tiger-dyed handpainted merino socks. They had a sort of peach and pink pattern on them, which went perfectly with the peachy-pink shawl she was wearing that day.

My new laptop has decided that it won’t let me use Photoshop today. I did get a pic of me with Alison, me wearing the shawl she knit for me (you can not believe how soft it is, and how much I feel loved wearing it). I would normally crop it for you but today you get the exact photo coming off the camera. I believe Afton took the photo… thanks!

We went to a good Chinese/asian restaurant together… Kathy, Kathleen, Alison and me. It was good, but the talk and company were better than any meal. I had a wonderful time finally meeting my friend Alison… and her childhood friends. Much fun.

I’m very creative. I’m not very organized. I love the idea of organization but I’m sadly lacking in the focus it takes to accomplish it. Today I have one full day to pack and then tomorrow I leave. For two festivals in 12 days.

I not only have to pack clothing, I have to plan food for 12 days since I can’t eat in restaurants much. I have to pack yarn and my computer/camera/palm device/cell phone. I have to have handouts for my students. I have to have polymer clay and other items for that class since knitters typically do not have polymer in their stash and do not know what to buy if they go to the store before class.

And I sit here not knowing what to do first. I have been doing laundry for a few days and I have a lot of food already in a bag. But that’s not enough food for 12 days! The B&B at Rhinebeck will feed me oatmeal each day so that is handled. I can cook a bit at my sis in law’s in DC when I’m at Stitches. I can eat sashimi at a Japanese place or a bit of Indian or African food, and I can eat salad. I get tired of paying for lettuce at a restaurant, though. Boring!

But I may not blog for a while this next 12 days. I do not know when I will get online or not. Meanwhile, please visit Lucy Neatby’s site. I adore Lucy. I saw her last this past spring(?) when she was in Old Town thanks to the Boyz at Threadbear. (Actually, I also saw her in Columbus briefly at TNNA in June.)

Lucy is a brilliant technician and a wonderful colorist/artist with yarn. She is also, thankfully, a wonderful teacher. She has a good number of excellent DVDs for all sorts of knitting techniques, which are so great! You can play them over and over until you get it, and if you forget you can go back and see it again. She is a good explainer with a great sense of humor (she always talks about a “happy and contented knit stitch).

On Lucy’s site, Tradewind Knitwear Designs, she has a “Techniques and Hints” section that is worth its weight in gold. If you find yourself visiting my blog on a day I have not posted, please consider visiting Lucy and learning a technique or two.

Photos today are of Lucy and me (and Lucy’s shoes) the day I studied double-knitting with her in Lansing early this year.

I will close with a quote from Lucy (found on one of her techniques pages):

Organization and I are not best acquainted. I fully expected a lightning strike as I wrote the word, but so far so good.

And now, if you will excuse me, the suitcases are beckoning.

The festival in New York State commonly called “Rhinebeck” (for the town where it is held) is coming right up in two weekends. (The official name is New York Sheep & Wool Festival.) I’m starting to get really excited about going!

I’ll teach and I’ll connect with folks I know from the internet, and peers in the knitting-business realm. Stephanie Pearl-McPhee and Kristin Nicholas will be there for sure with their books. I have not checked out what other authors will be there.

On Thursday, Friday and Saturday I will be teaching Design Your Own Turkish-Style Sock, Polymer Clay for Fiber folk: Buttons, Beads, Handles and Tools, and Heels & Toes Exploration (in that order). I will be wandering the marketplace on Sunday. I’d love to meet you folks, whether in a class or outside.

The deadline for pre-registration for the classes is October 12. That’s just a few days away. If you are interested, you can check out the workshops and other goodies on the sheepandwool.com website.

I got my book Colorful Stitchery by Kristin Nicholas yesterday. I’m trying to work through my to-do list for this upcoming trip, and here is this incredibly inspiring eye candy in my hands! Her book is about embellishing with embroidery (using yarn, ribbon, embroidery floss, and probably other things I didn’t catch yet).

Here’s her books page… even if you are not going to buy, I suggest visiting the page for pure color inspiration! I did not really have time to read the book right away. I read the introduction and looked at all the photographs.

When I got to the tea cozies she had a recipe for oat scones. It was past midnight but one of the things on my to-do list is to bake things and freeze them for the trip. So I figured I was on task if I stopped everything and baked scones right then.

OK, it called for all-purpose (wheat) flour, eggs, milk and blueberries. I had to substitute for the first three ingredients, then left out the fruit and put cinnamon in there to flavor them a little. What I got was something light and crumbly and lovely… but it’s very fragile and will not freeze and pack well at all. I ate one piece last night hot out of the oven, and Brian and I had them for breakfast this morning. True luxury in the middle of a sort of over-packed week.

I love travel but I still do not do it enough to prepare and pack with grace. Once I’m on the road I do just fine, but getting ready puts me into a sort of whirlwind. Brian says I’m a “white tornado” if anyone remembers those old commercials from the late 60’s. I wish I cleaned as well and as quickly as the advertisement implied, but instead I sort of go in circles of my own. But I digress.

I love Kristin’s projects in the book. She is really about color, and she thinks of ways to stitch and things to stitch on (gift boxes, for example) that most of us would never imagine without a little help.

I love to embellish things, be it with embroidery, beads, fabric paint, fingernail polish, markers, you name it. Kristin’s book is about embellishing with “stitchery” (embroidery). It is about making textiles jump to a new level of fun, color and artfulness. Very ColorJoy indeed. You can find Kristin’s blog at http://getting-stitched-on-the-farm.blogspot.com/ and if you can not find her book in your local yarn shop (very possible since it’s not much about knitting specifically) you can order it on her new shopping cart.

Today, Kristin’s blog entry is some wonderful mohair crocheted flowers that she then embroidered to make them more colorful and interesting. They are WONDERFUL! There are also photos of the zinnias she has picked in her yard. I love her sense of color and it often shows in the photos on her blog.

You can also take a peek at some of her knitwear designs if you go to this page: http://www.kristinnicholas.com/knitwear.htm which shows that even though she does much colorwork, she does a bit with other textured/cabled knitting as well.

For two free patterns by Kristin Nicholas, visit the Knitting Daily free pattern page. Knitting Daily is an online presence from Interweave Knits (a wonderful magazine). Knitting Daily will send you emails several times a week and talk more in detail about patterns than can be put into print.

It’s worth giving the Knitting Daily folks your email address to get these great messages… my favorite of which is the ones where they take a sweater that was featured in the print magazine, and then they get real folks in the Interweave office to try it on. They tell you the measurements of a sweater and the measurements of the people trying it on, put it on folks bigger and smaller than the sweater, and let you decide if you like it snug or loose or with shorter/longer sleeves, or not at all. Very very cool.

Kristin and I have been corresponding a bit this week because I ordered my book directly from her. It turns out that she will be at Stitches East on Friday and I’ll be there Saturday and maybe Sunday. However, we will both be at Rhinebeck/New York Sheep and Wool on Sunday so I’ll get to meet her then. Good things come to those who wait.

Photos? These are some of my own embellished items. Stanley Aladdin thermos, palm device, needlefelted hat (teal/green/purple), embroidered and beaded hat (pink/turquoise), my first cellphone with fabric paint dots.

We stayed at a very nice, relatively new resort/hotel/conference center on Drummond Island for Rae’s knitting retreat last weekend. I took photos of the grounds and the buildings. Here is a shot of the grounds between the building where we had our classes (this was an older building than where we slept) and a fine restaurant. It didn’t look that fine from the outside but those who had dinner there were really pleased.

Then I have a shot of the shoreline (I’m not sure which body of water this is, I had heard we were in the center of the island so this bay confused things for me). I think it’s some sort of bay, just because the restaurant had the word Bay in its name.

The last photo today is the staircase railing in the quarters where we stayed. Rae and I each had our own double bed downstairs, and Gwen had her own single bed up in the loft at the top of this stairway. I loved the paint job and the energy of the zigzag cuts in the railing. There was mostly red paint, some warm yellow, and a small amount of sage green… all on tone set of railings. It pleased my sense of ColorJoy in all ways!

I finished teaching a three-session FTTU Sock class at Yarn Garden in Charlotte last week. Janet and Audrey did so well, they both ended up with two pairs of socks at least started.

Here is a photo of one sock per pair, unblocked, some fresh off the needles. Didn’t they do a great job?

You guys were right… the error message (yesterday) was written by someone in the Czech Republic. Clearly it’s a case of several words/phrases being mis-translated. Good catch.

No surprise, but the first day back was spent catching up. Some laundry got done, a little cooking got done (chard and taro root, it was pretty good for a first try), I printed out handouts for my computer students, taught two computer classes, stopped by my mom’s house, went to the post office (I am anxiously awaiting my copy of Kristin Nicholas’ Colorful Stitchery any day now), and cooked dinner. More laundry, catching up on email and Etsy and Ravelry correspondence.

So now it’s 1am and I need to post something. I edited three relatively easy photos (trees and sky on the trip, and pot of plants at retreat center) that are quite ColorJoy the way nature handed them to me. The sky/tree photos were taken in the car on the way back from the retreat, somewhere between Claire, Michigan and the bridge to the Upper Peninsula. The trees were breathtakingly orange from one corner of the sky to the other, or so it seemed at times. The sunset was even more pink than it seems in this photo.

I was in the back of a moving car, windows up. I think that these photos turned out a bit like an impressionist might have painted them.

More photos of the actual retreat later, again, of course. Meanwhile, I’m very tired and staying on an earlier schedule than usual will be good for me. When I teach, I can not afford to go to bed at 3am or I am too tired to do a good job. See you tomorrow, and thanks as always for your great support!

I’m home. The retreat was great. The location was beautiful, the leaves were turning bright orange, the company was good, the instruction (Gwen Bortner of Knitability) was superb. The sleep was minimal, but you can’t have everything! Of course I have photos, and of course I’m too wiped out to sit here and get them edited for you right now. Soon!

OK, so I didn’t have cell phone service or internet access from Friday morning until Sunday Night. Then I got home, plugged in the computer, and before I could even check my email, I got this error message:

I give up. I’m so tired this is extremely funny. Who could even write this statement?

To be fair, immediately after closing this message, I got a notice from the same (antivirus) program that it had checked my computer and did not find any threats. That does not make the message any less confusing, though.

It is definitely time to sleep. Maybe it will make more sense after a long rest? Maybe not.

I’m going very early (for me) in the morning on retreat with Rae’s Yarn Boutique. I’m working for Rae this weekend, helping register and otherwise settle in the event. When I’m not needed, I am allowed to attend the workshops.

Gwen Bortner of Knitability is our instructor for the weekend. We have three workshops in all, things I would not normally study. This means I will stretch a bit and this is good. I am very focused in the areas I love and I tend to have a bit of tunnel vision (color, color, color, fiber, color).

This weekend we are talking texture and “stitch patterns” for part of the time. This is not an area I work with very much. We will at some point be doing the numbers of knitting… and then Sunday is color, some methods of which I’m very experienced in and some I expect will be new. All good.

I’m also happy to be meeting and spending a weekend with Gwen. We know one another from the internet but this will be our first meeting in person. I think we are both working at Rhinebeck in a few weeks, as well. Maybe I’m at Rhinebeck and she’s at Stitches East, but I’ll see her again on my eastern trip in October, again, twice in a month.

It is supposed to be glorious summery weather in Lansing for three days… partly sunny and upper 80’s, my favorite weather in the world. Up at Drummond Island (the eastern part of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, nearly throwing distance from Canada) it is supposed to be lower 70s and rainy. Drat. I guess a bit of gloom outside will make us more content to stay indoors and learn, anyway!

In Lansing the colors are turning in earnest the last few days. The photo today is from September 2005. You see, I’m typing this with my old laptop while the new one backs up so I can take it north with me. I can get to this photo easily right now!

My goal has always been to make 28 posts per month. It may be that October will see me a little short on that goal. I will be back Sunday night, in any case. Have a pleasant weekend, no matter what your weather and location.

I fell asleep on the couch with the laptop on my lap. The last few days I’ve been too busy and too tired to post much. However, I am happy to report that Diana and Karen are working on their (quite large) BurlyZigBagz right now.

The smaller bagz take one solid colored yarn and one colorway of a slow-self-striping yarn (I am using Noro Kureyon). Some of you have noted that Kureyon does not like to felt/shrink very quickly and the other yarns I’m using with it do.

This is actually good, because the firmly-felted yarns take the Kureyon with them “for the ride.” The resulting fabric, when knitted two stitches of one and then two of the other, is very satisfying and even. Very nice, I assure you, though if they were alternated in wide stripes, the result could be a disaster.

I’m including photos of the yarns used for Karen (blue/green Nashua Creative Focus Worsted for the solids, with contrast Noro Kureyon yarns that add pink to the mix), and Diana (brown/green Patons Classic Wool solids, with Kureyon adding purples to the mix). These include a LOT of stitches but they are moving toward the goal.

For the record, the solids are used with the contrast they are least like. For example, Karen’s top solid is green, and it is used with the mostly-pink contrast underneath it rather than the almost-matching green/pink top right. If we put the matching ones together, you would not see all the special stitchwork she will be doing. Many people make the mistake of choosing what they call “contrast” but which has a color in common with the solid. It is instinct to match, but it does not work well.

For Diana’s yarns, the dark brown is used with the lighter multicolor, and the lighter green solid is used with the darker multi. This assures that all stitches will show. This is second-nature to me now, but it is not instinct if you are new to colorwork.

(For the record, my yarns were a dark teal contrasted with a mostly-pink multi, and a hot pink contrasted with a mostly-dark-green multi. See small swatch to see it knit up. When I “zig” left I use teal as the base, when I “zag” right I use pink as the solid. Can you see it now? Oh, and the checkerboard is used only for the base of the rectangular bagz.)

I am contemplating a larger bottlezig as well… we will see. if the first attempt works, I’ll include it. If I have to fuss I will not continue. I have to cut losses somewhere. This ZigBagZ collection is turning out to be a production, a very time-consuming and yarn-consuming one. It’s worth it, I’m just sure of it, but right now I need a goal.

I bought new editing software for layout. I’ve been using Word for all these years, to make my patterns. I know Word so well (after teaching computer software including Word since 1994), and I was a secretary for years before that.

I “think” in word processing. However, I like to include lots of explanation and often lots of photos. Word is not happy with more than one photo per page. Time to deal with the learning curve and get a proper product.

I bought an Adobe Creative Suite 2 which has InDesign included. My class at Lansing Community College is the last weekend in Otober. By then I should have photos and final input on all sizes/styles of the Ziggies, as Diana and I have been calling them.

So my preliminary guess is that the pattern will be available November 1. This is the current goal.

More peeks at the process as I proceed toward the finish line. For now, sleep (again).

Over on my beloved Stephanie/Yarn Harlot’s weblog today, there is a guest post writer. She’s none other than Presbytera from Lansing (blogless). This woman is skilled with words in more than one way, and the post is a great explanation of how she knits without swatches almost all of the time.

I’m with her. I call this “Folk Knitting,” when you go with what makes sense and what you know from experience. This is how knitting was done for centuries… you went with what you knew already. My friend Altu knit many sweaters in Africa, and none used a pattern, just common sense.

Many times I don’t need a swatch because I have information about the yarn and what kind of fabric it will create with any particular set of needles. Remember, I knit socks a lot. As in, over 150 pairs to date. Most yarns I can figure out without a swatch, that is if the yarn is like others I’ve used.

I don’t make many sweaters, and so I’m more likely to swatch before diving into a sweater project. These are yarns I don’t know well and I want to find a fabric I like a lot. But for socks, wristwarmers, other things I’ve done a lot? No need, I dive in and usually it works. I rip when it doesn’t, but that is not very often.

But why am I reeling and swooning… and feeling that I owe Presbytera a bit of a (huge) favor? Well, once upon a time she took my toe-up sock class, using my LynnH First-Time Toe-Up Socks pattern…

…no doubt she does her socks a little different than the ones she made the first time, since she does socks a lot now and she’s a “Folk Knitter.”

But the first photo in her blog post shows socks made essentially like my pattern. And she mentions how she does the toe (an 8-stitch, 8-row square) which is how my pattern starts. Later in the comments she mentions my pattern in reply to folks’ questions.

Sigh. I feel famous. Maybe some folks will enjoy trying my pattern… which is more of a formula with lots of photos on how to do things, than a “do this my way” sort of pattern.

My guide tells folks how to pick yarns and needles to go well together, no matter what the thickness of the yarn is… I’ve knit these socks from fingering weight yarn on size 0/2mm needles, and I’ve knit them with Lamb’s Pride Bulky, probably on size 6 or 7 needles (I can’t remember right now) as slipper-socks… see photo at right (green… the under-socks in that photo are also from this pattern).

And it doesn’t require a swatch. In fact the yarns pictured here (all the same sock structure) are in fingering weight, sportweight, worsted, and bulky. All start with an 8-stitch/8-row square and are increased in a knit-to-fit method.

Thanks, grrl. I do owe you big.

(Photos? First-Time Toe-Up Socks made in all sorts of yarns/gauges, with several types of leg treatments. If you click on the rainbow ones, you can download a PDF file for free, telling you how I did the leg. I think it looks good with handpainted yarn.)

For the record, my sock structure was inspired by some I made from the software called The Sole Solution by Mary Moran of Knittingzone.com. Mary and I met online but have