stitch marker

fair along

Would you like to join?

Knitting, crocheting, sewing, needle arts, baking, jam-making, cake decorating, table setting, etc. All are welcome!

Take a look a the new group blog and email me at dumbmail AT larissabrown DOT net if you want to join.

ready to go

A late night photo of the ready-to-go dishcloths.

They'll be in the show starting this weekend, at the Long Beach Island Foundation. Here is how they look in a stack. They'll be shown in a stack, with a book that includes a photograph of every cloth, in the order I received them, with handwritten info about the person who made the cloth and where they're from. It's called archive. I think my sister will take photos for us all to see.

And I'm not ready to go, but need to be in the next hour or so. I leave for Denver very early in the morning and speak tomorrow night at Tattered Cover book store. I'm really looking forward to the flight and time in Denver, but I really dislike packing and getting to the "or-port."

Someone who may or may not be ready to go is Ellie. I've explained to Sebastian she needs to go somewhere and will not be able to come back. Sometimes she looks so great and jumps for tennis balls and runs for 20 or more minutes with me. Other times it looks like she can barely breathe. We think she rallies for fun stuff and food, but really she is in very poor shape. She's had all the treatment they will give her, and she's survived longer than expected on the last dose. But she breathes very fast and shallowly when resting, and she's acting dumber or more on instinct - barking a lot even when it's us coming in the door, stealing food from the garbage and people's hands. She has never been like this. We'll know more this weekend.

Sebastian says:

At thirteen o'clock we can go to the strawberry train and get some strawberries. And we can eat them on the way home. On the people coach of the strawberry train.

All aboard.

132. 2.

132 dishcloths are here and accounted for
2 of them were chosen by random.org as prize winners (those 2 above, click the photo to see their names) (as chosen from among all those that arrived by the due date of 3.20.08)
1 of them will win 2 skeins of ShibuiKnits Sock in Seaweed
1 of them will win an as-yet-chosen skein of gorgeous hand-dyed sock yarn from Happiest Girl Dyeworks
I will no doubt not get that nap that I need (unrelated)

socks *all* month?

A while ago, like in February, I joined the Sock A Month knitalong. The idea was to knit a pair a month until July. One of the leaders, Chrissy, knits like a hundred socks a month. Why couldn't I do one pair? I thought I would finish a pair of socks for the book in March, and then maybe another pair or even two before summer's end. One for me, one for Martin. On the SAM3 sidebar I'd have a couple little letters next to my name, for the months in which I finished sock pairs. M, definitely. J and J?

Since then I've made zero socks for my book (I used a pair I'd made in January for the beauty shot), two 3/4 socks done toe-up in a self-patterning yarn, two tiny toes in Adrian's gorgeous oystercatcher colorway, 9/10 of an Anastasia sock in the green and brown yarn from Mary, one half a Friday Harbor sock that I had to rip due to size, and 9/10 of a new sock with that same Blueberry Pie Zen String yarn.

So, I think I'll have no letters next to my name. No finisher's medals. But I've done a lot of sock knitting. I really learned how to do the short row toe/heel. So that's nice.

have you ever been on the receiving end?

I'm looking for someone to interview for our book who has received a charitable afghan, whether it was made by friends or by total strangers, whether you received it through a charity after a storm hit your house or your neighbor placed it in your hands when you were going through something difficult. I'm looking for someone who would like to talk about (or email about) what that felt like, what it meant to you, whether it changed your life in any way. Or whether it's just a dumb old thing and the dog seems to like it. And I mean that, either way I'd love to hear from you.

If you have an experience you'd like to tell me about for the book, please email me at dumbmail AT larissabrown DOT net. I'd love to hear from you.

lone square

Finally, finally I have tucked in ends and I'm sending off this little square for the Lone Knitter. I started it in January!  It's embarrassing how long that took. I hope it's still needed. The yarn is all Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks That Rock heavyweight:  kermit, rooster rock, henpecked, and carbon.

a blanket

Just at the moment I thought I could not finish this book and had given up all hope*, this blanket came together. I'm going to write more about it later, because it was such an amazing community effort. But I have to run Right. Now.

Please click the photo to see whose squares are being used in the book sample, as opposed to the additional charity blankets to come next. And also please check out knitalong.net to plant your little flag on the knitalong map!

* See Alicia? I was at 95% and I started to cry as usual!

happy valentine's day

Tina at Blue Moon Fiber Arts has made my year.

She made this colorway with inspiration from the palette for Knitalong.* I'm having trouble finding a word to describe how that feels. To get a colorway designed with your book in mind. When I visited Blue Moon for the first time I thought that was more than a person could ever hope for. To see so much of their yarn in its natural habitat. To meet the people who make this wonderful stuff. Then a colorway for my book! Then, then....! Tina wrote and said there were more colorways, a series. I haven't seen them yet and I'm dying to (no pun intended, actually).

All you knitalongers have made my year, too. We're nearing the end of our little rainbow here, with the book nearly drafted. Happy Valentine's Day to all of you.

And ggrlogan, smileshiner72, aka Jan-Knit, and Jennifer MW?  That yarn up there is yours. I randomly chose one person from each of the book knitalongs to give this to.** And there's one more skein to give away, after the Recycle Along ends. So please submit some recycled sweater photos.

* It's called Tide Pool. Here are several more shots of it up close.

**If you're reading this, please email me at dumbmail AT larissabrown DOT net with your mailing address to get your yarn!

recycled sweater things to admire

Well, you don't have to admire the ones I made. But I think you ought to admire all the others. Just click anywhere on the pictures to go to a flickr page with all the individual links, so you can visit every one of these photos and artists.

Just to be utterly clear, these are not all entered into the recycle along (yet?). They are simply some recycled things I found around flickr and enjoyed looking at, as I sit here thinking about redeploying old sweaters. Just gorgeous.

For me, what I really want to make is something like this anthropologie blanket.

This may be the only noble use for the bags full of  tangled yarn ends, and stacks of project beginnings and middles, that I have stored in my craft room. Well, or maybe felted doggie beds for strays. But one of these blankets for me, too.

regrand opening

For years there was a Kleenin' Korner laundromat in our neighborhood that had a rather crusty banner reading "REGRAND OPENING. (some date way in the past) Free Soap!" I've always loved how confidently wrong REGRAND OPENING seemed. It seemed to sing out its wrongness, instead of just chirping, oh, say, GRAND REOPENING? And the free soap? That was just the icing on the cake.

That place is gone now. I was just reminded of it, thinking about a title for today's recycling post. And so here we are at the last knitalong of the book! And it takes no knitting whatsoever! A recycle along! 

The idea is to make something, anything at all, out of a previously knitted item. It can be previously handknit or previously machine knit, by you or not by you (for example, from Goodwill). The little shrug above is one of my recent recycled crafts - my first attempt at blanket stitch. It combines an old Gap sweater with some Blue Moon Fiber Arts yarn in the Neptunite colorway, an oddly perfect match. The bird is just hanging out for interest.

If you're interested in joining, I'm posting all the details over on knitalong.net.

And I think I'll send some free soap to a randomly-chosen winner :-)

you win!

This post is really a big thank you to every one of you who knitted squares. They came from England, Canada, Portugal, and from across the US, everywhere from Alaska to Brooklyn. We laid them out yesterday (my crack squares team and I) and it's confirmed that we have enough to make at least two blankets. Whew! So one will be saved for book purposes and one more will go to Warm Up America.

And so, to thank everyone properly and really celebrate how fast a bunch of knitters can put together two awesome blankets, the prizes have been drawn. (How fast I can sew those squares together is another question entirely). But anyway, the prizes are as follows:

C, also known as Muscadine Hill, you've won this incredible sock yarn dyed by Adrian at Hello Yarn!

Cindy of Knit for Joy, you have won two skeins of Berroco Ultra Alpaca, a new yarn that's included in our book, along with a sweetly scented candle donated by Tracy from England.

Rhonda M., you've won two skeins of yarn - KnitPicks Shimmer in Grape Hyacinth and Cascade 220 in a pink shade - donated by Celaine. (It all comes around, right? Aren't you the same as C. above?)

Aurora, I did get your amazing square, and you've won yarn buttons and magnets from Girl on the Rocks.

Katie B. who made the Hawaii-colored square, without a blog(!), you have won a set of gorgeous stitch markers from Knitwit Momma.

JJ, you've won a very cool clay needlecase donated by the artist, Francie O. The prize one is green and salmon pink toned squares. (It'll go nicely with your "detail oriented" baggie system for storing your circs, JJ. Which I really admire)

And of course Froukje has won the two skeins of sock yarn from Funknits! And Froukje, you win it yourself. No giving away prizes until after you receive them (then I can't stop you). :-)

Thank you everyone. More news soon...

i can tell you this

It's so late for me, I'm sort of turning into a pumpkin as I write this. Or at least, I'm degrading to  the reading-and-writing-at-grade-level of a pumpkin. So I do not have a total square count for today, deadline in the mailbox day.

But I can tell you that the winner of the coveted and harder-to-win-than-expected Prize for Most Squares* goes to Froukje. The mysterious Froukje who lives right here in my town but has no blog and so I do not know anything. Anything! It's driving me mad. Froukje, who are you? Your squares are gorgeous. And blocked like my Uncle Les's hospital corners. I used two of yours (on top there) to practice sewing up today and they lined up so perfectly it was eerie.

Thank you. And raise your hand and tell us about yourself. :-)

More winners will be announced on Saturday, after I make sure all the names are entered and I find an adorable child or two at Mama n Me Knitting @ Sydney's to draw winners. There are more wonderful prizes than you know.

* The Prize for Most Squares, donated by the pattern designer herself, Shelley Mackie, is two balls of sock yarn from her online shop Funknits. Froukje, I'll contact you with details.

cave woman progress

I think it was Ursula LeGuin, but I'm really not sure and can't find a source, who wrote that it was easy for cavemen to tell exciting stories about the hunt, but that it wasn't so easy for the cave women who did repetitive work to tell stories about wrestling berry, after berry, after berry from the bush.

That's how I feel about any knitting I might show you tonight. It's good, I did it, and it's likely dull as hell to look at. If you're really curious, it's 5" of All Seasons Cotton in stockinette stitch on the little man's Drive Thru sweater.

Some more exciting things came to pass, though. M learned to knit! He's been threatening to do so for many, many months. I guess he thought with the book due in a few weeks this was as good a time as any. He went to Abundant Yarn's drop-in class tonight and Pat got him to make this. "It was going to be a washcloth...It's a bookmark."



And in the mail today, we got 4 more squares! I have to admit that I was a bit surprised at the fewness of them. That brings us to 27 total in hand, and we have about 400 people signed up who are ostensibly making them, with just 2 days left to get them here. I'm thinking either we're going to have a very high non-completion rate, or the UPS store is going to be reeling tomorrow.

However, even though they were few they were mighty. Very very pretty squares and all four went together and matched my coffee cup. Thank you Dana, Jenn, Michelle, and Beth.

p.s. Despite the truly wretched nighttime photos in this post, I do think I have a couple sources of photo tips and one or two of my own amateur insights to share about taking knitting photos for blogging. I'll write a post about that to answer a question or two I've gotten about photos. But please note, a lot of the good photos I use are credited to Sarah, who takes gorgeous photos and shares them all with me because she's a generous and kind person. She wrote here about her film camera, and about not taking digital shots. She takes no digital photos. None.

11 and rising

That's the square count as of today, what I have in hand. Every day Mom goes to her mailbox to pick them up and it's like Santa coming all over again. I have squares from Oiyi, Siri, Chawne (that's her square above), Katie, and Jessica (we sound like a private school cheerleading team).

I had a date with a neighbor today to block a shawl for our book. Erin has a whole room with a whole bed in it that no one is using, something that sounds strange and wonderful and far off as we are still living four humans and four pets to a tiny house during our construction. And Erin doesn't have as many creatures crawling and sniffing around her house. Anyway, her place is good for the shawl blocking. But. She wasn't home during nap. So I got to "sneak away" from my obligations for a few minutes today and I got to do some knitting. For myself.

I actually finished and bound off the front piece of my klaralund...

...so now all that is left is the back. I felt awfully guilty, but also realized I needed a break from thinking about more complicated patterns, where I am in charge and peoples' future project success is depending on me. Enough of that sort of pressure happens when I open the square envelopes and realize I have a lot of blanket making to do in the next week and a half.

But I'd almost forgotten how very nice it is to get all the notes and little presents that come along with such squares. Siri sent me a thrifted camo shirt that looks oddly like this fabric (which I never did get). Very cool! And she sent six squares, all gorgeous.

(She is seriously contending for the most squares prize, so anyone who has a few done you might want to crank it up, honey).

squares

A couple things have happened. Don't they always?

1. I knitted my own square finally.

And learned something. (You know, I've written before about how I hate when that happens).

I told y'all that Socks That Rock mediumweight would make a good 7" square. But I knitted mine in the above gorgeous Mudslide colorway, and knitters, it is Yooge. Great. It's got its own weather system. It's 8" if it's a centimeter. So, don't listen to me. Use your STR lightweight if you want to knit a 7" square with our knitalong pattern and size 2 needles.

2. People continue to be generous and kind and enthusiastic.

And it makes me happy to be alive and reminds me to always treasure things that people make. I see Sebastian learning to paint and being so small and vulnerable and new to creativity. Giving me things he makes with pride, even before he knows that there is a world where you can create things and have them rejected. He puts out such pure expressions. And I see that in each of us grown ups when we put ourselves out there and make something for someone else.

But I digress. What I was going to write about was how we have several prizes pledged for people who are knitting squares in the knitalong (still open for signups here until 1/20). Each square that lands in our mailbox by February 1st will be good for one chance in a big drawing.

• Knitwit momma has donated a set of her stitch markers!
• Celaine has donated a skein of Cascade 220 and a skein of Knitpicks Shimmer in Grape Hyacinth!
• Girl on the Rocks has donated a set of knitting buttons and a set of knitting magnets!
• And a non-random, volume prize!  Shelley--the designer of the pattern, who also owns a yarn shop--is going to donate two 100 gram balls of sock yarn from her online shop to the person who gets the most squares to me by February 1.

3. I heard today about another different square along.

And as I sat in my big green chair thinking about squares and generosity, and feeling my ususal generalized weepy sentimentality about my son growing up so fast and how I love him so fiercely, I thought I should really pay back the universe for all the goodness. So I'm knitting a square for a knitalong being run ironically by The Lone Knitter. Here is her call for squares.

And here is my effort (on top of my gigantic mudslide square).

I'm making my favorite kind of square (corner to corner dishcloth style with stripes of gorgeous yarn). I just feel like even though I'm busy, if I can't do this today then I have no business writing about the community of knitters. So thanks Lone Knitter for the opportunity to partake in this industrious indulgence.

no one's going anywhere

In Portland today. (Well, except maybe this guy.)

The news of snow is going nonstop on the big flatscreen TV at our neighborhood coffee shop, and I'm holed up here at the bar. I got stuck here partway to work this morning and I'm still here now at 2 pm. An hour into my normally-30-minute commute, having found myself no further than 8 blocks from my house, I stopped and ordered hot chocolate and turned on my computer and whipped out a scarf project. There are soooooooo many people here today at Cooper's Coffee. Lovely cabled hats and woolly scarves and arm warmers as far as the eye can see.

Today is a great day to knit a square, no?

Just note, please, that I've changed the size specs over at knitalong.net.

the next knitalong is only for squares

Julie called them the “precious coin of knitterly love.”

Afghan squares.  The go-to project for knitters when anyone, anywhere is in need.  No Knitalong book would be complete without them.

And I hope you will knit one or two.

My Knitting Life wrote about sewing up such squares, "It is humbling to be in the presence of the handiwork of so many knitters."  I know I will be awed and overwhelmed by your goodness and uniqueness if you do.

Please see the knitalong.net/testalong main page for information, and to register if you're interested in squaring along.

It's for the book, and for charity, and for fun. I hope you'll join me. (Maybe you'll pay more attention to your square than I did. I hope you can't see my mistakes.)

the sockalong is now closed

So says The Squirrel.

Thank you for joining everyone! If you have joined, please check the test-along site for a few updates later today, especially on colors. I won't bore the general readership here with too much detail about the socks, so please do look over at the other site.

Thanks all!

warmest wishes...and socks

We are having a wonderful Christmas, and I hope you and yours are having a delicious holiday too. Our has been full of various trucks, trains, and doogoos (that would be diggers).

But more on that later. Because I really want to give you a new pattern as a little Christmas wish, and I'm wondering...Want to knit some socks?

Martin & I need knitters who are interested in test knitting for our book again, this time to work on a pair of warm, luxurious ankle socks that work up quickly on size 10 dpns and get slightly fulled in a hot toasty dryer. Since this pattern is more complex than the meathead hat and has not been tested, we would need you to use the yarn specified. But that shouldn't cause you too much suffering, since it's Manos del Uruguay wool. :-)

And we need you to follow the pattern as written instead of riffing on it, at least for your first pair - the pair that you enter on flickr. But like the meathead hats, these socks are like candy, so quick you'll probably make more than one pair!

A small women's pair (about size 6.5 foot) should take only 1 skein of Manos wool, though as I mentioned this has not been tested so you might want to have a second just in case and return it if you don't use it. Other sizes take 2 skeins with yarn left to spare. Any color you want is great. And as with the hat knitalong, there is a flickr gallery.

The main difference is YOU DO NOT SIGN UP HERE. Please do not sign up in the comments here. You will not get included in the knitalong.

It was a ridiculous amount of work signing everyone up last time, so Martin has automated the process. You simply go to knitalong.net/testalong, hit Register, and create a login account. That will get you access to the pattern page, which is only available to registered users.

We are capping the knitalong at 101 knitters. If we reach that number that would be awesome! But we would then close registration. If you go to the knitalong.net/testalong site and do not see REGISTER at the upper right then that means the knitalong has closed and the pattern is no longer available until the book comes out.

Our thanks - and more details - are here at the "socks 101" knitalong home page.

a mess of greens

The colors* and textures in this tangle of cables and stitch markers are just what my brain needs. A little bit of rules and structure, a lot of wild abandon and lusciousness.

I'm making a Blue Ribbon Scrap Wrap as part of Sarah's knitalong - the next knitalong for the book that Martin & I are writing. In keeping with my farmers' market visual metaphor for the book, this one is my mesclun mix wrap made of Noro Silk Garden in a (new?) green and gold colorway, along with green Frogtree Alpaca and some handspun dirt and greens color wool/silk mix that I got at the Oregon Flock & Fiber Festival.

The pattern is brilliant. You knit from the top down in a standard shoulderette shape, but the back panel is a series of 4-stitch, 5-stitch and 7-stitch cables that cross according to a set of rules about how many rows you repeat for each kind. When not doing this cable crossing thing, you just work the stitches as they appear and watch your lovely colors go by, all the while increasing at each end.

If you like to cable, head on over to Sarah's and join!

* Another sad Portland winter knitting photo. The light in this town makes everything look green all winter. So it was double hard to photograph this actually-green knitting in a way that at all shows its beauty. I'll try outside next time it's sunny. Could be tomorrow, could be March....

big meaty drum roll, please

Hi, this is Larissa's significant other and knitting-book-co-author Martin.  I'm posting tonight because Larissa is totally wiped out from her usual responsibilities, to which have been added the remarkable tonic effects of the rotavirus diet.  Nonetheless she badly wanted to get out our announcement of "picks" from the meathead knitalong.

So, drum roll please...

.. and now, the obligatory "remarks"!

First of all I have to say that we were  astounded at the big response to the knitalong, and gratified by the range and quality of results.  It convinced me that one big theme of our book -- that people working from the same patterns still produce wonderfully individual results -- wasn't just a line in a book proposal, it was actually, shockingly, true.   It's got to be a first in the world of publishing.

So, huzzah. Thank you. Whether you were singled out or not. 

I think you'll see from the flickr group that choosing 18 was really hard.  There were so many good entries (and not a few nice photos) we are thinking of changing the number to  32 if the publisher approves.  Also our choices are somewhat influenced not just by knitting, but by a need to balance colors and so on.  Accordingly we've chosen 18 hats, and then a second set of 14 hats or photos that may be called upon to serve as book meatheads should additional space arise, or should anything untoward befall the other 18. (Say, if they go out without their chaperones...)

Now without further ado, here are the 18:

..and here are the bonus 14:

You can see we really had a lot to work with. For knitters who are in these collages, look for a note on this blog in the next few days about about logistical arrangements for photos and permissions.  We'll probably be building a special website just to handle that stuff. 

For everybody: thank you so much.  We were wowed.

Cheers, Martin

the last meathead, now closed

This fabric shouted out to me, at the cutting table at Fabric Depot. That always happens. I get all my stuff together, figure out the exact maximum amount of fabric and trims I can buy, and then I walk up there and they have placed something this gorgeous right near the cutting table. They get me every time.

This has nothing to do with anything, but it's a pretty picture for the top of the post in which I close the meathead knitalong.

I was not ever going to close it, but it's gotten to be too much for me to add names and emails every day. If my family has any hope of getting roasted apple sauce, brussel sprouts with homemade balsamic mustard, cranberry pear chutney, granny smith & kale gratin, 1792 wedding cake (opens a pdf), and my annual chocolate cranberry cheesecake, I cannot sign anyone else up to test knit the hat. So as a little pre-Thanksgiving present to myself and my hungry people, I'm cutting off the signups.

If you are already in the knitalong and have received the pattern, please post your pictures to the flickr group by the end of November. Thanks!

And now, if it's Thanksgiving in your world, what are you making?

the meathead pattern & knitalong

Welcome,

If you're wondering about knitting a meathead hat, joining the knitalong, or getting the pattern, here are some answers!

1. The knitalong and pattern are available just for people who are willing to test knit the hat for my upcoming book, which involves keeping track of how much yarn you use and telling me whether the pattern works as written. You should also be willing - if chosen - to send your hat to me for photographing for the book. Probably only a couple dozen will be asked to do this.

2. No, it is not too late to join. We'd love to have you! But you should only sign up in the comments of the original post. Please do not sign up under any other posts.

3. Once you join, thus agreeing to test knit, I will email you the pattern and more details. Also feel free to save the button up there to your own computer to use at will. Thanks to Adrian for creating it.

Thanks!  I love you goofy bastards.

Oh, and if you haven't been here before, please feel free to poke your nose into all the doors and cabinets.

flowers & birds & squiggles & pompoms & & &

Photo & hat by chawne.

This morning has brought such fun news in my inbox. There are meatheads taking shape everywhere, and they are covered in lovely flowers, acorns and tiny birds, huge pompoms, felted squiggles, silver stars, and even supertiny hats. Others are writing in their blogs about the process, and I'm sure we'll see finished hats from them soon.

If you are knitting along, please join the flickr group so you can upload photos there when your hat is finished. And let me know if you blog about it, so we can follow along.

As for mine, I bought my yarn yesterday in a celery green color. "My LYS" (not my usual choice, but the one in town that has Lamb's Pride Bulky) has only a few colors, darn them. But I think the green will work nicely. It's the same green I used for the set of hats in this picture. I'm thinking of embellishing mine with a tiny swatch on little dpns, but I have other ideas too.

And I truly need a hat, so today may just be the day.

to you

Photo by Sarah Gilbert

Thank you so much all you lovely, lovely knitters who have signed up so far for the meathead knitalong.* Thank you so much all you Democrats who made my night last night as I sat at Pazzo and cheered at the big screen. Thank  you all you wonderful people, everywhere. And thank you my little darling son who makes me happy to wake up every morning. Thank you my husband for being the exact person you are, and for signing up for the knitalong. I can't wait to see what you make.

Thank you, auction, for being so good and fun and lucrative for Cafe au Play (we made about $10,000 and all the aprons sold like hotcakes!). And thank you, auction, mostly for being over. So that yesterday I could work on my book and invent an entire pattern from start to finish with half the sample already done in one day.

Thank you Sarah for the picture, too.

* And yes, please do keep signing up. Martin & I are working on an email list to get the pattern out hopefully by tomorrow.

to make a long story relatively short and see if you want to knit a meathead hat (again?)

SIGN-UPS FOR THE MEATHEAD KNITALONG ARE NOW CLOSED. THANKS EVERYONE!

A long time ago I experienced my first knitalong.

Then I hosted one myself that changed my life. And brought me new friends, including my bestest Sarah.

Now I'm writing a book about knitting together. The book I've been mentioning here is in fact on this very subject, and it's in the works on a very short timeline for a very big fancy publisher who is going to make it pretty and lovely. Our editor is the ne plus ultra of knitting book editors, and she is making this book shine. And she and I both want there to be real knitalongs in the book. So that the glamour shots of several of the 20+ projects are real variations on the written patterns, as knit by...

well...

you.

I had a few takers when I vaguely mentioned book knitting a few posts ago. But now I'm really ready to ask you to do something. And it is this. A wearable meathead hat knitalong.

There will be other knitalongs on a few more book patterns, each with different parameters. But this pattern is dear to me, though simple, and so it is first. And this is how this knitalong is shaping up to go.

Basically, if you sign up for this knitalong you will receive the pattern and will act as one of many test knitters on the project.

But you'll be asked to embellish the hat in your own way, in the place of the cattle tags I use (as in the photo above). You might crochet a flower, attach a plastic bird, a giant pom pom, a tiny pair of wings or gathering of delicious vintage buttons.  Bring it on, knitters. After we all knit up these hats together and share snapshots of our results, then I'll ask several of you (maybe not all) to actually send the hats to me and Martin for selection for the book. We'll choose anywhere from 9 to 18 to be photographed for publication. Once it's all finished, your hats will come back to you for you to keep, imbued with the glamour of having traveled to Portland and New York to be lovingly, professionally photographed.

The pattern takes just 1 skein of Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride Bulky in any color (or a handspun yarn of compatible weight and yardage), and knits up in about an hour and a half. This knitalong is likely a quick one, not one of those that is about supporting each other through an intensely challenging pattern. But it should be lots of fun because of all the possibilities for these chubby yet elfin hats.

This knitalong means a lot to me, because of the story I linked to above. Because this hat pattern reminds me of the incredible generosity of virtual friends who are ready and happy to respond even when it seems like every time I turn around these days I'm asking you to knit or sew or do something for me. And you come through every time. I would love to see what you do with this simple pattern and the million different variations that are possible because we all are such different knitters, and creative souls. And I'd love to have you, my friends, in my book with me.

Because, literally, that's what it's all about.

So does anyone have a skein of Lamb's Pride Bulky itching to shine?

Fine print: 
It's likely that not every hat will make it into the book, so please knitalong for fun as well as glory. I will make every effort to thank every knitalonger in the book, even if your work is not pictured. Let me know if you're in, and I'll send you the pattern via email. You will need to finish the hat by the end of November (negotiable) and upload a picture of it to flickr.com. We'll ask those of you whose hats we are able to include to sign some kind of (very friendly, nonthreatening) agreement, and we will do all we can to provide you with postage $$ at the very least, if not some other kind of compensation. Since the book is about knitting along, the number of people participating may become huge and very expensive, but Martin & I will do all we can to express our deep appreciation.

last bits of summer

Even though people around town have been blogging about a change, I just wasn't ready for it.

But this weekend I camped at the Oregon Flock & Fiber Festival and had the most blissful day in the sun just knitting and looking at yarn and being with my people.

When I got home Martin & I cleared weeds from our garden and pulled up this year's lupines. I picked Sebastian up from babysitting and hugged him hard. We ate outside wearing sweaters. And somehow, I'm ready now. Ready for colder weather, rain pattering on my windowsills, fires in the fireplace, hot chocolate after dinner, my mom arriving to live here in Oregon in a few weeks, and all the fun things we'll do together, getting pumpkins and maybe even making jam, celebrating Halloween, and holing up in my new craft room to design a lot of patterns for our book.

Oh, and joining too many things. This week I joined Zimmermania. It kicked off yesterday while I was sitting around photographing sheep and ogling the new Blue Moon colorways for fall. So I'm already behind, but excited. What Zimmerman creation will it be for me? Something cozy. After all, I no longer have "fall refusal."