A response at last

I want to (finally) address the comments that Susan has been kindly leaving on my blog recently.

Firstly, regarding my ambition to get a book published straight out of the gate without making a name for myself first. Yes, I know, this is a very silly way to go about it. (Remember what I posted about earlier, about liking to do things the hard way? ;) I have actually been mulling over the idea of submitting patterns to Knitty, which looks like a great starting point. Actually, I figured the most logical starting point even before a Knitty submission would be to make one of my patterns available here for free. And as mentioned, I also kinda like the idea of the Knitting Vault.

However, I have what I think is a really good idea for a pattern book - the theme seems (as far as I can tell) to be original, even with the crowded market at the moment - and I have the excitement and creativity in me at the moment to write patterns which match that theme. So, who am I to deny where my creative energies are taking me. :) It may be that I design all the themed patterns for my book, and then hold off finding a publisher until I have published with a few independent designs first. We shall see. I'm also considering trying to write some knitting-related articles as opposed to just patterns. (I was thinking of starting with publications such as Take Back the Knit). However, I'm finding that it's much easier to find time to design patterns than to sit down and write an article. Especially when the first phase of that involves thinking of an actual topic for an article. :)

Anyway - as you can see, lots of ambition, not much planning. It's all a work in progress.

As far as 'grotty sleeves' go, my daughter prefers wiping her nose with a receiving blanket, which is pretty good, because they are designed to catch all kinds of baby messes. (I don't know if the term 'receiving blanket' is a purely North American thing - if you don't know what the heck I'm talking about, you can check this link for a bit of an idea). Unfortunately, the drawbacks are that she is a) very do-it-yourself and b) extremely vigorous with the nosewiping. The combination of these helped bring about the nasty chapped upper lip I blogged about last week. Fortunately, it is now almost completely healed.

Practice, practice, practice

Here is the latest picture of DH's golf club cover:

Nice, eh? In reality, it's a bit farther along now than when this photo was taken - he has completed the ribbed body and is now ready to start the increasing for the 'head'. It looks great. Efforts are being made to get my daughter to correctly identify it as Daddy's knitting, not Mummy's.

Celtic cable sweater for baby MacDonald

Front and back are done. This means I have now done everything that was supposed to be completed by the end of last week. But wait - it gets better! Shoulder straps are also done, and I'm well into the first sleeve - I only have about 45 rows to go. Hopefully I can do that by the end of the weekend so that I'm still on schedule. Then, with any luck, I can finish sleeve #2, design and knit the cowl neck, and weave in all the loose ends by Thursday morning when we have our mini-party for my co-worker. Or not. Now that I've written all that out it seems like a heckuva lot to do. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

Striped socks for DH

Here is a photo from a few days ago, of sock #1 next to sock #1:

I'm quite pleased at how similar they look so far. Since this shot was taken, sock #2 has grown by over an inch and I'm about 20 rows away from starting the heel. Not bad. However, I do have a gripe with the Bernat people. I bought two balls of yarn for this project because I knew that's how much I'd need. I was a good little knitter and pulled the yarn from the centre of the ball to start with. All went well, and the colours flowed through my hands in the order of: brown, light green, black, green. With me so far? (I bet you can already tell what's coming up next.) When it came time to start ball #2, I centre-pulled again, only to find that the order of colours was now reversed, thus forcing me to pull the yarn from the outside. And is it ever annoying. The last thing I need when knitting on the subway is a yarn ball which bounces around every time I pull more yarn for myself. Surely, surely the yarn companies should know by now not to pull this kind of crap?