Putting the Year to Bed

And what a year it's been. I don't care to elaborate on the stresses and strains that have populated my life over the last 12 months. Fortunately, there have been good things too.

Careerwise, it hasn't been bad at all. I have traveled to several cities in the US and Canada to teach camps, lead retreats, give workshops, talk to knitting guilds, and meet wonderful knitters everywhere I go. We cover the world, folks!!

I have been a part of books, various knitting clubs, had a design published in Twist Collective, posted on their blog, and published a few of my own too. I have taught lots of classes at Twisted and elsewhere around Portland and gotten to know some of the very talented knitters and designers here. I feel welcomed and at home.

Next year is right around the corner! So much to look forward to. I promise to deliver some especially delectable new things to knit over the next 12 months. Please stay tuned for the latest and greatest.

And now, having just returned from my sweet second home, Vancouver B.C., let me give you a few parting shots..







These three pictures show a very windblown me in Jericho Park in Vancouver on a winter's day, just a few days ago in fact. The last picture contains a well camouflaged heron hiding in the brush by this beautiful lake. It was a lovely day for a walk, but br-r-r-r-r, really cold and windy.



Burt and I wish you an open hearted, warm, joyful and fulfilling year to come! May we all help spread the love!

Scarf Sale!

Get your holiday knitting on!

In honor of the magnificently giftable qualities of knitted scarves, I am having a sale on selected scarf and shawlette patterns in my ravelry shop!

Purchase two of the selected list of scarf patterns, and receive 25% off your total price! This is like getting the second pattern for 50% off!

Choose from: Gothic Leaf Scarf, Knotty Scarflet, Angel Pearls Beaded Scarf, Confluence Shawlette, Due Amori Gloves and Scarf, River Rock Scarf, Wings of Song, Butterfly Wrap and Victorian Shoulderette.

Just in time for your last minute holiday gifts.. so get moving! This will be in place until the end of the year.

Happy holidays, Sivia

Inkberry

Once again, here I am in Twist Collective, the pinnacle of knit publications. Once again, I have to pinch myself.

Before Inkberry was sent off, I had the pleasure of seeing it on Sorren, co-worker at Twisted, and Vivian Aubrey kindly snapped some pictures. I think they are lovely.. see what you think!















I think Inkberry came out to be a lyrical piece, romantic and flowing. Hope you like her!

The Confluence of Ideas

Confluence is a sweet little shawlette, a play on my favorite theme of a center panel with neck shaping inserted into a top down triangle shawl. It is mostly garter stitch, which is so pleasing, except for the lace panel which is stockinette lace with a few well chosen beads. Simple and charming.



I promised a release a couple of days ago. Obviously, Confluence is not out yet, and for a good reason.

For a good while now, I have been receiving occasional letters from sight impaired knitters who thank me for taking the time to write out line by line instructions in my patterns.

If you think about it, it makes perfect sense that sight impaired or blind knitters would need written instructions in order to knit lace, or to knit anything for that matter. As I understand it, there are readers available on many computers for this purpose, and if not, some knitters will engage sighted people to read the pattern to them as they knit, or record the pattern instructions for later playback, an ingenious idea! I am reminded of Lucy Neatby's recent writing about how hard it is to keep your attention where it belongs, on your knitting, while at the same time trying to focus your eyes on multiple things (chart, pattern, knitting) and all the while, manage to knit a complicated pattern. Lucy recommends recording yourself reading the lines of the pattern instruction at the speed you like to knit so you can keep your eyes and your attention on your knitting. Brilliant.

Anyway, when I get a letter of this sort from a knitter I generally respond with apologies that not EVERY pattern can be written out line by line. And this is true.. Shetland Garden, for instance, would be a book-length pattern if it had written instructions. But these communications give me a good kind of reboot as I consider what the world would be like without all different sorts of knitters with all the different life experiences we bring to the craft.

It still blows me away that there are blind and sight impaired lace knitters out there. If you are one of those brave and fearless knitters, I bow my deepest, most humble bow to you.

As much as I love knitting from charts, and as many times as I have cajoled and begged and even ordered my students to knit from charts, all of that pales in the face of knitterly courage that will not accept limitations.

So, come time to release a new pattern, I must assess whether to bite the proverbial bullet and write everything out "longhand" as well as provide charts. Sometimes, like for Shetland Garden, I feel it would confuse and not enlighten, so it is left out. Sometimes it is the right thing to write it out.. and then there is always the worry that with more words on the pages, there are more possibilities for published errors, every designer's nightmare.

All this is by way of explanation of the lateness of Confluence's publication. I promised it would be out two days ago, but here I am. I hope the new written instructions will be worth the wait for those who need them in order to knit.

Two down, one to go

It doesn't rain but it pours. And now it's pouring.. not just figuratively. It is the beginning of the rainy season here in the Pacific Northwe(s)t. I am watching it more carefully now that I am trying to walk every morning, and I am gathering up some assorted rain gear so I can keep walking even through the coming damp weather.

OK.. weather aside, what's pouring???

Things have been building up for a while now, and it is time for several designs to come out.. some new, some that have come back to me after being published elsewhere, and some that are under wraps for a while until their time comes to be revealed.

Finally!! Three patterns are ready to be born, two that were just let out today and one that will emerge tomorrow.

First up, Aphrodite.



I love that picture so much, taken in Vancouver by M. Scott Ault, with Jamie Bowen modeling.

You may remember Aphrodite from the esteemed Twist Collective, where she held a spot in the Summer 2009 issue.

Now she is mine.

I deliberated quite a while before I decided to publish her in my own line of patterns. After all, she will be up at Twist for perpetuity, or at least I hope so. But I am becoming more sensitive to the needs of yarn shops to have patterns that are available for purchase right there in the shop, for yarn support. And I want Aphrodite in all her glory to be part of my own trunk show that is building. So, here she is.

Second, Tallulah.

Tallulah of the whispering pines and falling water. Tallulah was inspired by a wonderful family reunion that took place in July 2010 near Tallulah Falls in North Georgia, and the first sock was improvised and finished on the plane trip home. The first pair was a gift for my mother and her pair contain no beads, but my pair had to have them! The beads, inset into the openwork rib pattern in the front and around the top rim of the sock, give an impression of sparkling water drops that catch the light now and then.. a lovely effect.

And now, with beads.. here she is.



Thanks to Vivian Aubrey, who is becoming my photographer, teacher and friend, for these lovely shots. Please do look up Vivian's photography blog here. It is exquisite.

Tomorrow, Confluence!!!

Tallulah on my Mind

The place: Tallulah Falls, Georgia.

Balmy southern nights, steamy days. Welcome to the Albert-Evans family reunion.. the first within memory. It is quite something to see cousins, aunts, uncles and others that last seen, were kids like me, and are now going gray, like me. It was a bit surreal but wonderful to see everyone again. Unfortunately, no pics were taken of the event itself.. I forgot my camera. But I do have a remembrance sock.. Tallulah.





These short but very sweet toe-up socks begin with my newly favorite round toe and feature a beaded openwork rib, a sculpturally fitted back, and just a hint of beaded ruffle at the top. The first sock was improvised and finished on the plane trip home. The first pair is a gift for my mother and her pair contain no beads, but my pair (yet to come) has to have them! I am hoping that the beads, inset into the openwork rib pattern in the front and around the top rim of the sock, will give an impression of sparkling water drops that catch the light now and then.. a lovely effect.

I am also including instructions for working heel stitch over the toe-up heel turn, and making length adjustments based on the individual knitter's row gauge.

See Tallulah's emergence here.. soon!

With Sprinkles on Top

I have had the pleasure of working with quite a few indie dyers now, and the Pico Accuardi Dyeworks folks are among the very nicest. They share space with Lantern Moon in a warehouse near Portland, Oregon, and recently on a visit to their digs, I came away with a very interesting skein of Acid and Weed sock yarn, which results from a dye process that involves acid overdyes on a ground of natural plant dyed yarn.

Meet Sprinkles. Now part of my new Jack in the Pulpit Socks. Photos are the lovely work of Vivian Aubrey.









Folks who are part of the Pico Accuardi Dyeworks sock clubs (two) will be getting this kit this year. Otherwise, you will have to wait until June of 2011 to get your hands on this. Acid and Weed sock yarn is available in other colorways now. Check the Pico-Accuardi website for retail outlets.

And watch for the August retreat. Deb's family owns a legendary Italian restaurant here, and I have heard that there will be wonderful food!

Black and Other Sheep

Oh lord, it has been a long blog silence. I seem to have a difficult time with day to day fodder. Oh blog readers, can you forgive me?

There are no lace or beads in today's post. Please excuse. However, last weekend I was incredibly fortunate to visit the legendary Black Sheep Gathering in Eugene, Oregon. Out of the dog house and into the sheep house.

I adore sheep faces! So now, lucky readers, you get to see a few of the sheepy personalities I saw at the gathering.



This young man obligingly allowed me to photograph his back. The answer is obviously "YES!"



First, to get my cute quotient just as high as it can possibly go, here is a baby kitten that someone had in the sheep area. Awwww.



And here is the requisite bunny. He was, according to his owner, asleep with his eyes open. So sweet, and apparently so relaxed too.



Another blissfully sleeping baby amidst the din and b-a-a-a-a-h-ings.



A young Jacob, raring to go.



This fellow almost looks like he should be sporting a unicorn!











Thank you for indulging me in my sheepy obsession.

I met so many wonderful folks at the gathering, and saw so many old friends. I did feel dorky asking people if I could take their picture though. Must get over that.

I did come home with a few choice booty items. I hope you agree that I exercised enormous restraint.



Left to right, a Jenkins Turkish Delight spindle (I got a tiny itsy-bitsy Jenkins too.. it stole my heart), a luminous glass shawl pin (actually a laying tool) from the wizardry of Sheila and Michael Ernst, and three skeins of precious yarn from Blue Moon Fiber Arts: a Seduction in a particularly lovely colorway and two STR skeins in new vibrant reds that had to come home with me.



And here, six precious balls of Elemental Affects shetland fingering weight yarn that will be part of a Plum Frost cardigan if all goes well. The plain part of the sweater will be Imperial Stock Ranch's Tracie fingering weight, which I am hoping will blend beautifully with the shetland.

May you all have sheep around you in plentiful quantities.. either in four footed or fiber form. We heart sheeps everywhere.

Cattywampused

I am at a very mythical place... Blue Moon Fiber Arts sock camp, also known as Camp Cattywampus. Mad, crazy things are happening here, and I am teaching classes on knitting with beads to the lovely campers here.

Dr. Seuss is the reigning muse this year, and Tina Newton and Stephanie Pearl-McPhee are the reigning geniuses as ever.

A few pictures follow of the lovely surroundings, a happy group of campers in my bead class, and some of my fellow "camp staff"!

















Tomorrow I depart from this magical place and travel up to B.C. where another workshop takes place shortly, near Kamloops B.C.

For today, I am still happily Cattywampused! A happy Suessical day to all!

Ophidian

Introducing Ophidian, a new bit of loveliness that will be debuted at the Twist of Fate retreat this month.

Ophidian is a top-down triangle shawl that combines garter stitch with beaded lace, a mix that I have been exploring lately with great delight.

She is shown here in Hazel Knits fingering weight in the hazelnut colorway and Socks that Rock Heavyweight from Blue Moon Fiber Arts in the Vancouver Violet colorway, two very different yarns in two very different weights.

I will allow her to speak for herself... photos by Alex Tinsley, modeled by Vivian Aubrey, both co-workers at Twisted yarn shop in Portland. Thanks, guys!!

As always, click for bigger, and in this case, the whole picture!

Rosalind, Wherefore Art Thou?

Why, here!



I am celebrating Rosalind's release to the world today.. won't you celebrate with me?

Rosalind was originally published as part of the Shakespeare in Lace club in 2009 from Wooly Wonka Fibers. As of today, she is mine.. and yours.

From the pattern: A tale of loves lost and found again, mistaken identities, royalty hidden away in the forest.. and one of the greatest heroines put to paper.. this is Shakespeare's comedy, As You Like It. In this garment, I tried to capture Rosalind's trials antd tribulations as she strives to rescue her kingly father and gain the love of her life, while disguised as a boy. The yarn is humble enough, a fingering weight shetland, but the design is comfeaturing cables, lace, beads, and a labyrinthine center panel. I hope you will agree that althoumay go far afield, all comes right in the end, and with a regal beaded flourish too!

I made Rosalind in a Shetland fingering weight yarn that has heft enough to cable well, but you can substitute any yarn you fancy. If you have extra yarn at hand, you can easily size her up by adding more repeats of the body and center panel charts. As written, she will require 1200 yards and 780 beads, which are placed using the crochet hook add-as-you-go method.

You can find her here on my website and here on Ravelry, where some folks in my group will be starting to work on her shortly.