Performance anxiety

I went ahead and threw the Ace Fingerless Mitts on the Free Pattern Testers group over at Ravelry. For the uninitiated, Ravelry is a website sort of like Facebook for knitters (only much more useful and less voyeuristic), and the FPT is a group that has a nice simple framework where you can get a new pattern tested, and/or to help designers out by working through their patterns.

I've been on both ends of the system and had mostly good experiences. I love to test for people--you get first crack at new designs with direct access to their creator, and it's fun to go through a bit of the design process with someone else. Of course whenever you put something out for 'everyone' to see, there's the potential for the devastating specter of non-constructive criticism (whether real or imagined) to rise up and bitch slap you in the face. I like to think that I've developed a reasonably thick skin over the years, and for the most part I think I have.

At work discussing science-y stuff, I will shoot you down and convince you to believe whatever inane bullshit happens to be spewing out of my mouth that day--I'm not really sure why it's different for designing something to knit. Maybe it's because fashion is so subjective, almost art. If someone says you're wrong, you can bust out mad logic skills, but if someone says your work is ugly--game over, man. No on wants to be told they're uninspired (or end up on Regretsy).

You stay classy, San Diego

I lamented to my copilot a few days ago that I had done no proper knitting or proper knitting blogging for a couple of weeks. He assured me that life had just been busy and equilibrium would soon be restored. I'm still dubious, since life has me on the road yet again.

"Discovered by the Germans in 1904, they named it San Diego, which of course in German means a whale's vagina." - Ron Burgundy

As far as conferences for work go, it's hard to complain about visiting the ol' Whale's V. It also meant a good 4 and a half hours of uninterrupted plane knitting time (not to be confused with 'plain knitting time', which I assume would involve garter stitch). I decided to finish up the fingerless test mitts, which I had neglected since only one mitt was required for testing purposes. On the first flight leg, I completed the palm section and was confident that I could finish up the thumb with plenty of time to spare. I was planning to prep the yarn I'm going to use for WifeMomKnitter's shawl knit-a-long (a very free-form affair--choose your own pattern and timeline, and receive encouragement from fellow knitters). After boarding the second flight, I tried the mitt on--wait a minute...why is the thumb-hole sticking out of the palm of the mitt??? I willed the thumb-hole to shift to the correct spot. When that failed, I started willing my thumb to regrow out of the center of my palm. When that didn't work either, I sadly started pulling out the previous couple of hours' work. I don't think the woman next to me was a knitter, but she seemed to sense that a minor tragedy had occurred.

I've always been tempted to knit during conferences. I'm one of those people that tend to be able to focus better when I keep my hands busy, but I'm always afraid that the speaker will find it insulting (though personally I think it's a lot better than people whipping out their laptops during presentations, which happens all the time and seems to be perfectly acceptable). Mystery Wedding Project is a perfect candidate for this kind of thing; it's a 'turn your brain off' type of knitting. Unfortunately, it's starting to get a bit cumbersome in size to keep toting around, and damn it, I wanted to finish those mitts! This is one of the most laid-back conferences I've attended in a while, so I decided to test the waters. I whipped out my dpns and started to business, while trying to make it clear that I was still engaged. And...no one cared. Other that one of the conference organizers happily squealing "Look! She's knitting!" to her seatmate, not a soul even seemed to notice. So I learned some cool new tech stuff, and accomplished a little crafting as well:


I'm modeling it here so you're convinced that I actually made the left one, and am not just trying to pass off the right-hand one again.
Another interesting discovery is that what San Dieg-ans refer to as a 'tall boy' beer is substantially larger than what we midwesterners are used to. I was a bit embarrassed when this arrived for me:

Then on the way back to the hotel I even had an encounter with some wildlife:


Eep! American opposum! Not the cute NZ possum, unfortunately.
The only thing lacking? Actually starting on the shawl-a-long. Does picking out a yarn and pattern count?

Mittz test knitz

There was much enjoyable test knitting this weekend. Feast your eyes upon an almost completed fingerless mitt:

That's some Paca-Peds sock yarn, which as the name alludes, is a mix of alpaca, wool, and nylon. So..flippin'...soft. And the mitt itself was a pleasure; I would classify myself as somewhere between a slow to slug knitting speed, but this knit up in a handful of hours. But, more importantly, how does the hand feel about it?

Oh, good. It approves.

Can we talk for a minute about how Bill Nye (the Science Guy) has been on various news TV stations for the past week explaining the technical details behind the BP oil spill & subsequent clean-up efforts? In case you don't remember (or have never had the pleasure, for which I feel pity) here's a refresher:


He was on most recently describing the idea behind "Top Kill", using a plastic tube, rubber bands, and corn starch dissolved in water. At certain points, the little box at the bottom that identifies the speaker and the topic on all of those news channels literally read: Bill Nye: Science Guy. My knee-jerk reaction was "Really? You couldn't get a real scientist?" (which is not fair, because he is a 'real' scientist as well as an entertainer) but as I watched, I became strangely comforted by his simplified explanations and adorable bow tie. Genius who decided to bring the Science Guy on to explain tragic news: I salute you.

I know you're probably tired of playing Where in the World is AC? (Lord knows I am), but I'll dish anyway. I'm in Berkeley on work duty (hehe I said 'doody') for a couple of days. Walking from the BART (light rail train--one of my WI buddies dubbed it the 'BARF' after a particularly turbulent ride) to my hotel, I was getting all verklempt and reminiscing about the dumbest things: "Aww, there's that Walgreens the copilot and I went to for some IcyHot", "Oh! There's the UPS store that was inexplicably never open even during the hours posted on the door", "That creepy guy is still hanging out in front of the free clinic!". Here's something that was worth remembering, though:

Mmmm. Kingpin Donuts. Only a block away from my hotel. Dangerous. And speaking of the hotel, on my nightstand:

Yes, that is a lamp styled to look like a bong. Glad to be back.

My testers = rock stars

I've said it before, but I'll say it again--I love interacting with the Ravelry Test Group, both as a designer and a tester. Two of my testers are finished, and when they posted photos, I may have squealed and clapped my hands like a seal.

From the needles of MsKniterrific:


And on the other side of the globe, celia:


This was the 'problem child'. Not the tester, the size medium design. It was acting out in class, not eating it's vegetables, and disrespecting my authorit-ay (metaphorically speaking).

These gals rock my world. I still have one holdout, and she's been methodical in finding errors, which is excellent. They were all good sports about corrections and dealing with my crazy.

If seeing the finished product was validating, the process of working through concerns and errors was extremely informative (newsflash: not everyone thinks exactly like me or can read my mind). I know, right?

Lastly, courtesy of Dyeing to Knit, my latest entertainment fixation: Regretsy (warning: some of it is not entirely safe for work/little ones, but you can claim the ol' "but it's art" excuse if your boss looks over your shoulder). I've totally made things on the level of some of this stuff before, but at least I've never tried to sell it to anyone.

Science fight!

I was 75% kidding when in my last post I asserted that this collaboration in Tennessee might blow up in our faces...but it only took 3 days for the proverbial excrement to hit some spinning blades. So! I'll still visit Oak Ridge to work with other equipment, but for this particular technique we're finally breaking the cycle of abuse and taking our business elsewhere. Every field has some sort of politics; I think it's just an inescapable part of being human. I'm sure even knitting has a dark side, where knitters make shady deals with sheep farms and yarn companies in dim, smoke-filled rooms. Well, maybe not smoke-filled rooms--that's hell on yarn. Maybe they're just sipping scotch on the rocks from low-ball glasses. We'll go with that.

The silver lining is that I got to do a LOT of knitting while working in the wee hours of the morning. I made huge progress on the sleeveless sweater that I'm test knitting:


But I had to stop as soon as I got to anything even remotely requiring thought. I'm not a night person. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a morning person either--more of a middle of the day, right before my afternoon nap type of person. So I moved on to Mystery Wedding Project (go go garter stitch!). And last night...I log-cabined for the first time. I also spent way too much time trying to come up with a way to make that into some kind of innuendo, and the only thing I could come up with equated 'log' to poop. And classy ladies don't talk about poop. In fact, we don't even do such an unsavory thing ourselves, we've just heard about it. What I'm saying is, I finished a block, turned it, and picked up stitches for the next block. Whew.

Another bright spot in the trip was that I got to eat here (repeatedly):

No, it's not a homeless person eatery.

I have to specify every time I try to explain it to people: no, it's not a traditional soup kitchen, no, I am not stealing resources from the homeless. It's a local soup and sandwich joint, where they have about ten homemade soups available every day. I'm a soup fiend; it's nice to get a daily fix.

What is it about TN (and especially a burg like Oak Ridge) that makes it not only acceptable, but practically necessary to listen to country music? Yesterday I found myself cruising along with the windows down, flanked by a Ford F150 to the left and an F250 to the right, listening to some guy croon and twang about how awesome water was, especially when applied to busty women wearing white T-shirts (I'm not making this up). It seemed completely appropriate. And, via the same station, I learned that Hootie (sans Blowfish) is still around, country-ing it up. Who knew?

Wanted: more yarn

Guys, I kind of hate my test knit cowl sweater. Not the pattern, it seems fine, but I think that the yarn is too heavy. Yes, the cotton yarn that I love so much, is way too heavy when one holds two strands of it. Here's what it looks like:

The quarter is for scale. Coins are often used for a sense of scale in scientific presentations, and for some reason it always cracks me up; it's like take that coin, and spend it on a nice ruler.
It feels so nice in my hands, and the fabric itself is so soft and shiny (but incredibly thick and the pattern is intended to be for summer. Blurg. Let's not even mention that it is not a summery color). During blog week several people (the one I'm thinking of off the top of my head is fridica) mentioned that a skill they'd like to get better at is picking out yarn for a project. Amen, sistas and bros. I am terrible at matching yarn to pattern, especially when it's for something I'm going to wear. I think I may also be color-blind (or just color-stupid).

One of the first garments I ever knit was this:


And I hate it. I bought the yarn because it was hugely cheap on eBay, and for good reason, it's a dirty yellow--and not dirty in a fun & sexy way, just in the sense of being filthy looking. When I wore it, one of my coworkers commented that I must have made it myself, which is the kiss of death for a finished object (at least in my twisted mind). I'm literally putting it in the Goodwill pile after I write this, so perhaps someone somewhere will find enjoyment from it. This was also one of the last garments I made on large needles, because every one that I try always ends up with that 'home-made' look. Argh. WWTGD (What would Tim Gunn do)? I think he'd put on his concerned face and observe that the execution of the cowl isn't really going to plan. So...I'm going to tear it apart and buy different yarn. Yes, copilot, you read that correctly. In my effort to use the yarn that I splurged on, I am going to go out and buy more yarn. It's the American way.

Random tangent: One of the many things I love about Wisconsin is that the accepted form of compensation between friends is food/beer. A friend drove me to a doctor's appointment last week, so I treated for lunch yesterday (he was very excited, and splurged on a fancy pop). A couple of friends expressed interest in our old futon, and came to measure it. They asked how much we wanted for it. The question surprised me; I hadn't even considered it. "Case of beer?" was the first thing that came to mind (if it was a micro-brew, a 12-pack would suffice. I'm all about quality over quantity). I think it's because you don't want to accept money from friends, but who can say no to sharing food and drink?

Testing it forward

I'm a little verklempt that Knit & Crochet Blog Week is over--it was quite nice not to have a topic already in place and a huge list of blogs to read instead of working each morning. Alas, all good things must end.

But all is not sadness. My testers are plugging away on the Infinite Cabled Hat with minimal issues; I'm doing some testing of my own, on a sleeveless cowl-necked sweater. This all began two weekends ago, when a message appeared on the Ravelry board for my LYS that said they were having a sale that weekend. The store is changing hands, and the new owner wanted to get rid of some of the old stock. I convinced the copilot to accompany me down there, and came across this:


and this:


and a little bit of this:



They're all Classic Elite Yarns - Provence, an amazing cotton yarn. Previously, the only cotton yarn I've handled has been Peaches and Creme worsted - this is not a knock on P & C, but the stuff is more function than luxury. Ugh, talk about luxurious, I wanted to dump the barrel of the Provence on the floor right there and roll around in the stuff. But I refrained (not entirely sure of the legality of rolling around in someone's yarn), and just bought a few skeins in a couple of colors.

I go up to the cash register and my copilot gives me a scathing look. "What's it for?" he asks. Now granted, we had just talked about how we're moving into a new apartment and paying overlapping rent for a month and a half, so we needed to save money blah blah, but it was on sale. And it was crazy wonderful (crunderful?) yarn.

As I thought it over that evening, though, I started to worry he had a point. What the hell was I going to do with it? In my effort to be frugal, I'd only gotten a handful of skeins, but not all the same color, and not necessarily complementary colors. And behold, the next week there was a posting for a sleeveless cowl sweater needing to be tested. Great! Sleeveless! I could use cotton! It could be a summer thing! Let's not talk about the fact that none of the colors I got are very summery! I signed up right away.

I asked the poster what she thought of the yarn, and she mentioned it might be kind of small for the gauge. Holy Jebus, I didn't check the gauge beforehand, and it was biiiiig. I don't usually knit with large needles, but I thought what the hey. Let's Tim Gunn this thing and 'make it work!' So I swatched it out. I asked the opinion of my copilot and a friend who was visiting us, and the friend said (and I quote) "I think that will end up being a hooker vest." I thought about pressing onward anyway, but all I could hear was "hooker vest...hooker vest....hooker vest..." echoing in my mind. I have now done four swatches, and the only way I can make it less hooker-y is to hold two strands of the yarn at the same time. This puts me at the very lower end of the range of yarn needed (and I'm not making the smallest size)...eeep. Let's hope the knitting gods smile upon me once again.

Testing, testing

I want to take a quick break from the rigorous topics of blog week to update on the status of the Infinite Cabled Hat. Encouraged by Natalie J, last Sunday I pulled the trigger on submitting a request to the Free Pattern Testers group in Ravelry. First of all, let me say that my experience has been overwhelmingly positive. I requested three testers, one each for sizes S, M, and L. I immediately got one tester, then service was a little slow but the next two came in a day or so. Oddly enough, two additional people volunteered after I posted this picture in the thread to show how the brim looked when someone was wearing it:


I know, right? For some reason me imitating the Fonz is a selling point. But it has been amazing to get so much feedback, and so quickly. The first tester who started was terrified when she first cast-on and her work looked like it was going to be a gigantor hat (the cables pull everything in a lot). She actually took what she had started apart thinking that it must be a typo. She recommended that I add a line to assure the pattern user that this was in fact expected and correct, something that I never would have thought of. I know how it's supposed to look, so why doesn't everyone else (because everyone is a mind reader, right)? So what I'm saying is that I love my testers and I want to marry them. Well, maybe that would be rushing things. Civil union?

But. It wasn't all chocolate and roses. I wasn't sure that I was going to even discuss this, because it was actually fairly upsetting to me. Since the rest of my experience has been so much fun, though, I think we're OK. After I'd confirmed my first tester, I got this message. I'm going to quote verbatim, so there's no chance of hyperbole:

"It’s really adorable. I’m wondering if there may be some copyright issues with Cully’s Cabled Hat. I’m sure it wasn’t intentional when you designed it, its just terribly similar."

My jaw dropped. I was ready for my testers to rebel, saying that my pattern sucked ass and was completely wrong, or not to get any testers at all, but this wasn't even on my radar. This penetrated deep into my stone cold heart. The post was edited about a half and hour later to add:

"Then again, culley’s is two color, and what do I know about copyrights. Just something for you to consider when you publish.
Good luck with the test!"

I'm assuming the addition was brought on when the poster realized how incredibly bitchy his/her first post sounded, so I do appreciate that. But the whole thing really threw me for a loop.

Now if you check out Cully's Cabled Hat, you'll see that it's actually the same concept as what I was referring to as the South Face Hat: the two color stranding that I didn't think turned out very well as a swatch. Even barring the difference of being one color, my design has a different brim and a much different decreasing scheme (which I prefer, naturally). Now this was from Vogue Knitting (the Winter '09/'10 edition), the supposedly high fashion knitting mag; apparently we are both so cutting edge that we knocked off a hat that I've been seeing on the ski slopes for at least two years now. Needless to say, I've decided not to pursue constructing the South Face Hat, unless I completely redesign. I think to actually get the effect that I'm going for, we're going to have to go entrelac (which definitely has already been done).

What I've taken away from this is that I need to be confident in my creations and stand behind them! Grrrrrrr! (That's my scary-stand-behind-my-creations growl).

Also! New stash came in. Behold:


First peek.

The skein at the bottom has the football, I think.

That's what we call a 'made my day' right there.