Yarn Forward: Lacy Cardigan

This pattern came out a couple of weeks ago in the British Knitting magazine Yarn Forward. I was really happy with the finished project. It just happens to fit me AND (unlike the samples for most magazines) I will eventually get it back (I think).

YF publishes a little blurb with each pattern on the designer's thoughts on the yarn used for each project. I said in mine that I loved the yarn, Sirdar Snuggly Baby Bamboo DK (80% bamboo, 20% merino). I wasn't just sucking up. It's beautiful stuff, and I will definitely be using it again. I haven't seen or used Debbie Bliss' Prima, but it sounds like it's identical and probably easier to find in the US.

YF also went and published the sketch I originally submitted when I proposed this pattern. They don't seem to do this with every pattern; maybe they just need to fill in some space on that page. I'm sort of embarrassed; if I'd realized it was going to get printed, I'd have cleaned it up and maybe finished coloring it in. But it's also kind of cool. I'm not a great artist, but I was able to get the idea across and the finished sweater came out pretty much exactly the way I'd envisioned it. Always a relief when that happens!

My Name in Crochet

looks like this, after I downloaded the Stitchin Crochet font from the MyFonts website. From the description by designer Adriana E. Hernandez:

Stitchin Crochet is the first of a series of symbol fonts intended for use by everyday fiber arts designers. The Stitchin Crochet font includes over 90 symbols ranging from basic crochet stitch symbols to more complex decorative stitches. Also included with the purchase of Stitchin Crochet is a keyboard key and a stitch guide in PDF form.

What was the inspiration for designing the font? A lifelong crocheter, I found a serious lack of easily downloadable fonts for use in designing or explaining crochet. All the pattern books have guides at the end, but no reference to a font that can be downloaded. I hope to change this by introducing a readily available and easily accessed set of crochet symbols in Stitchin Crochet.

As a crocheter myself, I would much, much rather work from charts than from an alphabet soup of abbreviations. As a designer, therefore, I'd like to be able to offer both written abbreviations and charts. For knitting symbols, there are several options available, my favorite so far being Knit Visualizer. At $185, however, KV ain't cheap. Stitchin Crochet, on the other hand, costs only $3, making it very affordable.

Being merely a font, not an entire program, it isn't nearly as sophisticated as KV, so it's not really fair to compare them at all. But I'm not aware of there being a crochet program out there similar to KV, so right now SC is all I've got (unless I invest in Illustrator or Inkscape, learn how to use them, and create my own symbols which may happen someday but probably not soon). So given its plain old fonty-ness, how does it hold up?

Purchase and download: Easy. Paid with a debit card, was typing things out in it a few minutes later. Okay, my husband did the actual installing, but I think even a tech wimp like me could have figured it out, especially with the help of the detailed support page. You have the option of an OpenType OTF version or Windows/Mac TTF; I went with the latter, and then had the option of an "Easy Install" or an "Advanced." Initially, I went with the Easy one but for some reason couldn't find the symbol key that was supposed to come with the font (and without which using the font is close to impossible). The key popped right up when I downloaded the Advanced version--don't know if I missed something the first time around, but I got it and was ready to move on. Designers will be pleased to note the the $3 price gives them commercial license to use the font in for-sale patterns and other professional endeavors.

Usability: Pretty good. Helpfully, there are two keys, on using American terminology and one using UK terminology (thank you, Adriana, for remembering that one stitcher's dc is another stitcher's sc!). There are some 90 symbols available, from slip stitch to bullion 5-wrap . There are post stitches, spike stitches, a puff stitch, and instructional symbols such as brackets and arrows. Inevitably, though, you'll come up with some stitch combo that doesn't exist in the font. I originally downloaded this thinking I'd be able to chart the lace edging for Bite Me, for instance, but that calls for a [tr, ch1] 5 times into one sc. That particular combo just isn't available, alas.

That brings us to the other big limitation--and this is just a factor of SC being a font rather than a program--is that it can only be used for flat, back-and-forth type charts. If you want to diagram circular motifs, you'll have to do a lot of manipulating in an image program. I haven't tried this, wouldn't really know where to begin, and I'm not sure if I'd want to bother anyway. If I really needed this kind of diagramming done (and with future patterns, I might), I would probably just try to hire someone with the software and the skill set to get it done quickly and easily.

I've played around with the Stitchin Crochet in Word, Excel and Fireworks. Excel or another spreadsheet program may be the best bet for initially writing the pattern. Unlike Word, it allows me to fill in a grid and work from the bottom up, the way most charts are laid out and the way most directions are written. Fireworks allows me to easily save my charts as various types of images. Any of these programs will let you manipulate the size and color of individual symbols.

Here's a quick example of a fairly simple stitch pattern (Boxed Shell Stitch from Basic Crochet Stitches, p. 39), rendered in SC:

It was laid out in Excel. The numerals are in Arial and I changed colors on alternate rows to make it easier to read. As you can see, the symbols are spaced a bit further apart than you'd see in most professional publications and the most obvious difference is that the 5-dc shells don't stretch out to make a more accurate visual image of the stitch pattern. Each symbol gets about the same amount of space regardless of how many stitches it would equal in real life. You could, I suppose, save the symbols as images and stretch them out, but sheesh, I'm not sure that I want to bother.

Okay, I do want to bother. I can't help myself. Here's the same chart done in Fireworks, playing around with the kerning, font sizes of individual symbols, and line spacing. Not perfect, but much better, and if I were willing to fuss with it more, I could align it better and add the rest of the row numbers and generally make it look pretty darn professional:


Overall: For $3, SC is a great bargain. The symbols are crisp and clear and take very little effort. Given the nature of crochet and the fact that it's still not quite as popular as knitting, I'm not too optimistic that we'll get a crochet version of KV anytime soon (but I can hope). But in the meantime, for the price of two aluminum hooks you can get symbols to cover a wide range of stitch patterns and make them available to publishers, customers or just yourself. Really, what's not to like?

PS. Just found out that the creator of this font is Adriprints on Ravelry and elsewhere and that I've seen her postings in several forums without making the connection. Just got that funny feeling I get when the world gets a half-size smaller :)

Rabbit, rabbit

Somewhere in my youth, I got the idea that it's good luck to say, "Rabbit, rabbit" on the first day of March. And every so often I actually remember to say it, though I can't say I've ever paid much attention to whether my rabbit Marches were any luckier than my non-rabbit Marches.
I don't remember when and where I picked up this up though it must have been during or before high school because I remember a high school friend teasing me about it.

I've never yet met anyone else who had any idea what I was talking about when I said it so I thought today would be a good day to do a little research on my pet superstition and maybe, in the process, recall where I got it from.

And this is what I found out:

• Nobody knows where or when this superstition originated;


• Wikipedia tantalizingly mentions that this term was used in print in 1954 but doesn't mention what the printed matter was (maybe I read it?);


• The term generally seems to be associated with the first day of any month, not March in particular. Except in Yorkshire, where it works only on March 1. So that could be a clue to my own use of the term--but I've never been to Yorkshire. Does it appear in James Herriot's All Creatures Great and Small, offhand the only thing I can remember reading about Yorkshire?


• There is a website (well, part of one) dedicated to collecting various rabbit-rabbit-related superstitions;


• There is at least one person who's dedicated a large chunk of her blog to saying "Rabbit, Rabbit" on a regular basis. I am not alone.

Bite Me

$5

I've wanted to name a pattern Bite Me for a while now. Why? I don't know. Maybe I've been a bit grouchy lately. But having come up with the name, I had to come up with the pattern. Finally, the right idea presented itself in the form of a soft, snow-white skein of yarn and a handful of blood red buttons.

This little piece of faux-Victoriana is a quick project; light, lacy and warm, it is sure to attract the attention of the most desirable vampires.

It's simple. It's sweet. It's strange.

Bite Me.

Yarn: Sublime DK Cashmere Merino Silk (75% Extrafine Merino Wool, 20% Silk, 5% Cashmere); 127 yds/50 gr. One ball.
Finished size: 4.5” wide x 16” long, not including border.
Hook: US G/6 (4 mm).
Gauge: 22 sts x 18 rows = 4” over sc blo.
Notions: three ½” buttons; 4” ¾” wide grosgrain ribbon; sewing needle and thread; tapestry needle for weaving in ends.

A Little Bit of Serendipity

I went to the LYS yesterday, dragging all three children along. My two older love going to the store, in large part because the owner can generally be relied upon to offer them treats of one sort or another. And it's a bit of a break from the usual round of grocery store/drugstore/post office/bank. As I was parking in front of the store, my oldest daughter exclaimed, "I love going to Brigitte's. It's like going to someone's house to buy yarn!" (The store is, in fact, in an old house and has a very cozy feel.) Chubby-chan is generally neutral on the LYS experience but she wasn't feeling well yesterday and was grouchier than usual.

Sure enough, Brigitte offered Children #1 and #2 lollipops as soon as we came in, which they accepted with great enthusiasm. I was there to take photos of another teacher's scarf for a class that she plans to teach but the camera wasn't working properly and I kept fussing with the batteries whilst trying to comfort the cranky 1-year old and keep the sugar high of the other two under control.

Suddenly in the midst of all the chaos I happened to glance down at the counter where a customer had put the Nashua Handknits' Spring Linen Collection pattern book and I almost screamed, "That's my sweater!"


It was like running into an old friend. I finished the sweater sometime last fall and had pretty much forgotten all about it. But it's back and I love the way it was photographed (and I'm pretty chuffed to see it on the cover). Nashua doesn't yet have their spring collection up on their website so these photos are the best I can do for now.

Thank you!

Yet what is any ocean but a multitude of drops?
--Cloud Atlas, by David Mitchell

Thank you so much to everyone who bought patterns from me and from all the other Help for Haiti designers over the past month. Please imagine me blowing kisses at all of you. I just totaled up the figures from sales from January 16 to yesterday and I'm very pleased to say that I will be writing a check to Save the Children for $525. It would have been very difficult for me to simply donate that amount on my own but thanks to the extra publicity from Ravelry and the generosity of knitters everywhere, I can justify it.

About 10 days ago, Casey on Ravelry estimated that the total amount raised was (at that point) around $80,000. I think that was just pattern sales and didn't even include the auctions, but I'm not sure. In any event, it is an impressive sum that I am honored to contribute to.

Thank you.

Leap Year Cowl

$1.99 from Knit Picks

As of last night, I've joined Knit Picks new Independent Designer's Program with a little crochet project. Knit Picks published some of my first designs, the Kimono Styled Sweater, the Seafoam Shawl and the Tie-cropped Cardigan way back when, and believe it or not I'm feeling a little sentimental about hanging out with them again. The pattern is only $1.99 as are all their IDP patterns and it's available only from KP.

The cowl itself has a little bit of a history, but not much. It began with two partial balls of Baby Alpaca Grande Super Bulky by Plymouth Yarn Co. The Baby Alpaca reminds me of a Persian cat, all softness and fluff, but as you sink your hands into it, you think, "Where's the cat?" Knit Picks, naturally asked me to re-work it in one of their yarns and we went with Swish Bulky. Swish is also very soft, but much sturdier (more of a well-groomed American Short Hair). The end result is a bit different; less drape, more substance, more gender-neutral--but still just as warm and nice to have around your neck.

Because the original was worked with two partial skeins, I'm not really sure how much yardage went into it. It was a bit taller than the Knit Picks version but worked with the same hook so I'm guessing it was a few more yards than the Swish which comes in 137-yard skeins. The pattern is very easy to adjust, though, if you want it wider/narrower/taller. Chain fewer stitches for a smaller cowl, chain more for one of those enormous loopy things, buy extra yarn and just keep going up--you get the idea.

The Leap Year Cowl also makes excellent princess hair.