Lee Does Stuff

Remixed pattern #3: Freewheelin’

This one sure took awhile to get perfect, but oh boy, I think it was a success!

Freewheelin’, the third pattern in my Remixed ebook collection (out to pre-orderers now, and to be available individually once the ebook is complete, next year), is a cable-tastic rounded shawl, and can be knit up in any gauge from around DK weight up to a super bulky (down to sport weight should work, for a smaller shawl).

It can be made pretty much any size you want, by just stopping when it’s as big as you like, or when your yarn runs out. The blue one, in a worsted-ish recycled yarn, is knit all the way through all 6 sections of the pattern (so it’s as large as you can get in worsted); the bulky red one was bound off before the third section was complete, for just a few cable repeats. The more sections you make, the more it’ll curve around and inwards:

The big blue one is so curved that it can be easily worn wrapped about with no shawl pin (like in the top photo)…

…and because it’s so big and the fabric is so drapey, it can be tied around as well, which I quite like:

You can see how with fewer sections worked, it’s still curved, but in just a U-shape. This red one was made with a light worsted-ish weight angora blend recycled yarn, held triple stranded, making it a super bulky weight, knit pretty densely on size US 11 needles.

My favorite way to wear this one is twisted around, or wrapped and closed with a shawl pin, though it can be worn in cape-like styles as pictured above.

I have a third sample as well, though it was an earlier prototype and has some major differences from the final design. There are a different number of increases per section, making it a not-as-curved shape, and making the cables run into each other differently in some parts. But it can still serve to show you how Freewheelin’ will look in a chunky weight commercial yarn (Cascade 128), worked almost all the way through section 5 for a large size:

Optionally, you can bind off in a contrasting color for a simple slightly-decorative edging. This option allows you to work right up through the last possible row in your main yarn, and not have to worry about leaving enough yardage for the bind-off. The bind-off recommended (and explained) in the pattern is Jeny’s surprisingly stretchy bind off, which makes for a nice squishy edge row in the contrasting yarn.

The pattern is made up of repeating cable segment patterns, which travel and twist into each other as you move from one section to the next. Most cable segment patterns have yarn-over increases built into them, making the shape of the shawl. You keep track of all segments as you work by using a color-coded stitch marker system.

All pattern parts are both written and charted. Personally, I think it’s a lot easier to make using the charts, but I had testers work successfully from both formats. The pdf also includes photo tutorials for cabling without a cable needle, a 4-page essentials-only section for printing, if needed, and all cable charts together on one easily printable page.

(A tester, Sadie, pointed out something cool about the cable chart page: Did you know that if you print it on standard sheet of paper and then fold it in half, you can read all the cables you need for the first half of the shawl on one side, then turn the halved sheet over and read the other side for the yellow-middle section and the rest of the other side?! It’s ingenious. It meant I could take this reasonably complicated knitting pattern on the move and even knit on the bus with it. I didn’t even think of that folding feature while laying out the page! Perfect!)

If you are intimidated by the look of this complex piece, well, one of my testers did recommend I include a disclaimer “not for the faint hearted,” but really, they all agreed that after the first couple of sections and getting used to the cables, with the stitch markers keeping track of everything, this pattern gets pretty darn addictive and hard to put down! There’s a bit of discussion in the leethal ravelry forums about this pattern being “a highway to divorce” haha!

I want to give a HUGE thank you to my fabulous testers for this one – I gave them a ridiculously tight knitting deadline (one week!), since I wanted to get this pattern out to Remixers asap, and they all got their shawls knit on time with excellent feedback for me. Monica, Sadie, Carole, and Kristin, you are all truly awesome! (They are also proof that you can totally get this knit in plenty of time for holiday gifting, hah!)

And lastly, I’ll show you my very first prototype of this design, which is super different from the final design; though the individual cable patterns are pretty much the same, the shape is all different (it doesn’t curve up, it’s just kind of a half-oval shape). It was made with exactly one skein of Manos del Uruguay worsted weight wool (138 yards), and can be worn as a cowl (or neck warmer, or whatever you want to call it), closed with a shawl pin. If you want to see a sample of Freewheelin’ made with exactly one skein of Berroco Ultra Alpaca worsted weight yarn (215 yards), check out Kristin’s project page. See, this can be a one-skein project if you want it to be!

Check out Freewheelin’ on ravelry, or on my Remixed webpage to pre-order your copy of the ebook and get your hands on this pattern right now! In case you haven’t yet read it elsewhere – the Remixed ebook is $16 and will include 8 accessory patterns total, all either for any weight yarn or with very flexible gauge requirements, starting with Parallel Lines, Wild is the Wind, and this one. Pre-orderers will receive each of the remaining 5 as I finish them (working on a pair of fingerless mitts at the moment!), and then the final ebook, with lots of tutorials on making your own recycled yarns, will be released next year (no official release date, just as soon as I finish it and it’s the best it can be).

Follow me on twitter for glimpses into Remixed designs as I work on them, and follow this blog and/or the ravelry group for updates whenever new patterns are released!

Class, interviews, and knit shawls!

Oh gosh, stuff has been piling up. First, for Portlanders, I’m teaching a class on my sideways edge cast-on, and sideways bind-off (used in Betiko and Wild is the Wind), at Twisted on Tuesday November 29th. See all Twisted class info here. If you like the idea of the technique, but can’t wrap your head around it, here’s your chance for some hands-on help!

Complete info from the Twisted schedule:

Sideways edge cast-on and bind-off workshop
$30 With Lee Meredith
Learn how to knit a sideways edging (perfect for a brim or cuff) while casting on stitches along the edge at the same time, avoiding the need to pick up stitches or sew seams later. Then learn the reverse – add a knitted on sideways edge to a piece while binding off the stitches at the same time.
Date/Time: Tuesday, Nov 29, 5-8pm
Materials: Any yarn of your choice (a weight that you like working with best, something smooth and easy to work with), needles sized to match – a circular needle is recommended (everything will be worked flat, but the flexible cord will make it easier to see what’s happening), and a stitch marker.

So that’s that, now onto non-Portland-specific stuff. A couple things from awhile back that never made it to the blog (till now!)… I was interviewed for the Knit Picks podcast, for their ebooks episode, about Game Knitting and also about how I started designing, etc.

I also did a blog interview over on je suis une monstre – head over there to read all about how I quit my day job to be a designer, my design process, and lots more…

Tara of Blonde Chicken finished her Betiko knit-a-long and blogged the gorgeous finished Betikos – love them all!

And now to let you know what I’m currently up to – I know the next Remixed pattern, Freewheelin’, is supposed to be due soon, but it’s taking more redesigning and reknitting than planned… The yellow bulky sample which was supposed to be the final (or close to final) version of the pattern just wasn’t good enough and I ended up working out yet another new update (I’ve redesigned this pattern so many times, ohmygoodness the hours I’ve spent, sigh). So then I tried a super bulky sample of the new version…

…and I’m super happy with it! So now I’m on the final step of knitting up a worsted-ish weight sample, my last test and my main sample piece, and when that’s done the pattern will go out to testers and then finally out to Remixers. So that’s what’s going on there. This pattern really got away from me and took on a life of its own… the other Remixed patterns I’m in the beginning stages on should be quicker, fingers crossed.

And lastly, a heads up that I’m planning on starting another round of twitter trivia soon! If you follow me on twitter, look out for daily trivia questions for a chance to win a pattern coupon code each day! Yay!

Flippable! New pattern for fall!

My heater’s turned on and I’m wearing a wool sweater as I write this, which means, of course, the time for lots of knit accessories is here! So I bring you a fun new pattern – Flippable! (on ravelry)

This is super beginner-friendly (you only need to know how to knit, purl, cast-on, and bind-off!) but it’s totally an enjoyable quick knit for the experienced knitter as well. It will work with any weight yarn, from sock to bulky, and depending on what yarn(s) you choose and how you stripe (or not), you can get all kinds of cool designs, many of which look like stranded colorwork!

The easy slip-stitch pattern is identical on both sides, making the finished squishy, stretchy, warm buttoning cowl wearable in tons of different ways!

For ultimate beginner-knitter non-intimidation, you can make one without the buttonholes if you want, and close it up with a shawl pin or brooch, etc:

The pattern pdf is 10 pages long, with every detail you may need about techniques used and all the different color patterns shown in all the sample pieces. The actual pattern itself is on 2 photo-less pages for easy printing.

That above piece shows a few simple striping patterns, and how the stitch pattern can look like stranded colorwork, but reversible. Below is a 3-yarn striping pattern – grey and yellow strands of Imperial Yarn Columbia striped, and dots of a Knit Picks Chroma self-striping yarn (same yarn as the above piece), scattered throughout, adding blue and white accents to the grellow stripes:

I made a gradient version in Dream in Color Groovy bulky weight yarn (ohmygosh love this yarn!) – starting with the Strange Harvest colorway and Purple Rain dots, and ending with the opposite on the other side:

The sample below was made with an amazing yarn by Black Trillium – Moryx in aqua & gold, 60% merino, 40% silk, worsted weight. The stitch pattern gave the natural pooling all kinds of awesome vertical striping!

And then I made a swatch in a variegated sock yarn – Black Trillium Merilon Sock light fingering weight in the Hazel colorway – to show how a yarn that’s maybe too crazy for a lot of stitch patterns can look really cool in this pattern! Check out how the colors make bits of vertical stripes:

You can see lots more photos of all the sample cowls on ravelry, to see different ways it can be worn – aqua & gold, gradient, grellow, self-striping.

The pattern is $3, on ravelry or my website. In case you’re wondering, this stand-alone pattern has been in the works for a long time, as I just needed to get all these sample pieces knit up, fitting them in between all the ebook projects. Now that this is done, my full focus is on Remixed! And, oh goodness, I am so excited about the patterns currently in the works!

Remixed pattern #2: Wild is the Wind

My second Remixed pattern is out! To all who pre-order the ebook, Wild is the Wind, a customizable, any-gauge hat:

Knit it with any weight yarn, fitted or beret style, slouchy or not, buttons or none, pointy or smooth-topped, custom fit to your head, worked top-down with a modular sideways brim. (Here it is on Ravelry)

It’s not hard, but by the end you’ll be an expert at twisted stitches! The body is simple and addictive (I could knit the swirly top part over and over and never get bored with it!) and while the brim is definitely trickier (or slower at least), testers have agreed that once you make it through one chart repeat it clicks and gets much quicker and easier as you continue on.

The custom stitch counts and measurements are calculated using your gauge (which is measured directly on the hat after you’ve knit the top part), the brim design is charted, and the pattern includes photo tutorials for my favorite way of doing twisted stitches, detailed instructions for all steps, and a 3 page condensed printable pattern section with a black and white version of the chart.

Notes are included for adding slouch to either style of hat, so you can make a hat fitted in front and long and slouched in the back, or a smaller beret style, or pretty much whatever shape you want. The garter stitch brim bottom is nice and stretchy for a well fitting brim.

My three samples were all knit with recycled yarns. The grey is a strand of worsted-ish weight wool/rayon/angora/cashmere blend, in the beret style with a bit of slouch, no point, no buttons. The blue is a merino/nylon blend worsted weight held triple stranded (using this method), fitted style with no point and buttons. And the yellow is a spun recycled yarn I made – a wool reclaimed sweater yarn, an unknown green yarn, and 2 strands of thread, all plied together for around an aran weight – in the fitted style with a pointed top and buttons.

One note included in the pattern that I wanted to give more details about here – I mention that for the beret style you shouldn’t use yarn heavier than about a worsted weight. Well, I learned that from first attempting to turn that super bulky blue into a beret and ending up with this:

Hah! The brim is 10 stitches wide no matter what your gauge, so a heavier yarn equals a wider brim, and a heavy weight beret with a super wide brim equals ridiculous looking. So that’s the thing about that. But then I just frogged it all back to the top part and made it into a fitted style and the super bulky worked great for that.

My musical backdrop isn’t very visible in the hat photos, maybe it wasn’t a great idea, kinda pointlessly busy, but oh well. I’m trying different music-themed backgrounds for all the Remixed patterns… but I may end up just reshooting everything together for the final ebook, we’ll see. Anyway, this is the background for my Wild is the Wind hats:

A big thanks to my test knitters for all their help with this one! Check out their versions in the ravelry projects to see more style options – slouch, different weights, contrasting color brim, etc. I really love how the design turned out, and I’m super happy with the final pattern – I hope some of you have fun knitting it! Yay!

Remixed!

You know how I’ve been mentioning since the beginning of the year that I’m working on an ebook? Well, it’s a long process but there’s finally something ready to put out there into the world! In the spirit of kickstarter campaigns, and other community supported projects, and because the knitting community is awesome, I’ve released the ebook for pre-sale. Pre-order the book, get each individual pattern as it’s finished, starting with Parallel Lines right now!

Your pre-orders will help me to be able to focus on the ebook and get it out as soon as I can, and I think it’ll be fun for all to get each pattern, one every few weeks, like little gifts in your inbox, right?

The ebook is called Remixed, and it will be all about knitting with recycled yarns – how to make your own yarns, using thrifted/unwanted sweaters, and patterns that will work excellently with these yarns. The reason the patterns work well with recycled yarns is that they are all super versatile, making them great for yarns of weird weights, or limited yardage, etc, which makes them perfect also for using up random single skeins or any other yarns you might have that are looking for a project. Because of the flexibility, you can make the patterns over and over, differently each time, by changing up the yarn type and choosing different optional elements. By remixing the designs, you might say.

There will be 8 accessory patterns – the ebook is $16 and after the complete book is out, each pattern will be available individually for about $4 (some may be $1 more or less). All the yarn-making tutorials will be exclusive to the ebook, which is sure to be long and packed with info, and will of course be formatted for easy reading on your computer screen or ebook-reading device.

Parallel Lines is the first pattern, which you’ll get right now when you pre-order (through my site or through ravelry) – it’s a moebius loop scarf, with a simple reversible slip-stitch pattern, some easy short rows, for any yarn weight and any width you like. A quick thank you to my awesome test knitters for all their helpful feedback on this one!

In about 10 days you’ll get the second pattern – Wild is the Wind hat (one, two, three on rav), which is currently being tested in all different yarn weights, sizes, and styles.

A couple weeks after that, Freewheelin’ will be the third pattern – below are glimpses at my first and second (in-progress) prototypes, but I’m still making changes. The final design will be differently shaped, and a wee simpler than the blue one, for easier (more enjoyable) knitting/pattern following. It can be made with any weight yarn, and as big as you want it; the blue one shows the size it is when made with 1 skein of worsted weight yarn (Manos del Uruguay wool), but if you keep knitting, it’ll turn into a full size shawl.

And then, as they are ready – I’m aiming for every 2 weeks, but some may take longer – you’ll get each of the remaining patterns. One of them may be free for a limited time, but besides that, and perhaps the occasional twitter giveaway, the only way to get the patterns before the book is out will be by pre-ordering.

Without giving too much away, here’s a super vague list of the other 5 patterns:

fingerless mitts
a scarf which is meant for using up lots of bitsy yarn scraps
a crazy mystery accessory
a not so crazy mystery accessory
something meant for wild art yarns

So, that gives you a little bit of an idea of what you’ll be getting; if you like these designs that you can see now, that probably means you’ll like most of the Remixed patterns.

I can’t give you a date for when the final ebook will be released, but I can tell you that I doubt it will be possible to get it out before the end of the year. But, the good news: these patterns are great for gift knitting, and you’ll for sure be getting several of them in plenty of time to get them knit up by holiday season. Most, if not all, of the individual patterns should be out to pre-orderers before the end of the year, and the complete book, tutorials and all, will be out as soon as I can complete it. My top priority with this project is quality, so I hope you’ll understand if it takes me longer than you would like it to – it should all be worth it in the end!

Throughout the pre-sale period (from now until the final book is released) I will be doing random giveaways for pre-orderers, whom I’ll call Remixers because that’s easier and more fun. The giveaways will average around one every 2 weeks, I’ll be posting about them in the ravelry forums, and giveaway prizes will vary. Winners may get a skein of recycled yarn, or other crafty goodies, or a free pattern, or their choice of something from my shop… Or other fun ideas I come up with!

Also in the leethal ravelry group, I’ll be posting regular updates about new patterns and all Remixed-related news. It would be awesome if Remixers want to share their projects from the ebook patterns, and post anything else you want to about Remixed. I’m crazy super excited to be finally putting this out there, and I hope you have fun with the way I’m doing it one pattern at a time.

I first starting brainstorming and outlining this ebook concept well over a year ago, made definite plans which I announced on the blog in February, which is also when I started the prototypes for both of the first two designs (Parallel Lines in handspun and Wild is the Wind in an unknown commercial yarn), but I’d planned to include all kinds of recycled yarns – “yarn” made from sheets, t-shirts, plastic bags, etc. Now that I’ve been finalizing everything, my plan has changed so that this book will be only recycled sweater yarns, and (if all goes well) it will be followed by a second book with all those crazy yarns, and then after that, a third volume with hand-dyed recycled yarns.

So, that’s the plan. If you are into it, awesome, and I hope you’re able to pre-order Remixed, because each and every order will really help me to make this ebook the best it can be, and get the patterns done as quickly as I’m able to. So far, I love absolutely everything about this project – the recycley-ness, the musical aesthetic, the any-gauge accessories… it’s all really close to my heart and I hope that my love for it shows through in the work I put out to you! And I hope you love it, too!

Food adventures from my garden!

Now that food-growing season is coming to an end here in Portland, I want to share with you the goodness that came from my yard this year! My most favorite thing is that the cucumbers were successful, and I tried making pickles for the first time!

This was my first harvest, in August – 2 pounds, which was exactly the amount needed for one batch of this refrigerator dill pickles recipe.

So I went shopping, got a giant bunch of fresh dill, and went to work making pickles. It was pretty darn quick and easy – definitely the most time-consuming part was picking and washing and chopping all the dill.

And then, the next afternoon, bam! Pickles! And oh my goodness, there were delicious!! I highly recommend trying refrigerator pickles if you are intrigued by the concept (and like pickles) but don’t want to get into all the canning stuff. The only thing is, you have to eat them within about 2 weeks… but that’s not a problem for us – yumyumyum!

I was so excited about making my first batch of pickles, I made an iPad comic to celebrate! hehe

My second batch of cucumbers was ready for picking a few days ago, and while it wasn’t quite as many as the first, and there were a couple bitsy ones, this was the first time my garden grew a big, long cucumber that actually looked like a cucumber! This harvest ended up being just about exactly 2 pounds as well, perfect for another batch of pickles! Yay!

This time, I got experimental. I used the same recipe as a starting point, but I decided to try making spicy pickles! I added 4 jalepeños and 3 serrano peppers, all sliced. I used a package of fresh dill instead of a straight-from-the-farm bundle, to make it easier, and this time I didn’t chop the dill at all. The other major difference was that I cut the cucumbers into spears instead of slices. I did everything else identical to the recipe.

The result… is SPICY! But delicious! I am a bit of a wimp with spice; I like spicy foods, but only medium-ish level. These, I can just barely handle, with water. Next time, I think I’ll try them with just the jalapeños, or with only 1 serrano and 3 jalapeños or something like that. After sitting overnight, when I jarred them up, I put together one jar with hardly any peppers in it, and the other with lots of them, so as they sit longer, the one will probably get hotter and the other jarful with probably stay the same. Anyway, definitely a successful food experiment!!

Moving on to other gardeny goodness… eggplants! The plant seemed pretty healthy all season, getting bigger and leafier and bushier, and growing lots of lots of flowers… most of which died and fell off. I only actually got 2 eggplants, but they were very exciting! Something about walking into my backyard, and then coming back inside with an eggplant in my hand… it’s just cool. (I’m still very new to this whole gardening thing!)

The first one was made into one of Pete’s and my favorite treats – eggplant fries! Yummmm! There are lots of recipes out there for these – this is the one I use. All I have is a silly iPad photo I took while they were still on the baking sheet, because then I had to nomnomnom and couldn’t be bothered with taking a decent photo:

And then the second eggplant turned into my dinner last night – cooked together with tofu, a few fresh garden tomatoes, and some garlic chives. Add a bit of sweet red chili sauce and sriracha, and yummmmy!

The tomatoes have been awesome, of course! The Sweet 100’s are definitely the yummiest… the Juliets have been growing huge (bigger and rounder than they’re supposed to be), but the flavor is kinda blah. Not bad, just not very flavorful. So I don’t think I’ll do those again. The Early Girls have mostly been growing pretty small; this first one I picked, in the photo, was the biggest by far, but they are yummy and great on sandwiches and stuff. I made this salad one day with some of all 3 types, goat cheese, and a basic homemade balsamic vinaigrette – it was ohmygosh so good!

There have been a few strawberries here and there, but mostly those haven’t been doing great this year. The lettuce all died (I think because I planted it way too close together) and the basil died (I think because I picked off too many leaves for dinner one night). Overall, good garden year for me, better than last year for sure. Yummm yard-fresh veggies!

My recycled fabric infinity dresses!

I made some dresses! These are infinity dresses, using this tutorial, made with recycled sheets!

So, awhile back I had a wedding to go to and I wanted to use it as an excuse to buy a new dress… but after a day of shopping I found nothing I liked, so then my plan changed to it being an excuse to make a new dress! I searched around and found that tutorial, then I went thrifting for knit sheets that might work, and found a couple good ones – the first, a twin size green stretchy knit sheet ($1.50), I used to make a trial dress, to learn from my mistakes before making my real dress.

It has some major issues – it doesn’t work worn most ways, and it’s too short worn most ways (since a twin size sheet wasn’t enough fabric)… but I did indeed learn from my mistakes (some of them, anyway) and I went on to make my second dress. This one was made with a t-shirt material duvet cover ($5), I think queen size, so it was the amount of fabric in 2 large sheets – plenty for a big, twirly circle skirt!

I made a stupid mistake which ended up resulting in awesomeness. When I folded my big square in quarters and cut it into a circle, I accidentally cut on the wrong side and made 2 halves of the circle. Since I had to then sew the halves together to make my circle, I took advantage of the mistake and added pockets! Love them!

My one regret with this dress is that I didn’t overlap the two top/strap parts as much as they should have been (I only overlapped about 1 1/2 inches for some reason, even though the tutorial says 3-5 inches – I meant for it to be more, but messed it up somehow). This made it so I can’t wear the dress most of the “infinity” ways, but after a few hours of playing around with different ways of wrapping it, I found a couple ways that work well, so it’s cool.

Yay new dress! It’s super twirly and has pockets and is soft, comfy t-shirt fabric and I love it!!

I made another dress around the same time as this one (most of it on the same day actually, I was on a roll!) but it’s a different style, so I’ll save that for another post… soon!

Meridian! In Twist Collective!

So, something very exciting happened a couple weeks ago – the new Twist Collective came out, and I’m in it!! My design, Meridian:

Here it is being modeled by me, but you can head over to the Twist Collective page to see their shots (or to ravelry). This was a huge deal for me, as I’d submitted design ideas to them multiple times before this one got picked up – I love Twist Collective so much and am so happy to be a part of this amazing issue! And, I am super duper happy with how this hat design turned out!

This is pretty different from most of my accessory designs – if you are very familiar with my patterns, you’ll be surprised to hear that this hat has a set gauge (well, three different gauges for three different sizes), no short rows, no variations beyond choosing either a crochet edging or a ribbed front (both of which will take care of the hat front’s urge to curl up). It’s a straightforward seamless construction – start flat, increase out a bunch, then join around and decrease in a bunch.

And let me tell you, it’s a fun knit! It works up fairly quickly, considering that slip stitch designs always take longer, and it’s constantly changing row to row, keeping it from ever getting boring, but always easy to follow the intuitive striping pattern. Just when you start feeling like it’s going slowly, it’s time to join around and then the decreasing begins and it’s almost done!

So hey, want a big glimpse into my design process with this one? It started out with a sketched out concept of a hat that’s knit starting flat in the back, worked up around the back of the head, then joined in front and decreased in at the top of the head…

That idea turned into this original prototype pictured below, worn as I’d planned it out in my head… Well, damn, I thought, design fail. This hat looked terrible. All that work and… wait… let’s play around with it for a minute…

…what if I put it on backwards? Hey! Much better!

And my design prototype was born – very similar to my final design! Because of the way I had thought about the shape as I made it sort of backwards the first time, and just because it was my first try, this one had some major size/shape issues. Mainly, the height was just about right, but the width was way too large. Also, that front curling up issue was something I’d have to deal with.

But, there it was, a pretty cool design, I thought. And so it was submitted, got accepted (woooo!) and I went on to solve the problems…

I started out with some spare yarn in approximately the same weight, just as another prototype attempt. As you can see, I changed it quite a bit, and it ended up looking much worse than the original…

But, as these things do, creating this super failed hat version taught me what needed to be done to make the design work. It was too short, lumpy, and came together all wrong in the back, but I used it has a learning tool and moved on to my next try…

Now using my official yarn (Sunflower Yarns Windham, which was great!), this is how that next attempt turned out:

Wow, right?! It doesn’t even look like a hat! Because of the weird construction, it was just really tricky to get those increases and decreases to make just the right shape. Obviously. So, several partial froggings and reknittings later, and I finally got that shape to curve just right, and Meridian was here!

In case any aspiring designers are interested in this aspect, I’ll tell you, as I did all this knitting, reknitting, frogging, reknitting… I was keeping track of everything in written pattern form, saving copies of old tries as I made changes, in case I needed to go back and reference them later. Once I had my successful version, I kind of finalized that written pattern, then charted the whole thing. Then I knit up my second example from the finished pattern, to double check everything.

The pattern pdf includes both the complete written pattern and the entire hat charted, so you can use whichever your brain prefers.

As mentioned, there are 2 ways to prevent the front from curling up – above, you can see the crochet edging option; below, there’s no crochet needed because the first front bit is ribbed, which is hardly noticeable but does the trick. The other difference between these two is that the top is size small, which just barely fits my head, and the bottom is size large, which fits me loosely and is a good man-size. You should be able to make a child size by dropping to a finer weight yarn, but I couldn’t tell you the exact gauge you’d need…

And as for yarn variations – I really liked that self-striping combo in my failed attempt, so I frogged that and am making the yarn into a new hat for myself!

You’d think after all that work in creating the design, knitting and reknitting these hats, I’d never want to make another, but now that some time has passed, I’m really looking forward to knitting up a new Meridian! If anyone wants to join me, perhaps we can put together a casual knit-a-long in the leethal ravelry group!

Having too much fun with my new toy!

So yeah I haven’t checked in for awhile… I’ve been keeping busy, partly with work, and partly with… well, not work…

I made that comic of a few random things I’ve been up to lately with one of my favorite apps on my new iPad! My new time-sucking toy is a combined wedding and christmas gift (thanks Matt and Mom+Dad!!), which had some complications causing the delay, but now I have it. And holy crap you guys, it is way too much fun!

I’ve been playing with many imagey apps – like Pixlr-o-matic, which made the pictures directly above and below:

And ComicBook is super quick, easy, and fun – a couple more comics of just random stuff I’ve been doing:

(Oh yeah, another thing that’s been taking up some time is family visiting – first, Pete’s uncle Terry came to take us to see the Go-Go’s, as mentioned above, and now his mom is visiting, so we’ve been having some fun times with her…)

Another fun image-making app – Photosynth makes panoramic photos, which you can scroll through on the iPad (it’s actually an iPhone app, so it’s miniature on the iPad, but still looks cool) after shooting it… it’s hard to explain, but it looks awesome.

Instagram is fun for taking a photo, adding a quick filter/border, and then tweeting immediately, all in one place. This one is also iPhone-sized. (Some time-suckage has also been due to our new addiction to this board game, Settlers of Catan… yeah, we’re nerds, I know.)

This app – joyOfLight – is simple but cool looking. I couldn’t find a way to save images in the app, but I did learn how to take a screenshot, so that works (as shown below). Oh wait, after I wrote that I played around with it some more and found that touching the screen with 3 fingers saves the image.

And this one, oh man, super addictive – Flowpaper. I just want to scribble on it all day long.

These are all just quick scribbles I’ve done.

Too much fun.

Most of my iPad time wasting has gone to researching and downloading recommended apps – apple gazette blog has been super helpful, with lots of app reviews, and posts like How To: Get the Most Out of iPad’s Virtual Keyboard and 10 Essential Free iPad Apps for Newbies. I got all the apps on that list, have been heavily using Dropbox (screenshot below) and Kindle, and have played around a bit with Moleskine and Flipboard… (and I know, I still haven’t blogged about my pattern in the new Twist Collective, which is ohmygod so exciting, yes, and you can see a glimpse of it below; it will be blogged soon……)

I’ve been using Pandora (screenshot above) a ton, and the NPR music app (screenshot below) is great, though it’s iPhone size. I’ve bought a couple fun multiplayer games that Pete and I have played around with a little so far – Catan (I told you we got into it) and Sketch n’ Guess, which is like Pictionary, super fun! And the New York Times free crossword app is awesome; and Sheep Shift (screenshot below) is a must-have free game for sheep lovers (they all have different baaa sounds!)…

Those are most of the ones I’ve gotten that I’ve been using lots so far, or know that I will be… there are many more I’ve gotten but haven’t taken the time to explore yet (like Goodreader, several sketching and/or note-taking apps, many rss reader and/or news apps…). So hey, iPad owners, what else should I get?

And then, check it out, I made an iPad case! I used my Screen-Friendly Gadget Case pattern, made to custom fit my iPad. My major change was that I decided I liked how the reverse stockinette side of the fabric looked better than the stockinette, so I made the main case part inside-out. Bad idea; don’t copy me with this modification. Part of the reason the case pattern works well is that the stockinette naturally curls around the gadget – when turned inside out, it wants to curl back, away from the iPad…

But hey, it still works okay, and it was just a test anyway. I chose some old leftover hand-dyed yarn that I don’t really like, just to try out the pattern on the iPad and see if it would function well. Conclusion: yes, it does function, but there are some issues (needs to be removed to use the camera, for one) and I just ordered the official Apple smart case because I think that seems like the best thing out there to protect it. I might end up knitting up another one of these in a yarn I like, fixing some problems, for a padded cover for carrying it around in my bag… we’ll see…

Oh, and it does work to keep it on for charging/syncing, and headphones, as pictured in the first shot. I think the pattern is better suited for smaller devices, but it does indeed work for iPads, so that’s cool.

Ok it’s time for me to get some actual work done… hopefully…

Mystery hat revealed: Terrapin!

Here it is, my mystery hat knit-a-long design – Terrapin (on ravelry here):

That above is in a sport weight (Brown Sheep’s Lanaloft Sports Weight), and then below is in a bulky weight (Malabrigo’s Chunky), for a very different look (but I love them both!!):

And then there’s a no-buttons version as well, making it a bit more gender-neutral, as you can see on Pete below (in worsted weight – Imperial Stock Ranch’s Columbia). And a close-up of the twisted stitch pattern on the body:

Want to hear a bit about my design process? After designing this argyle cuff last year, I wanted to take the whole solid color argyle-inspired pattern concept further… so eventually, I sketched+swatched up this design proposal for a magazine submission last year:

The basic idea of the design ended up being pretty identical to my final Terrapin pattern – that swatch is trying out 2 different yarn types, with the different hat sections in swatch form. The argyle twisted stitch pattern has changed a bit since that swatch was made, but the concept remains the same – interlocking diamonds with stockinette and reverse stockinette acting as the different colors in a classic argyle colorwork design.

Those are my other submission sketches – pretty close to Terrapin, again, though lots of details have changed. So, the magazine didn’t take it, and the idea sat there for awhile, until the beginning of this year when I decided to re-address it and see how it went…

That’s my first prototype. I started the green brim kind of as a swatch, just working out the twisted stitch pattern with the sideways edge cast-on, but then I kept going and realized I wasn’t going to have enough green to finish the hat. I did, however, have some orange of the same yarn (Brown Sheep’s Lanaloft Worsted), so I grabbed that and switched colors for the body!

There are lots of minor differences between this prototype and the final design, but the shape and look of it are the same, so you can see with that how it would look if you wanted to make a Terrapin with 2 different colors. (Ravelry user wonderfulone made a 2-color hat for the knit-a-long, so check that one out too!)

And then I decided to turn it into an any-gauge pattern, so my next prototype was in the sport weight – some more minor changes happened during and after the making of this one, but it’s basically the same hat. I love the orange with the blue buttons!

Now that the design was finished, my next step was to make one in bulky weight, to make sure the any-gauge aspects of the pattern would work – the bulky did work, but the decreases got a little weird, which is why I recommend not going much heavier than an aran weight. I do love this hat though, so soft and squishy!!

Next, I decided to make a version of the brim with grafting instead of buttons, to make it more guy-friendly. So, I made a third sample, in the worsted weight, finalizing the design for the knit-a-long:

That one was made to fit my guy perfectly, but his head isn’t that much bigger than mine, so we can share it!

I tried doing a quick little photoshoot of the two of us wearing our Terrapins together, but it didn’t work out so well… this is the best shot I got:

As for the pdf… I added quite a bit more than what was in the mystery version of the pattern. Photos, of course, including many process shots, charts of all the twisted stitch sections, a full 2 page photo tutorial on how I do twisted stitches (the easiest way I’ve found), a how-to on blocking hats… Here are a couple screenshots of the pdf:

Since I always format my pattern pdfs for easy reading on your computer (or iPad, Kindle, iPhone, etc) screen, all this makes for a 25 page pdf! If you do like printing your patterns, the pattern itself has only small photos so it won’t use up too much color ink. The pattern costs the same as the knit-a-long ($6) and is available on my site or on ravelry. Hope you like it!!