Where does the time go?

How has it been a week already since I last posted? Since I got such a great response to my design anatomy idea I'm definitely going to be doing it - maybe that will get me back into the habit of posting regularly.

Designing sure has a way of sucking the life out of blogging. It's hard to come up with stuff to talk about when all of the knitting I do is top secret. I will be psyched to do something that I can share freely with all of you. I've already got a couple design ideas in mind - I think that posting one a day in April is waaaay too ambitious, but definitely one a week. I'll be very interested to see what you guys pick for me to work on!

In the meantime, I'm working hard on my designs for TNNA in June as well as some other fun stuff. We got our booth assignment last week, and we're in a little island booth right between the main bathrooms. It might not be the most pleasant spot, but it will definitely get us seen! Hopefully we don't have a dysentery outbreak or anything during the convention (god forbid).

Sydney has been out on spring break for the past two weeks and the kids are driving me out of my mind. They do tend to entertain each other when they're both here, but they sure make a disaster of the house. Owen has hit the terrible threes something fierce - yesterday he split his lip open on an end table after trying to balance on a cardboard box and freaked me out by bleeding all over the place (I was certain he'd knocked out a tooth or two), and then he peed on my lap. Delightful boy! We are currently shopping around for a preschool for him to attend next year - I can't wait! There's an opening for full-day class at a Montessori school close to us... I'm not entirely sure he's ready for full-day preschool, but I sure am! I know, I know, I should enjoy these days while they last because they'll be gone before I know it. I just wish they weren't so messy and irritating!

Is anyone else watching the John Adams miniseries on HBO? Fantastic! It explains so much about our country's history to see how it was formed. I just wish our modern leaders showed as much intelligence and integrity as the founding fathers. Of course they weren't perfect, but as one of my favorite bumper stickers says, "Yee-haw! is not a foreign policy." Having John Adams on my Tivo helps make up for the fact that the other shows I'm watching right now include Rock of Love II, American Idol and I Know My Kid's A Star.

Design Deconstruction

First of all, Happy Easter! My kids are both crazed little maniacs this afternoon thanks to all the chocolate that the Easter bunny left for them this morning... We're about to head over to my in-laws' for ham - hopefully that will mellow them out a little bit.

Next, I want to ask your opinion on something. I'm trying hard to get myself reinspired and energized again (I think I've got a serious case of SAD going here in rainy, gray Oregon), and I thought that it would be very interesting to do a design deconstruction over the next few months on this blog. Would you all be interested in reading about this? Here's how I see it working.

In March, I would post 4-5 sketches each week and you all could vote for your favorites each weekend. At the end of the month, I'd take the four winners and do some more sketching and swatching. I'd then ask for a vote on the winner. Once the design is chosen, I'd take you all through the process of choosing the final yarn, calculating the pattern, working up the design, etc. It would be sort of like a complete dissection of my design process.

Why would I want to do this? Well, the idea was sparked by an article in this morning's paper about blogging and how it has helped several people around the Portland area respark their creativity, lose weight, get in shape, etc. For example, a writer has decided to try something new every day and then blog about it. He's done a bunch of stuff that he never would've done without encouragement from his audience. Obviously I don't need an audience to design, but I feel like I'm a bit isolated when I'm into the heavy-duty work of pattern grading, swatching, etc. because I don't really talk about it on my blog and there aren't too many people who really understand what I'm doing. I'd love to give people a first-hand view of what I do and maybe give some insight into what's involved in putting together one of my patterns.

So...if this sounds like something you would read, let me know! I think it could end up being really fun, and it might get me to blog a little more often. We'll plan to start the first week of April with the first few sketches. Now I'm off to find some more chocolate...

Knit, knit, knit...

First of all, thank you all for your most helpful comments on Sydney's school situation. I'm still not 100% sure which way we're going to go, but it helps to hear lots of good feedback from those who have their kids in public schools. We'll be going to visit the elementary school in a couple of weeks and that will be a big help in making out decision. Now if I could just figure out what to do with Owen...anybody know of any great preschools in Portland, on the east side, that would have openings next fall?

In other news, I have been knitting like a madwoman. I just sent off my second pair of March socks this morning, and I'm halfway down the cuff on the second sock of the third pair (due on the 31st). Whew! My wrists are hating me, but I think I'm going to be able to pull it off. Once I get these socks out of the way, I'll be able to refocus on my June designs for GYW. I'm going to try not to procrastinate so terribly this time around and actually do some photography, formatting and editing BEFORE I sell a bunch of patterns at TNNA...

TNNA booths are being assigned this week - the assignments are made in order of seniority (you get points for every year you exhibit, so the people who have been there forever get the first pick of booth location while peons like me who have only exhibited once are at the bottom of the barrel). I'm waiting very anxiously to see where we'll be and hoping we're not in the middle of the giant sea of needlepoint this time! Nothing against needlepoint, but it's hard to get yarn shops' attention when you're not in their line of sight. I've got some designs for fall that I'm really excited about (look for sneak peeks in late May, assuming I can get my act together by then) and I'm hoping that the show in June will be really good. If you are or know a shop owner who's going to be there, please put in a good word for me :-).

And now, back to my socks!

Oh, the dilemmas of life...

Owen woke me up the other morning at 6:30. He, of course, went right back to sleep but my brain got cranking and I started obsessing about Sydney's schooling. She's at the age where she can start kindergarten in the fall. We've got her in a private Montessori school right now that we love, but it's a good 20-30 minute drive from our house. She could attend through 8th grade, and that's what we were fully planning on having her do. For some reason, though, I started thinking the other morning and what started out as a pebble has slowly grown into a boulder and we're now agonizing over whether or not we send her to public school or keep her in her comfortable-but-distant private school.

Both situations have pros and cons. The pros of the private school are that it's very familiar to her by now and it's very safe. The kids who go there are great and the parents are generally like-minded. The school has an environmental philosophy along with Montessori-like instruction all through the elementary and middle-school years with classes becoming more "school-like" as the students get older. Last year we had the opportunity to tour the classrooms through each level and see what students experience at each age. It was great, but was it great enough to justify all of the expense (because tuition isn't outrageous, but it's certainly not free) and all the driving?

As Sydney's getting older and starting to make friends, I really see the benefits of having her attend the neighborhood school. There are real benefits to having her friends be in our neighborhood rather than scattered all around the area. It would be great to be able to drop her off in 10 minutes round-trip rather than taking an hour twice a day to drive across town. Once she gets involved in extra-curricular activities, it would be really nice to have them down the street rather than 8 miles away. Not to mention, once Owen starts school, we'd have twice the tuition and possibly twice the driving depending on how much his schedule meshed with hers.

The main disadvantage of taking her out of private school (besides the friends she'll miss) is the miserable state of public schools in Portland. However, our neighborhood school is among the better in the city (we chose our house specifically for the schools) so it almost seems silly not to take advantage of it. I also like the idea that Sydney will be exposed to more diversity (although the neighborhood school is still pretty homogenous compared to other schools in the city) in public school than she would at private school.

We might end up going with the neighborhood school for environmental reasons if nothing else. The drive across town twice a day does bug me, even if we do fuel the car with biodiesel made from recycled oil. Sigh. I just don't know. Anyone have any useful insights for me?

Sorry (cough, cough) for the delay (cough)...

We've all been sick for the past week, me in particular. Yuck! I hope this is the last cold of the season. I, for one, am ready for summer. My mother-in-law just got back from two weeks in Costa Rica and she is all tan and happy - next year, we are going with her!

I've been busily working away, designing for fall. We'll have hats, scarves, a shawl or two, sweaters and, of course, socks. My test knitters are testing and soon the tech editors will be put back to work. My poor little fingers are knitting as fast as they can - I've got one of my three pairs of commissioned socks done (colorwork socks in Classic Elite Alpaca Sox - yum!) and the next one started (also in Alpaca Sox - yum yum!). The third pair is due on March 24th but there's still no sign of the yarn I'm supposed to make them with. I can knit socks pretty fast, but I'm starting to get a little nervous!

Speaking of tech editing, I realized that I made a huge goof on the new version of the Feather Lace Shawl (not my tech editor's fault - I didn't think I was changing it so much that it needed re-editing, but I certainly learned my lesson the hard way!), so there's now an errata page on my website. The Mix-and-Match Rib Toe-Up Socks also have a small error that one of my students found last week. I've also included the errata for a couple of my other published patterns and will try to keep the page up-to-date with all errata that has my name on it. I hate errata, but it's almost impossible not to have some at some point! If you've purchased the Feather Lace Shawl pattern in the last month or two, check the back page (under Pattern Info) to see if it's v0108. If it is, you need the errata. If there's no version # or if it's v0108-2, you're good. Sigh...

Working at Dublin Bay has been a nice little refuge for me - I get to knit shop samples when it's slow (and of course at knit night), which gives me an opportunity to knit from others' designs (something I never do at home). I just finished up a Snowdrop Lace Scarf (yes it's in my pattern line but I didn't design it!) out of Handmaiden's lovely mohair laceweight Angel Hair (in the green color, for St. Patty's Day) and I'm now starting to work on this (it's the sheep sweater, pants and hat on the little boy on the right side of the first page). That should keep me busy for a little while!

Ah, the joys of childhood...

So Sydney celebrated her 5th birthday on February 20, although we didn't celebrate with family until the weekend. We still haven't partied with her friends - it's looking like we won't get our act together on that one until April (our excuse is that we'll then be able to just have a joint Sydney-Owen party, something that won't work as soon as they get a little bit older!). Sydney had two friends who had parties in February so that month was a little crowded anyway.

The family party was a big success. Grammy made cupcakes, and Syndey did a great job blowing out her many, many candles.







Isn't she sweet?



Owen has been making himself useful around the house lately. He's going to be a carpenter or an engineer when he grows up (or an electrician) - currently he manages to get ahold of the screwdriver no matter where we put it and proceeds to unscrew anything and everything he can reach. Here he is taking Sydney's Viewmaster apart:



And here's some of his handiwork on one of our French doors. His father is going to be really happy about that one (he hasn't discovered it yet since he's out running 18 miles in preparation for the Boston Marathon in April - crazy man!):



If you can't see exactly what's going on there, he managed to unscrew the top of the plate, loosen the bottom screw, and put a totally different screw in the top hole. I really love it when he unscrews the "childproof" battery covers on all of his toys. Yeah. I've got to watch that one every second...

He also did some serious damage to my sock project the other day. Here's the result when your almost-3-year old grabs your nicely wound, 400-yd ball of sock yarn and tears around the house with it, pulling out clumps of yarn as he goes:



Of course once I saw what he was doing, I started shrieking "Nononono!" and running after him, which only made things worse. Such a delightful child! At least he's decided that the potty is not his enemy anymore so we're making progress on that front...

The knitting is going great guns. I've got projects lined up over the horizon and one of my biggest frustrations is that I don't have enough time to knit even 20% of what's in my head. Even if I sketch all my ideas out when I have them, that almost adds to the frustration because I know I'll never get to them all. Better to have to many ideas than not enough, I suppose! Fortunately I've got an army of test and sample knitters helping me out. They are so awesome and generous - especially since I can't adequately compensate them (if you saw my tax return for last year, you'd know why, but at least I'm getting some nice deductions!).

You may have already seen some sneak peeks of a new shawl design on Grumperina's blog, and her current post on Panda Wool pictures a sock sample she's also working up for me. I can't quite believe I'm lucky enough to have her knitting samples for me - she is ridiculously fast and obviously extremely skilled. In fact, it's a bit terrifying sending her a new pattern because I know that if it's not amazingly awesome, I'll hear about it! LOL! I had a totally different edging on the shawl before she got ahold of it and (very nicely) suggested that it might look better with something different. She was, of course, correct and we're both delighted with the final result.

I'll never be able to adequately express what my helpful, generous, reliable testers, sample knitters and tech editors mean to me. If you happen to be knitting one of my patterns, take a second and look at the acknowledgements at the end. These are the people who helped to make your knitting experience the best it can possibly be. Of course we can't catch every mistake, but I'm amazed at how much we improve each pattern together, with each tester and editor adding something to the mix. Thank you all so much!