A few months ago, I started a pair of fingerless gloves for my husband, ones with fingers just missing the tips.  The pattern that I started with worked out well enough, but something about it didn't groove with how my brain works.  The first glove turned out fine, a bit tight, but fine.  The second I started last week (yes, that long inbetween!), and I just couldn't get it right.

So I went hunting for another pattern.  I ended up taking a vintage pattern (knit flat) with ornate cabled cuffs and womens sizing and using that.  Knitted in the round, without the cuffs, with entirely different sizing.  It worked out quite well, so I'm working on the second now.

It seems like, as I've gotten more confident in my spatial skills and pattern drafting, that I've been more and more unable to use patterns as they are.  There are always a few tweaks that I want to make, and I almost always end up creating something that's entirely different, except in concept.  I've never changed a glove into a hat or anything that obscure. :)

I'd really like to return to the days where I could pick up a pattern and work from it.  It was relaxing and...well, nice.  Don't get me wrong, I love the problem solving, design process, and creation of something that's juuust right, but it'd be nice to try something new with the thinking cap off, again, and use someone else's knowledge and talent.  I won't claim to have any mad design skills, but the busy body in me just can't leave a pattern alone!

I guess I've been psyching myself out for the holiday season, because the past few weeks have all been about making changes and progress towards being the best I can for the holidays.

Some of that includes:

• Planning a general reshoot.  I noticed a bunch of my former 'okay' pictures really need to be redone.
• Making an effort to finish socks, rather than just putting them in my final touches basket.
• Adding pictures of my packaging to listings with an empty photo slot.
• Cutting out a bunch of paper for sock sleeves.
• Making repeats of current listings, so I can relist immediately or fulfill custom orders.
• Trying to knock out some of my personal projects before the end of the month.
• Planning my purchases for the holidays, so that I'm not in a rush on the gift giving front when orders pick up.

I also think I've settled on a supply order, so I plan on making that in the next few days.  Yarny goodness is so inspiring and motivating!

Knitwear is a cool-weather thang.  It just is, by nature, by assumption.  It's now August, and I know the last thing on most people's minds is Christmas, Hanukkah, or anything 'holiday'.

Well, for most knitters, preparation for The Season started months ago.  Ramping up on general shop listings, creating seasonal items, and moving back over to heavier knits and warm cuddly things.  Yes.  Knitting in August.  Yes.  Knitting when it's 105F outside.  It really is a special kind of madness.

My family celebrates Chrismukkah (my mom's Jewish, my dad is secular Protestant), and I planned on creating stockings for a few couples.  I started about a month and a half ago on this stocking, and finally sat down and knit it out today.  It only took me about two hours, so I have no idea why I've put it off for so long.  But there you have it.

As you can see, I changed tension after the cuff.  I'm going to try fulling it a bit before I work on the embroidery (holly leaves and berries), but will have to rip it out, if it doesn't tighten up any more.  I love it and plan on starting the second in a few hours.

As I mentioned in my last post, I've been making an effort to turn over my stash, and trying use up more yarn than I usually do before making another purchase. I've gotten to the point, now, where I'm down to a few colors of my stock tabi yarn, and I'm trying to decide how to proceed.

I've been trying to fill my shop for the holiday season, but it's tough to feel motivated to do that when things are soooo sloooow during the anti-knit season. I've been sticking with it, making breaks for my own projects and experiments, trying not to burn out, and have made pretty good progress. I'd hoped to have more listings, but I still did better than I expected.

It's now to the point where I should start ordering more yarn, but I'm a bit stuck on colors, even after looking at color and fashion predictions for the fall. I know I need some more traditionally feminine colors (purples, pinks), and came to realize that I need more greens (which I'm totally not feeling), earthy tones, blues, and yellows.  

I just need to shake up the whole set, and that's tough for me. I've spent the past few weeks poking at the Pantone Fall Color Report, and it really gave me a place to jump off, and I encourage anyone currently struggling with color to check it out. What colors are looking for this winter and fall?

For the past couple of weeks, I've really gotten into scrap stripes for my tabi socks. While winding out yardage for my latest pair ('Firepit'), I realized how much of a dent it was making in my stash and how much old yarn has been made into finished objects.

I usually buy a minimum of two skeins of each color when I make an order. I always have enough to make an extra pair, if one pair sells quickly or another size is requested, without having to reorder. That logic has worked out well for me over the years, but it's also resulted in stagnant skeins of accent colors. Usually, these are neutrals: grays, creams, tans, blacks, etc. Colors that work really well as a 'base' for stripe combinations.

It's nice to see the 10-20 yd scrap balls in my scrap bag being incorporated into new socks, and it's equally nice to see the neutrals being given a punch of color. I know lots of people like neutrals and single tones, but they don't inspire me like contrasts and complementing colors do. This has turned out to be a great, useful project.

Of course, now it looks like I'm crazy stripe lady!

Don't do a thorough arm workout on days you're working with very tiny needles!  It's good for preventing repetitive stress injuries and awesome for toned arms, but it's wicked difficult to knit with shaky hands. 

Good thing the socks are for me! :)

I've been holding off on buying yarn, recently, in an attempt to work through my stash.  As a result, I've found myself stagnated and avoiding knitting for my shop; new colors and textures are what keeps me going.  It has been pretty productive, this avoidance, because I've been working on projects for me, my family, and finishing up things that have been hanging around for awhile.

But...I know I need to work on building up more stock!  I'm already starting to get a trickle of custom orders for the holidays, and I was dreadfully unprepared last year for my etsy sales.  Breaking down and buying yarn currently isn't in the cards, so I decided to whip out my bag of scraps and pull a couple of skeins of yarn out and see if I could come up with anything that suited my fancy.  My goal was to use up some of my scraps and to use up an idle skein.  

Last night in the HAF critique chat, someone mentioned 'sunset colors' in relation to my orange and pink ribbed socks.  I had about 5 yards of each of those colors in my scrap bag, so I pulled them out on the table and saw that a winey red looked quite nice with them.  I also had about 5 yards of that, so I wound off bobbins and have them paired with a skein of cream yarn.

When I finish the pair of socks I'm working on now (for me!), I'm going to get started.  I'm actually excited about it!  Maybe this'll keep me from splurging on supplies for a tiny bit. :)

I posted a new tutorial about how to make a papasan chair cushion cover.  We have a white-furnitured living room (this madness was installed before we met and married), and the dog is the main user of the white papsan chair.  It's started to look pretty darned funky after a few years, so I decided to make an cover.  I figured I'd take some pictures and write up the general gist for anyone who's interested.