fishie’s aquarium

No, really, I am. I had an awesome time on the Seattle-to-Portland Yarn Crawl on Saturday (update with pictures coming soon I swear), and among my plunders is some eggplant colored Habu bamboo lace weight. It’s my first laceweight yarn ever, and I’m so excited to use it. I’ve been wanting to knit the Oriel Lace Blouse for a while, and now it seems like a possibility. I’ve also been throwing a couple other ideas around, like the Peacock Feathers Shawl. The Habu has been tumbling in my brain so much that last night, I had a dream that I had knit a bunch of lace-doily-dishcloth things and I was blocking all five of them.

Huh.

I should mention that on the train, I cast on Intolerable Cruelty in hot hot pink SWTC Bamboo. I got through a couple inches of it on the train trip, and as of last night, I have 7 inches knit. Watching a couple of the other knitters on the train made me realize I’m kinda fast.

Huh.

I’d mentioned my plans to get a dressform from Joann’s to aid myself in designing. I’ve used them before, and I don’t think I’d be able to start seriously designing unless I have one of my own. Joann’s handed me a flyer when I went there to buy some emergency #17 circular needles, and on this flyer it mentioned the next week, dressforms would be about half off, starting at $90. That’s a good deal. So I went there with Kate and Charles, since my back is still in need of physical therapy and I wouldn’t be able to carry the box myself. When I asked about one, I found out that not only did the flyer contain a misprint (dressforms were not on sale), but they didn’t have any left, since they were on sale before Christmas.

This left me dressform-less with a deadline. I wasn’t too upset, since I really don’t like the ones Joann’s has: the hard plastic ones that are “adjustable.” That’s great if I’m making things for a bunch of people of different sizes, but I’m really only going to be making things in my size, which is also the size I need to make things for publication. Plus, I prefer dressforms I can stick pins into.

I went onto ebay to see what dressforms were available and what they were going for, and I came across this beauty: One of the squishy ones with adjustable boobs. One of the costume designers at the shop I worked at in college had one of these, and occasionally brought it in to work on. I remember the shop manager saying it was one of the nice expensive ones. I just bought it for cheaper than the plastic ones Joann’s has, with free shipping.

I’m very excited.

Luckily my original craft journal was fairly new, so it took me less than two work-days to move every post over to this one. I’ve got a feed started on LJ in case anybody over there wants to follow me that badly, I started a feed in LJ. Not sure if it’s working though. Hrm. Whatever. It’s not like MY NEW DOMAIN IS THAT LONG. :D

All of my LJ posts are in the “LJ Archive” category over to the left there. And you see that zooming cowfish at the top? I took that picture. Ooooh I’m going to love having this website.

I think I’ll post content soon. I have that cropped cardigan I made that ended up not being cropped at all, which is all buttoned and ready for blocking and pictures. But yeah. This post is nothing other than being being all like, “Oooh shiney.”

I’m done.

I went out a couple days ago and got two more kinds of yarn. I picked up some Louisa Harding Grace from Pacific Fabrics, and some Euroflax from Cultured Purls. Despite them both being completely different weights (size 6 needle for Grace, size 3/4 for Euroflax) I like both enough for them to be my two choices. I had to do a rough estimate for yarn quantities, but it was easier for the Grace since a dress in the current Sensual Knits is made out of it and uses just a little less yarn than I anticipate. The Euroflax at least comes in huge 270 yd skeins, so asking for an extra skein or two really adds up.

Freaking out is settling down a little, and I’m realizing that even though this is a major project, the deadline isn’t that much different than a class on the quarter system. Why would I freak out about the final project if I have all quarter to work on it? Why would I think I wouldn’t have any free time the entire quarter? Seriously, if I worked on the project non-stop the whole time, I’d get done way early, which would mean I’d STILL have free time before the deadline.

My first (and only) design was my first fair isle project, and I finished that pattern in a couple days and knit the hat in one night. Yeah, this is a dress, not a hat, but I think I’m capable of putting this together. I wore the first sweater I ever knit (less than a year ago, too) to a formal party and got compliments from people who didn’t realize I’d made it. I’ve done enough lace projects (uh… two? three?) to understand how decreases and YO’s can be arranged to make something happen, and working from charts became second nature after my first time using them (Cherie Amour was my first, and I got it enough to get through the neckline which is obviously in need of errata).

I have 16 years experience with sewing, and come on, if I can sew this:

I can design a much simpler dress. Yeah, sewing is not the same as knitting, but knowing how fabric goes together to make garments sure doesn’t hurt. Joann’s is having a sale on dressforms next week, and I might just drop the damn $90 to finally get one. I’m also seriously considering sewing a fabric version of the dress I want to knit so I can get measurements. There’s where the autistic “I can’t understand it if I can’t see it” thing starts getting annoying. But still, doesn’t seem like a bad idea.

Well, not completely. I’ve complained to Chris that the hardest part of this whole being in a book deal isn’t the pattern or the knitting, it’s figuring out what to say in my bio. I am not good at giving a succinct three sentence summary of me. Unless I can just say, “Alysa is WEIRD,” I can’t be summed up in a couple sentences. I managed to scare away a guy trying to talk to me at a New Year’s party when he asked me who I was, and I ended up rambling on with a friend about how much we loved our cat and dog, respectively.

That part of the bio aside, almost every knitting designer has a website/blog/online store. I have one. It’s uh… right here. My PROBLEM is, as much as I love LJ (I don’t love it as much as I hate change, actually), it’s not very useful for knit/craftblog purposes. People can’t respond without an account unless they do so anonymously, which makes it impossible to know how many people/if anybody reads this. I don’t really want to take up precious space in my bio with karmic-fishie.livejournal.com! especially if it’s not something people could easily interact with me through.

SO.

I’m thinking of moving this blog. The only reason I had it here in the first place was I’d reserved the name for when I changed my madamecacoon name, which isn’t happening now, and I figured why not use it? But now… not so useful, and I might as well switch domains while I have a manageable number of entries. I’ve found a good hosting site, but because of LJ I’m horribly not educated about blogging and blogging software. I’d really like my own domain, and the horribly ironic fishie.net is available. I have the money for pointless things like a domain, and being published will get my name out there and hey! maybe it would motivate me to get off my ass and start putting stuff in my damn etsy shop. I have how many half-finished Beaded Octopus Earrings?

There I go.

Next time I design something, will somebody make sure I’ve already knit it once and written a pattern? Please?

I got an email from the publisher today saying that I need to pick out my top two yarn choices and tell them how many skeins I need. Eep!

In addition to making a post in knitting, which lots of people have answered and helped me out with, I took and extended lunch break LYS hopping with Kate. The only way I’m going to be able to accurately determine how much yarn I’ll need is by swatching, so I’ve picking out my favorite/most likely to succeed yarns from each store I’ve gone to. So far Hilltop East and the Fiber Gallery have been plundered. Alchemy Bamboo (HOLY CARP EXPENSIVE!) from Hilltop, Debbie Bliss Silk from Fiber Gallery.

People in the knitting post have pretty much said no on the bamboo (heavier than I thought, apparently, but I’ll still swatch and make a desicion on my own), and yes on silk, but leaning more towards a merino/silk blend or Euroflax. One of the dresses in Sensual Knits is made with Louisa Harding Grace Silk & Wool, which seems like it would be a good choice but I’d still have to swatch it it or something VERY similar to determine yardage, and I’m not exactly sure where I would find it.

I really want to figure out my yarn choices soon so I can request it and start designing. This whole deadline thing is SCARY!

A design idea I submitted for the sequel to Sensual Knits got selected. It was something that I completely made up on the spot at work and submitted pictures of my sketches that I took with my phone and emailed myself. It got picked! One of my knitting designs is going to be published. *flaps hands*

Problem is, I think I might have designed something a little… advanced for me. Not advanced for me to knit if it was from a pattern, but to design myself, whoo boy. At least I have until March to come up with the pattern and finish knitting it. I’m sure I’m supposed to keep it under cover until the book is announced/published or whatever, so I’m not going to say anymore about it than I think I’m getting paid a pretty penny for it considering it’s my first published design. And it’s 10 million hotdogs awesome.

Building up to the omg jump up and down excitement of this whole “I’m going to be in a book!” deal, I got some yarn from Kate for Fishmas this year. Kate has a tendency to buy me yarn that is much longer than it should be. It’s like her yards are as long as Chris’ minutes. Previously, she bought me three skeins of yarn that was 200 yards a skein, and I used it to make her a total yarn eater project (the Manitou Passage Scarf). Not only did I only use two of them to make the scarf 6 feet, but I also made her a matching hat and I STILL have some left over.

The yarn she got me this year was 6 skeins of super-bulky Tahki Taos, 60 yards a ball, in Jungle. 360 yards of yarn. I looked through Ravelry and the books I owned, and figured that the Carrie Cropped Cardigan from Fitted Knits would use about the amount of yarn I had. I’m not normally a fan of cropped stuff, but I have a couple tank tops that would go with the colors and I figured it’s just a shrug that buttons in the front.

I swatched on Saturday, but I couldn’t get gauge with the right needle. I moved up to a 17, but got the same gauge as with a 15. I decided to just knit a size bigger than I needed and everything would work okay in the end. It did. Not only did it work okay, but Sunday evening, right before midnight, I cast off a full length sweater jacket, going past my bum. I’d added more increases to the front to encompass my bosom, and decided to make it a little longer anyway. I was expecting it to come right above my navel, which would show off the lacy bottoms of my tanks nicely, but no. I’d used two balls on the body, one each on the sleeves, and still had two left when it came to lengthening the bottom. I added some lacy eyelet-vents in the lower back to add shaping and match the eyelets in the bell sleeves.

The finished product is wonderful. I’m going to buy a couple buttons after work and do the finishing touches, and then I’ll add pictures.

And I think I’ll make Kate buy me yarn when we go on the Yarn Train to PDX.