Persistent Knitter

This is what the very end of a ball of Kauni looks like when you’re winding it off:

I bought 2 different colorways, and it takes forever to wind them into cakes. I’m very grateful for my huge heavy duty ball winder during this task. Here’s the display I was pawing through:

What else did I do during Madrona? Bought a bunch more stuff, plus I got to meet Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, The yarn harlot!

That’s me on the left, in case there was any question - and I do look terrible in this photo, but I’m sharing it anyway, cuz Stephanie looks so great. Having her tell me that I changed her life with Knit Visualizer probably made me a bit goofier than usual. She also gave a good demonstration of how she knits -which is very different than what I’ve seen before. She holds her knitting needle under her arm and the stitches just fly.

I took a two day spinning/knitting class:

that was taught by Nancy Bush and Judith MacKenzie McCuin

Great talks both nights, the first of which was by Lucy Neatby :

Judith did the 2nd talk; I didn’t take many pictures; but it was really great.

I also took a class with Stephanie, with no expectations really, but it was incredible. It was a small group; and we talked about problems in our knitting and Stephanie gave us tips on how to solve those problems. The real bonus though? My friend Jill snuck in with her CPH and Stephanie told her how to make it fit better:

It was an incredible four days; exhilirating and exhausting, but all in a good way. I learned so much! How to join when spinning worsted, how to spin woolen style with Bison, how to make super teeny tiny fine yarn, how to spend way more than I should have at the marketplace with all the fabulous vendors, lots of knitting tips, and so much more. I can’t wait for next year.

No pictures yet, because I’m exhausted, and just caught up with orders after being gone all weekend. Lots of KV 2.0 orders; if you want to help me keep my sanity - order the download PLEASE! :)

I have pictures of madrona fun. But won’t post them til later. Here’s the extremely brief run down of my weekend. I took a class with Mother Judith; and my spinning will hopefully improve for it. I spun some Bison. I started a glove. I met the Yarn Harlot, and got a big hug. I also got a picture in which I prove that I’m not photogenic at all; I’ll torture you with that later. I took a class with the Harlot, and learned tons, including being entertained the whole time. I ate salmon, and learned about Bison, and then did more spinning with Mother Judith. I bought lots of stuff; 4-5 rovings, 2 skeins of yarn and a large lot of Kauni in a fit of insanity.

to madrona winter festival that is.  Not even work could get me up this early (usually), but the promise of a marketplace full of fiber and yarn and associated stuff to buy, some great classes; and I’m ready to go.  Now, if I can just find my shoes…

It’s up.

There’s an issue with the discount codes I was going to send out for upgrades; I promise I’m still working on that.

Normally I hate short rows, all those wraps are totally fiddly; and the end result never looked very good for me. I decided to try socks with short rows again, and wanted a different method.

Japanese Short Rows are really cool. Here’s the heel only halfway knit. Yes, you do get dangly little saftey pins everywhere.

After knitting, a sample fitting:

Other views:

I tried to use those saftey pin like stitch markers, but they were too thick. These weren’t even coilless saftey pins, which I would recommend, as it would be a bit easier to remove the saftey pin if you happen to catch that coil on the wrong side of the loop. If that happens you have to stretch the yarn in that area a tiny bit more to get the saftey pin off. Mine came out about 80% correct, and 20% wrong. The heel still looks awesome though.

Back to Knit Visualizer.

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a few hours later - an update on that KV2.0 thing. I have the demo versions ready. I have the full versions ready (I hope! no more last minute bugs please!). I have the upgrade webpage about half ready. I still have to build the coupon codes for upgraders (this is a biggie) and do some PHP for the demo download, and then upload the finished/changed web pages and then email everyone about it.

This is what the icon for the new Save File Converter tool that comes with Knit Visualizer 2.0 looks like (Except for the black background - flickr decided it didn’t like the transparency of those areas for some reason).

I was really hoping to get everything done today for the Knit Visualizer 2.0 release; but it looks like it’s just not quite done yet. Monday night should give me a bit more time to get those final things done; but I checked off over half my list today of things left to do. Progress is good!

Fast shipping that is. I just ordered this yarn from my LYS in the hopes of getting it in before I go to Madrona. I have a plan to make The Husband a sweater, in mostly plain stockinette in this beautiful yarn. It would be the perfect knit-and-chat project. I won’t know until Monday if they can get it in time, but apparently Cascade is a local company and I’m crossing my fingers it can be on it’s way to me by next week.