The Beast, as I not-so-fondly referred to the Interweave Crochet project, was shipped this past week. The box was massive and, due to costs, is likely not going to arrive until today (Saturday) or this coming Monday.

From online tracking, I know the box of yarn leftovers already made it to the Interweave office in Loveland, CO. Now I’m just crossing my fingers that the actual project makes it there safely and that they don’t promptly e-mail to tell me that it arrived a big ol’ mess. Or, worse, that it’s hideous and they would never accept a submission from me again.

There’s a lot of fear in this world of crochet design, let me tell you. No hiding the fact that I’m terrified someone is going to call or e-mail and it will only be someone saying:

HAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAA

The rational part of me realizes this is unwarranted. The irrational part of me is looking for a dark corner.

To keep myself from going down that path, let me tell you two lessons I learned during this imposed absence of mine:

1. Never promise to crochet something 10 times larger than the sample you sent in. (Also note the promised 10 times will probably equal 11 times because of 2 below.)

2. Measure, calculate, math, math, math, 4,013 times before you begin. I screwed up my math twice.

The first time I was halfway through the first half of the first side. The second time I was already done with both sides and beginning to seam the blasted thing together. Due to each section of the sides taking 5-6 hours per, there was no way I was going to be able to re-crochet the whole thing in time. So, I told my lip to stop quivering, pulled up my Big Girl Pants, and wrote down where I screwed up. I then padded the pillow to use up the extra space I had to work with.

Here’s a third thing I learned:

3. I dislike large projects. If I can’t finish it within a day or two, I want nothing to do with it.

That could always change in the future, and this may have more to do with having a bunch of merino on my lap in the middle of a Florida summer, but still, lesson learned for the time being.

Having said that, I’m proud of the work I did do. I really hope it arrives safe and sound, and that they’re able to photograph it, highlighting how lovely the finished product can be.

I realize that I’m crochet-crochet-crochet, but I’ve been taking a break since shipping off The Beast. I’ve picked up some circular knitting needles and am just knitting away. I’m not even knitting anything in particular. The freedom is lovely and rewarding, but I can already feel the itch to play with these bad boys…

Knitting, Publication Subs, Tools

I wanted to be published, and that’s going to happen, but now is the stressful time. Now is made up of the moments after the box of yarn arrives and I have to actually crochet this thing.

This thing is huge.

See that? I’m crocheting something for that giant 36″ monster. That’s a lot of crocheting considering I’m not just crocheting a giant circle. You’ll see what I mean when you purchase my issue of Interweave Crochet after it comes out.

I can’t believe I get to say that. MY ISSUE. The issue in which I am PUBLISHED. Yes! *fist pump*

So there’s this box full of yarn, with colors and bags and I have to use it, keep track of it, make sure dog hair doesn’t make its way into it, and I’m still in shock.

I need to snap out of this, though, because while I have this big project, I also have to work 8-10 hours five days a week, part-time University every day of the week (practically), and The Yarn Side to try and keep up with. I don’t even have time to podcast, really, and there have been thoughts entering my head that I should put that on hiatus. Then I worry about how people would feel about my doing that.

What to do, what to do.

Right now my only decision is to just try and keep moving forward. Try to work a little of everything everday, not allow myself to become so involved with any one thing for too long, or I focus too much on it and become drained.

How do you best handle a large number of To-Do’s and the stress that comes with it?

Talk

Here we are, after a lengthy absence, and I have some news to share.

My absence began with my grandfather becoming ill, which weeks later turned into an absence because my grandfather passed away. My family has been dealing with all the things families deal with when a loved one is no longer around. We’re all slowly readjusting to life without him, which is hard, but harder when I think about how something so exciting that just happened is the first thing I’m not able to share with him.

That exciting news is that I received word that I’ll have a design published in Interweave Crochet, Winter ‘09! I sent two swatches, and received an email from the editor that they want one of the two, and that they would like the finished pieced to be much larger than my initial plans. It’s super exciting, and I can’t wait to get started, but we still need to finalize the contract and discuss yarns.

So what have you been up to while I’ve been gone?

Talk

In the last week or so I’ve spent time away from the computer. Not self-imposed time away, but Family Emergency away. Without going into too much detail, my maternal grandfather was put in the Hospital due to Pneumonia. Unfortunately the Pneumonia was due to his weakened immune system from his Leukemia. There was a severe dive in his health, and we all feared the worst. He’s slowly getting better, but is not yet at a point where my family and I can take that sigh of relief. Because of this, however, I’ve been away from the computer.

It’s only been the last few days where I was able to make it into work, and now I’m trying to slowly catch up with you all. While I do that, have a crappy iPhone photo of a scarf I started…

This scarf is made up of samples from the February Phat Fiber sampler box. A couple of the samples are actually ones that I spun from small batts. I have a couple more fiber samples that I need to finish spinning before I can call this scarf done. I’m letting all the ends hang for the meantime. Not sure if they’re visually appealing enough to leave them dangling or if I should take the time to weave them in.

Crochet, Life Stuff

Math, specifically Geometry, is sometimes over my head. Even still, this video of Margaret Wertheim discussing Coral, Crochet, and Hyperbolic Geometry, is fascinating on several levels. If math scares you, don’t worry–there’s more discussed than just Geometry.  The art installations that they show in the video are gorgeous, and I’m so very glad to see crochet represented in another beautiful form.

Other Crochet, Talk

I’ve been preoccupied with dyeing lately, but trying a new technique has forced me to recognize how I haven’t been spending much time crocheting lately.

Before I decide whether or not I’m going to offer yarn, using this new technique, I’ve decided to crochet it up into a simple scarf.

That was the beginning of the scarf, and it’s about 2-3 times longer right now. It’s a single crochet, very basic scarf. The only difference is that I’m using this new speckled-shade dye technique which does all of the interesting work for you.

In the photo you can see how dark the end of the scarf is–a very deep green with a hint of brown. In the ball behind it, the outer part is a very light shade of green, and I mean very light. There are, however, specks of darker shades in those strands too. As the piece is crocheted, the overall tone becomes lighter, but the speckled areas will actually darken.

It works like this…

Darker end = medium and light speckles;
Middle section = light and dark speckles;
Light end = medium and dark speckles

I’ll post some more progress shots, as well as the final product, when I get a chance. It’s sure to be an interesting experience!

I wanted to share this as it’s a great example of letting the yarn do the work for you. In fiber arts–I’m thinking crochet and knitting here–when the fiber is more interesting, or visually stimulating, you end up using simple stitches, or less complicated stitch patterns. Most often this is due to the fact that colorful, visual fiber loses the stitch pattern, making it appear less prominent.

Le’ts face it, when we use a fancy, or complex, stitch pattern, we want to see that stitch pattern, so we use a simple (read: smooth) yarn. The reverse is true of fancy, or interesting, yarn. Simplify the stitch or stitch pattern to let the yarn pop. There are, I’m sure, exceptions to this, but that’s a great general rule to follow.

Crochet, Dyeing