I’ve got to be crazy–to put myself on the line like this, as a designer?

Just to get you up to speed: I just printed out the postage label for the priority packaged envelope lying on my desk right now. It’s about to be sealed, postage-stuck, and put out in the mail.

This is it! This is my first submission (well, submissions, considering there are three inside) to a publication.

I know there hasn’t been much in the way of patterns here for the site, but I have been busy, and I have been working toward something big for a while now. One of these submission items is huge for me–a big step in my design career/path.

I hope they like it.

Shit (sorry!), I hope they like all three.

Okay, here I go…I’m about to walk out the door and attempt something huge for me.

Or not, it would seem. It’s too big for the mailbox! Guess I’ll be driving it. In the meantime, have a look at Rowan with the package. She’ll keep it safe for me until I drive it into town just before lunch.

I have amazingly talented listeners of my podcast. Truly. One of them is Julie, of Lotus Knits (her Etsy shop is 1,000 Petals), who is a brilliant yarn dye fanatic. I happened to mention to her one day that I was in lust with one of the skeins she had up for sale on her Etsy. It’s still there, but I have no idea why. It’s brilliant! You should buy it and make me jealous.

Here it is:

Isn’t it..don’t you think…? OH GOD, I have no words. It makes me hungry. I think that’s hunger. It could be…something else entirely.

Back to my story, dear ones.

I mentioned my lust, and that when I have the funds, I was going to buy some of her yarn and podcast about it’s deliciousness. She replied, telling me how she would like to dye me a skein of yarn if I would only tell her the colors I like, the type of dye process, and my address. How freakin’ RAD is that?!!!! There aren’t enough exclamation points in the whole world!!!!!!!!!!

A week or so passes and a box arrives for me, containing this:

That package contained the following:

But it looked more like this:

Mostly because I totally fail at unwinding twisted hanks and winding them into balls. Seriously. Hours of frustration when all I want is to dive in and GO. So, the lovely Julie said she wouldn’t mind winding into the above ball.

MERINO/SILK BLEND, people. It’s a shaded yarn in a light turquoise and I loooooooove it.

As soon as I got it, I started swatching!

It took me a while to figure out what I wanted to do with this beauty. I think it’s about 17WPI, which would place it somewhere around fingering, maybe? Julie? Do you want to step in here?

Anyway, I had two ideas for this, and if there’s yarn enough, I’ll hopefully be able to do both. But here’s the first, a sneak peak if you will:

Half-Double crochet and Front-Post stitches, which are creating that beautiful, natural scallop edging. I’m using a rather large hook for the yarn, so it’s creating a nice lacy effect between the post stitches.

What do you think?

I’ve been distracted by quite a lot, but I had time to finish at least one crocheted item. Next to my bed is a baby blanket I stopped crocheting about a week ago. Two nights ago I started a purse design. Last night I frogged the damned thing. On my desk there was some tunisian going on with this great 100% fingering-weight wool and an I-hook. There was no real purpose, I was just curious, but even that was frogged about an hour before this post. Since then I’ve pretty much just taken to scouring fashion websites for inspiration.

Somewhere, somehow, during the last week, I finished a bib off by crocheting the neck straps. The body has been done for about a month, grant you, but it wasn’t until this last week that I finished them off. To help my progression along, I purchased velcro strips that had industrial strength adhesive so that the strips would remain attached to the crochet stitches. I placed it in two spots so that it can be adjustable. The velcro will make it much easier to attach and remove, versus a button or tie.

(click on thumbnails to see larger)

It’s the first bib I’ve ever made, and I sort of winged the whole thing. I just used the available cotton I had lying around. I think it would be great to get some of that material that can be applied/sewn to the backside of the piece to protect the child’s clothing. It’s a good idea, at least. What wasn’t necessarily a great idea was putting this bib on my mannequin head. The neck is long, and the chest area is very rounded, so the bib doesn’t lie very well against the curve. Still, you can see it, and that’s at least something.

Just trying to come up with some ideas and designs for MommySquared.

Pardon me. I’m not sure I’m having the best night/morning ever. I’m feeling very dry. Dried up. Does that ever happen to you?

Maybe it’s not so much distraction, or restlessness, but more that I’m dry and in a creative lull? I think that’s worse. I need creative lubrication, dude! (I apologize for my lapse into dude-ism; if you knew me in person, you’d realize that I do this a lot. Dude! So not on.)

Back to lubrication. I’m hoping it’s just a short spell. Is this the part where I’m supposed to crochet other people’s patterns? Maybe I would crochet more if I could get myself to crochet others’ designs. It’s hard, though. It’s really hard to give myself permission to not work on something that will be my very own, or will help supplement income during the slower months where work is scarce (life of an at-home-worker).

What’s driving me insane is that I’ve been sketching ideas out for designs, but lately it’s all garments. I haven’t ever crocheted a garment. It’s intimidating for me because I haven’t expanded in that direction, and I want to! Oh, darlings, I want to very much. This is where I definitely have to pull a pattern from a designer whose designs I love and trust. I don’t want a box, as I wouldn’t design OR crochet a boxy garment unless it’s the purpose of the design.

There is also the issue of yarn. I have to find yarn I like and somehow afford enough of it for a garment. Shucks. Crap. Dang. Damn. I’ll figure this out. Eventually. Hopefully soon. I’ll hit up my favorite designer and see if I have enough of one yarn to crochet one of her designs. Mmhmm. Good plan, me. Go Team Brianna.

Coupon for Croshay Design, originally uploaded by Josi Hannon Madera.

A deal that can’t be missed! Two top-notch designers, two coupons, one golden opportunity that is only available until the end of the month.

Josi Hannon Madera (Art of Crochet) and Laura Killoran (Croshay Design) are offering one coupon (code: iwantitALL) for every single hat pattern listed on Croshay Design, topped off with a free copy of Josi’s Bonny Cloche and Scarf set.

In addition, they are offering an additional coupon for Josi’s Bonny Cloche and Scarf set, free, after purchasing two of Laura’s patterns (code: ArtOfCroshay).

To be honest, there is simply no beating that. True design, pure vision, and excellent artistry.

The hat to match the bag is COMPLETE. Because it’s not worked in the round I had to find a seam that was neither glaringly obvious or ugly. I settled on a two-step process that is, unfortunately, still visible, but not ugly and mimics the look of the hat enough that it blends in just enough. I’m sure there will be a better option discovered in the future, but for now it fits both design and need.

The only thing–things, I should say–left to do is to insert the support bottom of the purse to keep it sturdy, and line the bag. Baby-Sister-in-Law will model for photographs, and during all of this, I’ll be writing up the pattern for a couple of testers. If all goes well–when all goes well, that is–it will be up for sale. It’s an intermediate (possible intermediate-advanced) project, I would say. Lots of tunisian knit stitch, shaping, a few treble post stitches, reverse single crochet edgings, and a tunisian seam and chaining. Good fun, really!

Josi’s doing it again! Via her blog, Josi has started a tunisian crochet swatch-a-long for the purpose of playing with surface texture and developing new stitch patterns. She and I have both been on a massive tunisian kick for a while, and with good reason! Tunisian crochet kicks a lot of butt.

This style of crochet creates a delicious dense fabric when you work with the common stitches but, with some creativity, you can create open work with great stability and versatility. Tunisian doesn’t exist to merely mimic our knitting-counterparts’ knit and purl stitches. Instead, tunisian exists as a relatively untapped source of new stitch and design options! Read the rest