Nice to See You Again, Itasca!

Over a year ago I was lucky enough to be asked by fellow Tanis, Tanis Lavallee from Tanis Fiber Arts up in Canada to design the first project for her Year in Colour Club for 2011. Not only am I a GIGANTIC fan of her hand dyed colors, but a fellow Tanis is hard to come by so we have to stick together!

I love projects like this. Tanis sent me a special color reserved only for the club (I had no idea what was coming, only that it was sock yarn and blue) and asked me to design something with her sock yarn that wasn't socks and took only 1 hank of yarn. Always chomping at the bit to throw another lace pattern out into the ether, I had a few ideas rolling around but wanted to wait and see what the exact color was. Color has a HUGE influence over me and it really can change an idea when you see it in person.

This is what I wrote about my design...

"When I get sent yarn to knit a garment and am given free reign over my design, I try not to look at the color name.  I find this can have a huge influence over me and I like to keep an open mind, leave the yarn on my desk for a few days and see what kind of inspiration hits without any prejudice. Growing up on the ocean near Boston I know how quickly the ocean can go from calm waters to raging storms in a very short while. The blue color looks just like the ocean in winter-calm on top with a raging storm underneath. That’s the beauty of Tanis Fiber Arts - it’s multidimensional. I wanted to use a lace pattern that looked like churning water with an edging that mimicked waves, showing off the gorgeous colorway. The name “itasca” comes from the coast guard base that Amelia Earhart radioed into while trying to complete her fateful last mission around the world. She left the last leg of her final voyage with clear skies and a favorable weather forecast, only to have the weather change to an intense storm making celestial navigation impossible, therefore sealing her unknown fate."

Now one year later, Itasca is available to all. You can download the pattern on Ravely here. Hope you enjoy it!

Free Pattern Alert!

I love Cascade Yarns. They have an incredible variety of yarns, amazing colors, weights and fibers. My hands down favorite is their Alpaca Duo and the hat I made in it last year is super cozy and I always gets compliments on it.

I've been fortunate enough to get to edit two of their incredibly popular "60 Quick..." books from that beloved series. I edited their first one back when we first moved to DC:

And their latest when I was 1 week away from delivering Callum (but didn't know it at the time since he arrived 7 weeks early). Each book in this series gets better and better and when non knitters ask me what they should get for their knitting sister/mother/girlfriend/etc, I almost always recommend one of the "60 Quick..." books.

Not only do they have great, affordable yarn, but these are solid-to-the-Earth people. Family run, I haven't met anyone from the Cascade family who isn't kind or generous. I was asked last year to do a handful of patterns for them and they are just starting to debut online.

Up today and in their recent newsletter are the Eco Alpaca Cabled Wristers. Download it for FREE here or find it on Ravelry here.

Available a few weeks ago was the Mock Ribbed Watch Cap, also available for FREE here or on Ravelry here.

There were 3 other patterns I did for them so keep your eyes open for those!

Vogue Knitting Winter

One thing I really like about freelance knitting is you work really hard to knit something (usually under an insane deadline), block it, finalize the pattern, pack it up, send it off to the publisher and promptly forget about it. You send your creative visions in knitwear form off with a smile and a wave and they are out of your life.

Then the best part happens... You get the magazine or book your work is featured in in the mail, you flip through the pages and lo and behold, there it is! Styled, beautifully shot and out there for everyone else to see, what you worked on feverishly on your living room couch, car rides, in bed while watching the late night news and on the Metro is now public. It's a nice feeling to open a page and see your work.

My latest design was something I had to knit very quickly with a lot of yarn. It's in the Vogue Knitting Winter 2011/12 issue that hits stands January 8, 2012. An oversized lace poncho (anyone who knows me as a knitter knows how much I love knitting lace), it's knit with 18 balls of S. Charles Collezione Peruviano and 3 of S. Charles Diva. You can check it out on a body from all sides in realtime on VK360 here.

I always love Holiday and Winter issues of knitting magazines. They pull out all the stops and when it's chilly out, all you want to do is curl up and knit anyway, right?

You can find it on Ravelry, along with all the other garments from this issue, here.

Igby

Originally this was going to be a knitting-related blog only, and I intend to keep it that way save a few personal posts here and there that cannot go unacknowledged. We lost a member of our family today and that demands attention. My sweet Igby hung out on my stoop in Brooklyn for a week. She kept coming back and she was so small I thought she was a kitten. Of course we started feeding her and before I knew it (and many "found" posters later that went unanswered), I was officially adopting her. She was malnourished, but fixed, so she was someone's pet at some point. Her ribs were bruised and the vet said she had probably been kicked around. She was in rough shape but lovable and very beautiful.

I was never really a cat person. I didn't like the hair everywhere or the smell of cat food. I'd rather play tag in traffic than scoop out a litter box everyday. That all changed when Igby and I found each other and we got each other through many tough times. Bad boyfriends, friendships starting and ending, broken hearts and broken bones, moves here and there... Through it all there she was, waiting patiently for me to let her out of her carrier and move onto the next phase together.

We moved from Brooklyn to Jersey City. Suddenly we were living with a guy who hated cats (my soon-to-be husband) which took some getting used to for both of us. Then a year or so later we really threw her for a loop and introduced Mercury, our pug into the mix. Igby hid in the bathroom for almost a week, scared of the happy puppy who made it her mission to lick Igby, jump on her and run circles around her. Eventually they became buddies, with Igby clearly the alpha female of the house. Sometimes they'd even squish themselves into the same pet bed.

We bought our first home in another part of Jersey City and moved the girls the night before we moved the furniture. Igby hid in the closet until the movers left, but seemed excited about the prospect of lower windowsills-perfect for lounging.

A few years later we moved to Washington, DC, a long car ride with Mercury and Igby in their respective crates wondering what the heck was going on. We had a small balcony in the new place and they seemed ok with the move after that, as long as we'd drag the pet beds out on the summer evenings for them to snooze in the breeze.

Suddenly, we found out a new addition would be coming (the human variety this time) and moved to the other tower of our complex. No balcony this time, but a long hallway perfect for playing fetch and a floor-length window under my desk ideal for both people watching and easy petting access.

We were never really sure how old Igby was. I rescued her in 2002 and the vet said she was at least 3 at that time. I took her for her check up last year and she needed a few teeth removed. The vet said she was pre-hyperthyroid but it could be a year or many years before it manifested. It was hard to estimate since we didn't know how old she was.

We came home from Thanksgiving a few weeks ago and Igby was barely eating. Barely eating turned into not eating at all and suddenly my beautiful cat went from a robust 14 pounds to a barely there 6 pounds in a matter of a couple of weeks. Off to the vet we went again, but I knew it wouldn't be good news.

I got the call yesterday that she was full-blown hyperthyroid, her liver was failing, she was prediabetic and this self-imposed anorexia was causing significant problems with her chance to ward off everything that was descending. Cats take medication through food and when they won't eat... I have too much respect for my sweet girl to make her go through any more pain than she was in already.

My affectionate, marble-eyed beauty went to sleep today. I never liked cats but with her it was love at first sight. I'll miss your forever, dear Igby and I know you'll be waiting for me on the other side. Take care, my lovely.