Believe it or not, I have been designing lately. In fact — and this is just between you and me, you understand — I published a couple of patterns just today. Not only that, but I’ve put them on sale for a couple of days to celebrate their release (details at the bottom).
This here is Chicken-leg Al the Wonder Cat. You may remember him from such posts as An Elephant in a Day, Which Inexplicably Disappeared to Some Place Called Canada, Which is Weird Because Clearly it was Mine, Lady, it’s Raining, Would You Let Me IN Already, and A Brand New Thing for Me to Sit On.
I love it when a plan comes together.
Even here in the Dirty South, the cold is coming. Well, as much cold as we get here, which by Northern standards is more like a brief flirtation with the idea of being chilly. Still, the air has gone from soft to crisp, and I’ve been here long enough that I get whiny at anything below about 45 Fahrenheit (that’s around 7 Celsius for the rest of the world). (I’ve also been here long enough that I describe temperature in Fahrenheit, though I use the ‘double it and add 30’ conversion from Bob & Doug McKenzie* to make sense of it.) Here are the latest preparations for the eight week onslaught of not-being-quite-warm-enough. Continue reading
As you may have noticed, there has been a lull in creative activity at the Casa de Cusser these days. We’re getting my mother-in-law’s house ready to sell, and because I used to paint houses for a living and therefore can’t stand the thought of hiring someone else to do it, I volunteered to do the painting. To no-one’s surprise, this turned out to be a much bigger job than I expected, partly because I am very, very fussy about painting, and partly because it’s been a while and I am slower than I used to be. What has surprised me about this task (beyond the fact that it never seems to end) is the amount of creative energy it sucks out of a person. At the end of the day, all I want to do is sit down with someone else’s pattern, preferably in garter stitch, and binge-watch murder mysteries. This has not been great for writing or designing, but it sure has helped me make a dent in the backlog of gift knitting, especially tiny, fast baby knitting. Fair warning: there is an awful lot of adorable ahead. Continue reading
Over the last few months, I’ve mentioned a collaborative project with an indie dyer whose work I really admire. Well, here it is: the Saturnalia Infinity Scarf, in colours by Astral Bath Yarns. Mmmm…red and red.
Some time ago, for a design contest, I came up with these mittens:
I love these mittens. I love the texture of the fabric, I love the way the 2-colour cable looks like embroidery, I love the whole sort of Renaissance textile feel of the things.
There was just one problem: they only came in small. Continue reading
Although I may not be doing much gift knitting, there’s a lot of it going around, and the knit-something-for-yourself-for-a-change season is coming up quickly. With that in mind, here are two new patterns, released today.
Galiano, a deep, moebius shaped hood/cowl, which can be worn up to keep your ears from freezing off
Interweave Knits Holiday Gifts 2012 is out, and great day in the morning, I have two designs in there. Now, this is the first time my designs have appeared in a print magazine, so please excuse me if I gush a bit. I’ll try to keep it to a minimum. Continue reading
