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Tinking Turtle Raverly

Totem is Out!

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About 15 minutes ago I was taking a break from working on writing a pattern for Sockupied that will be coming out in the Fall.

I was scrolling through my Google Feed reader when I came across this post on Knitting Daily.  I’m going through the article when I notice the socks – and my first thought is, huh.  I made a pair of socks in that colorway (by Three Irish Girls).  Then I go… oh wait… that IS my pattern!

Totem, I’m happy to announce, is out.  You can buy it on the Interweave website, and it’s a true steal.  And it’s on the cover of Sockupied! (They’re the red ones, seen to the right.)

In the upcoming days I’ll be talking a little bit about the inspiration for Totem, early iterations, the design process for this sock, and a variety of other things!

Have you looked at the new Sockupied yet?  Anything you see in the magazine that you’d like to work up?

Yarn Bowl and Ripping

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This MLK weekend Michael and I went home to his parents.  The trip was threefold: we wanted to exchange Christmas gifts with his family, Michael needed to do some work for his father’s company, and I needed to meet with the wedding photographer for wedding photos.  It was going to be a really packed weekend.

There were some great highlights to the weekend: I had a lot of fun with Michael’s mother and Michael’s family friend and neighbor (Sue).  We met with the photographer to do studio shots, and then went to the church that Michael’s parents help build for some “location” shots.  It was great.  We also worked on a surprise that I can’t talk about much more, because Michael might see.  We also did some great wedding planning with Michael’s parents, Sue and her husband Larry.  It was lovely.

There were also some real lows to the weekend.  I had a lot of nervousness about making sure my dress was ready and getting ready for the photos.  Doing hair and makeup is not my strong suit, and in previous occasions I’ve always had the luxury of having a room-mate, my mother or my sister available to help me.  (Or basically do it for me.)  I can style my hair, but nothing fancy.  I really spent a lot of time stressing about all those details before the photo-shoot  and it culminated in a bit of an emotional meltdown the morning of taking photos.  I ended up crying, which only distressed me more (because my eyes are getting red and face blotchy).  Michael managed to talk me down, and I was able to turn it around, but it was quite a bit of a low point.

Also, on the train ride home I managed to realize that my math was REALLY off for the sock design I’m working on right now.  It involves slipped stitch cables, which really draws the fabric in tight.  After getting a few inches into the ankle, I gave the sock a REALLY hard look, and decided I had to put the stitches for the afterthought heel on a holder so I could try on the sock.  The sock didn’t even get over my heel.

So… Rip rip rip went the entire weekend’s work.

Not a great feeling.

I came home really sulking about the need to rip.  Michael and I began unpacking, and that’s when my mood began to lift.  One of the things to come out of our suitcase was two Christmas gifts.  One, the yarn bowl that  you see at the beginning of the post.   Sue gave it to me, and it was a lovely gift.  A yarn bowl is something I’ve been wanting (we’ve had them at The Yarn Spot), but couldn’t justify buying for myself.  The one Sue gave me is lovely – SO my colors.

The second gift?  It involves a story.  Michael’s family is big on doing slideshows when they get together to share what has been happening in each others lives.  I love the tradition, both because I get to show off my photography, and because I like sharing our adventures.  When Michael and I went to Assanteague I took a picture as we watched the sunrise.  When we showed it to Michael’s parents it apparently left an impression. For Christmas they had it printed and framed for me.  It meant a lot – that they would treat my photography as something worthy of being framed and shown off.

So I guess you gotta take the highs with the lows – and hold the highs in your mind and let the lows go.  Meanwhile, I’ll be knitting.

Moving On and Changing Focus

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When I was younger I used to get the most awful growing pains.  Often they would come at night and leave me tossing and turning as I tried to find a position that would work so that I wouldn’t feel the pain.  Luckily, like most children, I grew out of the pain (and my clothes!) and settled into my new skin.  But I still remember those wakeful nights.

Classes at The Yarn Spot

I’ve been kept up with another type of growing pain these last few weeks – as I’ve come to face that the time Tinking Turtle needs to grow, and the time has to come from somewhere, and I have only so many hours in the day.  It is with bittersweet feelings that I’ve come to the conclusion that I can no longer fit working at The Yarn Spot into my weekly routine.  I need to focus my energy on the great things I have planned for my business.  It is not fair to The Yarn Spot that I work for them while my brain is somewhere else.

It would be remiss of me to not mention how much The Yarn Spot has done for me – letting me develop and hone my teaching style, helping me make connections in the industry and teaching me about many of the different things that go on behind the scenes of running a Yarn Retail Business.  Thank you very much to Victoria and Marianne for giving me so many different opportunities – and for being very forgiving when I made mistakes.

The Yarn Spot is most graciously hosting a party in honor of this transition at the store.  It will be occurring on January 31st from 4-6 pm.  I hope you can make it!

Mom’s Bowl of Fruit

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I thought I had written about the other present I made for Christmas, until it was pointed out to me that I actually had not.  This set of gifts comes with a story.

My mother is a registered Dietary Nutritionist, and she’s constantly looking for ways to engage her clients and classes and demonstrate healthy eating.  When we were younger and the food pyramid had just come out, McDonald’s released little toys in the shape of fruits and vegetables, milk, cheese, bread, etc. to support the release of the food pyramid.  She had the whole neighborhood scouting out the toys so she could get the whole collection.  Over the years we’ve gotten her stuffed animals from Ikea in the shape of vegetables and fruit and other things.  However, lately her demo toys have become quite ragged, and some of them broken.  After a none-too-subtle hint that she’d like some new toy fruit to use, I took up the challenge to create my mother a super-awesome bowl of fruit and veggies.

What did I make her?  Well, I needed a good selection, and I wanted ones that were both iconic, and some that were harder to find (IE: don’t come in your typical plastic toy selection for children)  I made her: an apple, carrot, broccoli, pumpkin, cherries, pomegranate, peas in a pod, and a little set of cherries.  She was really excited.

I love giving things I make to my mother.  On Christmas day she was wearing one of the pairs of socks I made for her nearly two years ago.  She takes good care of the items I make for her, follows the washing directions, and knows how much time each of them takes me.  Like most mothers, she also treasures them the same way she treasures the holiday ornament made out of marshmallows when I was three – important and precious not only because they are lovely in themselves, but because her children made them.  Inspired by my mother, I’m hoping to make a cornucopia of fruits and vegetables this year – a series of patterns so that anyone can have cute vegetables where they need them.  I just got to do some more testing – some of the ones I made for my mother are great and could be written up and published within the month… others, I need to take some time to think about them.

In Conversation with Michael

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Me: *wanders into the bathroom to brush teeth and see that Peake is playing with the drops coming out of the shower*  “Michael, Peake’s still playing with the yarn droplets, and he’s all wet.”

Michael: Yarn Droplets?

Me (confused): Yarn droplets coming out of the shower.

Michael: Yarn Droplets?

Me: Yarn droplets.

Michael: Don’t you mean water droplets?

Me: *Blinks* Oh, yeah.

My brain just completely switched the word for water for yarn.  To be fair, I’m working on a design that has to do with water right now, and is in a waterish color, and I’d spent the last hour knitting and meditating on the intersection of water and land – yarn and water were kinda already twined in my mind.

But I’m kinda glad that it’s Michael who shares my space.  He has 5 years figuring this stuff out.

Rosemary’s Hedwig

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I realized that I had never gotten pictures of the Christmas gifts I made for everyone up – I had to keep them a secret because well… I wanted them to be a surprise.

Rosemary, my sister, this year got a crochet Hedwig.  I’ll quote my notes from my Ravelry project page directly, because I think it says my thoughts about the project well:

Heavily modified Nelson the Owl from Fresh Stitches, almost so that I wouldn’t call it the same pattern.

Different stitch count on body (made body taller and less squat), different stitch count on head, I didn’t do the color changes, sized up the wings, improvised my own feet so that there were toes, no ears, made eyes slightly different. Basically, only thing not changed was the nose. Changed the colors to reflect a snowy owl, made body white, didn’t do the color changes on the belly, embroidered little “ends of feathers” onto body after crocheting, made an improvised set of feet with bobbles turned inside out. 

I still think Hedwig looks funny without ear tufts, but since snowy owls don’t really have ear tufts, that’s fine. She reads as a snowy owl, so I guess that’s all that is needed.

Rosemary was happy with it, and all told the project probably only took me at most, probably 5 or 6 hours all told.  And that was mostly because I was being fiddly with things, and ripped back a few times to adjust.  I also was fiddly with the seaming, so that took longer.  I still think it came out crooked, but don’t tell my sister that – Rosemary has a “thing” about objects being symmetrical  and I already had to convince her the eyes really WERE the same size.

Back Home from the Holidays

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Michael and I staggered in from traveling home on Thursday.  It’s now Sunday, and I finally feel like I’ve recovered from traveling.  While I have much to tell of our adventures while we went home to visit my parents, I thought I would share the sight of what greeted us when we returned home.

Apparently Peake and Watson got bored while we were gone, and we returned to find that they had gotten into one of the boxes where I store my yarn.  Luckily most of the yarn was odds and ends from other projects – so no great loss, but I’m baffled as to how they got in the box – seeing as they had to pull it out of a shelf, take off the top of the box, and then open another box that was inside of it.  *Shakes head* These cats are perhaps smarter than I realized.  Also, I think they have thumbs they are hiding from us.

It was like a scene from a movie will lasers going across the room – the was yarn wrapped around the couch, through and around the Christmas tree, around the dinning room table, through chairs, around the office chairs and the checkered table… let’s just say I’m glad we didn’t have a bigger apartment, as I shudder to think of how much of a mess they could have made in a bigger home.

After contemplating untangling the whole thing, I got out the scissors and cut.  No doubt I could have untangled it all – so long as I wanted to devote the next few days to fixing it.

Luckily, that was the worst of the trouble they got into.  We had the foresight to bring all the houseplants into the bedroom, so they couldn’t knock over any of those, and all the knicknacks were stashed safely away.  There were a few Christmas garlands torn down, a new ornaments that were off the tree, but it was all small fries.

Meanwhile, I’m brainstorming new ways to make sure they don’t get into my boxes of yarn.

Students Report In!

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One of my favorite things about being a knit and crochet designer and teacher is that I get to live vicariously through my students.  Because most of the projects I crochet are original designs, I rarely get to try out the beautiful other patterns other designers produce.

Elizabeth was one of my students a couple of months ago.  She came into The Yarn Spot for some private lessons, and simply took to crochet like water.  Next thing I know she’s taking some of my intermediate classes and showing me pictures like the ones to the side.  In a few short weeks she had made ENTIRE AFGHANS.  Do you know in the many years I’ve been crocheting how many afghans I’ve made?  One.  And I stopped early because I got bored.  It ended up being a lap blanket.

So in order to get in the head of someone so incredibly motivated and excited about her new hobby, I “invited” (really demanded, but she’s accommodating) Elizabeth to answer a few questions about herself.

Look how large this blanket is.
Why did you want to learn to crochet?
Two of my favorite things in my home are a blanket made by my Aunt Connie for me when I was little and a housewarming gift made by one of my best high school friends. Both are chevron crocheted blankets. I have always felt loved cuddling up in them and being able to make those for other people in my life is what made me want to learn to crochet. 
What would you like to learn to do in the future?
I’ve just started making stuffed animals, and I think, at some point, lace might be fun. But really I have no idea 🙂
Quick! Your’re an animal, what are you?
Penguin.
What type of projects are you looking at doing next?
I am working on a stuffed dinosaur and a blanket for my husband. I think, after that, I would like to try a project involving granny squares. 
What words of encouragement would you say to other crocheters or knitters who are just starting out?
Keep at it! It’s fun and relaxing all at the same time, and the feeling of finishing up your first gift is amazing. 

This one is pretty big too – and the stitches came out beautiful and regular.

Thank you Elizabeth for stopping by and showing off your hard work.  Keep at it!

Are you a student that’s taken one of my classes or a private lesson?  Have you ever worked one of my patterns?  I’d love to hear about you and your projects!

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