May

29

A most unsuitable orchid

Knitting / Nature
Encyclia

Encyclia something

An orchid intermission was just the thing to do to tear myself away from the never-ending editing job of putting the not-quite-so-final touches to my pattern, so yesterday we took a day trip to Santa Barbara to visit an orchid nursery, a couple of yarn stores, and walk around the chalk paintings of the Madonnari festival at the Santa Barbara Mission.

On the trip there I managed to scribble a few notes on my print-outs, because I was to anal dedicated to leave home without them. All that dedication went away as soon as we reached the Santa Barbara Orchid Estate and Ben had to figure out how to leave the place without me mortgaging the house.

Lycaste aromatica

Lycaste aromatica

I had a vague idea of what I wanted to look at, which I did, but then fell in love with the most unsuitable orchid. Leave it to me to become infatuated with the only cinnamon-scented specimen among thousands of orchids. Of all the scents that give me instant headaches and leave me gasping for air, cinnamon is the worst offender and the beguiling orchid smelled like the most disgusting chewing gum. It took me a while to realize that the plant I was admiring was the source of that smell. By then it was too late; I already knew that I wanted it. Fortunately, the Lycaste Aromatica in question turned out not to be for sale, being that it was the mother plant and they had run out of smaller specimens. Unfortunately, the nice woman at the nursery offered to call another orchid nursery down the road to see if they had a young plant available.

You know how the story ends: we have the orchid in the back seat for the two-hour trip home while I try to survive without breathing. The Lycaste Aromatica is an outdoor orchid and is now sitting pretty between a languishing lavander and a struggling raspberry plant. We’ll see how she does in the next few days. I just couldn’t resist the intense yellow flowers.

No water until Luis says its' raining in Mexico

No water until Luis says its' raining in Mexico

Ah, the watering instructions are a bit on the fuzzy side: “No water until Luis says it’s raining in Mexico.” Hm, OK.

So many shapes and colors and sizes!

A tube of orchids

A tube of orchids

Some kind of Masdevallia?

Some kind of Masdevallia?

A disturbing orchid

A disturbing orchid

White is always pretty

White is always pretty

Horned orchids

The horned ones

Oh yes, there was yarn, lots of yarn and all of the Habu variety — insert little dance here — from the cutest yarn shop: Loop & Leaf. But by then I was tired of taking pictures so you’ll just have to go there yourself next time you’re in Santa Barbara.

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May

21

Cuoricini (tiny hearts)

Knitting

After finalizing my lace stitch,

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I knit a few more swatches to try it in different yarns and eventually cast on with a semi-solid red yarn called Wash My Lace. I am a bit apprehensive about the superwash merino bouncing back after blocking, but I wanted to get started right away to get a lot of knitting done this weekend and this color called to me.

Heart lace swatch

Cuoricini (tiny hearts)

Six repeats so far. I am thinking of making the scarf about 50″ long. Back to the sofa for more knitting.
Heart lace scarf cast on

I cast on last night with Anzula's Wash My Lace (color: One Red Shoe)

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May

20

Humming

Knitting / Nature

Not a lot of knitting pictures lately, and not for lack of knitting activity. Or I should say knitting related activity, as a lot of what I’ve been doing in the past couple of weeks has been refining Riva based on feedback from my testers on Ravelry. This public testing is proving a more valuable and enjoyable experience than I had anticipated and I am getting excellent feedback on the charts and written instructions. Between my friends’ feedback on structure, logic and presentation and now the step-by-step testing and corrections, I am confident that the final pattern will be in good shape. The learning for such a simple pattern has been fenomenal. At the same time I am working on the next project, a lace stole or scarf. Yes, I am getting back to lace —

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who would have thought? At the moment I am finalizing a lace motif that has kept me busy swatching variations, charting, recharting, and trying out different yarns. I was feeling rather pleased with my progress until I saw Bethany’s swatch. Is that gorgeous or what? Perhaps I should rethink my design aspirations. The current plan is a rather complex stitch to be used as an all-over pattern and a simple shawl construction: rectangular with understated edgings on the short sides. Too boring? Keeping me company this past week or so: a lot of rain and my baby hummingbirds who finally graduated from flight school and left me an empty nest, fond memories and a couple of video clips. Amazingly we were able to watch both birds make their first flight. It’s hard to put into words how exciting it was to watch first one and then the other fluff their wings and move a little away from the nest and then actually fly. They did it a couple of hours apart from each other but followed the same pattern, moving further away from the nest and higher on the tree until they were gone. Too bad those video clips didn’t turn out well, but we still got a couple with the birds in their nest and just outside, fluffing their wings. What can I say? I am a sucker for cute baby critters. Baby hummingbirds feeding Baby hummingbirds fluffing their wings Going going gone

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May

12

Testing Riva

Knitting

Thanks to the thoughtful feedback I received from my friends (you girls are the best), my pattern is

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now in good enough shape to be tested and I just submitted it to the Free Pattern Testers group on Ravelry. Fingers crossed that enough knitters like it and can fit it in their testing schedule for the next few weeks; I just need 2–3 testers. I would like to publish the PDF by end of May. I know it won’t be exactly scarf season in many places, but it’s always cold somewhere,

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right? Waves madly at Andrea in Bolivia. Before I posted to the testers group I set up a designer’s page on Ravelry and I may have goofed there because now I think that it might have been better to do that after the pattern had been tested. A bit of eager beaver syndrome here; I wasn’t at my most alert early this morning between getting up too early and then getting distracted by the baby hummingbirds outside my window. The mama hummingbird we had last year came back to her nest — at least we think it’s the same bird — and had two babies who are now growing very fast and starting to run out of space in the nest. I keep looking out because I know they’ll be gone in a few days and I’ll miss them.

Baby hummingbirds outside my window

Baby hummingbirds outside my window

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May

08

First draft

Knitting

It worked. I finished my first draft Friday afternoon and sent the PDF to a couple of friends for feedback. In the meantime I have already spotted a major omission: the yarn quantity. How could I have missed that? I wasn’t sure of the amount of yarn I had used and kept putting off the estimate until I forgot and was reminded only when I started reading the rules of the Free Testers group on Ravelry. In addition to the guidelines for posting, they have many useful pages to help designers write their patterns. But really, to leave out the quantities?

Finding faults with everything

Finding faults with everything

Another thing I have to specify when I post to the group to find testers for my scarf is an estimate of the time it takes to complete the project. Clueless again; I wasn’t keeping track while I was knitting and figuring things out at the same time.

While I wait to hear from my friends I am working on refining the layout for legibility and to reduce the number of pages. The one thing I thought I didn’t need to revise were the charts, and then I read this great post about charts (thanks Bethany!) that is making me think of useful tweaks. At some point I’ll have to stop futzing.

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