Handknit Garment Design on Craftsy

I took Handknit Garment Design on Craftsy around the beginning of the year. It’s given by Shirley Paden, the author of the amazing and wonderful Knitwear Design Workshop.

The class works really well as a companion to the book. It’s a fairly short class, comparatively speaking, and she takes you through designing a sweater step by step. There is lots of information here that’s also in her book, but the book is so technical that it’s easier to understand coming from her.

Her background is in custom knitting for clients, and that’s clearly the point of view at work here. She goes over calculating decreases certainly, but there’s one point where she recommends gradually changing needles sizes in order to create waist shaping in a pullover with a large lace motif. This will undoubtably work and it’s a great solution for a one-off, but in my opinion isn’t necessarily the right call when designing for patterns. It’s hard enough to get people to match one gauge – matching four? That’s a high bar to clear.

She has a pretty great way of explaining all of the calculations though, and it’s much more visual than in Faina Goberstein’s Craftsy class Sizing Knitwear Patterns. In fact, I’d say that this is a huge benefit of the class. Sweater design is a hugely mathematical endeavor, and if you struggle with how technical most of the resources out there are – including Knitwear Design Workshop – this class would be a great place to start. There is lots more detail out there to find, but this is a thorough and excellent beginning.

The Best School Year Ever

Although it was written about 20 years later, this is the sequel to The Worst Best Christmas Pageant Ever and features The Herdmans – Back for More Mayhem!

On the first day of school Beth’s teacher announces that this year the year-long project is going to be compliments. All the students will watch each other closely and at the end of the year, each individual student will be responsible for complimenting someone else in front of the class.

What follows is general Herdman Mayhem, as Beth worries about finding a compliment for Imogene and the rest of the school just tries to survive another year. Fire assemblies are disrupted, Bring-Your-Pet-to-School Day is ruined, and Alice Wendleken’s mother is hacked off. You know, the usual.

It’s a nice little book about finding the good in people, even when it’s difficult, and especially seeing that tough, resourceful girls aren’t all that bad, but it doesn’t have the magic of The Worst Best Christmas Pageant Ever, and somehow seemed to lack because of it.

The Herdmans are much more blatantly poor and neglected in this book, and the school and community seem both unwilling and unable to help them. The arc isn’t the same, and each beat doesn’t seem as well-considered as in the previous story.

Beth is still a great narrator, with a point of view you don’t often see from a child narrator, and her humor and the way she keeps her head down and observes from the sidelines were wonderful things to revisit.

It’s a lesser companion to Christmas Pageant, but as that’s one of my favorite books it’s a high bar to clear. It’s still definitely worth your time.

Tubular Cast On

One of my all time favorite techniques is the Tubular Cast On. I love when knitting flows smoothy from one section to another, and a Tubular Cast On flows so perfectly into 1×1 Ribbing.

I use Tubular Cast Ons in some of my patterns – Mercury Hall Hat, Mercury Hall Pullover, Guadalupe Hat, and the Harvest Moon Hat and Harvest Moon Mitts, so I made a wee video talking about how to do this lovely and not difficult technique.

Let me know if you have any questions! I really think it’s one of the most useful and beautiful Cast Ons out there, and I use it whenever I’m going to be working a 1×1 Rib!

Six Months to Go

It’s exactly 26 weeks until my 30th birthday, which means that we’re in the final 6 months on the 30×30 list. Let’s see where we are:

1. Leave the Country.

2. Take a vacation.

3. Be published in a real book.

4. Have my patterns distributed by Deep South.

5. Get a tattoo.

6. <personal>

7. Teach knitting classes.

8. <personal>

9. Treat myself to new music every so often.

10. Be able to run – even if slowly – for 1 mile.

11. <personal>

12. <personal>

13. Join a pool/go swimming regularly.

14. Join a knitting group.

15. Go to a Can’t Stop the Serenity show.

16. Go to a PAX or ComiCon.

17. Take spinning classes at Hill Country Weavers when they interest me. (Formerly apply for SOAR, I missed the deadline, again.)

18. Finish the hexapuff blanket.

19. Finish the Barn Raising Quilt.

20. Make a Heartwarmer for myself in a Combination Shawl style.

21. Finish the Christmas Quilt.

22. Get a wheel or a loom.

23. Move everything to a better website.

24. Have a professional logo designed.

25. Be published in Twist Collective. (Formerly submit to every Twist Call for Submission, as getting in seemed like a long shot, but that was my goal all along.)

26. Memorize 5 poems:

A. First 40 lines of The Canterbury Tales in Old English

B. To the Virgins to Make Much of Time

C. The Fairy Reel

D. How the Helpmate of Bluebeard Made Free with a Door

E. The Cremation of Sam McGee

27. Run an actual 5k, preferably wearing a Runner 5: Authorized Base Security shirt.

28. Go through the entire house and do a hard cull.

29. Tag every post on the blog.

30. Get a proper haircut and new glasses.

It’s going to be a busy six months – I have 21 things left to do on this list. I’m not going to look at it as failure if I don’t finish everything – they are goals after all, not imperatives. I am working hard behind the scenes though, and I have high hopes that I’ll be able to cross many more off before November 11th.

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