Three little sweaters…

(Well, they’re not so little, trust me).

In case you wonder how I get so much done, it comes down to having help from my friends when I need it. And this month…I really, really need it. It’s much more difficult to teach outside all day than I’d thought it would be. Sun is not my friend, to say the least, even under a big tent!

It helps that I have a pool of production and test knitters to draw from — I distinguish between the two in that production knitters simply knit what they’re told, as-is, and test knitters are there to point out problems, potential inconsistencies, etc. Having both makes it easier to get a well-done pattern into the technical editor’s hands, I think, and paying for the services of all of the above helps distinguish a professional-grade pattern.

So, the incomparable, painfully awesome Andi is helping me get some reknitting off to the production knitters so I can do new versions/new photos of two older sweater designs in a different yarn. This means changing up the gauge, the needle size and all kinds of other tweaking, and having her help means it gets done now rather than, say, a month from now. It also helps that she did the actual test knitting on the original versions, and is intimately aware of how they were put together. (A good test knitter is worth her weight in gold, platinum, chocolate and just about anything else she asks for…anything she asks for, she gets).

Andi’s also working on a step-by-step how-to for knitting socks that our sock-inexperienced production knitters can use, and my fabulous summer intern Carrie’s helping her on that. The more actual knitting Andi and I can divert to the knitters, the more productive we can be with our own design work! She’s a smidge addicted to my hand-dyed yarn, though, so what should have been skeins for swatches somehow magically ended up becoming a pair of socks. You should have heard her on the phone. Paraphrased: “Umm… I just started knitting and I’m, well… I’m at the toe already.” As if she’d, say, accidentally fallen off a chair or something. One second she was sitting there and pow! suddenly! a sock! In her defense, it was exceptionally pretty yarn — I was testing out some new blue, green and purple dyes I ordered. Photos soon!

I’m also well into a third, brand-new sweater design that is driving me crazy, since I can’t knit nearly as fast as I can think and plan. (For the moment, I’ve also put down a shawl pattern I was working on, because it just isn’t looking the way I want it to look and I can’t quite summon the courage to frog it. I think I might bind it off and give it to a friend as a kerchief instead. Yes, I can be a total tink-sissy). My dear friend Suz from Cleveland SnB is knitting a second sweater from the half-done pattern as I continue to write it up and refine it. This is insanity. I’m 2 sleeves in, and maybe 1/4 done with the body. She’s half a sleeve in. You never know when something might change, so basically, she’s signed up for potential frogging galore. Brave, brave Suz. Still, if the pattern comes out even 85% close to what I’m seeing in my mind’s eye, it’s going to be very cool, though.

So if you ever wonder why I’m not blogging much this month, now you know!

Tagged with: Design process, Knitting