grid⋅i⋅ron: [grid-ahy-ern] –noun
1. a football field.
2. a utensil consisting of parallel metal bars on which to broil meat or other food.
3. any framework or network resembling a gridiron.
4. a structure above the stage of a theater, from which hung scenery and the like are manipulated.

shown here in araucania ranco, colorway, #120 midnight

to purchase pattern or view complete pattern information, please click here to visit the product page in the knitspot pattern shop.

many thanks to rachel for quick and efficient proofreading. thanks!

Filed under: patterns
6 Comments

good thing i love working on this scarf, because seriously, i’m knitting and knitting, but it doesn’t seem to be getting longer. but wow, when it’s done, it’ll be perfect for what i need. it’s all snuggly and soft, and the colors are so attractive. and it’s wide—if i’m out and i get chilly, i can throw it over my shoulders to get warm and it will work. i like that.
(and it is growing—it’s getting there. one repeat at a time.)

my secret project is also growing and i’m actually thinking i might finish it by the end of the week. if i do, i’ll be a very happy knitter. i’m not really keeping a schedule (though it could be argued that i should), but if i was, and i finished that far ahead, i’d be looking at having gained time toward knitting a sweater.

um. that’s just a little confusing—let me put it another way: if i finish the secret project by the end of the week and start the faroese autumn arbor shawl over the weekend, i have a chance of finishing that by the end of the month, which means i could maybe knit a sweater in february. wouldn’t that be sweet?

that’s the dream anyway. i still have another small secret project i need to work on, but that’s not big at all.
i want to finish up the poppy socks very soon, too—i’ve decided they are now on a deadline. but they’re halfway there

and they’re adorable (it’s possible that their adorability quotient was raised considerably by how fast they knit up . . . .). they are also as cushy-cozy as promised in the knitting, mmm. i love how they look on the foot

though they’re not meant for me so they are a little short. still, you get the idea of how the lace opens up and the nicely-defined brocade texture.

i just can’t say enough nice things about knitting with this serenity yarn—it’s lovely from start to finish. you wanna hear the best part?? roxanne is going to be dyeing this same blend (merino/cashmere/nylon) in a DK/light worsted weight. she’s sending some for scarf knitting as soon as she has it in, so we’ll keep you updated on that.

speaking of cozy, i’ve been wearing my wooly-bear caterpillar socks (now that i finally have two complete toes!) and wow, are they cozy-warm.

adam’s yarn just glows and washes up beautifully, too

sometimes, i just feel a need to mention the goodness of wool on my feet . . .

yesterday was spinning class and we all agreed—thank goodness it was sunday and time for class—we needed it. we didn’t go over any new techniques or skills . . . but we had a very therapeutic discussion about the holidays. there was much hilarity over gifts from husbands and we all felt a lot better afterward (some of us have been drowning in family since 12/22/08). i shudder to think what sort of carnage i’d have wreaked by now if that was me.

after class, beckie and kris came over to knit—more discussion about gifts from husbands (not complaints, just talking; it seems everyone has at least one funny story of the genre).

of course, while we were all downstairs knitting and chuckling, david was doing this

looks like he’s hit the starting line on that room.
for posterity, i took a few pix this morning of some of its sadder features

just about all you could say about that is, ugh.

then there’s the acoustic tile ceiling. now, in a pinch, you could make a case for leaving that alone—i’ve seen it used in modern applications for spare, lovely rooms and it looked very streamlined and appropriate. it could work in the “clean box” we are aiming for here. but—and this is what’s so maddening about the work that’s been done on the house by previous owners—

just look at the alignment of those tiles—why bother? why not just stagger them if you don’t have the patience to align them? that’s just the kind of thing david can’t let slide. even if he wanted acoustic tile, he’d have to replace that.

the guy who lived here before calls himself a “faux finisher” and he was absolutely mad about putting wall treatments on every square inch of this house, especially this kind (it’s first thing to go, believe me)

which seems to consist of smearing joint compound over the thinnest available wallboard (or, better yet, masonite or fake wood paneling!), then tinting it with muddy mixtures of color (badly), and calling it a day.
nope, i take that back; not calling it a day—calling it decor.

secretly, i call him the faux faux finisher. be-ware.

Filed under: designing, projects
8 Comments

happy new year. i know—i’m just a little late to the party. i have no idea what happened to yesterday—good thing i didn’t make any vows to blog every day this year (though i enjoy immensely that other people manage it with such panache). heh. maybe next year.

i do very much want to express my deep gratitude for your enthusiasm and generosity as readers of my blog and users of my patterns in 2008. you have captured my imagination and followed up by urging and cheering me along through dozens of projects. we have picked names for knits together, traveled through the design process together, and celebrated many, many finishing lines as a group. the collaborations that have materialized through this blog with dyers, test knitters, metalsmiths, and many more artisans along with other bloggers and readers are some of the most amazing of my life, with astounding results.

i hope everyone is looking forward to a year of possibility. i know we all expect changes that may seem like obstacles, but you never know—changes that are forced upon us sometimes germinate into positive growth of unexpected proportions if we keep an open mind about them. that has been my experience, anyway—it was during a four-month drought of work in 2006 that i cheered myself up by starting my blog and nothing has been the same since . . .

i’m setting just a few important goals for this year, mostly around streamlining things so i can optimize my time. my one huge design goal is to start getting those sweater patterns out. it didn’t happen last year, but i’m determined to get it going this year. as always, the biggest obstacle for me is getting started, but i’m challenging myself to just do it.

so yeah, let’s get started on 2009.

first off, i have a couple of announcements from collaborators i want to pass along.

the fiber baristas have opened their 2009 postcards from home yarn club for signups. this sounds like an interesting club—and something different. instead of yarn from one source, the club will send installments from different dyers throughout the year. there’s a ravelry group too, where you can find out lots more.

signups for the taste of shivaya club will open tomorrow at shivaya naturals—you can read a few details about the club at heather’s blog today. this promises to be a lovely offering with gorgeous picks from heather’s luxurious line of naturally-dyed yarns.

now lets talk about knitting

it’s been an incredibly productive week here. i’ve been devoting most of my time to my secret project so that i can finish it quickly. fortunately, that’s working well for me. and equally fortunate is the fact that i love the yarn. the color couldn’t be more perfect for this time of year—i feel like i have a little spring shrub growing right before my eyes in here.

something about it being the holidays made the whole place seem quieter and less focused on “work”, which gave me time to actually work. normally i hit my desk first thing in the morning and stay pretty close to it all day, because we’re supposed to be available to the office (that would be my day job) from 9 to 6, even if we don’t know that work will be coming in. it makes it hard to feel ok with knitting in the middle of the day, so i fill the time with email, patten writing, etc, then end up working on all of that far later than i should. i often leave my desk too jazzed up to settle properly into my knitting when the time comes.

things are extremely slow at the office though, and we’re not expecting work to come in for a while (and maybe never; they’re not saying yet), so we’re now more free to be off getting other stuff done, finances allowing. and i’m discovering that freedom to organize my day differently opens up my brain immensely—how about that. i’m really grateful to immerse myself in it again like this.

i’ve been writing patterns and knitting a lot, which is really calming. sometimes, when things are hectic, i start feeling really disconnected from knitting, so having this time to focus on it is very therapeutic.
i finished my brother’s birthday socks

and wrote the pattern; it should be ready to release some time next week. yesterday we did a little modeling session and got some great photos

more of those when the time comes . . .

i’m getting back to a couple of small projects i started around thanksgiving and put aside to do christmas knitting. the first is something for me, which i really want to finish because it’s going to look great with my new jacket. i dusted off my wiggle scarf last night and put a few rows on it just to get reacquainted.

the yarn is bunny patch, a merino/angora blend from cheryl at new hue handspuns. the scarf is a wide, cozy one that i’m anxious to be using—i love my old scarf but it’s time for a change and the right weather is upon us.

the yummy and cozy theme is extended in another project that’s been patiently waiting for me to take up once more

i got back to work the poppy socks the other night and just couldn’t put them down—i found myself shaking awake with the needles still in my hands during the wee hours of new year’s morning. mmm, squishy. i’m past the heel now and rollicking down the foot to the toe (these are much smaller than those man socks i just finished).

the yarn is the delicious serenity from roxanne at zen yarn garden, which combines the luxury of cashmere and the softest merino with some nylon for durability. not to mention how nice it is to knit with—it is as soothing as a balm and totally lives up to its name. the colorway, paprika, has a warm, bright fullness that expresses this pattern just right for me. i think roxanne is planning to offer a kit for this sock when the pattern is ready—we’ll definitely keep you updated on that.

with no incoming work from the office, david is on a real tear through the house. he took down all the christmas decorations yesterday, boxed them up, and stowed ‘em away. he’s also been cleaning and organizing the basement so that i barely recognize it

(beckie and kim will appreciate how different it looks down there; it was a mess before and i’m embarrassed to say that i showed it to them in that state)
we have a huge basement—it’s the size of the entire footprint of the house and has seven rooms. for most of the first year it was completely empty, then as the renovations on the house revved up, it began to fill with debris and detritus, tools and materials, and all manner of yard equipment (our garage didn’t have doors til last year). in fact, it looked a lot more like this

especially in david’s “shop”. but it looks like he’s tackling that area now . . . i’m seeing a semblance of order where mayhem has reigned for most of the last year (all i can say is, discourage your husband from getting a table saw unless you can handle—or hide—the fallout).

trust me, this is immaculate compared to what it looked like last week.

he’s also preparing the back room on the second floor for renovation, now that the third floor is done (and i do need to show you that soon). the back room has been a storing vault and staging area during the third floor renovation, so it was crammed with all sorts of tools, materials, and crap

it used to be a kitchen when this house was split into apartments. it has a door to the porch deck outside, a nice big window that looks onto the back garden, and a tiny walk-in closet under the stairs. it also has a very badly-done stucco-y wall treatment complemented by painted trim the color of . . . well . . . baby poop. it has an impressive layering of multiple vinyl and linoleum coverings glued securely to the old oak flooring—with the exception of the stove-sized area that got burned in a fire at some point. oh, and it has acoustic tile on the ceilings, yay.

this room is slated to become an extension of my adjacent workroom, where we will put the more utilitarian equipment such as the sewing machine, pressing bench, and work table. david will add a wall of cedar-lined cabinets for storing all that yarn and fiber i boxed up last week. we would like to add a utility sink, but i’m not sure i want to give up the cabinet space; we’re still deciding. eventually we’ll add a screened airing/sleeping porch to the deck outside the door.

fortunately we have a lot of the required materials on hand already—the biggest ingredient will be labor on david’s part. basically, we just want a nice clean box when it’s done. he would love to reclaim the old floor; i suspect we’ll need to put in a new one—he still needs to assess the damage.

he says it’s possible he’ll finish it within a month—i’ll be ecstatic if it’s done before we need to start work on the yard and garden in spring.

so we’ve got a lot going on. we’re hoping that all this energy and work is a good portent for the coming year. we can’t control all the various aspects of our life that keep us afloat, but we can do the best with what we have, so that’s what we’re going for. cheers!

Filed under: designing, projects
38 Comments

we finally got a little dusting of snow to cover some of the gray and brown that we’ve been looking at for the last couple of weeks. it was nice to wake up to see snowflakes flying around out there.

i’ve been doing a lot of kitting and pattern writing these last few days but i can’t show very much of it here (argh, you know how i feel about that!)

fortunately, my current big secret project is a wonderful mix of greens that i enjoy picking up and working with, so it won’t be too long til i’m on to something i can blog more about

i’m also still finishing up my brother’s second sock

it’s almost done; i have a little more to knit in pattern and then the toe shaping; i should be able to get it done today. i hope so; i need to get this in the mail ASAP; his birthday is saturday and we have a holiday tomorrow. i figure if i can get it done after lunch, we can maybe run it to the post office for last-minute delivery. i’m also sending him the luxor socks—i can’t wait to see how he likes the bamboo blend i used in those. and he’s getting a pair of wiggle mitts

even though he lives in texas where it’s warm, he manages operations in an unheated warehouse, which gets chilly in winter. he has to write and use the computer a lot and i think these will be great for him.

next thing you know, we’ll have him wearing manLace . . .

i didn’t say much about my christmas gift from david this year, because . . . well, he can be a little gift-giving-challenged. as in, he always remembers the important days with gifts that for him, are totally romantic and appropriate, but sometimes leave me scratching my head (last year i got a digital weather station). this year’s gift was so far out in that realm that telling about it will give you the wrong idea about him.

but he made up for it this week—in spades

this is my dad’s old desk, inherited by him from the uncle or cousin who built it, then handed down to me when my mom moved out of our family home. having been stored in our attic where we proceeded to abuse it with stickers, paint, and hand tools, it used to be almost-black with gunk and old varnish. not so much the patina of time as the fallout from a life of extreme hardship.

anyway, david worked away at it, keeping some of the old scars and getting rid of the super-ugly ones (like pools of yellow enamel paint meant for airplane models, circa 1967). then he rubbed it with a clear wax finish to bring out the grain in the wide variety of woods used in it

and now it’s a beauty. there’s going to be some renovation in my workroom area this month and once that’s complete, the desk will be moved up there. it’ll be great to have the additional writing and shelf space in that room as well as a reminder of my dad’s family.

i’m trying to organize goals for the coming year; it’s going to be a challenging one i know. more about that tomorrow, though—must go knit man sock.

Filed under: designing, lace/shawls, projects
43 Comments