Donna Druchunas's Blog

I added this as a comment in this thread about knitting patterns and errors, but I wanted to post it here as well for those of you who don't want to read through the long thread of comments that this topic has attracted. Here's my comment expanded and with a few modifications:

I hope it's clear that I am not upset if people tell me or my publishers about errors. Obviously we want to find out if there are any mistakes so we can post errata and fix the problems in future printings. I don't read my own books after they are printed, so the only way that I'll find out about errors is from a reader who stumbles onto one. And I want people to be happy with the pieces they create from my work. I certainly appreciate hearing from readers on any topic, except for hate mail, which really has not been a problem for me thus far.

It's just that to me, it's much too stressful knowing that these errors can be lurking out there and it has made writing and editing knitting books no fun for me any more. And basically I only want to do what is fun. If something makes me feel bad, I just don't do it any more. Life is to short to spend time on things that make you wake up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night -- unless it's something so important that it means life or death for someone. Knitting doesn't meet that criteria.

In addition, I don't write for people who want to just follow instructions without thinking about what they are doing. That's just not what I'm interested in. There are plenty of designers out there who are interested in just writing pattern books, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that, but that's not really anything that's ever held any interest for me at all (with the exception of Kitty Knits and that was just for fun because I love cats). If I'm going to deal with mindless knitting it's going to be so mindless that I don't even need a pattern.

That said, all of my books are tech edited by professionals because my publishers and I want to try to provide the most accurate information possible. And when I tech edit a book, I agonize over it and spend as much time checking and rechecking things as I spend writing a whole book from scratch. That does not in any way mean that my books are perfect. That's not possible and if you expect to get a perfect book (about knitting or anything else for that matter), you're just setting yourself up for being disappointed.

More on thinking for yourself will be forthcoming in 2008 because it looks like that's probably going to be my theme for the coming year. I can't imagine not wanting to empower yourself by learning. I feel sad that a few commentors seem to be upset by the idea that we can and should all be empowered by expanding our knowledge. As one of my good friends in San Diego used to say all the time, "The day you stop learning is the day you start dying."

Happy New Year!

Whatever you do, don't miss this fantastic article by Annie Modesitt. Whether you're a designer or you just knit for fun, you will benefit from her insights into the knitting industry. Here are a couple of short excerpts:

I've received SO much mail and even phone calls about my post a few days ago alluding to the Interweave Knits contract that I chose not to sign.

Most of the mail was from other designers who have been - well - afraid to raise their voices about this because they don't want to be perceived as 'trouble makers' by the powers that be - but agree that they don't like the way the rules are being drawn out.

I've read some designers criticize others for aggressive marketing. There's a certain self-righteous, judgemental quality to this type of criticism, which has been used to keep folks down, to reign in mavericks.

This attitude's been found throughout history, especially directed to "uppity" folks who don't know their place and aren't part of the power elite (women, minorities, the poor.)

Annie, you go girl! (OK, I'd never say that in real life, but I mean it nonetheless.)

Since we've been on the topic of thinking lately, here's some food for your imagination:

A knitted lobster from Craft zine:


Knitted cephalopods from Science Blogs:

We're snowed in. Dom's gone to work, because farms never close for the day, but the rest of us are stuck here admiring the snow through the windows...



... and knitting. I've actually gotten a few more repeats done since I took this photo...



Ah, but I must work, too. So off to the office to do some bookkeeping and writing. What I really want to do is think. I have a lot to think about, and thinking is also a precursor to writing and accomplishing anything. I don't ever seem to have enough time to think any more. Thinking is slow and requires large swaths of time. And to other people it often looks like you are just zoning out or killing time. But thinking is, perhaps, the most important thing you can do with your time. I have enjoyed sitting and staring into space thinking for hours on end since I was a child. It is a luxury I am not willing to give up and I miss it when I don't have time to indulge.

OK, that's depressing, isn't it? I've been feeling my mortality this year. I am guessing I'm at least halfway between the cradle and the grave. For the first time in my life, I feel like getting older is not desireable. I'll be 46 in a few months, which means that I will have to live to be 92 to be at the halfway point. Iffy, but possible. I am guessing not probable, based on the ages of my grandparents at their deaths, and adding a few years for improved medical technology.

Given that I've used up more than half of my allotted time on this planet, I had better get my shit together soon if I want to make any kind of lasting difference. I've passed on the opportunity to leave my genes behind for further propogation in the future, alas the Druchunas line seems to be dying off in the United States, but I feel good about leaving my memes behind instead.

I actually am very proud of the books I've written so far (when I'm not in the "I hate everything I've written" funk), and I still believe in the mission statement I wrote for myself last year. I don't think I can improve on it very much at this point. I still feel passionate about the need to make the world safer and more comfortable for women and minorities, and I am still very distressed about the growth of fundamentalism in the U.S. and abroad, and the growth of misogyny and hate that accompanies it in the name of God.

Here, in public, in the hopes that this makes me feel really guilty if I get off track, is what I'm planning to work on in 2008 in the furtherance of my mission.

1. Writing. I am working on a memoir about my journey from Christian fundamentalism to atheism. My book is different than the other recent atheist books that have been published simply because of my, generally positive, experiences as an evangelical Christian insider. If my experiences were largely positive, why did I leave it all behind? That's the story I want to tell. I want to write a book that simultaneously helps atheists understand what it is like to be a Christian -- the allure, the enticements, the rewards of both the mindset and the community that comprise the born-again experience  -- and at the same helps Christians understand why one of their own, a born-again and spirit-filled believer, would ultimately reject the teachings of the Bible and leave faith behind.

2. Knitting. I am doing research for a book on Lithuanian knitting that will continue my goals of preserving and honoring the ideas, creativity, and contributions of women throughout the world. I am also working on a book about Dorothy Reade, a contemporary of Elizabeth Zimmerman, whose amazing work has gone largely unnoticed in the knitting world. Finally, I'm launching (more than a few months behind schedule) a new 'zine on Subversive Knitting that will tie together my love for the craft with my love for encouraging people to think outside the box. If there's anything I've learned over the last few years as a knitting author, it's not to underestimate the empowerment, creativity, and intelligence of my readers, and this 'zine will be a tribute to thinking knitters everywhere.

3. Personal. I am going to work on my health this year, because I want to extend the rest of my life in good health as long as possible so I can continue to enjoy this brief existence and do what I can, in some small way, to improve the lives of others on this planet who are less fortunate than I have been.

If you like gloves and science, or if you've ever found yourself wondering "Where do all those socks in the dryer disappear to?" you really must read this.

Hi everyone, here are the latest charity knitting patterns on my subversive knitting website.



I was amused to recently read an article about giving handmade gifts for Christmas, when I discovered that the article was about buying handmade gifts. (It's a long article, but definitely worth taking time to read if the topic interests you at all.)

At buyhandmade.org, people are signing up to make this pledge as part of something called the "Handmade Consortium":

I pledge to buy handmade this holiday season, and request that others do the same for me.

That'll show them, won't it?

I think by making gifts from scratch, we are subversive because we don't buy into the commercialism that is so overhyped especially at this time of year. But I'm not sure about buying handmade gifts. Granted, that does keep the money away from the corporations and our butts away from the mall, but I don't think it's quite the same as having the experience of making things yourself.

That said, the article talks a lot about Etsy, a site where crafters can hawk their wares and make a buck from their creative endeavors. Here's the conclusion of the author:

For... crafters in general, Etsy is another manifestation of how D.I.Y.-ism has evolved. Its motivation may still be the independence from capitalism that Railla wrote about. But it can also be about a form of independence economic independence within capitalism. Many of the artist-entrepreneurs opening up their virtual shops on Etsy want what Circa Ceramics or Emily Martin or the Austin Craft Mafia have achieved: Making a living from what they love to do. It’s a goal that reconciles ideology and self-branding, not so much to change the world as to stake out a place in it.

Any thoughts on this?

I just read this on Neil Gaiman's blog:

I just finished Cory Doctorow's book Little Brother. [Damn, it's not availble until next spring.]

I've liked Cory's fiction as long as I've been reading it -- gave him a blurb for his short story collection -- but this made me happy in ways only Cory's non-fiction had made me happy before.

This is because Cory is one of the Explainers. The people who see what's going on, or what they perceive to be going on, and then turn around and tell everyone else, and once you've heard it their way you can't ever see it the old way again.

... I'd recommend Little Brother over pretty much any book I've read this year, and I'd want to get it into the hands of as many smart 13 year olds, male and female, as I can.

Because I think it'll change lives. Because some kids, maybe just a few, won't be the same after they've read it. Maybe they'll change politically, maybe technologically. Maybe it'll just be the first book they loved or that spoke to their inner geek. Maybe they'll want to argue about it and disagree with it. Maybe they'll want to open their computer and see what's in there. I don't know. It made me want to be 13 again right now and reading it for the first time, and then go out and make the world better or stranger or odder. It's a wonderful, important book, in a way that renders its flaws pretty much meaningless.

Wow, if anyone ever says something like that about my writing, I will die happy. Now, I'm going to add Little Brother to my Amazon shopping cart.

Arctic Lace is still making news:

Windy Valley Muskox Yarn And My Lace Knitting Project by Robin O'Brien at American Chronicle.

Reading this book - and Donna's blog - is an insight into a world of lace makers in Alaska - a place few of us will ever venture to. You learn about the Yup’ik and Inupiat people, their villages and the muskox. I learned about how each village and town has its own lace pattern that is incorporated into the garments and about the Oomingmak Co-op that helps to promote traditional lacework using muskox yarn.

The Arctic Lace book is a great teaching aid - even if you've never done lace work before or don't intend to use qiviut. As well as teaching the reader about the muskox, the people who work the fiber, the Oomingmak Co-op, you also can follow a list of projects. For my project I chose the 'Arctic Diamond Stole'. I made 8 repeats and after blocking it turned out quite large but light as a feather. It hangs around my shoulders a treat with a softness that has to be felt to be believed. Someone I know said that my qiviut shawl feels like putting your hands into a cloud. I think that's the best way to describe how it feels.

Arctic Lace is also included in the Best of 2007 Knitting Books at Go Knit In Your Hat.

I've bumped this back to the top because it's still getting a lot of interesting comments. Thanks for sharing everyone, and if you haven't put in your 2-cents yet, I'd love to hear your thoughts!

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As many of you know, in addition to writing my own knitting books, I've been tech editing knitting books for the past few years. I've decided to phase that out of my life, at least for the time being, and here's why: I'm tired of waking up in the middle of the night worrying that there are mistakes (there are always mistakes) in a book that I edited a year or two ago, and that I'm going to get email or, worse, a phone call asking me about it. To be honest, I sometimes lay awake at night having the same worries about the books I've written and the free patterns on my website.

Here's what I want for Christmas:

I want knitters everywhere to learn to think for themselves and to question the authority of pattern writers. I want knitters to understand garment shapes and to be brave enough to forge forward if they find a misake in a pattern, making adjustments to fix the error. I want knitters to be free from the tyranny of patterns. I want knitters to have the confidence and skill to make things up and to knit their own designs, instead of always copying something they've found in a book.

I knit from patterns sometimes, but I usually don't even notice if there are mistakes, or if I do find an error, I just fix it and move on. This is not because I'm a tech editor. I've been doing this since the very first sweater I knitted as an adult. It just wouldn't occur to me to write to a publisher or author if I found a mistake. I just fixed it and trudged ahead. If I was a couple of stitches short somewhere, I'd increase; if I had too many stitches, I'd decrease. If something didn't line up correctly, I'd fudge. And if I found a mistake in a pattern stitch or chart, I'd just mark a fix in the book and move on. (You do swatch to check the pattern stitches in your projects, right? Swatching is not just to check the gauge!) Maybe I've just been lucky, but I've never found a mistake I couldn't stomp over and fix. I wish all knitters would have the confidence to do the same. Because I don't think it takes any great skill or genius to do this, just the self-confidence to realize that you can be right and a book author can be wrong! And a little attention to detail: know what sweater pieces should look like, where the armholes and neck opening should be, about how wide a sleeve is, how tall a neckband is.

Now, I'm not giving license to publishers to skip the tech editing process or to be lazy in checking the accuracy of patterns. But errors and typos can be introduced anywhere along the way. The patterns are usually checked in Word before they get put together into a book in special design software. The charts are usually first made by hand or in an off-the-shelf charting software. The schematics are usually first sketched out in pencil on paper. That's when everything gets tech edited, in immaculate detail, every number getting crunched in a spreadsheet, every instruction read over at least a dozen times, every chart knitted up, every line and number on each schematic checked against the instructions.

Then the book gets put together, the charts and schematics get redrawn by an artist, and someone (either the artist or the book designer) adds the legends to the charts and the numbers to the schematics, photos get taken, the text gets massaged into a beautiful arrangement, fractions get stacked, other symbols are set, and it all starts to look like a book. Then, a couple of months after you last saw the manuscript, you get page proofs, and you have to re-read all of the text, spot check the math, recheck all of the charts and schematics, and so forth. And all of this goes on while trying to keep the book in the author's voice, not killing their style or forcing their instructions into a format that takes away their personality (well, some publishers skip this last step, because they want all their books to sound consistent, even if the authors really had different pattern writing styles.)

All along the process, other people are proofing and changing the book, too. So even if you think everything's perfect on your end, mistakes can get inserted by the illustrator, the copy editor, the proof reader, and only the publisher knows who else, along the way to the printer. Someone might innocently rephrase something to make the sentence smoother, not realizing that they've actually changed the meaning of an esoteric knitting instruction. (Did I mention that not everyone who works on a knitting book is an expert knitter, and at some publishers the editors don't even know how to knit at all?)

In the future, I'm going to be writing things that don't have instructions or patterns in them, and as I've mentioned, I've gone back to a day job that takes up some of my time but doesn't sap my creative energy. (In reality I have to change jobs every few years anyway because I get bored, and then frustrated.)

I still have a list of knitting books that I want to write, so it will be a creative challenge to figure out how to write them without patterns, but that's my current plan. I think it's more empowering to give knitters the skills that help them free themselves from being slaves to line-by-line instructions, so they won't get completely stuck if they come upon an error.

I hope that Ethnic Knitting Discovery, and the two other books that will be in this series, are a good start in that direction.

---

UPDATE: I posted a response to the thread of comments here.

The first person to post a comment correctly identifying what is depicted in this Christmas light decoration will win an autographed copy of Kitty Knits!



Don't forget to include your email address or a link to your website that has contact information so I can let you know if you win.

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AND WE HAVE A WINNER! Fran was the first to correctly identify this as the Flying Spaghetti Monster! Way to go Fran. I'm also going to declare andi a runner up as the first to guess that this was a ball of yarn with knitting needles because I hadn't even noticed the similarity. Congratulations to both of you!

Well, with knitting anyway. I have been going through all my UFOs to list them on Ravelry and I have discovered that I have 18 unfinished projects, plus a few for my charity knitting site and for a future book that I don't count in my personal projects. All that and I want to start something new. What is wrong with me? I want to get all those UFOs finished and out of my hair. And I need to get the Safe Sex and Dangerous Knitting 'zine finished and available for download before the end of the year. Yet, I know it will happen, I'm about to cast on for a new lace shawl.

I know I can finish things. I finished 2 projects last month, including this qiviut shawl that I made in just two weeks (and yes, it was completely satisfying and I think I shall wear it today):



So, what is wrong with me? Right now, I desparately want to replace the favorite stole that I lost. I started to remake it but I'm just not into the colors of the yarn that I had in my stash. I want a replacement in the same color scheme as the one I lost -- blue and gray. So I ordered this from Black Bunny Fibers, and I'm making a shawl from a book I'm tech editing for Interweave. Carol custom dyed it for me and the color is called "Tech Ed Blue."



I can't show you a picture of the shawl now, but here's a teaser for the book.

I hope this scratches my itch. I love the stitches used, and I had fun swatching them when I was checking the charts for the book. I made a swatch last night using the needles recommended in the book and, as is usual for me, it looks like I have to go down a couple of sizes. Actually the gauge matched exactly, but my knitting looks sloppy and so I'm going to try going down 2 sizes. I am pretty sure I'll get almost exactly the same gauge (fine yarn, not so fine needles, garter stitch--a combination that does weird things with gauge), but with a more structured result in the lace portion. What I'm hoping is that the solid areas are more solid with a smaller needle.

TAFN. I'm going to work at Borders for an hour or so this morning to finish up a chapter on designing fitted sleeve caps for the third book in the Ethnic Knitting series, and I'll be buying I am Legend and The World Without Us, which should keep me distracted from my knitting angst until I can buy the needles I need for that shawl. (No, I don't have the size/material/length combination that I want to use.)

Don't forget that the Ethnic Knitting Discovery Norwegian Sweater Knitalong is starting in January. You can sign up here now to talk about materials, and we'll get started swatching and knitting after we recoup from the holidays.

Also, I've started posting pictures of projetcs made from the book in a gallery. If you've made something from Ethnic Knitting Discovery, I'd love to hear from you and share photos of your creation with other readers. Drop me an email so we can make that happen.

And I found this review from What if Knits while doing a google search the other day. Here's an excerpt:

Donna Druchunas has written exactly the sort of book I love: not just a collection of patterns, but an introduction to an entire genre of knitting with the goal of helping readers design their own patterns. Ethnic Knitting Discovery (Nomad Press) begins with a chapter on working without patterns that outlines basic sweater shapes, sizing, gauge, and ease. In chapter 2, Druchunas explains techniques common to all the chapters: circular knitting, cutting (!) arm and neck openings, colorwork, and the like. She then moves on to individual chapters on the knitting of each region that are designed to teach specific skills and that include a set of sample patterns readers can knit as is or vary to suit themselves.

If you’ve done some sweater knitting, but still can’t imagine making the jump from following patterns to designing your own, this book will see you comfortably through that transition. Each of the regional chapters also offers patterns for two sweaters and an additional accessory, but the reader has the option of approaching the patterns in three ways. One can follow the pattern as written, use a template to customize the pattern for any yarn weight and finished size, or follow a schematic for quick, improvisational knitting.

I also re-discovered this column by Catherine Hollingsworth, who writes a knitting column for the Anchorage Daily News. Here's an excerpt from that article:

Inspired and encouraged by Robson, who worked with Priscilla Gibson-Roberts on the classic "Knitting in the Old Way," Druchunas is working on a series of three illustrated texts about ethnic knitting that includes some of Robson's illustrations. Druchunas breaks down the "old ways" into some of the essential techniques used by knitters today, according to the countries of their origin. True to her style, this isn't just another knitting book either.

The first in a series, "[Ethnic Knitting] Discovery" is designed to build knitting skills step-by-step and includes four small projects and eight sweater projects that will take the knitter from beginner to intermediate level. The book builds on the skills with worksheets, tips for coping with color, and three approaches to design. You can use it much as you would any educational textbook, knitting as you go to practice the methods you are learning about. The book can be used by you or in a group.

I get a lot done. All the time. But I can't get everything done at once, and there are three things that vie for blocks of my time:

Reading
Knitting
Studying Lithuanian

I go in spurts, focusing on each one for weeks or months at a time, getting frustrated that the others are langushing. (The things that get done all the time are work and meeting deadlines; the things that almost never get done are housecleaning and filing.)

Lately I've been reading. I just have been consumed by so many new books that have come out (sorry, no knitting books on this list). Here are a few recently-read and soon-to-be-read titles:

Jewish author Shalom Auslander describes his experiences being brought in an orthodox Jewish community as "theological child abuse" in his new memoir, Foreskin's Lament. This book is a must read for anyone wanting to gain more understanding of what it's like to be raised in a fundamentalist environment. Auslander's anger is tempered only by a sharp sense of humor, and his stories clearly show the lingering scars of his childhood torments. Fortunately Auslander was able to escape, became a writer, and found a way to productively channel his anger.

Sci-fi cult classic, I am Legend by Richard Matheson is next on my list. The movie was great up until the last act which was kindof lame, but not bad enough to ruin the rest of the film. Unfortunately the vampire accoutrements were left out, which disappointed me since I'm a huge fan of the vampire genre. Will Smith was great (as usual) and the scenes in New York being overrun by weeds and wild animals escaped from the zoo were amazing. Which leads me to The World without Us by Alan Weisman, a "what if" look into the future of earth with the extinction of the human species. The last book on this general topic that I read was the novel Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut, still one of my favorite books.

I've also just added Deer Hunting with Jesus by Joe Bageant to my Amazon shopping cart. The title by iteslf is enough for me to buy this book, but it's the premise of the book that sold me. It's an insider's view of the working class Americans who were suckered into voting for George W. Bush. I really want to read this beacuse the other books on the topic seem to be by outsiders who are trying to imagine what it would be like to be a working class American. Barbara Ehrenreich tried it in Nickled and Dimed and Bait and Switch with mixed results. I guess it's nice that these non-working class authors feel some obligation to speak for those with no voice, but sorry if you haven't "been there, done that" you'll just never get what it feels like in your bones. That's why I want to check out Bageant's book. It's the same thing I want to do in my memoir, showing what it's like to be an insider in Christian fundamentalism (without having been the victim of physical abuse, as is so prevalent in the expose genre).

Well, gotta do some bookkeeping. There are more books on my nightstand (both read and unread) that I would like to mention, but I have to get work done.

Your Christmas is Most Like: A Charlie Brown Christmas

Each year, you really get into the spirit of Christmas. Which is much more important to you than nifty presents.

The musk oxen might die off sooner than anyone had thought, especially if this happens:

Scientists in the US have presented one of the most dramatic forecasts yet for the disappearance of Arctic sea ice. Their latest modelling studies indicate northern polar waters could be ice-free in summers within just 5-6 years.

So if you want to knit with qiviut, you'd better get some now because there's no political will to do anything to try to reverse global warming, and if it's happening this fast, some events are probably already too late to prevent. It's a shame that we've known about these issues for 30 years or so, and so many people are so concerned with making a buck that they still won't admit anything is wrong.

During the past year, I've spent several months writing every morning -- from 1000 to 1500 words -- about my own life. I'm working on a memoir that is finally starting to take shape, but that's slow going and will probably take at least another year or two to finish. During the intense writing months, I noticed that I was having specific recurring dreams related to the themes in my book. The dreams were so intense that they turned into nightmares several times (to me, that doesn't mean just that bad things happen in the dream, but that I also wake up in a state of fear or anxiety), and I had to take a break from the project.

Recently, with some prodding from my favorite writing coach, I decided that I needed to pay more attention to these dreams, and probably include them in the book. Before that I'd been viewing them as an annoying side effect of the writing process. I bought a new notebook to put on my night stand to use as a dream journal, and decided that I wanted to do some reading on dreams.

I looked for the dream section at my local bookstore, and found a shelf full of dream dictionaries and other books that seemed to be full of new-agey nonsense to me, but among those books I found one title that looked promising, The Mind at Night: The New Science of How and Why We Dream by Andrea Rock. This book is just what I needed. It's the type of book I enjoy reading, full of science and stories that tie together to give some interesting glimpses into how the mind works. (Studying congnitive science and the brain is one of my hobbies.)

I may write more about my own dream explorations in the future, but today I wrote all of that to quote this section, about how someone figured out how to knit socks in a dream:

When Kathy Hurxthal was a Peace Corps volunteer in a Moroccan village during the 1960s, she was teaching local women how to knit. While she knew how to knit sweaters or mittens, one of the women was bent on knitting a pair of socks -- something Hurxthal had never done before. "The part I couldn't figure out was how to turn the heel. I was completely preoccupied with that challenge, and finally it came to me while I was dreaming one night. I was knitting in the dream, and in the dream it was very clear what to do to turn the heel. I woke up, went to the center, and showed them all how to knit socks, exactly as I had done it in my dream."

Cool, huh? Sweet dreams!

My review of The Golden Compass is up at Skepchick.

Went to see The Golden Compass and loved it. I'll be writing a review on Skepchick.org and will post a link here.

For now:

Bleh is the best word to explain how I feel today. Not inpsired, not in the holiday mood, not bored, just bleh. Mostly, I'm not happy with the state of my health right now. I've had some garbage that's been hanging around for a couple of years and I'm tried of putting up with it. Now to figure out which parts I have any control over and which parts I may truly have to learn to live with.

First, I look like this.............instead of like this..................


(The scary part is that I'm starting to recognize myself in the newer pictures and thinking that maybe I look almost good. Sigh. At least I'm overdue for a haircut and color, so that would help quite a bit.)

OK, part of the difference is 15 years. The other parts are rosacea, 30 pounds, thyroid nodule, degenerative arthritis, receeding gums, and gastrtitis. Oh yeah, and I have to wear knitting/reading glasses.

Wow, that's a longer list than I thought. I guess you don't want to read a long post about my health. It's' just that I've finally had a couple of years without having to take my aging cats to the vet every week, and now I feel like I have to take myself to the doctor every week. And I'm not old enough to have chronic problems. This sucks, even though none of these things are major problems (yet?). I want to be able to ignore my body, but apparently once you cross the threshold of 40, you can't do that any more. I'm having a hard time feeling optimistic about the future right now. I always have enjoyed getting older, finding that with age comes confidence and freedom from peer pressure and trying to live up to others' expectations. I wouldn't want to be much younger again, but 35 seems like a good place to stop the clock. I have a few friends who say life starts after 50, but the only reason I can think of for them to say that is that they had kids and that's when they became empty nesters and could have some personal time. I'm not looking forward to getting older any more.

Sorry to bore you. But there you have it. I think I'm in the dumps because I got that copy of Kitty Knits the other day. I seem to have a recurring habit of getting depressed after each of my books comes out.

The votes are in and the Ethnic Knitting Discovery knitalong participants will be designing and knitting Norwegian ski sweaters, beginning in January.

Here's a drawing showing the basic sweater elements:



Here is an interpretation of the sweater designed by Debbie O'Neill. The first shows the colors used on the cover of Ethnic Knitting Discovery; the second shows the colors used for the sweaters in the Interweave Knits Gifts Issue. If you look closely, you can see how Debbie deviated by the basic plan when she implemented her design. That's right in line with my philosohpy which is: break from tradition when it suits you!

In this interpretation of the sweater, we chose non-traditional colors to show how a traditional design can be updated with a more contemporary feel. This sweater still has a classic look and style. If you want to be more outrageous, you could try using a very chunky yarn or use a solid for the main color and a self-striping or variegated yarn for the contrasting colors. The main point I'd like to make here is that you can work within a tradition and outside of the tradition at the same time, combining techniques and design elements that have been passed down through generations with modern and unique elements that spark your own creativity. It's all about not being afraid to experiment.

In this interpretation, we kept with the tradition of using black and white with red accents. Actually, we used gray because black doesn't photograph well. But the main idea was to create a traditional style Norwegian ski swetaer. The sweater design and placement of the motifs is the same as on the version with contemporary colors, but the resulting look is much more traditional. By reversing the colors in the adult and child sweaters, we show that you can be very creative with color placement. Also, the same basic sweater recipe was used for both sweaters. The large size was actually designed for a man, but when they put the magazine together, they decided to photograph it on a woman.

For more ideas on colors, check out the design that Kristi at Fiber Fool has been working on. She tested a bunch of different color combinations by drawing them on her computer (so she didn't have to make a dozen swatches!), and ended up with something quite traditional, but she used interesting motifs from different sources to spice it up:



It's not too late to sign up for the knitalong! We won't be getting our needles out until January. This month we'll be discussing yarn and color selections and ordering our copies of the book so we can be ready to work on our ski-headband gauge swatch after New Year's.

Cross posted to the Ethnic Knitting Discovery Gallery blog.

OK, one copy is here, along with lovely flowers from my publisher. The rest are on a boat from China. But I'm happy anyway.



Now, I'm the author of four books. I can't believe it. It seems like it was just the other day that I was doing the research for Arctic Lace!



You can pre-order a signed copy of Kitty Knits from me, and you can also pre-order from amazon. I expect to have them here in January.