Dear designers:

As many of you may know, I have been doing lots of test knitting/crocheting lately.  I do this mostly because I am crazy, and partially because I have a mild obsession with getting free patterns.  That's ugly in a designer, but I digress.  The point is, I have several tips for you designers out there, to make sure you are ready to test your design.

1. If you pattern isn't finished, you are not ready to test.  It can be rough.  It can have mistakes (heck, I expect mistakes).  But you have to have the whole pattern written before you send it to your testers, and send the whole thing to your testers.  Some of us like to skim the whole pattern so we know what we're doing before we start.
2. Put your instructions in the order you want me to do them.  Sometimes I have Mom Brain.  It is not fun to spend half an hour trying to figure out part one, only to find out that you have to do part two first.
3. Be ready to answer your email/rav messages/whatever in a timely fashion.  I am working hard to meet your deadline, and it freaks me out when I can't continue because I need more information from you.  I understand you have a life, but please try to be available.  If your silence can be measured in days, it has gone on too long.

I like testing patterns, really.  I learn interesting things from my fellow designers, and if you want to start designing, I highly recommend doing a few pattern tests first.  If nothing else, it will let you know what you are in for.

Rip it, rip it...

I have done quite a lot of frogging today.  Thank heaven it was frogging crochet, because it's so much easier to do a partial frog in crochet than in knit, and if I had had to do the part before my mistake, I would have been really skeeved off.  But anyway.  Frogging, unfortunately, is an essential part of my design process.  I'm sure not everybody does this.  But for me, usually... I make a sketch.  I make a swatch or two.  Do some math.  Then I get started with the yarn.

This part rarely goes as well as the swatches and math suggest it will.  Stitch a little.  Doesn't look the way I think it ought to.  Rip rip rip.  Now things don't quite come together the way they're supposed to.  Rip rip rip.  Successful for a bit.  Then I measure things.  Things always go south when I measure things the first time.  Rip rip.  Then with any luck I'm past the gusset/yoke/insane part because I seem to always insist on one piece design.

But you know, ripping isn't always a bad thing.  Every iteration is better.  And yarn, if nothing else, is very forgiving.

The best sweater I've ever made...

...and I designed it!

You don’t need to knit to create a beautiful cabled pullover! This boatneck sweater has simple waist shaping to hug your curves, gorgeous cables, and (because it is crochet!) works up in a snap. Constructed in one piece from the top down.

Things I've Learned as a Designer

I haven't been doing this very long, but have already learned some significant (and mostly painful) lessons, which I thought I would share for everyone's edification.  Or for everyone to laugh at me.  You know, whatever.  So, in whatever order they occurred to me:

1. When you're making a sample, count the stitches.  This is particularly useful in the joining row and the smallest/largest diameter of any shaping.  It is really, REALLY hard to count those stitches once the sample is done.
2. Unless your stitch pattern is specifically designed to take advantage of pattered yarn, get a solid (or semi solid, at most).  Even tonal yarns can pool unexpectedly.
3. Save your ball bands, especially on big projects.  By the time you're done, you may or may not remember how many you had to start with.
4. Don't try to design something using a technique you're not super familiar with.  It doesn't matter if you can do the math and design aspects if the stitching makes you want to scream.
5. The job is a lot of fun... unless you over schedule yourself.  Have fun!  :)

Happy International Crochet Day!

I didn't find out about this until last night!  And isn't Crochet Month in March?  Hooray for crochet love!  At any rate, I'm celebrating by putting some finishing touches on an awesome sauce crochet sweater pattern.  And look, I have a teaser photo:

Yup, cables!  Hopefully I will have a pattern and more awesome pictures for y'all within the week! 

The first week of school, it has eaten me.

Yup, been quiet around here for longer than I like to let it be.  Behind the scenes however, it has been a madhouse.  A madhouse I tell you!

First of all, I'm still trying to catch up from when I was sick.  Fortunately, I only have on pattern to go from that time.  Unfortunately, I have had to find a new tech editor (if you're out there, hi new tech editor!), which always makes me nervous.  Also, I have a sample I'm supposed to have done by mid November.  In laceweight.  That is lace.

That was nothing new, but the first week of school is.  The big one is starting kindergarten, and the middle one is starting preschool.  This means that the week leading up to this week was full of orientations, paperwork, evaluations, and doctor appointments.  I wish I had done more of this during the summer, but I didn't receive any of the paperwork until about a week and a half ago, so that wasn't exactly possible.

So, if you could give me a week or so, I'll get back to my usual fibery extravaganza.  In the mean time, I will continue to update my facebook and twitter feeds.  I definitely have time for 144 characters.

Drowning in WIPs

I just thought I would post this, so you can all laugh at me.  I am up to my eyeballs.  First, there is the sweater of doom:

It is actually mostly done, but I still have to grade the pattern, which is pretty much the bane of my existance right now.  Then there's the sock design for Knit Picks:

A series of embarrassing math errors happened in this one.  The math errors are fixed, but with all the frogging I had to do, I feel like I wasted a lot of time.  Then there's the couch quilt:

This one is completely done, except that I don't have any batting, and no money to buy batting until next week at the earliest.  I even made the binding strip.  There is literally nothing more I can do on this until I manage to aquire some batting.  So of course I started another quilt:

This is square one of thirty six for a bed quilt for me.  I have a long way to go.  And of course there's my knitting in the car project:

A pair of plain jane two at a time socks.  I don't get how two at a time is faster than one at a time.  I'm pretty sure that I, at least, am slower this way.  So yes, doomed.  Up to my eyeballs.  Also, my thumb still hurts from when I sliced it making dinner the other day.  Go, me!

Thoughts on shaping

So I've been mighty quiet around here lately, and it's the direct result of a pattern I'm working on (and, frankly, procrastinating working on).  The issue with it?  Shaping.  Everybody I've ever met says that it's easier to make a tailored garment in pieces, because the shaping is easier.  I question this.  It's no more difficult to make lines of increases or decreases in the round than it is flat.  What IS harder is designing shaping in the round.  My current project, I'm still working on the yoke... I have to make the armholes deep enough and the shoulders wide enough (but not too wide) at the same time, all without deforming the neckline.  Plus I want this one to be fitted.  Exciting!

Of course, when you're making something from a pattern, the designer has already figured that out for you.  What everybody else is worried about is things like waist shaping, which really isn't hard.  The key is to start your decreases two to three inches before you want the narrowest part, and decrease evenly, then increase at the same rate.  Ta-dah!  Waist shaping.  No harder in the round than in pieces, and in my opinion, better, because you can try the darn thing on as you go and make sure you decreased the right amount.

Now if only I could get to that point on this sweater.  Stupid yoke.

Power to the cables!

 I just got the book Power Cables by Lily Chin, and I have to say... if you like cables, and you have any desire whatsoever in you to design, you will probably like this book.  The great thing about it is it's not just a big collection of cable charts - although it has lots of those too - she takes the time to explain how you design cables.  Her charting system is pretty clever, too.  The way it's set up, it's very easy to use her charts for either knit or crochet, as all they show is the crossings.  You can fill in any (reasonable) number you want, and use any stitch you want, and get cables that look about like the picture.  In addition, it's a very visual charting method, which is nice.  In all honesty, traditional cable charts, to me, look nothing like the cables they produce.  These charts do.  As a designer, and as somebody who just really likes cables, I'm glad I picked this book up.

Do you have something you want me to review? Needles? Yarn? Notions? Drop me a line! marusempai at gmail dot com Put "Maru reviews" in the subject line.

Working at home and time management

Working from home is not a new thing for me.  I've been doing freelance editing and translation for home pretty much since I graduated, so incorporating design into my home work schedule hasn't been too big of a deal.  However, there are some issues with working from home that people who have never done it don't think of.  The main issue is time management.  People tend to assume that, since you are at home, you are going to watch the kids, clean the house, AND work a full day, all at once.  Because you are at home after all, doesn't that mean you take care of the home things?

I probably don't need to tell you that this is blatantly impossible.  Full time stay at home moms with no other job have a hard time finding enough hours in the day to take care of the kids and keep the house up, because those are HARD JOBS.  They are not things that automatically take care of themselves just because you happen to be at home.  And work at home jobs aren't either.  When I have an editing job, somebody has to watch the kids so I can work... just like if I was going in to the office.  Hours I spend writing up proposals, running tests, and making samples, likewise, are hours that I can't spend mopping or doing the dishes.

Why the office-working average doesn't understand this, I will never know, however when I first started this, I did get a lot of "since you are home anyway, could you..." "your house must be so clean since you work from home," and so on.  The assumption is that if you are home all day, you must not be working!  But you have to learn to set firm boundaries (no I cannot run errands for you I have to work!) and explain, occasionally, the realities of working from home.  Another useful skill is letting things like that roll off your back.  It doesn't matter what your neighbors think of your housekeeping!

The upside to all of this (and how we make it work) -- working from home is extremely flexible.  Because you have no commute, there's no wasted time driving.  Because you make your own schedule, you can take advantage of nap time and after the kids go to bed, and do most of your work then.  "But isn't that like working two jobs?!"  you may say.  Well, yes, it is.  But so is working at an office and having a family.  It's just a different method of managing your responsibilities.

Holly Berry Gloves

Squeaking out under the wire for this month is my Holly Berry Gloves!  The cables are done in the tops of the stitches, rather than the posts, for a fun texture.  With the buttoned, ribbed wrist band, these are a real eye catcher.

Getting organized, I am doing it

Behold my new organizational device!  It's not a file cabinet, but a Sterlite seven drawer tower.  The bottom drawer is reserved for WIPs that I want to keep at my desk, the top drawer is for tools (hooks, needles and so on), and the rest is for design work!  I am however having a hard time deciding how to subdivide it.  Finished/unfinished?  Large projects/small projects?  I just don't know!  But my desk is looking a lot better than it was before.  I'm actually going to have space for some books, which I've sorely missed since our big move this summer.  Also with luck the big sort will mean getting rid of a few things.  I do tend to be a packrat.

Design break

Due to poor planning on my part, I am taking a forced break from actively designing anything.  (Altho I do still have one pattern in testing.)  That is not necessarily a problem, because all of a sudden, it has gotten COLD.  Bitterly cold.  Mazillions of snow cold.  They don't plow our street cold.  Which, of course, means everybody needs warm woolies.  Only to have me realize that my kids are distinctly lacking in what I consider proper winter wear.  Which means that I had to turn these out in a day:

Of course, they turned out too big in spite of my best efforts, but hey, that just means they'll fit next year, too.  And then this hat out over a weekend:

 And this, my friends, is why I need a stash.  Stash wool has rescued my children from certain chilliness!

Nooooooooook...

Yes, I got a Nook for Christmas.  Second hand off of Craigslist, so I could even afford the 3G version!  The reasons I wanted one were fairly simple:

• Nooks have the eInk display.
• I can put pdfs in it.

The beauty of the eInk display is how incredibly easy to read it is.  I mean, when you read off a computer screen, it stresses out your eyes much more rapidly than reading a printed page.  The eInk, as far as these eyes are concerned, is just like a printed page.  The downside is that eInk doesn't have a very fast refresh rate -- it takes a second for the page to actually turn after you press the page turn button.  It is however fast enough not to get in the way of normal reading.  Browsing the internet on the thing is an interesting experience, but that's not what I bought it for anyway.

And, you know, I can put pdfs in it for convenient reading on the go.  PDFs like patterns.  Yes, I will no longer have to go down into the man-cave that is our unfinished basement to use the printer when I want a pattern for on the go.  No more frozen toes!  No more emailing files to myself to pull them up on the downstairs computer!  The only problem is that you can't (as far as I can figure) download files directly onto the Nook, except that you do it through your computer.  So, I plug the Nook into my USB port, and download the file directly to the Nook.  Requires forethought, but means I don't have to try to browse the internet on the Nook.  Fair trade.

(Also, remember to enter my contest!  I'm excited, these are fun.)

In desperate need of organization

On the one hand, this is a good thing -- my design endeavors have outgrown the little bin I dedicated to them back in July.  On the other hand, though, as you can see, My desk is one big explosion of yarn and yarn related paraphernalia.  I believe it to be time for more organizational devices.  Half of the issue, though, is that designing has greater storage requirements than just plain ol' yarning.  I have to save ball bands, have a safe place for samples, keep about a jillionty swatches safe and findable, and keep my contracts and rejection letters straight.  So, readers (there are at least three of you!), tell me if my plan is crazy.  I am going to attempt to find a file cabinet.  The old timey kind that locks.  Hopefully I will be able to locate one with a big file drawer at the bottom, and smaller drawers at the top.  That way I'll have one (heavy, immovable) thing that will organize both my papers and my yarns.  So, crazy?  Do you have a better idea?  Because seriously, what I got ain't working.

My real ideal?  An old timey pharmacist's cabinet.  Hey, I can dream.

Do you tweet?

For your convenience, I am now on Twitter @marudesigns.  Content will be identical (or nearly identical) to my Facebook page, but for those of you who prefer Twitter, now it will be there as well.

Facebook!

As you may have noticed, I've made a Facebook page, if anyone cares to follow me over there.  If you don't, anything really important will be posted here as well, but I figured it would be convenient to have another venue.

On a related tangent, if things get very quiet around here, it is because I used up my whole post buffer while I was on vacation, and have a LOT of knitting to do if I'm going to meet my next couple of deadlines.  As usual, I need to learn to knit faster!