The First WEAVERKNITS official design!!!

It's official! Coherent directions have been written, charts have been typed up, the product has been test-knit by the lovely and talented Hannah at Windsor Button, there are photo, and kinkos has sealed the deal!

My first self-published pattern will be available printed on high-quality glossy stock paper and encased in a plastic sheet protector.

The Nouveau Sack Hat is a perfect pattern for learning fair isle: no shaping, flexible gauge (it's stretchy!), only two colors, size 7 needles for instant gratification... there's not even grafting involved! And the yarns suggested (Berocco Ultra Alpaca, Classic Elite Inca Alpaca, and Blue Sky Alpaca sport weight) and tried have about a thousand available colors and are reasonably priced. You cannot lose!

The pattern will be available for $6 through Windsor Button and Newbury Yarns in Boston, and you can also order it from me directly by sending me an email at weaverbergh13@verizon.net. I'll send you a PayPal invoice, and once it's paid I'll put the pattern in the mail. The $6 includes shipping!

Why not a downloadable PDF, you ask. Well, I like nice things, and I've made sure that this pattern is NICE. What you will get is something durable and lovely, just like the things you knit! And, as all of us know, there's nothing like going in to a yarn store and browsing the patterns and seeing actual project. There will be samples at both Windsor Button and Newbury Yarns for feeling and examining and trying-on.

Plenty more patterns are on their way... soon!

Meanwhile, another finished object from this weekend, photographed at kinkos. It's the Cranium from Crochet Me, made from 2 skeins of Louisa Harding Fauve in some really bright pink color.

Hard work. Lots of it.

So it may look like I have nothing finished lately, but that is just not the case. There's been a lot of work at my now-permanent position. I've had two days of orientation; on the first day, when asked in which department I would be working, I said "Neurosurgery." That got some oohhs and huuhs from the other new employees, so I explained that I am an administrator, but that "I tell my family and friends that they're letting me start working on the small tumors." NO ONE THOUGHT THAT WAS FUNNY. In fact, the overly peppy, enthusiastic orientation leader BLANCHED and said, "you really shouldn't say that." I didn't follow, so I said, "come on, just my family and friends. And it's just the small tumors." Or something like that. I was smiling as a said it, like, "funny, right, funny because it's so preposterous?" Well, not funny.

There's been working out. (Wow, now that I look at that picture up close, eek, I am making the oddest face and having the strangest hair day. It's pretty ugly. But that's how I look after the gym, and hey, the shirt is the topic and it's adorable). Yes, that is a tank from Knit, a yarn store in South Carolina. My parents got it for me as a souvenir on their recent trip. Of course I asked them where the yarn was... WHERE IS THE YARN THAT GOES WITH THIS SHIRT? There was no yarn. But the shirt is a real kick to wear at the White Trash Gym I visit... don't want anyone getting too complacent there! Yeah, that small person on the bench press is indeed wearing a knitting top.

And there's been a lot of knitting. Soon all will be revealed, seriously. I have a mess of patterns and commissions and surprises and Mother's Day in the works. All in good time.

The Mother of All Deadlines

Mother's Day approaches, holiest of all the high Hallmark holy days, at least in the Weaver family. Rest assured that the impending nature of this date has not slipped my mind, dear Weaver and Bergh mothers and grandmas, and that other knitting has been put on hold in order to produce presents in a timely manner. Since you all read this, there will be no photos until after the Day. Hints? Okay, here are hints. Things are really much further along than it appears, mothers, so fear not. I understand the importance of the ACTUAL DAY.

Pimpin' the Createalong! Extra: thoughts on body image

One of the links on the bottom right of this page will take you to the Createalong! I am in the process of working on a design for this group, and, to avoid redundancy, will not write about it here. I encourage everyone to check out the site and, if you're design-minded, join up! There are a lot of interesting projects in process, as well as discussion about the individual creative process.

My project is called the Small Bust Godsend, inspired by my thoughts on knitting for individual body types, sizing in clothing and knits, and, in general, body understanding and acceptance. There's been a lot of this sort of discussion in the air, what with books like Big Girl Knits (note the OVERWHELMINGLY positive reviews on this one... much deserved, too!) and Twinkle's Big City Knits (contrast the reviews on this one! WHOA! NASTY! I bought it immediately, by the way. 28 inch busts on things meant to stretch? SIGN ME UP!!!).

It's very difficult to read reviews that imply that everyone thin has the body of an 8-year-old or is anorexic. Some of us with 30 or 32 inch AA busts have our own trouble finding clothing that fits and flatters. Please, everyone, learn to love and accept your own body and create clothes to make it look its best. Having been into weight training for the last 11 years, I have never read this sentiment expressed better than it is RIGHT HERE. Now, go run a mile or buy a new lipstick or get a haircut or pedicure or whatever makes you feel pretty.

Or box someone.

The episode in which Ann and Chris go to an estate sale and much madness ensues.

Look! It's Chris! What's that in front of him? Whatever it is, it's too big to fit in our ancient Volvo named Mulva. We must enlist the help of Dad Bergh and his truck.


While it looks like an organ, it is actually a LeClerc loom that weaves things up to 60 inches in width! And the people running the estate sale are offering it, along with a crate of vintage knitting magazines, a few boxes of mostly-crap but some wool yarn, glass bottles of vintage buttons, vintage ribbons and trim, books on weaving and embroidery, a few random books including a "POCKET GUIDE TO GERMANY" that is actually WHAT WAS GIVEN TO OCCUPYING AMERICAN GIs IN 1945 IN NEARLY PRISTINE CONDITION NO KIDDING!!! for, well, a song.We (okay, they... Chris is a trained mechanic and his dad works as an engineer in a lab at 3M) got it collapsed and into the truck. It is now in our basement where it can be set up.

I have no idea how to use it. Today we went to Barnes and Noble to look at weaving books. There were a few, but they were all about taking a few palm fronds or bamboo shoots and creating home accessories with flair. I told Chris that I couldn't find anything with a title along the lines of "So Now You Have a Loom in Your Basement," and he suggested I check the Impulse Purchases section of the store. No luck. However, there are classes offered at the Textile History Museum, so I'm investigating. Suggestions?

Others knit, too! And wear knits!

This is Lauren, 9 years old and studying knitting with me after completing a class in school, over the course of which she produced several garter-stitch scarves of increasing size and skill. She's holding the beginnings of her first hat, which include her newly-acquired purling skills.

Enlarge the picture and look at that even tension! It's crazy how even it is! No adult could learn more quickly. Needless to say, it's a lot of fun teaching someone who's a quick study! This is my first experience formally teaching (though I've taught informally pretty much since I learned), and I like it! I see more in the future.

In the meantime, I am writing up a pattern that will soon (knock wood) be available for sale through at least one local yarn store and also on this site, for starters. And I'm forging through a mountain of purple garter stitch. On top, you may note, are the beginnings of Mermaid's first sleeve, begun while watching TV last night. Below is a surprise for someone very, very cool in my life, the details of which I can't divulge right now because she may be reading.

Finally, the Doughy Dutch Baby commissioned Tomten went in the mail this morning. We tried it on a model at home as well.

I call this final shot the "demented gnome."

Obtained:

JOB. It's the job I've been doing as a temp for shamefully low wages for the past 7 weeks, only with benefits and time off and actual lower-middle-class pay. Hooray!

The JOB officially begins on April 23. Celebration is in order. A present to myself is in order.

Meanwhile, see this LINK!

#1 Most Shameful Unfinished Purchase

Lest this blog become simply a gallery for finished objects, let me show you some projects in progress. Behold, the swatches!

The one on the left is for a girls' sweater I'm designing. The one on the right is for 300: The Sweater. In the middle? Well, that's a swatch for what is currently my Most Shameful Project.

A year and a half ago I purchased a kit. A Hanne Falkenberg Kit for Mermaid. See right. It was expensive, but I knew that I would wear that sweater multiple times a week for years and years to come. Then I put the kit on a shelf.

It's embarrassing for me to admit that I've sat on this project for so long. The expenditure! The fact that I have outfits just waiting for this sweater! How many sweaters have I made since I purchased that kit? Ten? Twelve? Seriously! It's time to get crack-a-lackin'. I've joined the knitalong. The beautiful photos of finished projects, the spreadsheet for Mermaid... it's the kick in the pants I needed.

But there is a finished object, minus its zipper. Behold a Tomten for Doughy Dutch Baby of Undetermined Sex!

Weaver-Bergh Anniversary #1

Exactly a year ago Chris and I were married in the Emerson Chapel at the Harvard Divinity School. From left to right, that's Amy, Beth, my sister, Me, Chris, and Chris' cousin Eric. Presiding over the 12-person ceremony was Chris' uncle Ernie, the Jewish Shriner clown who got a Justice of the Peace license for the day in order to marry us.

And there was much rejoicing!

Fitted Knit #1

Lookit! I made my first project from Fitted Knits! It's the "Carrie Cropped Flared Sleeve Cardigan," minus the flared sleeves (mine end right at the elbow to make it more "3-Season." Though it may sleet, spring is coming!). I used 2 skeins of Cascade Magnum in color 9407. It is so soft that even when wearing the sleeveless dress in the photo for the last 14 hours I have experienced no itch. It's reasonably priced and beautiful as well! Like a loosely-spun blended batt. Niiice.

Career Opportunities (the ones that never knocked)

Here's me, in all my IRS splendor. In spite of my idiosyncratic nature, I have been cleared to take the step from Temp to actual employee with benefits. My friend at work insisted that I post a picture of this sweater on my blog, though I completed it years ago with thick-and-thin wool I purchased in Iceland while on an interesting solo spring vacation of darkness and spas.

This is one of the first sweaters I made without a pattern; I just swatched, measured myself, and knit the pieces accordingly. From previous pattern knitting, I knew how to shape and insert cap sleeves and pick up stitches to make the cowl neck.

Looking at the cap sleeves now gives me a new appreciation for this construction. Not as simple as the in-the-round options that abound these days, but the result is so well-defined and flattering in the shoulders, a fit that could not be achieved in such a bulky yarn with a one-piece construction.

One of my best friends has found an adjunct professor position in art history for the semester and just administered a midterm exam. While you likely do not know the correct answers to these questions, the responses the students gave are, well, you see. Please note that these answers are representative of the whole and that the class is composed nearly entirely of native English speakers raised on Long Island.

Question: In a few words, sum up what the Narmer Palette represents/what is its main point?
Answer: how do they were dress and how yes express the story and letters, what means of symbols
Question: What is a cylinder seal?
Answer: color stone with carved in tiny tiny cilinder seal was amazing. mabey artist who made that couldn't breath well.

Indeed. Tiny tiny cilinder seal was amazing. Considering my position as an administrative temp with no benefits making less than living wage and her position as a vastly underpaid university instructor at a university that is actually well-known also with no benefits or job security, well, it's hard to see when the whole Harvard graduate school degrees thing is going to start being a benefit rather than a handicap.

Here's a hint at two patterns that will be forthcoming in the next month or so.