Back in February we took the kids to Anchorage for the weekend. It happened to be Valentine’s day weekend, and we had a nice time going to movies (Coraline for Selma and Me, I can’t remember what the guys saw) and doing things you can’t do in Cordova.  For instance, we saw moose (four of them!) roaming in the hotel parking lot:

We learned there are rules about this sort of wildlife appearance in the city:

And of course we made safety a top priority:

On the ferry to and from Anchorage I worked on a Valentine’s gift for James. He liked my Valentine Hat and wished for a not-so-pink hat for himself. I did finish it not too long after Valentine’s day, but never got a picture of it until today because he ran off with it so quickly.

It’s done in crochted fair-isle and I improvised the pattern as I went.

The wool is Jaimeson Chunky, which is rustic and sturdy and perfect for an Alaskan hat. You might be able to see that I concentrated all of the increases into a couple of rounds in the crown of the hat. I did this so I wouldn’t have to worry about increasing in pattern on the sides of the hat. It did work out, but it looked ruffly for quite a while and I just had to have faith that it would smooth out when the hat got to the right size.

By the way, it was a beautiful and warm day today (in the low 60s!) but when you’re heading out to fish in the evening it never hurts to wear your hat. Keeps the bugs off as well as keeping you warm.

James caught three sockeye salmon which he’s cleaning now. Since this post began with a photo of snow, I’ll end with a slideshow of our exploration of Orca Inlet today at low tide.

I’ve had a great time the last few days hanging out at my LYS, The Net Loft, and helping move yarn around. It’s inspiring to just be surrounded by yarn even if all you’re doing is taking it off of one shelf and putting it on another. The store’s owner, Dotty has brought in some new yarns with colors inspired by our surroundings and given them great names like “Salmonberry,” “Orca Inlet at Low Tide,” and “Cordova Mist.” Of course, I love them all, but I was relatively restrained (don’t you think?) and only came home with four skeins:

I took this shot last night at about 9:30 p.m. So the midnight sun is pretty convenient for procrastinating photographers like me.

I have big plans for the third skein from the left, but the others are still percolating.

Don’t forget you have five more days to enter the Spud and Chloë scarf kit contest. Thanks to everyone who’s commented so far, I love hearing about your methods of choosing colors.

We’re back from our month-long trip. We arrived Saturday and I’m slowly emerging from a fog of jetlag. In the last week, I was on planes 5 out of 7 days. Airports are crazy places.

We’re so glad to be back and settling into the routine of being home. I have yet to unpack and do laundry and I have bear book revisions to do.

I was in Columbus for 5 days of the trip at the Needle Arts Association trade show. One of the things I like about trade shows is seeing my designs “in the wild.” Lorna’s Laces had a version of Ribs and Mesh worked in their Shepherd Sport that was soft and stretchy and showed of the hand-dyed colors beautifully. In the Blue Sky Alpaca booth there was lots of buzz about the debut of their new yarn line Spud and Chloë. The yarn line is different from other blue sky yarns because all the yarns are washable. Two of the yarns Sweater and Bulky contain superwash wool and organic cotton.

Late last year, I was asked to come up with a crochet design for the new yarn. I chose to use the Sweater and I designed this scarf in Mosaic Crochet – a fun technique that creates color patterns using chains and spike stitches, but only working in one color per row (similar to mosaic or slip stitch knitting). In fact, the stitch pattern was adapted from a Barbara Walker knitting stitch.

I love how the scarf turned out–on the one side, you have the color block pattern, and on the reverse you have textured stripes. In choosing the colors I wanted to make sure there was a good contrast so the pattern really pops. I usually love subtle color variations in colorwork, but I thought in this case bold choices worked better. The Spud and Chloë color palette has some great colors and I was sent a sample of each for swatching, I spent a lot of time, just rearranging skeins on the floor to come up with color combinations.

The folks at Blue Sky have generously offered to give away a kit for the scarf (4 skeins of Sweater in the colors of your choice, and the pattern), to one reader of my blog. The yarn is so new that most stores don’t have it yet, so if you win you’ll be one of the first crocheters to try it out.

To enter, just leave a comment on my blog about how you make color choices in your crochet. On July 1st (my birthday), I’ll pick a winner. Good luck!

Kristi Porter, designer and technical editor extraordinaire (who also happens to be a member of our Stitch Cooperative), is the author of the new book Knitting in the Sun, which, the last time I checked was #1 in knitting books and #978 in all books (!!!) on amazon.com. Go Kristi! She’s doing a blog tour and graciously offered to guest post here. I asked if she would write about the photo shoot. Kristi got to use her own photographer and style the shoot herself, which means the garments really look like she intended (yay!) She also modeled and coerced convinced her daughter to model too. I love the look of the book, and the idea that knitting is a year-round activity. (Of course, today in Cordova, it’s 49 degrees and raining sideways, so I can wear wool). Without further ado, here’s Kristy:

Amy asked me to write about my experience with the photo shoots for Knitting in the Sun. There are something like 80 color photos in the book, and I think many will agree that the wonderful photography by Stephen Simpson really  brings this great collection of knits to life.  So here’s the behind the scenes story.

When my editor and I began to talk about the photography for the book, it became clear that we would need to do the photography in October. Given the nature of the book, it was obvious that the  photos needed to be done outdoors and, you know, in the sun. Where would it be dependably summery in October? My house! San Diego! I was very fortunate to have the folks at Wiley agree and trust me to take on the responsibility of managing the photo shoots.  I was also ecstatic when my friend, Steve, agreed to do the photography. Steve and I met when our daughters were in kindergarten together a couple of years ago (you can see the two of them beneath the Silver Strand wrap on page 23!). He’s a professional photographer and I love his work, but fashion photography and this kind of project was unfamiliar territory for him. Anyway, he agreed to take on the job. Hooray!

Part of being an independent designer includes a broad skill set, as, often, you end up not only designing and creating the finished garment, but also at times being your own model, photographer, layout artist, printer, and lackey. So I had styled and photographed and modeled my own stuff before. I think the first thing I modeled was “Surf & Turf” for Knitty. At the time, Knitty only had 3000 hits an issue or something like that, so the fact that I was there looking silly in a faux grass skirt didn’t really seem like a big deal (now Knitty gets 1.5 million hits a month or something insane like that, and I hope that few of them are looking at me in my bathing suit! Okay, here’s the link go  ahead and look.)  After that induction into the world of knitwear modeling, it never seemed like a big deal to do it!  Plus, I’ve always felt strongly that it’s important to see real people on the pages of knitting books and magazines. So I don’t necessarily love modeling, but I will always put myself out there when asked. I want readers to identify with the models. Really, I want knitters to feel great about how they look in what they’ve made.  If you’ve created something beautiful, you should also feel beautiful in it. Smile at your accomplishment and walk with pride!

Back in late 2006, just after Kim Werker was named editor of Interweave Crochet, she contacted me and asked for help in scouting some San Diego locations for the photoshoot  for the Spring 2007 issue of the magazine, since they wanted to shoot here in January. I did that… and ended up modeling too! Anyway, that afforded me the opportunity to see how Interweave managed the photoshoot. How they organized things, how they brought their coherent aesthetic to each shoot, and what they focused on during the photo sessions. I remember that the weather really didn’t co-operate and it was really cold and foggy and damp… because of that, we ended up doing several of the photos at my house because no one really wanted to be outside.  Anyway, that experience definitely taught me a lot and made me more confident that I could pull off being the stylist and manager of something a little larger than shooting a couple of pieces in the backyard.

So I had a photographer lined up and an overall vision of what I wanted the photography to look like. Next I started sweet talking people I knew to model for me. Neighbors, knitting students, my baby-sitter, my kids… I also had to come up with the rest of the wardrobe for the shoots, so I raided my closet, and hit the thrift shops looking for some nice summery neutrals to serve as background for the knits. I scavenged around for accessories. My mom was visiting at one point and did a bunch of ironing for me. (I’m not much of an ironer, so I was really glad to have some back-up on that one.) So we had everything lined up and ready to go!

Steve and I chose a few locations  like nearby Windansea Beach and Balboa Park. We also ended up shooting at my house and his house… in the neighbor’s front yard… I think we did about five shoots to get all the photography done. The models all did great and Steve was really good at putting them at ease, I think they all look great, but more important, the knits look great. I know how terrific they look in person and have had the luxury of trying them all on, but there’s a big challenge  of communicating that on the page. I think Steve’s photography has really helped bring them to life in the book.

It wasn’t necessarily my intention, but Knitting in the Sun ended up being a very personal book, my family, my friends, my neighborhood, and that’s really cool for me. But, at the same time, I think readers will take away something different. It’s my hope at least that readers will simply be drawn in and become inspired to re-create some of these great designs for themselves.