I made this shawl last fall for the new Tension Magazine and it’s finally been released. This narrow shawl was worked in Filatura di Crosa Superior, a very fuzzy cashmere silk that was lovely to crochet. It’s a filet-crochet style pattern that shifts organically from triangles (hence the isoceles) to diamonds (double triangles) and back to triangles at the end. It’s been a season of shawls. I have had three in the works for most of the winter, and now they’re all finally done and will be released in one form or another over the coming months.

Before I sent off my shawl, I got my friend Erica to model it for me. Here’s another one:

You can find all of this chilly photoshoot in the slideshow below. Luckily the Orca Books, where we finished up, has hot coffee!

If you haven’t been sucked into the world of vampire fiction, you can just consider my newest pattern something sweet for Valentine’s day and spring.

$4.00

This scarf celebrates my love of hearts and my love of vampire fiction–especially Charlaine Harris’ novels, The Sookie Stackhouse Southern Vampire Mysteries. Sookie sometimes wears a little scarf around her neck the morning after an encounter with her vampire-amour Bill. I thought, in February it’s even cold in Louisiana, and she might like something with a little warmth. I know I would. So this bandana-esque scarf was born.

Fold the scarf and wear the point in the front, side or back. Worn close around the neck, the scarf will keep you warm and hide any little “love bites.”

The scarf was made using center increases which gives it a nice diamond-y shape and the hearts are simple fillet-crochet designs, which can be easily memorized once you’ve tried the chart out once.

We’ve been in Anchorage for the weekend attending the Folk Festival there, we performed and jammed and generally had a good time making music. We got back last night and I’ve spent the day un-packing and re-packing because tomorrow I leave for Friday Harbor to attend Cat Bordhi’s Visionary Retreat. I’m excited to be returning and working more on self-publishing. There are going to be some great knitters and writers in attendance this year, some who I’ve met before and some who I only know online. I can’t wait to meet and work with everyone.

Yesterday we got a huge dump of wet, wet snow, the city almost shut down which is saying a lot for Cordova. The snow removal machines (And James who seems to be constantly shoveling our BIG driveway) have had a very hard time keeping up. Snow keeps falling off the roof (roofalanche!) and piling up in front of our windows,  so we get a lot less light in the house during our short days, but the view outside is very pretty now that its gotten a little colder and the snow has slowed. I’m just hoping everything is cleaned up by the time we fly out on Sunday.

Meanwhile, even in the thick of the snowstorm people were out in droves walking through the foot-deep slush in town shopping and generally having a good time. The Net Loft was busy yesterday and several friends stopped by and we did some exchanging of gifts. I gave my friend Angela a little Noro scarflette like the one I made myself back in May.

Angela gave ME this adorable little handmade doll by an Alaskan artisan. The doll is a weaver and has a little in progress basket in her hands. She’s also wearing a Kuspuk which is a traditional native Alaskan garment.

I haven’t mailed this little scarf yet, and the recipient may or may not be reading this blog post, (I hope she likes it when she gets it!) but Colleen was kind enough to model it for me. The scarf is made using the snowflake garland pattern from Red Heart, I made it with Brown Sheep Bulky and a USM hook, and added the tassels at the end.

Finally, I re-discovered this custom colorway of Three Irish Girls Gallenas at The Net Loft on Wednesday, and had to get it to make some small ornaments for gifts. This is the heart from simplebeans.

I hope you’re all finding a little time to crochet during these busy weeks. I’ve been saving this skein of handspun from Blonde Chicken Boutique since I bought it last spring. I’m thinking of making my Elsinore Woods Scarf [Ravelry Link] with it this evening if I get the chance. The scarf pattern is in the latest issue of Inside Crochet (issue #5).

Is it spring that’s giving me the attention span of a gnat? I’m not sure, but luckily, I’ve been finding projects to match. Rachel over at CraftZine posted a link yesterday to Kootoyoo’s blog-where Kirsty shows a very pretty granny square necklace made simply with embroidery thread. I kept thinking about it all day, how nice and simple it was; how I have lots of embroidery thread and how I have tiny steel hooks which I inherited from my grandmother and never use. Last night when it was way to late, I made one little square with some size 5 thread and hook.

It turned out about the size of Kirsty’s. I decided I wanted a smaller one, and dug up some size 8 thread I had bought when I thought I was going to teach myself needle tatting (I still will, someday). I used a size 8 steel hook and got a much smaller square which seemed more my size. In the dim light, the tiny stitches were a little hard on my eyes, but I think in daylight, that wouldn’t be a problem.

Here are the two squares together for scale:

Of course, I couldn’t get by with just using what was in my stash. I quickly realized that I needed some thinner and more interesting threads to play with. Today I went to The Net Loft and got 6 colors of hand-dyed Valdini Pearl Cotton Thread in size 8 and size 12, and I’m going to experiment a little with other motifs using Edie Eckman’s Beyond-the-Square Crochet Motifs book for inspiration.

I’m going to be travelling with Selma on Sunday to Tatitlek, a very tiny remote town up the coast from Cordova. They’re hosting a week of traditional arts and culture and they’ve opened it up to some students in the area. Selma was invited because she’s part of the Cordova native dance troop. I’m going as a chaperone. I’ll bring the thread projects with me because they’re small and portable. I’m looking foward to learning some new crafts while I’m there too.

Just a few days left and the hat and scarf I designed for the Twist Collective will no longer be free! After February 1st, the Elissa hat and scarf will be available for sale on their web site, but until then, you can still download it. (via the Twist blog)

Feel free to Tweet/Retweet this post by simply pasting the following into Twitter:

Countdown for Elissa: Amy (@plainsight)’s hat & scarf pattern available free at Twist Collective only until Feb 1 http://tinyurl.com/alzv5f

It’s interesting (and a relief) to finally begin to dig down into my virtual and actual to-do piles now that I’m  catching up on things after the move. In May, right before moving, I was putting the finishing touches on a few new patterns, getting them ready for the Columbus TNNA trade show, having photoshoots and finalizing pattern details. Then, the movers came, and the actual “publishing” of the patterns got delayed. (Even though I had mentioned most of them on the blog back in the spring). So, over the next few weeks, I’ll be releasing them one-by-one.

Since we’re already on the subject of soft and warm yak yarn, I thought I’d start with Yogan’s Hat.

This was my first experience knitting with 100% yak down, and it was lovely and natural feeling, and perfect for being next to sensitive baby skin. The yarn was soft and springy while I was working with it, but after I finished the hat, I gave it a quick wash and it bloomed and softened even more.  The beautiful chocolate brown is the natural color of the yak. As with the Cosmopolitan Cowl, I actually got the inspiration for this pattern while at TNNA looking at the beautiful pictures of the yaks in Eileen and Carl’s booth. The Yak who inspired the cap was named Yogan so I named the pattern after him.

This is Lars. I grabbed him at a neighborhood Easter egg hunt back in Takoma Park and convinced his mom to let him be my model.

You can buy the pattern PDF for $4.00.

If you have a yarn store and you’d like to offer the pattern to your customers in print or via PDF download, please visit The Stitch Cooperative.

Sometimes my designs are inspired by fashion or nature or an idea or problem I want to solve, but sometimes, they are the simple result of harmony between yarn and hook. This cowl is such a design. The quiet undulating texture and soft scalloped edges developed organically as I worked.

Forgive the self-portrait–I had to take the photo while there was still some acceptable level of daylight, and there was no one around but me. This was at noon, but it seems like nearly dusk. The sun is at such a low angle these days, we never get bright sunlight, but the sunrises and sunsets are spectacular.

At TNNA, Eileen and Carl, the owners of Bijou Basin Ranch asked me to come up with a one-skein pattern using their luscious Yak-Cormo yarn. This yarn is a bit thick and thin, and it’s soft and light as a cloud, and extremely warm. It was certainly one of the exciting yarns at this years’ show. Clara wrote about it in her recent TNNA recap. I had first envisioned using it for a lace pattern, but the yarn wanted to be more of a solid fabric. I was chatting with Jess, who helped me wind the yarn in the bar/lobby of my hotel on Saturday night, and she mentioned she had been thinking of a feather and fan cowl which is the idea that eventually lead to the textured stitch you see here.

I checked in with Eileen on Sunday morning, and she liked the direction the cowl was going, so I proceeded, happy to have something non-teddy-bear-related to work on. The plane ride home was all it took to finish, and I put it to the test today. It did a great job keeping me warm in Cordova where it was crisp and in the high twenties today. (It didn’t help me remember that it takes extra time to scrape off the car before going anywhere so I was late to work at the yarn store this afternoon. By the way, nowhere else I have lived have I found frost INSIDE the car. Does anyone else have that issue?)

In the spirit of momentum, I wrote up the pattern today, but I’d love to test it out before releasing it. So, I will give a free draft of the pattern to the first five people who request one in the comments. The pattern uses about 150 yards of fingering (sock or slightly heavier) yarn and a 2.75mm crochet hook (USC). Please don’t ask for the pattern if you don’t think you have time to test it in the next week. Thank you!

Wow–I just realized this is the FOURTH Halloween that I’ve been blogging, so I have a bit of goolish content on the blog that it might be nice to revisit.

In 2005, my first year with the blog, I made a crocheted Halloween Treat Bag for a class. You can get the bag on my Ravelry store, but this week only, I’ll e-mail it for free to anyone who leaves me a comment on this post requesting the pattern.

In 2006 we carved a “knit-witch” pumpkin:

Speaking of which–I’m hosting a pumpkin-carving party later this week, and we’re contemplating making our own apple cider I’ll take pictures and report here if we do.

Ghoulish Snacks: Make this easy Halloween snack that jay brought home from preschool last year:

Bake and decorate Halloween Gingerbread Cookies with my recipe from last fall:

And of course, there’s Selma’s Hermione Tie which I made just this weekend:

What are you making this year?

Emily is wearing a new vest that is debuting this weekend at TNNA–it’s called Waltz (because the edging seemed to have a rhythm of one-two-three, one-two-three), it will be available for sale on my web site after the show. Emily was not only the model, she was my contract crocheter on this project, and she did a fabulous job! Waltz is worked in O-Wool’s new two-ply organic merino. For this sample, which is a women’s Medium, we used just under 4 skeins.

Kim Werker has a great post about the comeback of big glasses à la the 1980s. Kim, I have to say I agree, and in honor of your courage in posting your glasses photos, here are mine:

Hmm… Kim and I had almost identical glasses and bangs. We went to high school only about 90 miles apart from one another (we didn’t know each other) so that could explain the coincidence. Was this Upstate New York style, circa 1989?