Month: March 2009

  • Short and Sweet-Launching Inside Crochet

    Last fall, my friend Julie Holetz and I got an e-mail from England asking if we’d like to help launch a new Crochet Magazine (at this point it didn’t even have a name). The deal was this: we would work for 3-4 months commissioning designs for a year’s worth of magazine issues and then the publisher would put together the magazine. It was an unusual proposition, not exactly an editorial job, but with some similar responsibilities. I was intrigued. It seemed like an ideal project for me in some ways–as I’m a starter and an idea person, and I love to get new things going. I also love my freelance life and don’t want to commit to working exclusively for any one company.

    Julie and I were both too busy with other projects to take on the job alone, but we thought it would be fun to do it together, and it was. Julie and I have a good working relationship. We see eye-to-eye on a lot of things, we have similar opinions about design, but not so similar that we don’t balance each other out when it comes to, say, the color or fit of something. Then there are the not-so-fun administrative tasks of doing any job–we each like some more than others, and it turned out to be a good split.

    We got to set the tone for the magazine, which was wonderful. We wanted to emphasize yarns that are sustainable, ecological and produced in a socially responsible way. We also wanted the magazine to be fun for crocheters at all levels and to include some of the things that we love about good patterns–charts and schematics and clear instructions. We wanted garments lots of them–wearable sweaters that crocheters will feel compelled to make. We wanted to support and showcase great designers around the world and especially those from the UK where the magazine originates.

    The best part about the job was talking to designers all over the world, collecting submissions and choosing designs for the various issues. We planned general themes for the magazine issues, and even scoped out and commissioned some of the features and articles, but a lot of the written content is being handled in-house at KAL Media central and will be a nice surprise for us when we get our issues.

    The hardest part of this job is letting go. Unlike a traditional editorial position, we don’t get to have our hands in the process ’till the end. But we knew this from the outset, and it’s ok. In fact, the short nature of the project was one of the reasons we were able to take it on. But even so, I’ll miss talking to designers and helping them with the little issues that come up along the way. I won’t get to see magazine proofs or make sure there are no typos or errors; that will be someone else’s job. (The magazine does have a first class technical editor, Helen Jordan.) And I always worry about the technical accuracy of any project I’m involved in, so letting that go is hard too. But I’m excited to move on to new things, and I can’t wait to start getting my subscription to the magazine and to begin seeing all of our great designers’ work appear.

    I’m grateful to Kerrie Allman and Lou Butt, publishers of the magazine, for giving us the opportunity to be a part of Inside Crochet in its infancy. And I want to thank the amazing Shannon Okey for sending them our way. A big thank you, too, to Alex McDowell, the fabulous production editor for the magazine. She keeps everything moving and is a real pleasure to work with.

    Have you seen the first issue? I love how it emphasizes crocheted motifs in beautiful non-traditional ways. I’m not a motif-gal myself, so it was great fun to collect these designs which are so gorgeous and yet so different from how I design. Motif-guru Robyn Chachula has a technique column in the magazine all about making and joining motifs, which will be great to get us started.

    Where can you find Inside Crochet? Crocheters around the world can subscribe to the magazine, and it will be widely available in bookstores. Here in the US, you’ll find it at Borders and Barnes and Noble. Soon, you’ll be able to receive your subscription digitally as well. You can also keep up with all the Inside Crochet happenings online:

    Ravelry
    Facebook
    Twitter

  • Terra Firma Round Yoke Cardigan

    I published another pattern on Ravelry last week that I’ve had in my wholesale catalog for a while now. It’s called Terra Firma. Here’s a picture of me wearing it when we still lived in Maryland. I love this picture of our old cat, Honey.

    Terra Firma Cardigan

    The sweater is the round-yoke cardigan I was working on this spring. (Blogged here, and here, and here, and even here.)  It turned out to be a sweater that I wear quite a lot. The hempwol is not too warm and the shape is great for layering. The pattern is written in a customizable template-style so you can get  a perfect fit.


  • Various methods of distraction

    Thursday Afternoon

    Look! Blue sky! Snow-capped mountains! I’m trying distract you from my recent lack of blog posting with the view from my living-room window. Is it working? It should. It distracts me often enough. Like this morning, when there was so much SUN streaming in that I couldn’t sit in my usual spot and use my laptop. (Not that I’m complaining. We take all the sun we can get up here).

    Right. So I’m not blogging because I’m still finishing the never-ending bear book. I promise now it’s just tying up loose ends crossing t’s and dotting eyes i’s. Also because the entire house came down with a vicious crud that made us just want to lie around all day and occasionally eat soup.

    Chick-pea and Orzo Soup

    See? This is chick-pea and orzo soup loosely based on this soup from the PPK. We left out the greens and added green beans and used orzo instead of noodles. Oh, and we didn’t have any mirin, so I obviously left that out. We’re are mostly better now which is a good thing since Selma is off of school for spring break.

    I’ve finished all of the actual crocheting for the book and to celebrate, I went on a bit of a sock knitting bender (no pictures yet, but they’ll come). It all started with a pair of baby socks and I was hooked. I’ve found that stockinette socks are something I can actually work on in front of the TV without paying too much attention, and at the end of it, someone has warm feet. A win-win.

    OK, now that you’re thinking about soup and socks I’ll slip back off to working on the book.

  • And the winner is…

    Congratulations to Mikaiya! She’s the winner of the random drawing for a copy of Knits for Bears to Wear.

    Mikayia’s blog, Handknit by Mikayia keeps us up to date on her knitting, quilting and her wedding preparations (I just wish she’d show us that dress!). I hope you enjoy the book!

    I’ve been busy this week finishing up the sequel to Knits for Bears, so that’s why the blog has been so quiet. More updates soon!

  • Potage, Baguette, and a New Pattern

    pidder2

    OK, let’s start with the new pattern. You might have already heard that the new Twist Collective is out. It’s a great issue with some fabulous articles and a great selection of patterns. I especially liked all the socks. I have a pattern in the collection called Pidder Pat (above). It’s a baby sweater crocheted from Lorna’s Laces Green Line DK.

    I know I said in my last post that I didn’t see obvious creative connections between the books on tape I listened to and my design work. It appears dinner is a different story. I was nearly done preparing our Sunday meal before I realized that an influence must have occurred.

    It’s not unusual for us to make a big pot of soup on Sunday that will get us through a few nights the following week. This week, I decided to make yellow split pea soup with potatoes since we were trying to use up an over-abundance of tubers. In Dragonfly in Amber, the protagonists have just returned from France to their farm where they harvest a large crop of potatoes and make potato soup. My soup ended up a lovely amber color due to the addition of some tomato paste to add a bit of tanginess.

    Split Pea & Potato Soup w/homemade Baguette

    We don’t have a bakery here in Cordova, so when I do make soup I always bemoan the fact that we can’t have a crusty loaf to go with it. Occassionally I’ll make bread from scratch, but since I prefer the no knead recipes, that takes a little forethought. Today I decided to try making some dough in the bread maker, then baking it in my baguette pans. We’ve had the bread machine for about 13 years, and I’ve never used it just to make dough, but it was so easy and worked perfectly.

    Baguette dough from bread machine

    The baguettes had just the right crustiness and texture inside, and took only about 15 minutes total of hands-on time. (Really, not enough for my taste, I like to get my hands into dough when I make bread–but it was fast and yummy!)

    Finished Baguetes

    I can see using this feature for making regular loaves and pizza dough too.

    Here are my recipes:

    Amber Potage

    3 T olive oil
    1 large onion, diced
    1 lb carrots, diced
    1 lb yukon potatoes, peeled and diced
    2 cloves garlic, minced
    2 T thyme
    1 quart organic vegetable broth
    2 quarts water
    1 lb yellow split peas, sorted and rinsed
    2 T apple cider vinegar
    1 sm can tomato paste
    salt and pepper to taste

    Sauté onion until translucent. Add garlic, carrots, potatoes and sauté until vegetables start to get tender. Add thyme and cook 2 minutes more. Add broth then water and peas. Cook over medium heat until vegetables are soft and peas are cooked through. Using and immersion blender, purée the soup leaving some chunks of carrot and potato intact. Stir in tomato paste and stir until it’s completely incorporated. Add apple cider vinegar. Season with salt and pepper.

    Bread Machine Baguettes
    Adapted from the Black & Decker All-In-One Deluxe Automatic Breadmaker Operating Instructions & Cookbook Classic French Dough recipe

    1 1/4 c water
    2 t sugar
    1 1/2 t salt
    3 1/2 c organic unbleached flour
    1 1/2 t active-dry yeast
    2 T cornmeal
    1 t. canola oil

    Place the water, sugar, salt, flour and yeast into the bread machine pan in the order listed above. Set your machine to the “dough” setting. Grease baguette pans and sprinkle wtih cornmeal.

    When the dough is finished, remove it from the machine, and on a clean surface, separate the dough in half. Stretch each piece into a long flat rectangle and then roll the rectangle into a baguette shape. Place the baguettes into the pans seam side down.

    Cover the dough with a towel and allow to rise again in a warm spot (approximately 30 minutes). Preheat the oven to 400F. Slit the baguettes down the middle with a sharp knife. Bake for 25 minutes or until the internal temperature of the bread reads 190F on an instant read thermometer. Remove baguettes from pans and allow to cool on a wire rack.