Pratchgan

Back at the end of December 2007, the members of the Ravelry group the Ankh-Morpork Knitter's Guild were feeling glum about Terry Pratchett's recent revelation that he had been diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's. Being crafters, we decided to make something for him. Originally, there were going to be 100 six-inch squares, with eight of them spelling out "I ATEN'T DEAD" in the middle. (If you're not a Discworld fan, then just play along.) The squares were going to be done by February, and Shirley, a Raveler who lives in Scotland, volunteered to collect all the squares and assemble the afghan. I was an early volunteer, so I got to make two. A letter square



and a colorful square that didn't really have anything to do with the books, but looked weird and magical.



Well, the project grew, in space and in time, as projects will. And this weekend, Shirley presented the assembled Pratchgan to Mr. Pratchett himself, at the Edinburgh Book Fair.



More can be found here at Shirley's blog.

I'm honored to have been a part of this project!

A warped view

I'm all over the photos from the Craft release party. Here's me and my loom.

A Looming Presence

I drove up to San Francisco today to attend the Craft Magazine issue 8 release party at the very curious Curiosity Shoppe in the Mission.


As seen on the cover, Travis Meinolf himself was there

patiently teaching people to cut out their own heddles from index cards

and then weave!

(These iPhone photos really look as though they were taken underwater!) I got a few inches done before relinquishing my cuphook on the wall to another weaver.

The latest issue of Craft has a pre-printed heddle on cardstock, ready to cut out.

I met Natalie and the other Craft folk, and I brought my little tabletop loom along, since it had never been to a party. Travis gave me some tips for warping it, and now I'm all fired up and ready to go. (I bought the loom on ebay several years ago, and it has sat in my craft room, lonely and forlorn, ever since.)

The Curiosity Shoppe is curious because it is so precious that I can't understand how it sells enough to pay the rent. But you can check it out yourself, if you've a mind; the weaving party returns tomorrow (Sunday the 10th.) Then you can go to Mission Pie afterward and bring home a Suncrest peach pie. Mmmm....pie......

She sells seashells

Well, they're not for sale; it's not even my pattern. But I finished my domino shells project and even blocked it. (This is becoming a habit!) The silk and alpaca yarns responded to the blocking really beautifully.



I'm very pleased with it. I'm sure that you can see that I ran out of yarn up at the top, but I'm happy with how I handled it, although it would have been fun to make the partial shells that the real pattern called for.

Another first for me, is that it makes a twinset with my Chequers cardigan.



Of course, the tank is knit out of yarn leftover from the cardigan; how many other twinsets originate that way?

Three or so years ago, Vera gave me a ball of yarn with very silly pompoms. I puzzled over what to do with it, since the pompoms are so big that they couldn't be drawn through loops in either crochet or knit. It occurred to me recently that I could carry it along within single crochet, just as the unused yarn is hidden in tapestry crochet. So I decided to make a bathmat.



You will be unsurprised, I'm sure, to hear that I bought the white cotton yarn I'm using. But I was surprised to find that, not only does Bernat make an organic cotton yarn, sold at big box stores near you, but also that I could order it through Amazon. I had to do it, just because I could.

I spent a week in Eureka with my best friend and her family, and we went to a really great store in Arcata, called Daisy Drygoods. It had scads of vintage knit and crochet patterns (along with trim, buttons, vintage clothing and fabric) and I scored a beautiful 1947 Fleisher pattern book.





Although they're all knit at 7 or 8 sts/in, I'm sorely tempted.