Thursday, October 26, 2006

finished some, started more

Knitting and crochet content have been AWOL for the last month. I think they both picked up on my level of pre-quilt show stress and just decided to be anywhere that wasn't here.
Happily they've decided to come back and here is the photographic proof:
the finished Yarn Harlot scarf : 60 something inches x 3 1/2 inches in Wendy DK. I loved knitting this pattern. It took most of one ball and the remainder was used to make the roll up cuff on exhibit B, which is a hat I just made up. The cuff is done with the same easy pattern as the scarf and a basic broken rib for the rest. The colour is off on my monitor: the scarf / hat cuff are much deeper with purple highlights and the hat is deeeeeeeep royal purple. The link to YH's pattern is back a few days if you want to go look for it.
Exhibit 3 is the Short and Sweet from Happy Hooker. I took the photo yesterday and it's about twice this long now. I figured out fairly quickly that there were major mistakes in the pattern, fixed them and THEN went looking for the errata page. There are a mind bogglingly huge number of errors in that first edition. Far too many. Basically, someone on the tech side didn't do a tremendous job and guess what? There are even errors in the errata!
Yup. You heard me [ read me?]
several rows in Short and Sweet are wrong ON THE BLOODY CORRECTIONS.
The graph, thank goddess, is correct.
Debbie Stoller is onto a really good lurk with this franchise: she didn't design the projects, someone else did the [ amazing] drawings, there were tech editors galore, people to design the look of the book ... and I noticed yesterday on crafster.org that she's put out a call for designs for her next one... and don't bother flaming me if you think Ms Stoller is God. The way she's helped revitalise knitting is fabulous but Happy Hooker was rushed into print too soon and it shows.
Oh and just for the record, I think the designs in this one are the best of all her books so far. Young and fresh enough to appeal to the 20 somethings but also with enough elan to satisfy the 'mature' crocheter [AND a good range of sizes even if the 'small' would fit your average pygmy ]

6 comments:

Nicole & Phil said...

I love the colours in the scarf, and the hat is gorgeous!
I am currently on the look out for new hats......our winter is fast approaching! Must start the kids hats very soon!

Cheers
Nicole, Berlin, Germany

Unknown said...

Beautiful hat and scarf! I made a swatch with the Harlot's pattern and loved knitting it! Some of my Rhinebeck roving "haul" is going to be made into a scarf using the pattern!

Sheepish Annie said...

Those are great! Seriously...I need to knit that scarf!!! Why is it that I only remember I want to when I see it on someone's blog?

Linda Mullen said...

Does it actually get cold enough to wear those in Australia? I mean I live in Canada and I would only consider wearing those if it hit say -20C or colder. 10C is still tshirt weather for us you know.

catsmum said...

I live in the Highlands so it gets down just below zero at night for a lot of winter but no snow just savage frosts and then it might get up to 20 C during the day. Here we are in the middle of spring and last week it was 33C one day and minus 2 that night.!

catsmum said...

oh and btw folks check out the quilting diva's sewing room post at her blog ... linda you are SOOOOOOO lucky :] or is that sew lucky?