Burt’s Bees Almond Milk Beeswax Hand Creme. Smells lovely, if a bit strong. You don’t need to use much. You can use it on your feet as well. And it’s all natural. I like to keep a jar in my knitting bag. (Well, my knitting bag is also my handbag as well, when I don’t mind carrying a simply enormous bag.) I like most of Burt’s Bees products, but this definitely falls into the “love” range.

Will solve most cuticle problems too, but if you need extra help there, try the Lemon Butter Cuticle Creme. Yum.

Available in the US and the UK and lots of other places.

The lovely Jeny has now come up with another surprisingly stretchy bind-off, which looks a bit different (she calls it invisible) from the JSSBO. She calls it the Interlock Bind-off. It’s in the latest edition of Knitty.com, one of my favorite knitting resources evah.

Fair warning: it’s a sewn bind-off, but if the look is what you want along with the stretch, that’s worth getting out the tapestry needle, isn’t it?

This is Lisa Gentrys Shoulder Shawl for Caron’s Simply Soft. I don’t use acrylic yarns, for once not because I’m a fiber snob, but because acrylic feels slimy to my hands and makes me sweat funny.

But I’m definitely going to knit this one at some point, even if it’s not in Simply Soft. Should be a pretty fast knit, I’m thinking.

The shawl measures approximately 56″/142cm wide x 16″/40.5cm long and calls for two skeins of Simply Soft, which is 315 yards per skein. If that’s correct, that’s almost worth the slime factor. (Most people don’t have the same problem that I have with acrylic. On the other hand, lots of people complain about The Dreaded Squeak.)

NOTE: THIS PATTERN IS CURRENTLY UNDER REVIEW BY CARON AS THERE’S SIGNIFICANT ERRORS IN THE PATTERN. I’ll post when I see a new pattern, I’ll be doing some frogging on the plane… *sigh*

Well, you’ve probably noticed that, after saying I was back…I wasn’t back. Life indeed threw a spanner into the works, and I’m currently back in the States, dealing with family medical situations, business situations, etc. I’ll be returning to the UK, my loving and loved partner J, and my beloved nest/stash (*sob*), hopefully in April or June, once everything is all taken care of, at least as much as any of those things will be able to be taken care of.

I am ashamed to admit it, but one of the first thoughts after all of this sunk in and I realized I needed to get back to the States for a few months was, “but…but…but…my workshop is almost done!”

Kind people keep asking if the stress is too much, but to be honest, all of the stress I’m dealing with isn’t mine, it’s all other peoples, and any stress on my part is mainly that I can’t wave some kind of magic wand and make their stresses disappear.

More happily, things have now let up a bit, and I can start posting again, hooray. :) I have a short term rental apartment, which is very cute, and a good size for what I need right now. And it’s good that were going into the Chinese New Year celebrations with things looking up for our families…even though I’m sad not to be at home with my partner and my stash. Um. In that order, of course. Of course. :)

I brought several projects (as in, a small yarn stash) with me, I have a few patterns to write, etc. (To demonstrate and further the recent state of things, however, all of them have been put on hold while I’m knitting a lap blanket for my friend T, who suffered a bad stroke recently, which is a small lap-size blanket of Mason Dixon’s Moderne pattern. I’m hoping to finish that ASAP.)

The first pattern will be for a scarf that I designed for one of J’s brothers-in-law, both of whom have been extraordinarily helpful moving things about for us while we were moving households (twice) last year. I say “designed” rather than just designed because scarves tend to be a stitch pattern repeated a few times, and, yes, I know that’s still designing, but I feel something of a fraud doing something so simple. Urm. Moving along. Here’s a pic:

I hope to get the pattern done as soon as the Moderne blanket for T is done. It’ll be available here as soon as it’s done.

I’m also struggling with the iPad apps for posting in WordPress. In a word, it sucks. Sorry for any lack of pictures and apostrophes, etc., as I am currently trying to get it to do what it’s supposed to do.

Anyway, I’m glad to be back. Again. Cross your fingers that more life interruptus doesnt happen any time soon.

And…gung hay fat choy! (Happy New Year!)

If you haven’t tried JSSBO yet…do it! You’ll love it!

Durham will also have a lace pattern in the Winter Knitty edition, which will be her first Knitty pattern. Hope she’ll do more. :) She says it’s “a very special lace jacket with detachable shawl.”  Durham being Durham, we can probably look forward to something very special indeed.

The new book, if the cover is any indication, looks gorgeous! Durham says, “For the book I’ve worked up garments from the simplest mesh patterns to my tour-de-force—an intricate bias dress based on a Shetland shawl with a bodice drawn from a famous “art lace” doily. I have used a variety of yarn weights and fibers—including my own yarns and knitters’ favorites, such as Tahki Yarns DONEGAL TWEED and Filatura di CrosaSUPERIOR and MILLEFILI FINE—for a great mix of bold, chunky quick-to-knit lace and delicate heirloom projects. The patterns survey many types of lace stitches, with swatch photos, and I delve into the history of lace and my inspiration in the text. All the styles are contemporary and fresh, yet with a vintage, romantic appeal. I am scheduling a book signing tour so be sure to ask your LYS, your knitting group or your guild if they’d like to host an event in the New Year.”

I’m amused by Durham’s note on the book’s cover model, Bojana, who Durham says was so impressed by the garments she was modeling, she is taking up knitting.

I’m really looking forward to this one!

The Campaign for Wool is a cross-industry initiative convened by HRH The Prince of Wales in January 2010. As a serious environmentalist, the Prince believes the natural, sustainable origin and highly technical structure of wool can offer fashion, interiors and the built environment many superior benefits. Choosing real wool – as the Prince understands – will also help to care for our planet.

The combined efforts of the leading wool organisations, industry associations and the textile industry across the world has created a campaign to promote the wonderful properties that wool offers to textiles and in doing so, help to support sheep farming as an industry and the textile community internationally.

The campaign for wool aims to reconnect people with the versatility of wool and in turn to help to support sheep farming as an industry and the international textile community as a whole. The campaign was convened by the Prince of Wales with the support of British, Australian, South African, Norwegian, and New Zealand woolgrowers. The campaign will extend globally in 2011 into Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, and the United States.

My habit of having six projects on the go at once has not changed whatsoever during my long hiatus from knitting. (There’s more on the floor beside the desk, too.)

I only have four projects done so far. There are (stopping to count) seven more on actual needles, and I’ve balled or have waiting eight more projects. Good thing most of these are fast or are going to be done on the knitting machine…

In other news, if you saw the lovely Diana Troldahl and I talking about brioche stitch on the Christmas scarf post, since I don’t have enough to do with my time, ha ha, I decided it was time to investigate.

One of the things you quickly learn about knitting is that very often a lot of the stitches or processes have the same name but are actually entirely different stitches or processes, or vice versa – stitches/processes may have different names, but are the exact same stitch or process. Thus, patterns that say “psso” or “ssk” and mean something entirely different from another pattern. This is why wise/experienced knitters often check before starting the pattern, or so they tell me.

It turns out that these two brioche stitches are slightly different from the above: they are the same stitch, but you get there in a different way, and, amazingly and as often may not happen, the new way is better! Or at least I think so, anyway.

The old brioche rib stitch goes like this:

Row 1 (set up row): Knit to last stitch, slip last stitch.
Row 2: K1, *k1, k1 by inserting needle into center of next stitch of row below, then drop unworked stitch above off left needle without working it (k1 below made)*; repeat from * to* across, slip last stitch. Repeat Row 2 for pattern.

The new brioche rib stitch goes like this:

Row 1 (set up row): K2, *yo, sl1, K1, repeat from * to last two stitches, K1, sl1.
Row 2: K2, *yo, sl1, K2tog, repeat from * to last two stitches, K1, sl1. When you K2tog, you are knitting the preceding slipped stitch (sl1) together with the yarn over (yo) of the previous row. Repeat Row 2 for pattern.

I just sat down and tried out both stitches next to each other in the same yarn (I happen to have two balls here of the same yarn waiting to be made into, as it happens, a brioche rib scarf) on the same needles.

The old brioche stitch takes a while to knit, for while you don’t have to slip anything or YO, you do have to make sure you’ve got the center of the stitch below, and that slows you down tremendously. It’s also a bit looser — I’m sure with practice, it’d tighten up a bit — than my version of the new brioche stitch. The new brioche stitch, on the other hand, presents itself on the needle in a more confusing way than the old, as the old just has the usual knit stitches on the needle, where you have a lot of YOs on the needle with the new stitch.

Whether one is faster than the other will depend on whether you’re faster at YOs and slips than a knit stitch that goes into a weird place in the knitting, I suppose.

So that’s why I felt that the PurlBee Brioche Stitch Scarf is much faster than any other brioche stitch scarf I’d knit before…because (for me at least) it is! And that’s why Diana objected to Brioche not building nearly as fast as her Farrow Rib, because it doesn’t — but sometimes, what you really want to end up with is the squishiest, most supple possible rib pattern, and nothing does that better than Brioche Rib Stitch.

Which, by the way, is also sometimes known as Prime Rib Stitch. :)

Here’s the projects done so far:

I’m trying something new this year. Everything is going to go into a box near the Christmas tree, there’ll be a mirror sitting next to the box, and everyone will be able to rummage through the box and decide if they want anything in it. I’d rather people liked and wore their gift than me guessing and having them prefer someone else’s gift! I plan to make a few extras and either keep for myself or donate whatever is left over.

And now, I’m going to go back to my knitting; right now I need to sit down and figure out a fair isle chart for a line of cats running around an ear flap hat (Thorpe again).

Wham Bam Thank You Lamb! by Susan Chang (free Ravelry download, you’ll need a free Ravelry membership) is one of those patterns; it’s nothing more than a tall strip of bulky garter stitch knitting, but the difference is made in the clever seam placement and the yarn you choose.

Using a super chunky or bulky yarn means that it knits up fast and has a hyper-modern feel to it; using a hand-dyed wool or thick and thin will make it an extra-special, stylish gift for anyone. The thicker the yarn, the better and more stylish, as the garter turned edge up looks really graphic and textured. (If you use a chunky rather than bulky yarn, you might want to add more stitches to get the height – I only got about 7 using Malabrigo Chunky, and I think 8 or 9 inches would have been better.)

The chunky, modern, streamlined shape of the piece makes it wearable by both men and women who are fashion-forward – depending on the yarn you use, perhaps even fashion-daring. The shape feels very Japanese to me, a sort of Issey Miyake, folding origami thing going on.

My first Wham Bam won’t be the last for this year’s Christmas list.

Truly stylish, practical and warm, easy, fast, and handmade. What more can you ask from one project!

Get yourself some very chunky or bulky yarn. 6mm/size 10 needles or up.  For best results, find something with longish color changes and great color combos, but plain colors — especially so-called “masculine” colors are just as attractive in this pattern. Softness a plus.

Get thee hence to The Purl Bee’s Brioche Stitch Scarf pattern. (It’s free.) Cast on in multiples of two — I’m currently working in Brett’s Marble Chunky on 6mm needles, in a marled colorway of three or four browns, and I cast on 20, and I probably could have gotten away with 18, but this stitch pattern is very fluid and squishy, so I thought 20 would be better.

Marvel at how fast this scarf flies by.

Slightly fancier than just a plain rib, but just as easy, if not easier. Easy, easy, easy. Fast, fast, fast.

That is all.

P.S. No, it’s not all — it occurred to me that I definitely should have cast on 18 instead, so the scarf was symmetrical, rather asymmetrical… Next time, I will, and am thinking of finding an even more bulky yarn to do it in.