I mentioned in my last post how much I love the Sanguine Gryphon's Bugga, and that I will have a pattern in the Sanguine Gryphon's upcoming Art Nouveau line using Skinny Bugga (did I mention how excited I am about it?!!!). 

But I forgot to say how much I love the patterns in the Sanguine Gryphon's recent collections.  Here is their Steam Punk line from Fall 2010.  All of the patterns are gorgeous.  My favorites are Emily Prefers, in Her Secret Heart, to Flounce (who doesn't, really?) and Scavenger.  I would love Emily Prefers . . . to Flounce for the name alone, but the structured fabric over the delicate lace skirt are reason enough to knit this project, even if you're not a big fan of flouncing yourself.   As for Scavenger, it's clearly styled as Steam Punk in the photo shoot, but the saturated colors and intricate stranded pattern remind me of an illuminated manuscript.  It's as if a Celtic warrior princess stole the pages from a monk's work book and fashioned them into a skirt to go off to battle.  Awesome, right? 

Here is their literature-inspired collection.  Again, all gorgeous.  I love the whimsical themes the Sanguine Gryphon chooses whenever it puts out a new line.  It made it a lot of fun to come up with my design proposal for the spring, and it definitely paid off in their winter line.  I looooove this one in particular -Ambergris - and it's not just because it calls to mind one of my favorite books, Moby Dick.  The designer nailed it, framing the delicate whale-tail-like design on either side with a nautical-looking cable.  Love it.

I've lusted after the Sanguine Gryphon's Bugga yarn for years, but the first time I had the opportunity to knit with it was over the summer, when I made my Hawthorne, from the Fall Twist Collective.  It's lovely to knit with - so smooth and soft, and works up into a drapey, luxurious fabric with a gorgeous sheen. 

So I was thrilled when my pattern proposal for the Sanguine Gryphon's Art Nouveau line was accepted earlier this year!  I have already completed the sample.  No teaser photos yet, but here is a photo of the yarn I used:


It's Skinny Bugga in Starry Night Cracker.  I love it, and I hope you do, too.

My first published knitting pattern is decembre, published in Knitty Deep Fall 2010.  Decembre is a reversible scarf that is not double-knit in the traditional sense, and its chart is not intuitive.  To help you out in knitting it, here is a brief FAQ inspired by a knitter on Ravelry:

Q. As I knit, the contrast color (CC) yarn becomes really loose.  How do I fix this?

A. You just need to tug the CC gently every few stitches (but not too tightly!  That's another problem) to make sure tension is consistent with the MC.  It's fiddly, but it works.  Again, be careful not to tug too tightly!

Q.  How far do I carry the CC - do I carry it to the end of the row? 

A.  No, but -- look to where the first CC stitch is on the next row, and that will tell you how far to carry the CC. For example, let’s look at rows 7 & 8 of the chart.  In row 7, the last CC stitch is 7 stitches in from the edge. But in row 8, the first CC stitch is only 3 stitches in from the edge. So when you’re knitting row 7, knit the last CC stitch, then, as you work the next 4 stitches in MC, thread the CC behind the knit stitches and in front of the purls. At this point, hold the CC in back (don’t continue to carry it), work the last 2 stitches in MC, and turn. On row 8, work the first 2 stitches in MC. Now you’re at the 3rd st of row 8 - a CC stitch - and the CC that you held to the back from row 7 is in the right place.

Q.  How do I weave in the CC ends?

A.  Thread them through the purl and knit stitches, like you did while working the pattern. If you’re using any kind of a sticky yarn (which I definitely recommend for this pattern), that will be enough to hold them in place.

Any more questions?  Feel free to post them in the comments, or PM me on Ravelry.  Happy knitting!

Those of you who know me in real life know that I love all things Twilight, and thanks to Gretchen Rubin's love of the same, I am not embarrassed to confess it.  If a best-selling author who also clerked for Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor can admit without shame to getting lost in Stephanie Meyer's (excellent) teenage melodrama, then clearly there is nothing shameful about it - right? 

Which brings me to an (NSFW!!  Contains explicit language and imagery!!) excellent piece of Twilight-related writing that I never would have found but for Gretchen Rubin's blog, the Happiness Project.  This review of the film adaptation of "Twilight: Eclipse" is light and hilarious, but insightful and dead-on at the same time.  It is most deft when it cites to cultural references that you don't even remember you once knew, like Smith Jerrod from Sex & the City.  Remember when Smith waited for Samantha in the lobby of the hotel, just to make sure she got home okay?  Of course you do, now, and since Natasha Vargas-Cooper and Mary HK Choi point it out, Edward waiting for Bella while she canoodled with Jacob in the tent is totally Smith Jerrod part 2.  But it's not a connection I ever would have made myself. 

I forwarded this review to my friend Christin, who wrote back not only that she thought it was as funny as I did, but that Mary HK Choi is her cousin!  So, at Christin's wedding earlier this year, I was able to meet Mary and tell her what a fan I am of her writing.  Here we are:

Ahoy!

Padma is a quick little knit in fingering-weight yarn.  It's the perfect gift to bring instant zen to the yogi or yogini in your life.  Or, make it for yourself to keep cozy and warm as you sink into savasana after a difficult class. 


See the 5 lotuses lining the edge?  Each one perfectly formed, with 10 petals.  But wait - there's another lotus!!

Here is my new pattern, Honeycomb:


It's mainly stockinette, but where the ribbing would be on a traditional cap, I use an adorable little honeycomb instead.  The one-stitch cables of the honeycomb pattern serve the same purpose as ribbing - they draw the fabric in to provide a snug fit around the ears  But they're even better than ribbing - by creating a thicker fabric, they're better able to keep your ears warm through the approaching winter. 

I will post a few more photos in the coming days - my friend Jason was gracious enough to act as photographer during my recent trip to San Francisco.  But the above photo was taken by my friend Sheri.  For the moment, this pattern is offered for free on Ravelry.

One more post about l'echarpe decembre -- it was just named as the Blue Sky Alpacas staff pick for October!!! 
Decembre is knit in Blue Sky Alpacas Worsted Hand Dyes, in Petunia (#2026) and Charcoal (#2025).  Amy Singer suggested this yarn for the pattern, and I think they go together beautifully.   



See how happy I am in this photo?  That's how I'm feeling right now!
Only, in the photo it was because of the french fries. . .

The Knitty Deep Fall 2010 went live this morning -- check out my new pattern, l'echarpe decembre!!! 


This scarf is knit in Blue Sky Alpaca Worsted Hand-dye on size US 8 needles.  The main color is Petunia, and the contrast color is Charcoal. 

At first glance it looks like a simple fair isle scarf. . . but when you look more closely, you notice that it's reversible, and that it has a different fair isle motif on each side.  I came up with the design while I was living in France and decided I wanted to teach myself double knitting, without the benefit of a teacher, an instructional book, or even the internet - in short, without anything but a general idea that double knitting was possible and a firm conviction that I could learn it. 

While I didn't manage to figure out double knitting, I did end up with a reversible and very warm scarf.  Instead of two layers of stockinette, like you would get by double knitting, this scarf is one layer made extra-thick by knitting it in 1x1 rib.  When you knit 1x1 rib on needles that are slightly small for the yarn you're using, and you don't stretch it out when you block it or when you wear it, you get a thick fabric that creates the illusion of stockinette.  

 
Once I figured out that I could mimic stockinette by knitting in 1x1 rib, I realized I would be bored to tears if I tried to knit a scarf in just 1x1 rib.  So I added one of my favorite fair isle stars to the end of it.  And because that wasn't enough of a challenge, I decided I might as well take it a step further and knit a different fair isle star on each side of the fabric. 


What that meant was that I continued to knit in 1x1 rib, on right sides using the first chart for the knit stitches and the second chart for the purled stitches, and on wrong sides using the second chart for knit stitches and the first chart for purled stitches.  In order to simplify things for the pattern available on Knitty, I condensed the two charts to one.  The downside is that the fair isle patterns don't immediately make sense when you look at the chart; the upside is that you don't have to keep your place in two charts, and besides, you can see the fair isle motifs developing quite quickly as you progress a few rows. 



I hope you like it!  Feel free to shoot a message if you have questions or if you run into any issues knitting it.  I'm always around on Ravelry, and my name there is themegnapkin.  Happy knitting!

Meet Griffith Park: 






















My new pattern available for download on Ravelry. It's a quick but interesting knit, 
and great for a woman or a man --even though the model is in pink and grey, knit 
it up in darker colors and it's a perfect present for your guy. 
 
If, for some reason, you've been paying attention to my blog this evening, you may 
have noticed I'm having some technical difficulties. Sorry - I'm trying to figure out how 
to link from my blog to Ravelry in such a way that you don't have to be a member in 
order to download the pattern. But if you're a knitter, you really should join Ravelry -- 
it's free.

So I was talking to my brother about risk aversion this morning.  As I think I've mentioned on this blog, I am a lawyer.  Lawyers have a reputation for being risk averse, and I had always assumed that this reputation was deserved.  Judging by my acquaintance, most law students and lawyers ended up in law school not because they had an innate love for the law, but because they had no strong inclination to do anything in particular after college, and they figured that becoming a lawyer was a way to hedge their bets.  Everyone knows that a law degree opens so many doors, right?*  And until the past few years, a law firm was a safe place to ride out your career.  If you did decent work and put in your hours, you were guaranteed a comfortable life.  Maybe you wouldn't make partner, but there were other firms to go to, and of course you could always set out your shingle and try to make it as a solo practitioner. 

If you have read Above the Law or a newspaper lately, then you know that things are not quite as easy for lawyers these days.  A law degree is no longer a golden ticket to success.  If you buy into the conventional wisdom that lawyers are risk averse, then what we have is a large group of people who have shelled out $100k+ for a great education and who are now, because of layoffs or because they happened to graduate in one of the lost years, struggling to figure out how to handle what their lives have become.  
I mentioned to my brother that I thought I was risk averse, and he said, "Really?  But you swam with sharks, and you backpacked across Europe by yourself."  And he's right.  I've taken a number of serious risks in (with) my life, and in certain areas I have an insane overconfidence.  In others, not so much.  But his comment got me thinking about lawyers in general.  When you go to a private law school (and many public law schools), you pay upwards of $30k in tuition alone per year.  Even in the best years for big law lawyers - probably the late 1990s and early 2000s - for most students, paying this tuition was nothing less than making a bet that they would make good grades and land a 6-figure job upon graduation.  The kids who go to top tier schools all finished towards the top of their college classes.  They're all smart.  But each one is betting that she is smarter than the others in her law school year, or at least smarter than half of them.  None of these students has anything more to go on than a record of undergraduate achievement and a belief in herself.  Even in the best of years, that doesn't sound so risk averse to me. 

* This statement is meant as irony.  A law degree may unlock doors, but even if they're unlocked, you need a whole team of castle-stormers to force them open.  It is rarely a good idea to invest in a law degree if you plan to do something other than law.**

** See how I hedged?  I am so a lawyer. 

In other news. . .
Some of you may have heard that I have a pattern coming out in the Deep Fall 2010 Knitty.  I'm incredibly excited about this.  I can't show you any photos of that pattern, but here is a photo of a free pattern I just posted for download on Ravelry:


Cold Comfort Hat.  Please forgive the funky colors - I am still figuring out Photoshop.  The pattern is quick and easy.  Keep checking this blog, because I will be posting photos of another soon-to-be released pattern in the next day or so.