Catkins

My preparations for the Madrona Winter Retreat have included finishing the Catkins Cardigan for its big debut:

I can't believe the enthusiasm you've shown for this design, Gentle Readers, as I've been working on the pattern and traveling around meeting knitters.  Knowing you were looking forward to seeing it really inspired me; Thank you so very, very much dear friends. 

It's not often that I still love my designs right when I'm done with them.  I usually require a time out before I can play nicely with them again.  Catkins is a notable exception.  It's going on tour with Toots LeBlanc & Co.; coming soon to a town near you!  I'll miss it.  Give it my love if you happen to see it.  Or better still, make your own...Imagine a knitterly Catkin Explosion to herald the spring!  Pattern in four sizes, to fit 36-46 inch busts.  Get it here on my pattern page, on Ravelry, or a real live printed copy at the Toots LeBlanc booth, wherever they appear.

PS:  A little bird told me that the artist who makes the Fine Silver Catkins Buttons will be at Madrona, with a few sets on hand to sell.  Interested parties (did I mention each button is signed, like jewelry?) should e-mail me for her contact info.
 

For The Birds

Piggybacking onto the momentum of having finished Catkins (did I mention that I finished Catkins?), I finished the second sleeve of the Knot Garden.  Just a couple of weeks short of a YEAR since starting it, for the record.  Smug dance of completion to follow, as soon as they dry and get sewn into the body...

So smug am I (and un-anxious to return to the swatchapalooza that is my other concern this week) that I went completely batshit and conceived a cunning backdrop for the Knot Garden. 

I seem to have remembered that in a previous life I used to sew things sometimes.  I have no memory of consciously stopping all sewing activity, but I think it must have been around the same time I stopped a bunch of other stuff I like, in the hopes of getting a book written on time.  Not that I'm complaining, you understand -  it's good to rest some muscles in favor of others from time to time.

Now that I'm gainfully unemployed, all sorts of stuff I used to like doing is popping back into my conciousness.  Stuff like hearing music, and digging in the dirt (garden dirt, not kitchen floor dirt), reading books.  And my old friend, sewing.

And sewing, you may know, is just like falling off a bicycle - once you've learned how to properly screw up a sewing project, you never forget.

It actually started with a conversation I had with my friend Jill (non-knitter, for the record, but still completely lovable).  She asked me what kind of bird I was, and I didn't know.  I know for sure that she's a Great Blue Heron - (leggy, graceful, eats a fair amount of fish) but I was unable to locate my own inner bird.  Jill thinks I might be a robin, which notion I sort of like. 

So the bird thing has been with me, and I got it in my head that I must need a dress with birds on it to go with my finally-finished Knot Garden.  I waltzed into the fabric store, and there it was:  Exactly what I would have made if I had set out to design fabric with birds on it:  

I cut out the dress last night, and I sewed it today.  And in a turn of fate which is nothing like knitting (and nothing like sewing, for that matter), it fits just right and I completely love it.  Too weird.  That is just not the way it works - no drama, no odyssey, no falling out of hair clumps.  Just found it, made it, love it.  Interesting how easy it is when there's nothing at stake.  Wonder where that magic goes when someone inserts a deadline?

And now there must be shoes.  We're not savages here, after all.
 

Thoughts of Spring

The Catkins project is careening toward the finish line, as I prepare for a teaching trip to Billings, MT this Friday.  I found the perfect ribbons for trimming Catkins over the weekend, so now I'm really ready to hurry up and finish it, already.  And then in my e-mail this morning, I got THIS:

That's right, my friends;  My fondest Catkins button dreams have just come true.  These have been created just for the sweater I am making.  I ask you: What could be better than this?  Can't find the perfect buttons for your pussy willow sweater?  Just call up the most talented jeweler you know and she'll whip up a little something that totally exceeds you wildest imagination.  Oh, and they'll be made of fine silver, too, if you can stand it. 

So now you won't get to see the Catkins again until I have it all done - you know the direction it's going, but I still want have it completely finished for the big reveal.

In the meantime, enjoy the view from my desk this afternoon:

Man, I love my new office.  The boss is a little squirrelly, but you really can't beat the atmosphere.