From Head to Toes

I'm shifting gears.  I just buttoned up my book about hats, so now it's time to think about slippers.  Crazy slippers, cozy slippers, cute slippers, surprising slippers.  I'm really excited about this project, for several reasons:

        1.        I'm not a slipper authority.  In fact, I've really only made one kind before, so I get to consume a lot of knitting knowledge in a big hurry to learn.  My best technique writing happens in this kind of situation, because I'm less prone to assume prior experience on the knitters' part.  If I just figured something out myself, I'm less likely to skip explaining a step.

        2.        For the first time ever, I get to work with a publisher and editor I already know.  It might not seem like a big deal, but not having to reinvent the entire process wheel for this project is super luxurious.  It feels a little like I know what will happen.  (Knitting Gods, insert smite here).

        3.        And the biggest deal of all:  This is my fourth book, and I finally have the sample knitting and the season synched up.  For once, I'm going to be knitting cozy projects by the fire, during the winter months, like God intended.  I don't mean to complain, because knitting is good in all seasons.  But it's less enchanting to sit under a giant wool turtleneck in August than in November, no matter when your deadline is.

It's time for me to surf the learning curve, so help a girl out, won't you?  Tell me, Gentle Readers, what's your favorite book, pattern or construction technique for slipper-making?

Blocked by Leaves

"Everything you can imagine is real." - Pablo Picasso

Imagine that the only thing you have to do today is to knit a Maple leaf.  You know what a Maple leaf looks like.  You can reference all manner of photos of them, and even step outside and pick a real specimen for study.  You have needles and yarn, and the will to do the deed.

What you cannot do is pop on over to Ravelry and download a pattern for a Maple leaf, because that would be someone else's leaf, and yours has to be your own.  You also have to knit your leaf in such a way that others can follow your instructions to knit it the very same way, with immediate success.

Would you start with the stem and work up?  Make separate lobes and attach them to a common base?  Where do the increases and decreases go? How lifelike or interpretive will it be?  How will you predict what size it becomes?  Or can you?

Go!

Now don't think I'm complaining: I think this is a GREAT problem to have.  Seriously, if this is my biggest challenge today, I'm clearly living right.  But every once in a while, (usually when I stop doing and start thinking), I realize that I have no experience in doing the thing I have to do.  I've never knit a maple leaf before, and that is no stinkin' excuse.  I have to leaf up and make it happen.  I think I know where to start, but I'm just wondering: 

What would Gentle Readers do?

Rabble Rouser

I've been swarmed.  Lucky for me, this lot is pretty good-natured.  There's more where they came from, too.  Did you know that the collective noun for butterflies is "Rabble"?  No better description for an unruly profusion, in my opinion.

Furthermore, A Rabble-rouser is a person who speaks with the intent to stir the passions of their audience.  Just like knitters.  Here are a few you may have heard misquoted, elsewhere:

"Give me Free Patterns, or give me Death!" -  Patricia Henry

"And so, my Fellow Knitters, ask not what yarn can do for you.  Ask what you can do for yarn!" -  Jeanine Fitzsimmons Kennedy

"I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of knitters and the sons of crocheters  will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood." -  Martina Louanne King

"The only thing we have to fear is Moths, themselves!" -  Francis Delores Roosevelt

"We shall defend our yarn stash, whatever the cost may be!  We shall knit on the beaches, we shall knit on the landing grounds, we shall knit in the fields and in the streets, we shall knit in the hills; we shall never surrender." -  Winnifred Churchill

Stirring words, aren't they?  Just makes me wanna get out there and start something. 

Like maybe a cardigan.