Craftlit is the brain child of Heather Ordover, mastermind behind the delightful What Would Madame Defarge Knit? series.  I’ve been listening to the show for more or less forever, and I had the pleasure of working with Heather on both of the first two Defarge books.  This past week, Heather and I chatted for ages about butterflies, photography, future plans for world domination through wool, and much else.  She’s somehow managed to pull out the bits of our conversation that don’t make me sound too much like a deranged chipmunk and offered them up over on the latest episode. You should have a listen!

I?  I will be listening to the story part (we’re in the middle of Jane Eyre).  I will be listening to the story part as I stuff envelopes and affix address labels and overwhelm the poor postman.  Why, you ask, will I be doing such a thing?  Because the books are getting here late tomorrow evening, which means they’ll start to go out next week.  I am very much looking forward to having ‘ship oodles and oodles of books out to charming knitters’ off my to do list.

All of which brings me to one tiny reminder.  When the last of the preorders goes in the mail, I’ll have a restorative glass of something cool, then I’ll come up here and turn off the preorder specials on the book.  That’s almost certainly going to happen some day next week.  I’ll likely mention it one more time on the blog (because I always feel bad when someone writes me and says ‘but I meant to buy it earlier’), but all good things must come to an end, and this preorder is just about officially over!

Step 1 is picking the yarn. Step 2 is swatching like a fiend. Step 3 is making myself a page of charts and notes (on graph paper, it has to be graph paper, I don’t know how anyone writes on lined paper) for each pattern.  Step 4 is chaining myself to the desk and transferring those pages and pages of notes into the rather stylized language of patterns.  Steps 5-78 involve getting those patterns polished, knit, edited, photographed, laid out, and out in the world.

Can you guess which stage I’m on now?

And just to give you a sense of the timeline, these are all for the book that will be coming out next year around this time.  It really does take that long to go from ‘excellent, I have the ideas all sorted out’ to ‘and here they are, on the printed page, ready for others to use.’  I’m working on speeding that up, but so far, it’s stubbornly resistant to my pleas to happen faster.

That’s String Theory Merino DK in Didgeridoo.  Now, 1 skein of that yarn has 280 yards.  Knowing that I have big feet, and knowing that I wanted to make socks from this yarn, I bought two skeins.  When I finished up the first sock (after the requisite amount of preening), I popped it on the scale.  It came in at 56 grams.  The remainder of the skein weighed in at 60 grams.  Unless there is some sort of surprise waiting for me, that should mean that I can get a whole pair of socks out of just this skein.

I’ll insert a disclaimer here about how these socks have short cuffs, and how I always recommend erring on the side of buying extra yarn, but it does seem like I’ll get away with just one skein this time.  Which leaves me with the fabulous question of what to do with the extra skein.  I’ve never made two pairs of socks from the same yarn and color before, but this shade is so irritatingly gorgeous I may just have to do just that.

And just so you know, these socks will be part of another mini book (something on the scale of Rabble Rousers).  It should be out this fall in both paper and electronic versions, and will have 6-7 patterns (some socks, some accessories).  These socks are going to be called Scoundrel, and they will be on the cover (it’s about time The Boy gets a cover shot, don’t you think?).

But, lest you think frolicking on the train tracks is all fun and games, you should be aware of the potential consequences.  The severe potential consequences.  Train tracks are dirty you see.  Very very dirty.  Your socks may never be the same again.

Stranger things have been known to happen…though not usually to me on a Wednesday morning.

And, just for proof, one quick snap.  It’s not so carefully arranged, as that blurry thing in the background is a real train that was chuffing on down the track, and our primary goal was getting right out of its way.  With luck it does convey the ambiance of the place though.

Don’t worry, we’re both safe.  We were on a long straight section where we could see for ages in each direction (and with a clear patch on either side so we could step well away if needed).  We spent most of our time on a spur off to the side, well out of the way of the tracks in use.  We did get honked at by one of the trains (a first for me), but I’m taking it as a friendly hello, rather than ‘run fools, you are in peril’ sort of honk.

So, what were you up to this morning?

And also in the category of fair warning, the eversion of Knitter’s Curiosity Cabinet, Volume II goes out tomorrow.  That means today is the very last day to get the eversion at a discount and get a free pattern with the purchase of the eversion.  So if you’ve been waiting, and you want the special preorder price, this might be the moment to make the jump.  I promise you won’t have long to wait, as I’ll be making the everison live tomorrow morning!

When you look at it straight on, it is blue.  Blue and purple and green.  But still, the predominant color is totally blue.  See?

Ok, when you turn it and look down the sock, you’ll see the yarn has a bit of a halo.  That halo, quite perplexingly, is not blue.  it’s a reddish brown.  Just the halo, if you look carefully (especially where the sock wraps around the edge of the blocker), you’ll see it.  This is awfully hard to photograph, but this might show you a bit of what I mean.

I have absolutely no idea how one dyes a yarn so that the body of it is one color and the halo another, but that seems to be what’s happened here.  It means the yarn changes color rather dramatically as you look at it from one angle to the next.  Hard to photograph, deeply baffling, absolutely lovely.

One quick heads up, the eversion of Knitter’s Curiosity Cabinet, Volume II, goes live on Tuesday!  If you’ve ordered it, you’ll get an email when it does that will let you download the full version.  Just so you know, the discount and free pattern offer on the eversion goes away when the eversion goes live.  So if you’ve been waiting to order, this is your last chance to do so at a discount.  All the details are spelled out on the book’s page.  I can’t wait for everyone to see it!

Then, earlier this month, I got to see the socks again…all laid out and with absolutely adorable photos (I swear Interweave takes some of the best knitting photos out there, they’re consistently charming…and make me want to wear long skirts).  And holy smokes do I love these socks.  But once again, I had to sit quietly and patiently wait for all the versions of the magazine to be available before I could talk about them.  But now they are, so now I can squee like a deranged chipmunk and do the ‘check these out’ dance.  So, without further ado, I’m pleased to present Cataphyll.  (These pictures all belong to Sockupied and are used with their permission.)

These are made with The Plucky Knitter’s Primo Fingering in the color Dandy Lion, which is an absolutely delightful yarn to work with (round and crisp, it shows off your stitches perfectly).

These are not the easiest socks you’ll ever make (Sara, my valiant sample knitter, did a beautiful job with them).  They’re mirrored, those leaves have a few tricks, and the patterning goes right down to the heel and toe.  But, you do have some nice simple ribbing for most of the round to give you a chance to catch your breath before the tricky bits.  And really, these are prettier than super easy socks.  I think they’re worth the extra effort, don’t you?

If you find yourself wanting to make them too, you can get latest issue of Sockupied for either your ipad or your computer (there might just be a little profile of me in there too).

All I can say in my defense is that I was picking these yarns in the middle of February and it was gray.  I promise they actually work beautifully with the patterns I’m making for them.  And you’re always welcome to make them in an array of more staid colors if that’s what floats your boat.

The yarn is drop dead gorgeous.  It’s String Theory Merino DK in Didgeridoo and I love it to distraction.  It’s a smidge more purple in real life, but it was early in the morning when I snapped this and the light was all glowy and yellow and I do not love you enough to either retake the picture later in the day or muck about in photoshop to fix it.  This is one of those magic color changing yarns and it plays tricks.  We’re embracing it and calling it charming rather than fighting it.

The pattern itself is soothingly simple.  My fingers learned it after about 2 repeats and now it’s that marvelous auto-pilot knitting.  And yes, yes they are super thick and cozy.  I know that’s not what everyone looks for in their socks, but I love it, and these socks are for me, so I am shamelessly reveling in it (though you could easily do this same sort of patterning on skinny yarn if you cast on lots more stitches).

Now…if only we could somehow get my toes closer to my heels…because no matter how thick the yarn, that’s still rather a lot of stitches.