Quick post ...

'cause you know, work got in the way this week, as it often does. There is a conference to prepare for, so if any of you have a hankering to attend an Art and Design Educators conference next month ... please do. I'm part of the team and we have been working our little bits off to get ready and organized ... and the list to do seems endless, but I'm sure it will end, just not yet. Today as a result it is a very quick post, there is a paper or two to prepare for the conference, and one that needs be away by end of the month (this month, thats less than a week --- eeeeeekkkk), and so not much knitting has been going on.
Toby has socks ... finished, done, cast-off woven in, I've been distracted but little things semi knitting related, and I've got a new book to distract me even further. Yikes ... this month I need no distractions.

Onward, Toby's socks, done, dusted, ends dealt with and off the needles. For a sock that took so long to take form, for yarn that I openly admitted to not liking very much ...I now have a sock that I love the effect of so much - that I want to knit more that use slip stitches. I've named these socks Disrupting Regia, as a connection to disruptive patterning, the formal name for camo fabric. this book is one I've bought for the library at work, and this is a more economical option that I just might buy for myself some time, and the suggestion of using patterning to disguise or modify the true appearance of something -- well it appeals, maybe deep down I'm subversive at heart? I'm not going to rush into more socks like this though ... my dads birthday looms and that hat has not progressed any further.


My latest development on the bag front is little cards, bag-tags. I'm hoping that these will be on sale at a fiber festival near me soon. Yes next month, just before the conference. I've been learning lots about putting heavy card in my photo inject printer, and about trim marks and how settings in the print control dialog boxes are mere suggestions to the printer -- not hard and fast rules that must be obeyed. Many many black and white test prints and minute adjustments latter - I have two files that print 15 two sided tags on one sheet of card. Such a little simple thing, so long to adjust it 'just so'.

Right now -- I'm off to polish one of those articles that I mentioned, the one with the nearest deadline. My time management is simple, if I have time to do what I really want to do I will, otherwise I do what I need to get done first. It works for the housework, for writing papers and for knitting. After I've put in an obligatory half an hour on the paper, I plan to settle in with my new book, Knit one below by Elise Duvekot. Elise creates beautiful effects with variegated yarn in this book, making thick squooshy looking vertically stripped fabric. The book arrived 15 minutes before we sat down for family dinner tonight, so I've not read enough to the book or swatched - but it looks amazing, and unlike any other technique I've read or seen so far. This might be the right thing to work dads birthday hat in. The link is to a UK bookseller - Book Depository, if you life outside of the US - check them out. The prices include shipping, and with the exchange rate they seem to be working out the cheapest for getting books to New Zealand right now.

ok - off to fuddle with a paper, and then that book ...and Signe grows - but I forgot to photograph it while there was natural light. Maybe next time?

Na Stella