The collector

I discovered Marlene's postcard album when I was going through her things.  I was in a hurry then so bundled them up, and they've been sitting on my shelf since. Recently I circled back.

She collected postcards when she was a girl during the 1940's and continued through the 50's.  It was either the rage to send cards back then or widely known that she collected, since there are several hundred in the bunch.  Probably both are true.  She had them to and from friends and family (among them Hattie, Hilda, Mildred, Martha, and Mitzi – for those who follow my sweater designs). 

All delightfully vintage and visually interesting for that, of equal treasure, especially for me, are their backs.  I saw where they lived through delivery addresses and their hand in their writing.  Reading through I met my mum as a girl and a teenager, and my grandmother Mildred younger than when I knew her.  I met my great-grandmother Martha too, for the first time. 

Included among this vintage set, was one a little less so.  At the very end of the postcard pile I found this.

Apparently I felt the need to clarify as sender.

I've put aside my knitting for the past several days to make their container as these cards are box-worthy for sure – 

– keeping kindred spirits alive.

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Planning and persistence

Among several tasks on my excellent, new, to-do tracking system for last week, there was only one real priority – to re-publish my May design (that I posted about a few weeks ago in Catching Up). The task seemed do-able.  

It's true that what started out as a simple rewrite to modify yarn and add metrics had taken a turn when I decided to redevelop it to be knit in the round instead of flat and embed its shaping invisibly inside the cable stitch pattern instead of at its edges.  Then the gauge of my new yarn, Quince's cotton Willet, turned out to be slightly different than its obsolete predecessor and required a bunch of recalculations.  But by now I had made great progress on the bodice, and had only to trim the neckline and work the ever-so-short cap sleeves.  Then I'd be done.  Re-publishing within the week seemed do-able and I would happily check this off of my list!

Cotton is less elastic than wool, and because of this, I found out, tends to be less forgiving in some aspects of sweater-making, such as picking up stitches along the deep v-neckline of May for its rib trim. The stitch counts my calculations told me I needed left noticeable gaps, and after a few trials I determined that the problem lay in the absence of a selvage along this neckline.  Since the v starts below the armholes and the piece is knitted bottom-up and now in the round, this remedy required both sides of the bodice front and its back to be unraveled down to this start point.  I took a breath, did this, and began again.  

After 2 days of re-knitting, with my neckline now complete with selvage, I gave it another go – with the same disappointing result, unfortunate gaps along the pick up edge.  I took a few more breaths, (I did breathe in between these trials, but hardly), unraveled for the second time, re-knitted it as it was, and while I was doing so thought hard about another solution.

In my third attempt, I tried a method I'd read about but hadn't used before.  With smaller needles I picked up a stitch in every row along the front v edges – many more stitches than I needed, but with no gaps.  On the trim round that followed where I introduced the knit 1, purl 1 rib, along these front v edges I modified the sequence as knit 1, purl 2 together to decrease these extra stitches away.  Finally, success!  

4 days later.. so much for planning.

Among several tasks on my new to-do tracking system for this week, there is only one real priority – to re-publish May.  The task seems do-able.

Update – revised May finally re-published 1/15/2016.

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Making boxes

With holidays now over I can post about my gift to the new couple that was most certainly a labor of love. Digital images are just fine, but I wanted Juliet and James to have something in their hands, to hold, when they reminisce about their wedding weekend. 

Using Artisan State, I made 6 layflat books where landscape-positioned photos (most shot by Fat Orange Cat Studio) each span across 2 open pages.  See more details about this project here.  (I heartily recommend both vendors, btw, for book making and wedding photography, respectively.) 

Once the photo books were in hand it was clear they could use a case, and that's when my project took the unexpected turn of opening up the world of my not-that-distant past (which sometimes feels like a lifetime ago) and re-igniting my interest on that front.  In addition to knitting over the years I've had fun making books and boxes to present personal collections of photos and objects.  When I left my administrative job at Harvard I intended to focus all attention on these.  I don't recall when or how my interests shifted and knit design took center stage – where it remains – but it will likely have to share a little of the spotlight for my attention from this point on.

Venturing into my wedding box project, after all this time I had to remind myself about the technical details.  My glue containers, labeled with dates to track shelf life, told me it had been 5 years since I touched them.  I also soon realized that I needed to find new sources for some materials.  Paper Source, once great for book artist supplies is now more of a gift store.  And although Blick carries book cloth, its sheets are very small and weren't suitable for the project.  A google search yielded Harcourt Bindery in Charlestown that sells supplies along with fabulous hand bound books for all purposes, and a trip to their studio workspace reminded me why I loved this craft.  I walked away with a sheet of book cloth large enough to wrap my dimensions twice, and renewed inspiration to get started. The project also motivated me to take an inventory of where I'd been.   Here's some of what I found.

• Let's Walk to Breakfast (2001)
• Betty Box (2003)
• Jewelry Box (2003)
• Familiar Storefronts in My Town (2005)
• What Shall I Cook (2005)
• Magazine Masks (2006)
• Emerson Garden (2007)
• Mossman Park (2008)
• HBS Circles (2008)

5 years ago, I left 2 projects underway – Watch Boxes (a collection of the 24 wrist watches Marlene and I had saved over the years) and Postcards (postcard correspondence collected by my mum during the 1930's and 40's).  
I'll aim to get back to these, finally, in the new year.

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Catching up

Wow, I didn't mean to let so much time go by since my last post.  No excuses though, I have been (happily) busy.  In this 3 month interim I've published M's Favorite, Mad's Gift, and Mitzi, and revised Corinne – adding a smaller cowl in the process.  I've also been working out a journal system for keeping track of all of this craziness, with a to-do list that starts out with 

• post twitter
• post instagram
• post blog

so, ya, my bad – until now.  

As I've written previously, I'm driven (since working with quince&co on Linda) to update my patterns with metrics and Quince's formatting terminology and language. Starting with my early designs (first public offerings in 2010-11) this review sometimes goes beyond the surface and I find myself tweaking other things. The latest in my revision queue is May.

May was designed with Classic Elite's Wool Bam Boo (50% Wool, 50% Bamboo), my go-to yarn at that time, that has since been discontinued.  So embedded in this task is an opportunity to try something new.  Juliet's birthday gift to me this year was a gift certificate to quince&co.  Starting there and checking for comparable gauge I discovered their Willet, a sport-weight cotton.  I find it thrilling that they are environmentally conscious, and this cotton yarn, billed as cleaner, is also quite lovely to work with.  I'm swatching now for my revised May to be followed next by pattern #128, as yet unnamed but with design coming into focus.

More to come, sooner than the last round.  I promise.

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M's Favorite

Marlene loved a good turtleneck.  They were part of her classic look.  One day she reported to me that she found 10 in her closet, all of them black, when she was cleaning it up.  And although she wasn't particularly organized, I knew that even if she realized she had 9 at home, she would not have passed up that special one – a 10th – on her trip through Filenes Basement.  Knowing this I went looking for a photo of her in one of those classic blacks as I was preparing for this post, and found her instead in beige.  Taken about the same time as her confession, we're now numbering 11, clearly proving her obsession. 

Marlene and Paul, circa 1999

We've been preparing for Juliet's wedding lately and Mum's been on my mind.  She would have adored James and thoroughly enjoyed the weekend festivities.  I like to think she orchestrated their perfection from her distance – since they were, and she would have.

My next design, forthcoming, is a turtleneck, for M.

Update – M's Favorite published 11/3/2015.

Paper toys 2015

This year's paper toys are ready for distribution to the Hoss clan, complete with Christmas giving assignments.  I'm Santa's secretary (er, administrative assistant) and cannot wait!

2015 marks a year of extraordinary happiness, with 3 weddings(!) – nephew Derek to Erica, niece Sheryl to Dan, and favorite daughter, knitting muse, and sweater model Juliet to favorite soon-to-be son-in-law James;

and also a year of loss as we've said good-bye to brother John.

These events are represented perfectly, I'd say, by 3 diamond rings and a wreath on the water – the circle(s) of life. 

Over the moon

Well aren't I a lucky duck!
Here's a screen shot peek.  Hope you'll check out the full blog post here.

Thank you Quince&Co!

Bearing witness

Yesterday, bittersweet, as the extended Hoss family gathered at Scituate beach to say good bye to brother John.

It was so nice to have everyone together.  Even the weather – grey, with dense air and breeze just right – seemed to offer us hugs... a surreal day to be sure.

Humarock

Hopping from the design detail of Bonanza, as I often do, is a new knitted piece I've named Humarock – a sweet sweater vest whose color, named salty brine, reminded me of sand as I worked it out.  Humarock is a beach local to me.  Our neighbors had a summer place there and invited us for the weekend once or twice to escape the Boston suburbs. 

Please forgive my face, I was 9 – and to quote a line from a favorite movie, "good at it."  Dad was 35, and my best playmate – ever my hero.
I've put out a call for testers on this new knit piece and look forward to publishing during July.  More to come on that, hopefully soon.

Update – Humarock published 7/25/2015.

Bonanza redux

The people have spoken – or rather, have not – in response my Bonanza, published recently with very little fanfare. 

And I listen.  So in an attempt to amp up her versatility, you'll find Bonanza now reconfigured – her glorious fringed collar, detached.

Ever the optimist, I'm glad for the required changes that have made this piece better than before.  Fringe on both sides of the moss stitch cowl doubles the fun, and with it separated you can wear it with other outfits too!  It's definitely a win-win.  And the resulting crew neck of the pullover? – loving that – so, a win-win-win, right?  Yup, I'd say so.

Marlene had a facelift

Following Hilda's lead, Marlene had a facelift – not a big one, just a few tweaks here and there.  And although she was certainly fine as she was, she feels great about herself now.  So do I :).

In addition to modified abbreviations, phrasing, and enhanced schematics (that now include centimeters), I took the liberty of normalizing a few of the measurements across sizes.  All finished measures are shown below.  Having fully internalized my dad's constant mantra that "neatness counts," I simply had no choice :).  It's doubtful that anyone will notice – besides me and dad, of course. 

If anyone who purchased Marlene does not yet have the pattern upgrade in her or his library, please don't hesitate to let me know. 

Meanwhile Mildred's revision is hot on her heels.

Evolution

I love to see how processes evolve, and mine surely have over these past 5 years of knitwear designing.  Most recently, with the publication of my Linda Scarf by Quince&Co and following their formatting protocols, my pattern writing has undergone transformation too – abbreviations have been tweaked, phrasing made clearer, and given the reach of the internet it's obvious to me now that measurements must include centimeters along with inches.  It's all good.  Except – the revision of all of my 50+ existing patterns is going to take me some time, but so I begin.

Thanks to questions from a knitter in France, I've decided to start with Hilda – that also happens to be my oldest. Although published after Marlene, this piece was derived from a design I had begun a few years before, that I had circled back around to.  Knitters will now find my revised Hilda pattern available for purchase (or in their download libraries if purchased already), complete with aforementioned changes, and since the addition of centimeters has pushed the envelope on page spacing, it also includes a new table format that compliments associated schematics, like this:

I'll aim to post revised patterns every few weeks or so, fit in between my new designs.  Next in the queue is Marlene.

Ernestina

Family historian Hilda (Lillian) recognized the name Hoss when she learned about marriage plans for me and Pete, and dug into our tree to find out more.  "Edwin Ziegler married an Ernestina Hoss," she reported. 

In 1871, Hans Ziegler and his wife Anna Habisreutinger traveled to the United States from Switzerland with two sons and settled in Malden, Massachusetts.  Their sons had sons – Jacob begot Edwin, and Ulrich, my great-grandfather Albert.

c.1979

c.1900

Later Pete's mom verified the connection, "Of course," she said, "Aunt Ernestine."  They knew each other well.  Edwin, my 1st-cousin-3-times-removed married Peter's great-aunt.  My husband and I are related.

Six degrees of separation, it turns out, exists in both current space and over time.

Ernestina will be the name of my next design – slowly coming into focus.  More on that soon.

Update – Ernestina published 9/15/2015.

Haze of childhood

When I was 8 I had a birds egg blue vinyl spring jacket – that may or may not be the one pictured below, but no matter, close enough.  And through the magic of photoshop it now is. 

Aren't so many of our selections in life based on memories from the haze of childhood.  It's my recollection of this vinyl jacket that has prompted my design currently underway – a garter stitch cardigan made from Quince&Co's lark wool in birds egg blue.  Zippered instead of buttoned and a bit more hip, I like to think, but its essence is surely this.  And it's almost done, just in time for spring.  I'll post soon.

Update –  Connie published 4/26/2015

Linda

I'm thrilled to announce the recent publication of Linda, my scarf design included among so many other lovelies, in Scarves, etc 4, a pattern collection by Quince&Co.

I named this piece after a dear cousin, who perhaps sent me luck in my submission to Quince's annual scarf call last fall.  It happened to coincide with some explorations I was doing at the time on knitted trims having just rediscovered Nicky Epstein's book Knitting on the Edge.  Lots of interesting stuff there but it was the fringe that caught my eye.  

I had given Marlene a scarf some years before with horizontal fringe.  I liked the twist on the classic – you didn't need to get to its ends to see it and when she wrapped it twice around her neck the fringe was everywhere – very fun!  So is Linda, I think, and I'm certainly grateful that Quince did too :). 

Mitt research

My pal Bev and I often talk about our creative work when we're together, and as we do the similarities in our processes have become apparent.  She's a writer (here's her blog). 

I decided to set a few weeks aside in January to focus on fingerless mitts.  They'd be easy, I thought, allowing me time to rest a bit before taking on a next, more strenuous, cardigan design.  I started by studying patterns from other designers to understand mitt fit and measurements, then set out on my own.  A 1960s knitting dictionary I rediscovered on the shelf yielded several fresh abbreviated lace patterns (what a find!) that fit well into the condensed mitt format. I was right, the mitts have been quick to knit (and fun).  Their design, however, has come with unique discipline, that made me think of Bev's blog posts and her challenge of creating a complete story with fewer words in a limited space – that she does so well.

I'll be posting an ebook with 4 patterns in a week or so, named for my girl – Juliet's Lacy Mitt Series – because she clamors for them, and now so do I.  We'll share.

Western obsession

My girlfriends can tell you all about my fascination with cowboys.  We've had more than a few laughs about it over the years :).  So in keeping with my patterns' personal naming theme, I dub this, my latest knitting design (with cowboy fringe!) – Bonanza.

Dad and I used to watch this 1960's tv series on Sunday nights, before (or after?) Ed Sullivan.  Maybe this is where my western obsession began.  Is it an accident I married a Hoss?  hee hee, a topic for my therapist..

Creating the fringe, a new-to-me technique, turned out to be very fun and easy.  Fabulous testers are working now to proof the numbers and text of my pattern, that I plan to launch mid-January.  It will be my first for 2015 – a nice start for the brand new year.  Yee-ha!

Crosshatch

Super cute, no?  (The sweater too.)  Juliet and I had a fun day yesterday over breakfast, picture-taking, then lunch!  I got to spend lots of quality time with my favorite girl – who, by the way, is recently engaged to the wonderful James!  Smiles all around.

Recalling art school days, and drawing 101, Crosshatch seemed a fitting name for this piece with its variegated yarn crisscrossing vertical ribs.  Testers are finishing up as I prepare to launch this pattern over the weekend.  I'll provide a link when I do, but I just couldn't resist the early posting.  I get so excited.

Paper toys 2014

Christmas in September! at least for me, as I put aside my knitting and orchestrate annual gift giving assignments and their paper toys for special delivery to my 16 brothers and sisters-in-law.

We lost our brother Bill this year – our marathon runner.  All the Hoss men are athletes and by now most have settled into golf for sport.  Bill remained a runner to the end, competing in 66 marathons during his lifetime.  He, and we, are particularly proud of his 1981 Boston Marathon – finishing first place for his age group in a time of 2 hours, 34 minutes, and 15 seconds.

This one's for you Bill.

Estelle's Envy

Lillian Hildegarde, my great aunt, was born in 1898 – the oldest daughter in my grandmother's family.  I knew she had polio as a child, that she had walked with a cane since then.

I knew she was the keeper of our family tree.  I spent one preteen summer with our royal typewriter re-keying her name lists onto new clean sheets.  I still have these pages.  I'm their keeper now.

Unlike most young women of her day she went to college. Single, independent, she lived alone in an apartment on Park Drive. Through family albums I learned more about her work at MIT.  She was a librarian. I saw her smiling back from photographs taken at her retirement party.

But it wasn't until much later that I discovered she was a writer – a writer of steamy novels never published, about life, love, romance, and heartbreak. She wrote her chapters in Scribble-in Books – little blank hardbound journals.  I have the one with pages numbered from 626 to 778.  I wish had more more.

As sweater tribute to my novelist, I plucked the fitting family-inspired name of my latest design from one of her characters – a young woman named Estelle.  

Introducing Estelle's Envy – a slim pullover with alpaca collar abundance. Pattern writing and testing are underway – EPD (estimated publish date) 9/15/2014.