Monthly Archives: February 2011

Promotions at HSFA

Mardi Gras Contest extended

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The Mardi Gras Contest deadline has been extended to March 8th. Please see details here.

I goofed in looking at the calendar and thought there was an additional week in there somewhere when setting the original deadline date? This short month of February always gets me confused (or at least that is my excuse, lol). I’m sorry this caused people to be pressed for time to enter. I hope the extension allows more people to have a chance to win the Mardi Gras Viewer’s Choice prize.

For this contest, it doesn’t matter if your HeartStrings project was from years ago, or even if it still is in the works. Just post a picture of it on the HeartStringsFiberArts Facebook fan page along with name of HeartStrings pattern. We’d love to see what you are doing/have done, so we can ‘like’ it and help you win.

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Promotions at HSFA

Mardi Gras Viewer’s Choice Contest

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It’s Mardi Gras season here in New Orleans. That’s a great excuse to have another contest for free yarn, right?! Let’s celebrate with the purple, green and gold since those are the traditional colors of Mardi Gras.

Post a photo to the HeartStrings FiberArts fan page on Facebook of any HeartStrings design you’ve made that incorporates any one, two, or even all three of these colors. Please also let us know the HeartStrings pattern name and any other details you’d like to share about your project.

Any Facebook fan can vote by clicking ‘like” beneath their favorite project photo(s). Feel free to leave comments, too, to encourage others to vote for your favorite(s).

Contest entries and voting will close at noon, Central Standard time (GMT-6) on Tuesday March 8. Winner will be the entry with the most “likes”. So the sooner you post your project and get the buzz going, the better the chance you have of people seeing it and voting. In case of a tie, a random drawing will be done of the top-voted entries.

Prize is 150g of DK weight machine washable Australian merino wool yarn (1 – 50g ball in each of the 3 colors: purple, green and gold, of course) — PLUS — assorted official New Orleans Mardi Gras beads.

This contest is open to all Facebook fans of HeartStrings FiberArts (to be a Fan, just click “Like” at the top of the HeartStrings FiberArts Facebook page if you have not already done so). Any fan can vote on as many contest photos as they wish. So gather up your friends to come on over the HeartStrings FiberArts, be a fan, and like your contest photo.

Let the contest begin and have fun!

Enter the contest or vote here

Mix-matching colors in socks is just one idea of what you could do with the Mardi Gras yarn prize if you win the Mardi Gras Viewer’s Choice Contest. For example, here is a purple, green and gold adaptation of Vernal Equinox from The Sock Calendar.

Mardi Gras Socks
Mardi Gras Socks

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Musings

A short story of the evolution of double spaces

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Do you put one space or two spaces between sentences?

In my long-ago schooldays when typing a paper, I was taught to have 2 spaces between sentences. I don’t recall that I ever questioned the reason for this — it was just a given like other seemingly superfluous (maybe ridiculous?) rules in school.

Of course, that was long before the advent of desktop publishing on computers with proportional fonts. As I learned much later, the theory is that double spaces was deemed necessary for mono-spaced typewriter fonts. But historically for movable type (and now for proportional digital fonts), the extra space is not necessary.

Most modern references cite single space between sentences to be proper form, especially when using proportional fonts. I happen to be a total single-space-between-sentences convert. I didn’t need much motivation, and was actually somewhat relieved of no longer being burdened by that ‘rule’.

I still get submissions from many people who use double spacing. It isn’t too difficult to do a mass change-and-replace to single spacing if I need that for stylistic consistency with other material that is being published under my branding. Sometimes, if an article is left stand-alone (or is a quote from someone), I leave the double spacing. An example is the recent guest blog visit from Catherine Wingate).

So, I’m not really here to argue which is correct — single spacing or double spacing. But rather to acknowledge that it is evolving with the influence of technology.

I am sure that it is not coincidental that Apple technology adopted hitting the space bar twice (e.g. on iPhone) to insert a period followed by a (single) space. Now that’s efficiency without wasted space and motion. I can live with ‘double spaces’ there, because it is an elegant solution to satisfying proponents of double-spacing and single-spacing alike, lol.

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Leisure & Travel

Magnificent photos of a magnificent New Orleans landmark

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I first met today’s featured blog guest, Sai Chandrasekharan, at my local Apple Store (located in Metairie, a suburb of New Orleans). I’ve been taking advantage of One-on-One Personal Training Sessions available through Apple Stores, and Sai was my instructor that day. At the end of the top-notch session, we traded business cards and Sai mentioned he was a photographer. A few days later, I checked out his Flickr site, and discovered amazing photos he has taken of the Mississippi River bridge in New Orleans. With his kind permission, here is a peek at just a few of my favorites with the bridge against the backdrop of nature during sunrise, thunderstorm and moonrise.

Fiery Sky by Sai Chandrasekharan
Fiery Sky
Mississippi River Bridge - 2 by Sai Chandrasekharan
Mississippi River Bridge - 2
Moon Rising by Sai Chandrasekharan
Moon Rising

I hope these will peak your interest in seeing the full-size photos of these and many others he has done. You can view Sai’s entire gallery at www.flickr.com/chandsa. I think you will enjoy his commentary there, too.

As background, the Crescent City Connection, (formerly called Greater New Orleans Bridge before its upgrade from one span to two spans) refers to twin cantilever bridges farthest downstream on the Mississippi River. These twin bridges run between the Central Business District of New Orleans and the Westbank (named for its location on the western bank of the river, even though geographically it actually is southeast of New Orleans!). Due to the Mississippi River’s winding course through the New Orleans area (the river is flowing north at the place where the two bridges cross), the eastbound span actually carries traffic on Business US 90 West, while the westbound span carries traffic East. Not only that, but the river is actually flowing north where the bridges cross.

p.s. Now you know why true New Orleanians do not refer to east, west, north, south. It is always just toward the river, away from the river, etc. lol.

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Spinning

5 Favorite Tips for Knitting with Handspun

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A number of years ago, I took a comprehensive workshop with Rita Buchanan on Knitting with Handspun. In going through some of my old file drawers in efforts to downsize to near-paperless, I came across a short write-up I had compiled of notes taken at this workshop 15 years ago! (SOAR ’95)

The fundamental message of the workshop was

“In a knitting project, the elements for a satisfying outcome happen in both the spinning and knitting.”

Rita is a fantastic teacher. A short blog post here would not do justice to the depth and breadth of what we covered and I learned in this workshop. But there were several points I discovered (or re-discovered) that have served me well through the years. Here are my “top 5” favorites. Whether it is something new to you or just a reminder, I hope you find them useful when knitting with hand spun yarn or even choosing commercially spun yarn.

Tip 1: Any fiber can be knit on a wide range of needle sizes (e.g. US 0 through 10) to achieve ranges of firmness or drape-iness (but there is a fine line between drape and sag!)

Tip 2: When changing needles in a test swatch by more than a couple of sizes, do a row of elongated stitches as follows: k1, yo across the row with the larger of the needles; then drop the yo on the next row. This will eliminate puckering between the two areas of the swatch.

Tip 3: You can increase the amount of fiber by up to 3 times on the same needle size and there is no significant change to the stitch gauge, but it does significantly add to the feeling of bulk and likely will affect the row gauge.

Tip 4: For lace knitting, a higher twist yarn is better for wear and stitch definition.

Tip 5: For 2-color knitting, a lower twist yarn is better because the spaces between the stitches will fill in so just the color shows. (And here is a corollary side benefit of this if you are stranding your colorwork: the lower density of the yarn will also compensate for twice the yarn being accommodated in each row/round.)

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