Monthly Archives: February 2011

The Designing Day

Writing clear, concise instructions

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Behind the scenes of The Designing Day, there is much more that goes on than just playing with yummy yarns and knitting all day. A large part of the non-glamorous work is that of writing instructions for patterns that will be published. When mentoring a new designer a while back, she put this so well: “It is much more complicated to get everything down in writing than I thought.”

Writing clear, concise, yet complete pattern instructions is an art and science in itself. It’s a balance of getting down all the technical details, anticipating the next question, and laying out information so that the instructions seem “effortless”.

Interestingly, I have found that writing for the experienced knitter can actually be a greater challenge than the less-experienced. Beginner knitters tend to take written instructions more literally (i.e. they don’t twist things around to conform to what they think the instructions should say). Experienced knitters read the instructions, but somewhere on the way from the page to the brain, the information gets filtered and is transformed into something else because of their “experience”.

The more experienced a knitter is, chances are the firmer their mindset of one way of “looking at things”. If there isn’t an obvious cue in the pattern to jog them into paying attention, they can overlook or misinterpret an important technical detail they are not familiar with despite their many years of knitting the same thing. Or even to overcomplicate an otherwise straight-forward process (that a relative beginner just breezes through).

This is one reason that I usually am hesitant to tag a pattern with a “skill level”. Sometimes I wonder if there should instead be something like a “mental alertness level”?

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Musings, The Designing Day

The designing of … by Catherine Wingate

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I am pleased that Catherine Wingate, author designer of The Sock Calendar and The Sock Journal, is here to give us a peek into “The Designing of …”  process behind her sock designs. I think you will enjoy, as did I, hearing the what and why of inspirations for a few of her favorite designs. And now turning this over to Catherine —

Catherine Wingate
Catherine Wingate

As a designer, I’ve been queried about the design process itself.  “Does the yarn inspire you first and initiate the creative process?” “Do you start with a design in mind and then search for a suitable yarn?”  “Do certain knitting stitches themselves come first and lead to a design?”

Yes to all, at least in my case.  I’ve experienced all of the above along with some other inspirational triggers that I’m forgetting at the moment.

Yarn can always be a primary source of inspiration.  Every fiber-player has picked up a skein of something lovely and instantly slipped into daydreaming about what it could become.  The variables relative to the yarn play out in the mind almost unconsciously as one ponders the quality, fragility, twist, structure, wear-ability and other facets while mentally seeing possible finished projects.  Some yarns are designed with a specific purpose, e.g., sock yarns, so the daydreaming starts further along in the design process…

Ahoy! Socks
Ahoy! Socks

Sometimes I begin with a finished design in mind and reverse engineer the process to decide which yarn(s) would work out best.

For example, I designed  Ahoy! Socks after sailing on the tall-ship Gazela Primera and wanted to mimic a fat, thick, traditional hawser cable that we saw during a stopover at Mystic Seaport.  I used a combination cabled stitch for the motif and a springy, twist-retentive yarn to maintain the integrity of the resulting texture.  [A pet peeve of mine is the wrong yarn for a project with the inevitable poor result and lack of wear-ability.]

Sock Therapy
Sock Therapy Socks

There are certain knitting stitches that I am strongly drawn to and want to use in designs.  Usually they’re stitches that have textural value and that I’ve not seen used in other designers’ recent work.  The stream stitch, used and well-received in Sock Therapy, exemplifies what I most value in a stitch; that it be easy, and fun, to knit — with  both the easy and fun requirements filled by  a stitch pattern that has a short and simple multiple-and-repeat structure so that a knitter can easily master it.  I am partial to stitches that provide what Mary Thomas’ book would call a textured fabric for both their importance in the history of hand-knitting and their beauty.

Sweet Valentine
Sweet Valentine Socks

And then, sometimes, there’s a design that continues to please the creator and originated from all three of the inspirations.  I am immodestly happy that knitters have enjoyed Sweet Valentine because the stitch and the yarn and desired end result worked exactly the way I’d hoped…and that does not always happen, yet alone so easily!

Thanks so much Catherine for stopping by. I enjoyed working with you on The Sock Calendar and The Sock Journal.

And readers, thank you also for visiting with us today. If you enjoyed seeing these designs and would like to see more of Catherine’s designs in her two books, hop on over to these gallery pages at Ravelry for The Sock Calendar and The Sock Journal

p.s. Although the mini-monthly calendars are out of date in the books, Catherine’s classic sock patterns are still a popular knit anytime of the year.

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Musings, The Designing Day

Have our eyes fooled us?

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Do you sometimes think you are following instructions, then find out later your eyes fooled you? Maybe your first clue is that things are not working out. Or maybe something is just not making sense.

Here’s a quick tip that has often helped me, and it might save you time and frustration if you are having trouble in the future …

Read instructions out loud! Well, maybe you don’t have to recite to everyone nearby, but definitely read at least in a whisper so that you form each word with your mouth. Even say the punctuation!

You’d be amazed at how many times our eyes can fool us and go right past important ‘signals’ in the instructions, like punctuation. Or even words that our eyes glide right past or think they are seeing some other word. Reading out loud (even at a whisper) can slow you and me down a bit and force us to pay attention to the signals better.

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Cooking

Meatless Doesn’t have to be Tasteless

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It’s been a while since I’ve revisited the cooking section here. On this “leisure Sunday”, I thought I’d introduce a couple more savory vegetarian dishes I’ve made recently that I really liked, and re-share others that I think are outstanding. In fact, if you advocate Meatless Monday, this might be just in time for you to plan for a different kind of dish tomorrow.

It’s not that I have anything against meat … I just have found that I haven’t had the desire to eat meat as often, or in as large quantities, as before. During the summer, I love salads and there are all kinds of great ways to make them interesting and never boring. But during the colder weather, I’m more inclined to hot cooked vegetable dishes.

If you’ve been following my previous posts, you know that I have been going through recipes in Madhur Jaffrey’s Quick & Easy Indian Cooking. There are recipes for meat dishes in this cookbook, but what is especially appealing for me are all the fantastic ways of making flavorful vegetable dishes without the addition of a zillion calories or cholesterol. (Yes, I admit that before this discovery of such tasteful Indian-spiced vegetable recipes, I would just add butter, cheese and … well you get the idea.)

Here’s a quick run-down of my favorite vegetable dishes from this cookbook so far:

Cauliflower with Ginger, Garlic, and Green Chiles
Cauliflower with Ginger, Garlic, and Green Chiles

Cauliflower with Ginger, Garlic, and Green Chiles. We’ve made this twice already, so you know it’s got to be good. I don’t even miss the cheese sauce! Instead, I used (as pretty much called for in the recipe)

  • a bit of vegetable oil for releasing the spice fragrances and browning (I used peanut oil)
  • cumin seeds
  • yellow mustard seeds
  • garlic, peeled and chopped
  • fresh ginger, peeled and shredded
  • fresh cauliflower broken apart into florets
  • green hot chiles, sliced including seeds
  • a bit of salt and freshly ground black pepper
  • garam marsala (this is a common Indian spice which is actually a combination of fragrant spices; this Wikipedia article will help you substitute if you don’t have a source; I’m still using some from Williams & Sonoma because I had it on hand, but will be mixing my own in the future)
  • a touch of cayenne pepper (you can adjust this to your liking, but I tend to go heavy on cayenne because my adopted New Orleans taste likes it hot!)
Garlicky Mushroom Marsala
Garlicky Mushroom Marsala

Garlicky Mushroom Masala Omelet. This is not strictly vegetarian because of the eggs. But I wanted to include it because I think you would enjoy it if you allow eggs in your diet. I am not sure why this recipe is titled “garlicky”. I do not consider it to have a lot of garlic in it, but then again I am used to our New Orleans cooking where we are known to often use tons of garlic. This is probably the prettiest omelet that I have made that actually held together, lol. I used

  • eggs (of course)
  • a bit of salt and freshly ground black pepper
  • a bit of vegetable oil for releasing the spice fragrances and sautéing (I used peanut oil)
  • black mustard seeds (you could use yellow)
  • garlic, peeled and chopped finely
  • fresh mushrooms, sliced
  • sliced scallions (green onions)
  • green hot chile, sliced including seeds
  • cilantro
  • grated fresh ginger
  • chopped fresh Roma tomatoes

Also, here are other vegetarian dishes from last month if you didn’t catch them at that time, or just want to review:

Mushroom Curry

Whole Green Lentils with Cilantro and Mint

Stir-Fried Green Cabbage with Fennel Seeds

Hope this has helped give you some more ideas to spice up your menu. I’d love to hear how you bring variety to your vegetable dishes, too.

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Musings

2 minutes (or less)

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February is designated as National Time Management Month. In this ever-increasing fast-paced world that tries to cram more commitments into a constrained 24-hour day, it seems even more critical to find efficient ways of doing work and other mundane things that will free up time for more enjoyable, less stressful activities. In fact, this is totally in keeping with the idea of this blog for “Taking to smell the roses”.

I wanted to share with you a mindset that has helped me over the past couple of months regain some wasted time I was creating for myself before. It is the Two Minute Rule in tip 160 of Jamie Novak’s book 1000 Best Quick and Easy Organizing Secrets. It’s a really simple idea: if you can do a task in two minutes or less, do it right then.

There were so many things that I would put off until later that actually ended up taking so little time. Instead, I’d fret about them, and of course the longer this would go on, the harder and longer it would be to get back into doing something that should have been able to be done quickly.

The most glaring example was the counters where my mail would accumulate. Sure, I’d quickly (sometimes) look through what had come in, but then just put it back into a pile to deal with later. Sometimes envelopes or boxes would go for days (dare I say months) going un-opened. Reshuffling the pile periodically to see what I should have attended to already took extra time. It took extra time to repeatedly pick up the piece of paper and re-read something to know what it was. And even then I might just put it off. And there we go with another cycle of wasted time.

How silly, I know. But that is the habit I had gotten into. It was wasting time!

Now I have a little game I play with myself to see how quickly I can get through each day’s mail. Each piece is quickly given the 2 minute (or less) test. When the mail/packages arrive, they are brought to a place close to a designated trash can. Each piece is quickly given the 2-minute (or less) test. Junk mail is immediately trashed. All other is opened immediately and filed or put into the designated place where it will be dealt with (e.g. a bills due by date file).

I know … this all seems pretty obvious. And so are most of the other 1000 tips in this book. But this tip and others in the book are something that have helped jog me into action to de-clutter my life of time wasters.

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