As December draws to a close

Nine patterns and counting uploaded on Patternfish.

Today I uploaded The King's Sweater on my Ravelry store. I've been working on this pattern for what feels like forever! This modern copy was designed for a class at the Vesterheim, Norwegian-American Museum in Decorah, Iowa for this fall. I viewed copies of the original when I was in Norway fall 2013. Next month, it will be featured in the January/February 2015 “Historical Knitting” edition of Piecework magazine.

This pattern is a copy of the sweater Prince Harald wore April 9, 1940. On that day, the Nazis invaded Oslo, and Crown Prince Harald, his older sisters Ragnhild and Astrid, their parents, Crown Prince Olav V and Princess Märtha, and their grandfather King Haakon VII fled the capitol. Over the next five years, Crown Prince Harald evaded Nazi capture, living most of this time in a suburb of Washington, D.C.. Prince Harald is the current king of Norway, King Harald V. The original sweater is still property of the royal family. It toured Norwegian museums as a part of an exhibit titled, "The Longest Journey (1940–1945): the royal family’s long, involuntary sojourn abroad during the war years".

My neighbor's son, Kaden, was the model. Isn't he just perfect? Despite his twinkling blue eyes, he stood so still for me to take these photos this fall, and he never once said, "it itches!" He is definitely not a Ricketts!

For some reason, my photos are not uploading. I'm going to post this anyway. If you are curious to see some image, please click through one of the links at the beginning of this post.

PATTERNFISH - the online pattern store

Yesterday, Patternfish had six of my patterns listed. Today it is seven!

How many will be listed when YOU click through these links?

To borrow a quote from my favorite TV show Miranda, "Such fun!"

December catch up

It is wonderful to be able to sit down and catch up my blog readers on all my doings, but it is also a frustrating practice! So much has happened since my last post. It is always intimidating to try to include everything at once. Should I start from where I left off? Should I only blog about highlights? How about all those pictures? Maybe, I should just write about today!

All these thoughts and frustrations are only compounded by the fact that I HAVE blogged in the past bit, but the posts never loaded, or failed, or I got a message to try the website upload later. What if that were to happen now?

With this in mind, I am going to choose to do little uploads that jump around in my updates: in case the post doesn't upload, I won't risk marring a linear storyline, or be unable to go back and fill in details later.

Today, I am home. What a blessing in this crazy December time! Not only do we have the usual Christmas rush-about, but two of my kids have December birthdays. Because I have three kids, we are also very busy going to band concerts, choir concerts, basketball games and swim meets. And, while I am very thankful to have met my December 1 deadline for two magazine articles, two knitting patterns and two knitted samples, I now have the joy of working on my own self-published patterns. The boss is totally crazy: she's trying to get a sweater pattern, mitten pattern and hat pattern out the door before year's end!

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Sniff! We're all in double digits, now!

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A beautiful Christmas Vespers at the Culver Academy Chapel.

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I love the tuba player by the column.

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Her "Grown Up Christmas List"

In other knit news, I am totally stoked to be in conversation with The Loopy Ewe, one of my favorite knit stores. We are trying to work out a class(es) I could teach there when I am in Fort Collins, Colorado this coming April. The Loopy Ewe will start carrying my patterns in January. And, Canadian pattern store Patternfish is working on getting mine uploaded before the end of 2014.

Off to work on those, now!

Yesterday, and Tomorrow

I presented my talk on Sámi Knitted Mittens at Fort Wayne's own Knitting Off Broadway! Well, actually, it wasn't IN Knitting Off Broadway. It was two doors away, in a cool little former firehouse #5.

Not to be confused with Love Potion #5.

It had cool, exposed brick walls, a nifty kitchen, and a nice open room in which I gave a talk, answered questions, and passed mittens.

Fun was had by all! I'm looking forward to teaching a short, 3 hour Sámi Mittens Techniques tomorrow morning, and an Irish Crochet Class in the afternoon. Since it is a "local" venue, I'm taking my finished Irish Crochet and great-grandma's duster, as well!