I got an email from the publisher today saying that I need to pick out my top two yarn choices and tell them how many skeins I need. Eep!

In addition to making a post in knitting, which lots of people have answered and helped me out with, I took and extended lunch break LYS hopping with Kate. The only way I'm going to be able to accurately determine how much yarn I'll need is by swatching, so I've picking out my favorite/most likely to succeed yarns from each store I've gone to. So far Hilltop East and the Fiber Gallery have been plundered. Alchemy Bamboo (HOLY CARP EXPENSIVE!) from Hilltop, Debbie Bliss Silk from Fiber Gallery.

People in the knitting post have pretty much said no on the bamboo (heavier than I thought, apparently, but I'll still swatch and make a desicion on my own), and yes on silk, but leaning more towards a merino/silk blend or Euroflax. One of the dresses in Sensual Knits is made with Louisa Harding Grace Silk & Wool, which seems like it would be a good choice but I'd still have to swatch it it or something VERY similar to determine yardage, and I'm not exactly sure where I would find it.

I really want to figure out my yarn choices soon so I can request it and start designing. This whole deadline thing is SCARY!

A design idea I submitted for the sequel to Sensual Knits got selected. It was something that I completely made up on the spot at work and submitted pictures of my sketches that I took with my phone and emailed myself. It got picked! One of my knitting designs is going to be published. *flaps hands*

Problem is, I think I might have designed something a little... advanced for me. Not advanced for me to knit if it was from a pattern, but to design myself, whoo boy. At least I have until March to come up with the pattern and finish knitting it. I'm sure I'm supposed to keep it under cover until the book is announced/published or whatever, so I'm not going to say anymore about it than I think I'm getting paid a pretty penny for it considering it's my first published design. And it's 10 million hotdogs awesome.


Building up to the omg jump up and down excitement of this whole "I'm going to be in a book!" deal, I got some yarn from Kate for Fishmas this year. Kate has a tendency to buy me yarn that is much longer than it should be. It's like her yards are as long as Chris' minutes. Previously, she bought me three skeins of yarn that was 200 yards a skein, and I used it to make her a total yarn eater project (the Manitou Passage Scarf). Not only did I only use two of them to make the scarf 6 feet, but I also made her a matching hat and I STILL have some left over.

The yarn she got me this year was 6 skeins of super-bulky Tahki Taos, 60 yards a ball, in Jungle. 360 yards of yarn. I looked through Ravelry and the books I owned, and figured that the Carrie Cropped Cardigan from Fitted Knits would use about the amount of yarn I had. I'm not normally a fan of cropped stuff, but I have a couple tank tops that would go with the colors and I figured it's just a shrug that buttons in the front.

I swatched on Saturday, but I couldn't get gauge with the right needle. I moved up to a 17, but got the same gauge as with a 15. I decided to just knit a size bigger than I needed and everything would work okay in the end. It did. Not only did it work okay, but Sunday evening, right before midnight, I cast off a full length sweater jacket, going past my bum. I'd added more increases to the front to encompass my bosom, and decided to make it a little longer anyway. I was expecting it to come right above my navel, which would show off the lacy bottoms of my tanks nicely, but no. I'd used two balls on the body, one each on the sleeves, and still had two left when it came to lengthening the bottom. I added some lacy eyelet-vents in the lower back to add shaping and match the eyelets in the bell sleeves.

The finished product is wonderful. I'm going to buy a couple buttons after work and do the finishing touches, and then I'll add pictures.

And I think I'll make Kate buy me yarn when we go on the Yarn Train to PDX.