Occasus

Last year, with a few other novice knitwear designers, I submitted a shawl pattern in a book proposal. The book was picked up for publication, but my shawl was not destined to be a part of it.

So, I have finally gotten my act together to publish it myself.

"Publish" is such a weighty word, isn't it? I'm offering it myself, really. For sale. The price and BUY NOW button are at the end of this post. In the interrim, the details...

Occasus Shawl


Approx. size after blocking: 57" x 57"
Yarn: Schachenmayr nomotta Regia Hand-dye Effect (fingering weight), less than 1836 yards/four skeins
Needle size: US 5/3.75 mm

Occasus is Latin for “setting of the sun.” It is the source of the English word occasion. This square shawl marks the moments when the sun sinks to reveal the night sky, and it offers the opportunity to make the most ordinary event in life into an occasion. (I've already worn the shawl to an art reception. I felt so very artsy schmartsy, you know.)



The shawl is worked from the center out. This is the field of stars.



The shawl’s size can be increased or decreased in the pattern section before the edging, the field of sunsets section.



Each edging piece (the flared “sun rays” border) is worked separately and grafted onto the shawl with the kitchener stitch. Tips are included to recalculate the edging cast on stitches if the shawl size has been altered.

This shawl was a challenge to design. It involved math. And while I love the results and tried to apply the transition of sunset to starry night to a novelty knits book, I agree that this project is a little too innocuous for the book's playfully macabre theme. Live and learn, right? I got a cool shawl out of the effort. If you'd like the pattern, too, the price and BUY NOW button are below.

Occasus Shawl

$6.00 US

Knitting swap loot and a view from the soapbox

Recently I participated in a knitting swap based on the upcoming Eclipse movie. It's theme? Team Edward vs. Team Jacob. Since I know how the story ends, I sided with the romantic winner, the very Mr. Cullen. This is what my swap partner sent me.



My partner is Martha of Green Mountain Knitting Bags fame. I've yearned for one of her bags nigh on...ever since I've seen them many moons ago. Now I have one. In blue. And I now have blue Ella Rae Lace Merino. And blue curly wool to make more thrummed mitts whenever I feel like it. Sense a favorite color theme? The necklace in the photo, by Jenifer Smith, is supposed to be a choker made to look like a bite mark. Alas, my neck's girth makes this subtle bit ot bling into a better bracelet, so that's how I've been wearing it.

In exchange, I sent Martha a shawl in wolfish colors, since she is on Jacob's side.



It's the Multnomah Shawl pattern, and the yarn is off a cone--one of two cones--from Spun Fibers Inc. Rocky Road is the yarn name, and London Town is the colorway. I have over 15,000 yards of this yarn. Yeah.



See? Lots and lots of it to be had.



The shawl pin came from The Shawl Pin Store, thank you very much Google. The mother of pearl circle, cut off-center, is reminiscent to me of an eclipse. So, cute, huh? See what I did there?

I also did these stitch markers to play on the theme.



You might not believe it from seeing these pictures, but I'm not hyperventilating to see the Eclipse movie. I'm fond of the "saga" and all, but I can definately wait until the fervor dies down to see the flick. I'm thinking that part of the reason for my indifference, after noticing all the Twilight merchandising that's been peddled in the last couple years, is based on burnout. I mean, people...werewolf pack tattoo PACKING TAPE? What? Did Bella use this stuff when she was moving out of Charlie's house?

I'll nip this rant in the bud right here. Suffice it to say, I like the story but can do without the peripheral drama the movie has stirred up. I will add, however, that I love the handmade stuff based on the books. I'm DIY biased, of course. Buying it by hand may be faster, but making it by hand is usually more entertaining...and proof via hard work that one is sincerely nuts about something.

Linked up to:
--  Just Something I Whipped Up Mondays

What I did during my summer cold

Professionally, My dad was an auto mechanic. As a hobby, he tinkered. He liked to weld, re-engineer, and generally make do with what he had on hand to solve a problem. (For example, in his later years, he bent leftover metal siding to make a remote control holder which he attached with hose clamps to his torchiere lamp.) What he had on hand was a lot of doo-dads, widgets, and hoozywhatsits, all mostly metal. Some in metric sizes. All this assortment of little things needed organization, and I'm not talking baby food jars screwed to a board. Oh no, Dad's accumulation of bolts, washers, and nails far surpassed that meager means. With access to empty cans of chemicals needed to keep cars running, he fashioned himself an tinkerer's chest of drawers.





We inherited the entirety of his collection. We didn't really sort through everything before moving it out of his garage and into ours because we needed to sell his house before it aged another fifty years. But I think his desire to make his collection useful to him rubbed off on me recently. I sorted my button stash.

Uh, yeah, that's right. I sorted the button stash. Two large jars and three small ones. I think lots of times jars of mixed buttons are kept around as home dec curiosities, but I have dipped into my stash often enough to feel how much time I have wasted looking for just the right color...or something remotely close enough.  So, when I came down with a cold last week, I finally spilled the buttons into an old stew pot and set to work sorting them. It doesn't take much physical effort or mental acuity. Just time.

And because I didn't want to re-use the huge jars--what would be the point of sorting the buttons just to throw them all together again--I made use of a collection I inherited from my mom:  smaller wire-bail canning jars.


The red buttons in a half-pint jar.


The blue buttons in a green glass jar.


The stash.

Useless Generalized Statistics:
I have buttons made of bone and mother of pearl, early forms of plastic, porcelain, glass and wood. I have buttons on cards from defunk manufacturers and with price stickers from stores long since closed. I have tiny buttons one would expect to see on a bride's gown and giant buttons no self-respecting button hole would encompass. Lots of black buttons, even more white/cream buttons that I sub-divided into ones with two holes or four. The colors with the least amount of buttons are orange and purple.

So now I have a working stash of buttons. Me, the one who doesn't get along with button holes (see previous post). But as you can see in that previous post, I don't need no stinking buttonholes to use the buttons I have.



This post is linked to:

• Just Something I Whipped Up Mondays
• We're Organized Wednesdays
• Frugal Friday at The Shabby Nest