echo knits

Back when I started knitting again, after a long sabbatical while I went to high school and made a lot of jewelry and polyclay things, I taught myself how to knit on dpns. I eventually tried to make the famous blueberry waffle socks, but never got past the cuff.

When I graduated from college and started working full time, I had disposable income at last. I fell in love with the gorgeous self striping yarns that Village Yarn Shop had in it’s old location, tucked away in an independent bookshop in Midtown Mall. I started my ridiculous stash this way, acquiring sock yarn (and later, a crazy amount of lace-weight) but not knowing where to start knitting.

In the days before Ravelry, I found it difficult to find a pattern that I liked. I knit widdershins, but because I am terrible about checking gauge, they came out much too small. I tried another top down pattern, and didn’t keep track well enough of my stitches so they ended up lopsided. I started and ripped and restarted the same pair of plain black socks for my husband, and tried in vain to jumpstart myself by joining TWO sock clubs in ‘08. I started the first installment of Blue Moon Fiber Art’s Rockin’ Sock Club, but got distracted by other projects and other knitting. So my socks and sock yarn languished, my poor feet missing wonderful hand knit socks.

About two weeks ago I was brave enough to start a new pair, mostly because I wanted a portable non challenging project to take a break after I finished knitting Seraphim and took a small break from Kiri.

I ended up using Wendy Johnson’s basic toe-up pattern, since it seemed to be one of the most popular pattern around. I was actually good and checked my gauge, which is one of my least favorite parts of knitting, and figured out short rows at last. I actually feel kind of ridiculous that it took me that long, and it took several false starts. And now I have a pair of socks that fits perfectly, for the first time.

I cast on again for a new pair almost immediately, but frogged it because the colors started pooling. I started again with a skein I’d been trying to turn into toe up socks for at least 6 months, since I’d been keeping it with a set of needles in my Emergency Knitting bag. This is working much better, and I’m doing this pattern, which is based around Wendy’s basic toe-up pattern.

My recent acquisitions at my LYS are only enabling my addiction, especially when I should really be working on the fine lace Kiri I’m knitting for my grandmother. But this does mean my husband will be happy, since I can start knitting up all the sock yarn I’ve managed to acquire for the past few years.

I recently bought myself an Amazon Kindle. Being a technology-whore, I’ve wanted one since they first came out, but wasn’t ready to commit to a first generation product that kept selling out. The Kindle 2 is not only available and in stock, it also came out right around my birthday and right before my company distributed bonuses. I held out for the better part of three weeks, after I paid all of my bills and made sure I could still afford it, and then splurged. It’s estimated ETA is the middle of next week, so until then I get to plan what kinds of books to put on it, and what documents I might want to convert. Of the various features, the thing that drew me the most to it is that it supports .pdfs as well as several other formats.

You know what this means, right? It means that I can carry around a whole collection of knitting patterns all the time. Without printing pages and killing trees. Now, I know that full .pdf support isn’t quite up to snuff, but work with me on this one. The kindle has Amazon’s whispernet technology, like mobile broadband for cellphones. This means constant contact with the internet, which I clearly cannot live without, and constant access to Ravelry. Now, let’s be fair, I already have an iPhone, so I always have the internet around, but it’s hard to read patterns easily on the small screen, and browsing can be a pain. And I have an asus eee (bought after last year’s bonus), but you need wifi to connect, and it’s battery life is dismal. The Kindle though has a long battery life, is easily readable, and compact so I can add it to my knitting bag or larger purse. Now, let’s be fair, I don’t need one. I just wanted one. So all of this might be that I was seduced by a shiny piece of technology. But man do I love shiny technology.

The other thing I find intriguing is that there is already a decent selection of knitting books available for Kindle. Even patterns, like this one for fingerless gloves, and electronic copies of old knitting books and patterns, like this 19th century book of needlework instructions. I love that old texts and magazines are being preserved this way, even if they aren’t accessible outside of the Kindle format yet. Project Gutenberg has been making out of copyright books available for years now, I used to download them to read on my old palm 100 about 7 years ago. Google Books already makes many books available to read online, and recently made a deal with Sony to add it’s public domain books to the eLibrary. Many of these can also be downloaded in .pdf (the Sony devices aren’t natively compatible with .pdf files).

If the Kindle really takes off and similar products get produced, it’s likely we’ll see even more esoteric and rare books be converted to digital copy, making them actually available. Without the cost of printing, books that have been out-of-print for years could be digitized and downloaded and actually read. Which would frankly be kind of amazing. I would love to have access to a whole archive of old knitting patterns to pour over and translate into modern technique and knitting style.

If nothing else, I’m hoping it will actually get me reading books again, instead of listening to countless audio books. I love audio books for lots of reasons, the primary one being that I have my hands free while I’m listening. This lets me listen in the car, and then pick up where I left off while I’m knitting, doing housework, or whatever. It’s difficult to read a typical paperback while knitting because they don’t stay open unless you break the spine, and I treat my books better than that. I like that the Kindle will stay upright if you have the right case or stand, so I can read hands free.

However, this could all be speculation. I don’t have it in my hands yet, and it’s highly likely that I’m overestimating it’s usefulness. I’m hoping at the least it will be great for knitting patterns, all those classics I’ve been meaning to read, and all kinds of other documents I can get digitally and would read if they were more convenient. At most, I’m hoping it will do all those things and be a worthwhile investment for leisure and school (downloading scholarly articles from jstor anyone?) and possibly be popular enough to stimulate publishers into making more things available in digital copy. Hey, a girl can dream right?

Hi, and welcome to the new home of echo knits.

For a little while, I used to blog at wordpress.com, but I was a sporadic poster at best. This is my attempt at a new site, coupled with my acceptance to a graduate program in Textile History. I had originally planned to restart blogging in November, and then at the beginning of the New Year, so I’m getting a bit of a late start, especially compared to most bloggers around. About a month ago, I was just about to start up again, but my hard drive crashed completely, and this is the first I’m getting around to a new start.

My radio silence between the old echo knits and new was probably beneficial for everyone, since the past few months since I applied to grad school have been mostly filled with me worrying about getting in, changing positions at work, and lots and lots of on call.

This blog will not only follow my prep and planning as I move myself, my stash, my spinning wheel, my cat, and my husband (eventually) to start school in the fall, but also my increasing interest in the craft movement and the use of technology in craft. I’ll also be tracking my new foray into socks that actually fit, my new spinning skills, and occasional non-fiber escapades. And even maybe a little sewing.