Sunday Morning and Miscellaneous Updates

Hey, y'all, here's the latest if anybody's interested.

Houston seminar in August:


I'm doing a machine knitting seminar in Houston in just a couple of weeks, so am frantically getting the handouts together.  People!  This is going to be good!  We have only a small group and we could use some more folks.  That means I can give more attention to questions and so forth.

The seminar is inexpensive, and that the curriculum I'm working on is incredible. I'm working on hands-on finishing samples for participants.  Email me at diana_knits "at" sbcglobal "dot" net and I'll hook you up with Space City Knitters.  I'd love to see y'all at one of my seminars and meet you.

DFW Seminar in November


I believe they have a little more space if someone else wants to register.

There will be quite a bit of overlap between the two seminars.  What each group did, though, was take a member survey of which of my possible demos they wanted, and then compiled to results.  They are not at all alike.

Enchanted Edgings


This is going to be a great package.  I decided to do a little more filming to clarify some things, and I forced myself to put my face in the move for a little while in the intro.  That was difficult!  When I have trouble remembering all the stuff I'm supposed to say, my eyes shift around like a bad actor playing a thief.  Oh, it's painful to look at your 57-year-old face on film, but hey, are my readers and viewers a bunch of twenty-somethings?

There are two videos.  The YouTube version just compares my Stitch World method to the Enchanted method, less than 10 minutes, just to present the big idea.  The one for the book/DVD pack has an intro, detailed non-traveling edging instructions, detailed travelling edging instructions, detailed multiple-transfer traveling edging instructions, scarf overview, how to make the scarf using just a Stitch World pattern (I have my own tweak on this that's easier than the usual follow-the-chart method), and finally, the scarf using my special "enchanted" pattern.

Yesterday I finished editing the video.  Whew.  I can scarcely describe how difficult and crashy all the video editing software I have tried is!  I am currently using Adobe Premiere 7, and I suppose I might have less problems if I bought 8, but it offends my sense of decency to give them more money when their software has worked so poorly.  I stared at the video software shelf in the electronics store yesterday and then said, nope.  Here's what I learned, so far:

1.  Save the project every time you make a change.
2.  Keep a book or some handwork handy for all the time you spend rebooting and crashing.
3.  Constantly render, or you can't see enough of the video to edit it properly
4.  Sometimes it corrupts a file and you get to start all over!

When I first began making videos for beginners, I used an old camcorder and Windows Movie Maker.  The HD camcorder I'm using produces really big, difficult to handle files, but the product is so much better for knitters.

I should have it finished, and to suit me, soon.

I ran out of space on John's big computer.  This project alone is taking several gigabytes for files, let alone DVD files, so John put a new 2 TB hard drive on the computer last night, and now I'm waiting for the copy-over process.

One of the things I tried to convey in this video is how fantastic the Enchanted Forest scarf turned out.  I didn't want only edgings in the book; I wanted a special project to spark ideas about what can be done with electronics and also, what can be done with manufacturer's lace patterns.  That scarf is gauzy thin with tiny detail and very slinky and soft, an alpaca/silk blend LACE WEIGHT.  Who says we can't knit lace weight yarns?

One of these days I want to do a whole book of really luxurious lace projects, as opposed to techniques/edgings in this book.  So many ideas.  So little time!

Other Stuff

We had a new roof put on this week.  A crew stripped our old shingles and pounded it on in two days.  Rain gutters are next; the old ones were in rough shape.  John is on the search for an affordable lawn service, the old one having gone out of business.  John and I work hard, but we both avoid yard work, a remarkable thing considering that we have all kinds of family members who are talented gardeners.

Steven, our baby, is still home from college, and his friends drop in and out and often stay over.  They are wonderful young men, doing all sorts of different things, and I hope they always stay in touch with each other.  He is so fortunate to have friends who go back to elementary school.  John and I moved around growing up and don't have that.  He's going to the lake today, and I just found the #50 sunblock for him.  I hope he wears it!