Metalouse Shawl from Knit Nirvana - Day 5

Le humilité...

Oh, but this pattern is proving its talent for showing my faults!

Here I am, chugging along on the section with the vertical bars, feeling all confident and cocky.  I’ve only got one or two rows yet to go—albeit the rows are edging toward 300 stitches by this point—and the end is in sight.  I’m right on schedule, despite my earlier debacle.

…And then I see it.  A sneaky little sentence tucked in behind what I THOUGHT was the end of this section, tagging along behind row 36 like a devious shadow: “Repeat Rows 1-12 once more. 335 stitches.”

What?  I thought I was done and you’re telling me I’ve got almost 4,000 stitches to go????

Don’t get me wrong—it’s a beautiful piece.  Everyone asks to see it when I knit it in public.  But I suspect I’ll forever be thinking that “Metalouse" is french for “humbling.”

DON'T FORGET: If you're heading to STITCHES MIDWEST in the Chicago area this weekend, stop by the Mia Bella booth tomorrow August 9 at 12:30  and get my latest novel free!  But be prompt--we have a limited supply and last year they were gone in fifteen minutes!

May Authors Who Knit: Sheri Cobb South

Sheri is one of several knitting authors who will be joining me at ROMCON in Denver in June.  For this month's Authors Who Knit, let's meet this versatile writer:

Sheri, What’s on your needles right now? 

A lap robe. My church (Faith Evangelical Presbyterian in Loveland, Colorado) has a group called KnitWits, and one of our projects is providing lap robes for patients at a dialysis center, where the rooms are kept at a rather cool temperature. Unfortunately, the pattern I’m using takes double strands of worsted-weight yarn, and since it uses two colors, it means I’m juggling four skeins of yarn. Sometimes I feel like I spend as much time untangling yarn as I do actually knitting! I have to remind myself it’s all in a good cause.

What feels like your favorite/greatest knitting accomplishment? 

A baby blanket I made for my great-niece won a blue ribbon at the fair. A sweater I’d crocheted also won a blue that year. Since it was the first time I’d entered any needlework, I was rather pleased with myself!

What feels like the worst knitting mistake/foible/wrong choice you’ve ever made? 

Other than choosing a lap robe pattern that requires me to juggle four skeins of yarn? Hmm, I don’t remember exactly what I did, but I once had to take over a hundred stitches off the needle, rip out several rows, and then thread all the stitches back on. I have to say, crocheting is much more “forgiving” than knitting, as far as correcting one’s errors!

Straight or circular needles? 

I can use either one. The aforementioned lap robe is on a circular needle.

Metal or wood needles? 

Metal. I know some people don’t like the noise they make, but to me the soft clicking of the needles is one of the subtle joys of knitting.

White chocolate, milk chocolate, or dark chocolate?

I prefer dark, but I like milk chocolate, too. I tell my husband that I don’t believe in white chocolate; if it doesn’t contain cocoa, it isn’t really chocolate!

Coffee or tea? 

Usually coffee, although I can drink iced tea, too. And, being a Southerner born and bred, I take them both strong and sweet!

Have you written a knitting character? 

Sheri's current release

Aunt Hattie, the heroine’s ditzy aunt in my Regency romance Of Paupers and Peers, is very big on charitable works. When we first meet her, she’s fretting over her knitting. She’s been making gloves, and one of them has come out with only four fingers. (Did I mention she’s ditzy?) She’s hardly a poster child for knitting, but she was great fun to write about.  After the glove fiasco, she turns her attention to a project to send candles to English missionaries in darkest Africa. When our heroine, her niece, asks her why candles, she says, “My love, you cannot have been listening! Darkest Africa, you know!” 

What’s the last thing anyone would suspect about your knitting? 

I’m a lefty and I knit left-handed, so everything I make is actually a mirror image of what it’s “supposed” to be. In most projects it doesn’t matter, but with, say, a sweater with buttonholes, I have to be careful to reverse the pattern or the holes will end up on the wrong side.

DestiKNITters, if you'd like to know more about Sheri and her books, visit her website here.

January Authors Who Knit: Susan Sleeman

To kick off the second year of featuring authors who knit, we check in with mystery author Susan Sleeman.

Susan, What’s on your needles right now?

Sad to say there is nothing on my needles right now. I’ve been swamped with book deadlines and the holidays. Hopefully I will have a break soon to begin projects for next Christmas. First up are little snowmen that my grandmother used to make. These have knitted bodies that cover Styrofoam balls. I am planning to make several of these for the children in my life for next Christmas. I’m going to start on them so hopefully I will have all of them finished by Christmas. With the way my schedule is going it will take that long. lol

What feels like your favorite/greatest knitting accomplishment?

I look at the first sweater I ever completed at my greatest accomplishment. I made the sweater for myself in high school using a luscious green angora yarn. It turned out really great and I wore it often. 

What feels like the worst knitting mistake/foible/wrong choice you’ve ever made?

Just about every project I started when I first learned to knit was a mistake. My grandmother taught me to knit and she was so patient. I remember on some of the more difficult projects we did together, tearing out stitches until the yarn was nearly frayed, but she sat next to me and kept encouraging me to move on. 

Straight or circular needles?

I’m a straight needle kind of gal. But then I’ve never knitted an afghan as my mother often did and I think if I did, I’d use circular needles for that project.

Metal or wood needles?

Metal.

White chocolate, milk chocolate, or dark chocolate?

All, lol. Seriously, I love milk chocolate, but in the last year, I have changed my diet to eat healthier. So I limit chocolate most of the time, but when I have to give in, like on deadline weeks, I now eat dark chocolate.

Coffee or tea?

Coffee all the way. Tea only in iced form.

Have you written a knitting character? 

I have written a knitting character and the first book featuring her just released. Her name is Shannon McClain and she is the main character in the Creative Woman Mysteries series. This is an ongoing cozy mystery series featuring one main character who finds herself embroiled in a mystery that needs solving.

Shannon is a member of a wonderful group of women who get together to knit. The group is called The Purls of Hope as they formed to support one of their friends who was going through breast cancer. They are a vivacious group of women and I love to write about all of them. So far I have written A Deadly Stitch, Dog Gone Shame, and A Matter of Wife and Death in this series. As of this point, A Deadly Stitch is the only one that has released with the other two coming soon. You can learn more about the entire series, which is available in print or e-book format, by clicking visiting creativewomanmysteries.com. 

What’s the last thing anyone would suspect about your most recent book?

I have named one of my characters after a family member. I do this in almost all of my books. My sister particularly likes to be the evil villain in my mysteries and romantic suspense titles so she appears more often than others! Though I have to say, her hubby recently felt left out so he’s made his debut in Dog Gone Shame. 

Visit Susan's website and learn more about her books!