Part of the beauty of the Knit Picks IDP program is that it functions solely as an outlet for designers. There are no exclusivity contracts, fees, and, most importantly, no oaths of secrecy. I am free to display patterns-in-progress as much as I please.
Now, I've had a couple designs in the back of my head for a few years. This is not one of them:
This one popped into my head one day about a month and a half ago, when I realized just how poor I'm going to be as a grad student (more on that later), and needed to supplement my income. Luckily, it was a slow day at work, so I spent an hour sketching out designs and looking up stitch patterns. This was followed by obsessive swatch-knitting, and the whole idea-to-proposal process was done in record time.
Knit Picks loved it, sent me the requested yarn, and I got to work. This is where the process slowed. I thought, "I'll bang out this knee sock in two weeks!". Well, life happened, and a month later there is still no sock. I'm close to done - I'm in the perpetual plateau where all long projects end up. When the day started, I was a half inch away from the ribbing. I knit for two hours. I'm still a half inch away from the ribbing. Alas, there is nothing I can do but keep knitting, until suddenly the thing is two inches too long and I have to rip back. Any knitter can attest that this is how these things work.
P.S. For anyone who reads this blog that isn't a family member or a close friend (in which case you already know this), I'm moving to Atlanta, GA to start grad school in two weeks. I'm doing a MS/PhD combo in neuroscience, working Chuck Derby's lab at GSU. I'll be studying cephalopod chemical defenses and their effects on the neurosensory systems of associated predators. The email I got today also suggests that I'll be working with the olfactory systems of various crustaceans as well.
P.P.S. Hopefully, I'll get (and keep) this blog up and running again. It's one of those things that I don't realize how much I enjoy doing it until I do it again after a long dry spell. Plus I actually have ~things~ going on in my life of general interest, which is an excellent literary motivator.
Now, I've had a couple designs in the back of my head for a few years. This is not one of them:
This one popped into my head one day about a month and a half ago, when I realized just how poor I'm going to be as a grad student (more on that later), and needed to supplement my income. Luckily, it was a slow day at work, so I spent an hour sketching out designs and looking up stitch patterns. This was followed by obsessive swatch-knitting, and the whole idea-to-proposal process was done in record time.
Knit Picks loved it, sent me the requested yarn, and I got to work. This is where the process slowed. I thought, "I'll bang out this knee sock in two weeks!". Well, life happened, and a month later there is still no sock. I'm close to done - I'm in the perpetual plateau where all long projects end up. When the day started, I was a half inch away from the ribbing. I knit for two hours. I'm still a half inch away from the ribbing. Alas, there is nothing I can do but keep knitting, until suddenly the thing is two inches too long and I have to rip back. Any knitter can attest that this is how these things work.
P.S. For anyone who reads this blog that isn't a family member or a close friend (in which case you already know this), I'm moving to Atlanta, GA to start grad school in two weeks. I'm doing a MS/PhD combo in neuroscience, working Chuck Derby's lab at GSU. I'll be studying cephalopod chemical defenses and their effects on the neurosensory systems of associated predators. The email I got today also suggests that I'll be working with the olfactory systems of various crustaceans as well.
P.P.S. Hopefully, I'll get (and keep) this blog up and running again. It's one of those things that I don't realize how much I enjoy doing it until I do it again after a long dry spell. Plus I actually have ~things~ going on in my life of general interest, which is an excellent literary motivator.
