I take surveys & redeem the points I get for 2 things each year: Blockbuster rentals and Borders Bucks.  It used to be that they’d parcel out the Borders Bucks $5 over 3 months.  This time, I got $15 all at once.   And there was a 40% off coupon that came in my e-mail this week.  Thus, I have Together or Separate coming to me for the cost of shipping.  This is why Borders is made of win.

I was doing some homework avoidance this weekend.  So I played with my Queue on Ravelry.  A queue is where a Raveler can bookmark patterns and yarns and make notes about what to do with them, who to make patterns for, due dates of projects, etc.  One can play with the order, assign yarns to patterns.  Lovely tool.

So I went through my queue, re-prioritizing patterns I’ve got the yarn for.  I’m at about 50.  Not counting the WIPs, patterns I don’t have yarn for, etc.  Not quite beyond my life expectany yet, but pretty bad.  Wants stash & queue busting.

Due to someone or some people’s rude, mean comments, MagKnits was taken down.  All the lovely projects’ pictures and charts are missing, though the text is findable.

I’m really sad.  Going through some of my bookmarks to clean them up made me realize how many MagKnits things I’ve bookmarked.  A number of designers are generous and have uploaded new versions of their patterns already, with more promising to get their up soon, but a few of them I really wanted to make are older, with no guarantee of ever being published again.

Mean People Suck; overreactions are no fun either.

…is wrong!

All the very cool new stuff is still coming from designers heads through yarn companies and LYSs.

Take the oh-so-cute Lace Cabled Pullover by Plymouth. Yesterday I found the very cute Felice V-Neck pattern in the Needful Yarns 305 book! Yes, I saw a knit-up sample of each at an LYS and got these patterns.

Is excited. The Felice is uber-cute and combined cables, intarsia, and color. I may have found a use for that odd Noro Kureyon I have in my stash. I haven’t decided yet. Only photo of Felice on the ‘net is in a fellow Raveler’s flickr.

Lovely Gene Ann’s Yarn Shop had something I never expected to find! Clear Regia boots! These were all the rage when they came out–great for showing off handknit socks, dontcha know. I’ve seen them on the market for $50+! My price, since they don’t make them anymore? $15. She’s got at least 2 more pairs. One’s labels 6, the other is bigger. They definitely run larger than US show sizes. I tried on the 6 and it was HUGE. The size 5 I got is still a bit big, but hey, thick socks!
 
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I also got a lovely new pattern by Plymouth. Jeanee’s the recommended yarn, but there’s limited colors. I eventually settled on a pretty Cestari cotton-wool blend.

Annie Modesitt announced on her blog that she is preparing the Sideways Spencer for sale on her website!    I know people have been looking for this pattern. Patience pays off! (and it’s certainly more fun to pay a reasonable 1 digit fee than the $30+ craziness for the original magazine I’ve seen on ebay!

It’s kind of sad that Interweave has made yet another whack move with the Reader’s Choice patterns. I thought the top 10 would be put in a new book for sale! They keep renegging on what they’re going to do. 4 months of limited access? Boo!

Also frustrating to learn that they hadn’t even consulted the designers when they started, so what is voted for might not be accessible anyway.

Y’all know I’m a pattern squirreler.

I discovered Knitting Fever’s download page. Most are PDFs; some are word documents. Some come with nice, professional pictures, others look like they’ve come straight from the designer’s computer, circa 1990.

I like the cute ITV monkey pattern. It’ll be an adventure getting from completely written out, no schematic directions to end up a 3-D toy.

Norsk Strikkedesign!

I have in my small knitting library:

I got it for a fraction of the price of some crazy sellers online! I’m excited! The patterns are gorgeous, and one of them is close enough to Hanne Falkenberg’s Mermaid, that it’s coming off my wist!
I’ve finished the front & back of the Sirdar sweater I’m working on. (I don’t have a pic of the finished product to reference–I don’t even know what pattern I’m using!)

Joann only stocks about 5 Patons SWS colorways right now. :/ They’re too busy trying to sell off the Joann’s line yarns to restock, apparently!

Then I went through the rather messy book section. Found Veronik Avery’s new book, Knitting Classic Style.  Her style is not my style.  I only like 2 of the patterns, and they were tank top types.

1 sheet pattern for the blue, bell-sleeved jacket in the second row, on the left on this page: Knit ‘n’ Style April 07. This is the pattern only, NOT the whole issue. Will trade for like pattern (free print out). Leave a comment and I shall get in touch with you.