I know I have it easier than Gutenberg had it back in the day, but it still is a challenge.
Most of my waking hours this week were taken up with working on the new book. I had enough material for this one to have been a two-volume set, at least. I have way too much material to publish one a year during my lifetime.
The dogs and I walked every day, sometimes with "Daddy" but often just the three of us. I'm glad for the two-dog leash. Sandy has stopped pulling on the leash. I think it's because of the harness, which enables him to feel the connection with me without pulling. He still is usually out in front, though.
We often walk by a rocky slope punctuated by beautiful flowering bushes, mostly yellow ones, which I've identified as (potentially) as "Basket of Gold," or Aurinia saxatilis Brassicaceae. Two other slight possibilities are also from the Brassicaceae family.
We need to know this, because we want to plant some on this slope in our backyard, where we also have strawberries and a couple of fruit trees. One reason the pups and I have been walking alone some days is because Charlie has been working on this slope, pulling up some parasitic plants and building a little enclosure around the base of the fruit trees, so the water doesn't just run off.
Tuesday evening we had our Madroña Vineyards pop-up meeting. The winery is doing a trip to Portugal, and some participants had already left to get in a little extra travel while in Europe. We usually meet every two weeks, but it will be about a month before we meet again...unless they decide to hold it from Europe.
One of my Ravelry groups is having a "Join Along" event based on my patterns. Someone had picked my Cables and Herringbones cardigan pattern for Happy Kidz dolls and found a mistake in the written directions. There is also a chart, which is what I've used for the four times I've used this pattern.
I published a correction, but I decided I should make one using the written directions and see if there were any more. I also had touted the possibility of using smaller needles and thinner yarn to make one for the smaller Little Kidz doll. Theoretically, a tension/gauge of 10 sts/in should be perfect for the smaller dolls. I wanted to test it out, so I cast on using some lace weight yarn and 2mm needles. I think it's going to work.
How did I come up with 10 sts/in? The Little Kidz are proportioned almost exactly the same as the Happy Kidz dolls, but only 80% of the same measurements all over. A sewing pattern designed for Happy Kidz dolls can be printed at 80%, although you need to add back a bit to make the seam allowances 1/4" unless you want to work with very tiny seams. With knitting, it's a little more complicated. You have to have more sts/in to make something smaller. By dividing the given tension/gauge for a pattern designed for Happy Kidz dolls by .8 (point eight) you get the new tension/gauge you need to aim for. If the pattern calls for working a given number of rows, you still work that number of rows, but if it says to work, say, 2" even, you will have to change the 2" to 80% of 2", which is 1.6".
I've done this a number of times, and it works. I only wish I had known how important math was to knitting while I was still in school.
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What's in The Doll's Storybook: The Writer and Billy are working on the new book, and The Writer needs the dolls to talk a little more quietly, so she can concentrate in "Shhhhh!" this week's story in The Doll's Storybook.
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