Tag: Emerald Keep Scarf

  • Thoughtful Thursday, 3D and Writing

    \"Emerald-Scarf\"

    Welcome to Thoughtful Thursday, where we chat about 3D and writing.  Today I have a bit of a twist on the topic.  Since Book 2 of the Persis Chronicles, Emerald Keep, is out on April 8th, I figured I\’d share a little bit about knitting and 3D and use the opportunity to share about the book, too.

    When Rachel and I created Persis, we wanted a world that valued handicrafts and the home arts.  The job of a homemaker has become invisible and thankless, thanks in part to the fact that it\’s largely women\’s work.  The women\’s liberation movement in the United States did a lot to emancipate women from being chained to the kitchen sink, but as a consequence, their traditional work of raising children and caring for the home became less than laudable.

    I have a friend who is about thirty-five years older than me.  She decided to stay home and raise five boys of her own, as well as twenty-nine foster children.  She told me that she\’s endured a lot of grief from women friends who said that she wasn\’t living up to her full potential, and that she was oppressed.  That made me sad, because she\’s an incredible mom and creates a home in which people enjoy spending time.

    Because of that, we wanted the home arts to be elevated in importance such that they were considered to be a critical part of society.  The job of the Keeper is a desirable part of the fabric of life.  Developed to support miners and livestock farmers, the Keepers are trained to manage household bookkeeping, cooking, and various arts.

    For our book release, we\’ve both made scarves.  The picture at the top of this post is the Emerald Keep Scarf.  I knitted it because I love to make things, and this was fun to do because it was referential to my own book.  I felt closer to the world we created by making something for the book, which is an unexpected side benefit.

    So tell me, what do you like to make, whether it\’s a meal or something artistic?

  • Announcing Day One of the Emerald Keep Keepsake Tour – Celebrating the Release of Book 2 of the Persis Chronicles!

    \"emeraldkeep\"Welcome to my new home on the web! Over the course of the next month, I\’ll be migrating here permanently. The Blogger blog will still be available in the archive, but we made the decision to move to this one because it makes it easier to keep everything in one place – all the writing, the knitting, coffee, and chocolate you could possibly want. And of course, cats. It\’s the internet. We must have cats.

    But for today, rather than cats, I\’ve got something even better for you, Dear Reader!  It\’s the brand new cover of Emerald Keep, hot off the presses – well, at least hot off the cover artist\’s computer.  The artist is Brandon Clay, and you can see more of his work, here.

    The Keepsake Tour is a little different – instead of giving away gift cards or other electronic media, we decided to give away something tangible.  We also have a double Grand Prize – since we\’re Noon and Wilder, we figured that it made sense to have two prizes.  I\’ll be making a hand-knit Emerald Keep scarf, and Rachel\’s making a hand-crocheted Emerald Keep scarf.  Two lucky winners will be selected from a drawing at the end of the tour.  How do you enter?  Well, that\’s easy!  Simply leave a comment along the tour and you\’ll be entered in!

    Check back for the rest of the tour, daily between March 8th and Release Day, April 8th.  We\’ll have behind-the-scenes tours, outtakes, peaks at research and hand-drawn maps, and excerpts.  If there\’s something in specific you\’d like to see or read about, tell me in the comments, below.

    We\’re glad you found your way to to us.  Thank you for reading!

  • Make Something Monday – The Emerald Keep Scarf

    Make Something Monday – The Emerald Keep Scarf

    Now that I\’ve sorted out the design and simplified it, the Emerald Keep Scarf is coming along very nicely.  Last week, I talked about the difficulties I was having with it and how the design process was coming – or, as it turns out, not coming.  This weekend I got almost 18 inches done.  At this rate, I\’ll be done by the end of next weekend or the middle of the week following, well in advance of the start of the Keepsake Book Tour.

    The stitch is a simple pattern from Barbara Walker\’s A Second Treasury of Knitting Patterns called Two-Color Star Stitch.  I find her books invaluable in designing projects because she puts the knitter in the driver\’s seat.  Through teaching how the fabric works inherently, to how geometric designs are created by the yearn, a knitter can go from a basic student of the subject to a designer in very short order.  I have a long way to go before I\’m a master knitter, but I am a lot closer to the goal because of her books.  I highly recommend them.

    I\’ve made this stitch pattern a couple times before, and I like its simple beauty.  This time, I selected an emerald green dark tone for the main color and a light mint for the accent.

    The more I work with this pattern, I find that I like the reverse of the fabric just as much as the front.  It ends up looking almost beaded in texture, with neat edges on each side.

    I cast on 30 stitches, since it\’s multiples of 3; on size 7 needles the fabric is quite wide.  There\’s a lot of horizontal stretch to it and it will curl (which is why I had such difficulty with edging it).  I don\’t mind the curl in the finished design, it has its own beauty; I\’ll still play around with some possibilities for edgings in future projects but since I needed this done for the book tour, I didn\’t have the time.

    I did have an interesting breakthrough as I was working it.  It finally it me that the colors are tied to the stitch order; meaning that row 2 is always Color A and row 4 is Color B.  I don\’t need to keep track of the row count because I know which pattern row to work based on the color on the needle.  All wrong side rows are purled, so it\’s an easy pattern to memorize – even for me, with the difficulty I have with 2D to 3D translation.

    Keep your eyes peeled for the Keepsake Tour; it starts March 8th.  Emerald Keep is out on April 8th.

    What are you making this Monday?  Please tell me in the comments; I\’d love to know.