Motoring Madness

Motoring Madness is the 9th pattern to appear in Lit Knits. The fingerless mitts are based on Kenneth Grahame's book Wind In The Willows, which was published in 1908.

After reading the book, I knew that the pattern just had to be based on Mr. Toad. There are many characters that appear in the book, but in my opinion, Mr. Toad is the most memorable. I decided that Toad would need driving gloves, which is why the project is fingerless mitts.

Mr. Toad is known to be a reckless driver, so the pattern is meant to look like Mr. Toad has erratically driven over the mitts. Twisted stitches help give the car tracks strong definition. There is a missing rib in the top and bottom ribbing on the mitts so that the tracks remain uninterrupted.

I actually knit this pattern twice. After finishing the first pair and putting them on, I noticed despite the pattern being centered on the mitt, once the mitts were on, the pattern curved towards the thumb. To correct the look of the pattern when the mitts are worn, the pattern is knit slightly off-center on the top of the mitt.

The neatest thing about this shoot was that about 10 minutes before the we started taking pictures, the model and I went to the thrift store and found the brown shirt and jacket that he is wearing. I kid you not. We couldn't have found a better outfit to match the gloves, book, and suitcase.

This shoot was done a few hours after the Tomfoolery shoot and it remained a blistering 108°F/ 42°C. My model deserves an award. Even though he was sweating it out for an hour as we took pictures, you'd never know it. It's hard to believe it was as hot as it was because in the pictures, the model made the day look enjoyable. (It wasn't. It really, really wasn't.)

In the book, whenever Mr. Toad doesn't have a car, he just pretends that he is driving. I knew that one of the shots I had to get was to have my model pretending to drive, just like Mr. Toad. The first few shots looked too posed, so I said, "Mr. Toad committed grand theft auto. You need to pretend like you are stealing a car!"

Here's Mr. Toad gunning it

The next shot was exactly what I had envisioned.

Avonlea

Avonlea is the 8th pattern to appear in Lit Knits. The shawl is inspired by L.M. Montgomery's book, Anne of Green Gables which was published in 1908. This was the first pattern I designed for the book, and also ended up being the first one I took pictures of.

Avonlea is meant to be a knitted picture of what Anne saw as she first saw Green Gables. Along the edge of the shawl are ripples of The Lake of Shining Waters. Past the lake is a field of flowers. The flowers go from large to small to create an illusion of distance. After the smallest, and most distant flowers is a picket fence that surrounds the final part of the shawl: Green Gables. There are little windows within each of the gables. The top of the roof is bordered by a stockinette sky.

I was so nervous leading up to the Avonlea shoot. Up until this shoot, I had only used family members or been the model myself for my patterns. I didn't want to seem foolish or inexperienced, despite being friends with the model and lighting assistant. I'd also never done a shoot for a shawl, so I was also pretty worried that all the photos would come out horribly. There were more imagined scenarios of possible failure which I can't remember anymore. But then I took the first picture and all was right in the world.

This is the first picture from the first shoot for Lit Knits

We started out by a tree I had spotted during one of my bike rides. It had a perfect crook for "Anne" to sit and read her book. Thanks to my lighting assistant, there are some behind the scenes photos. First the picture of me taking the picture.

Photo credit to Alina Sayre

Here's one of the resulting photos.

We continued walking along and passed by a nearby lake. At this point we all realized that this could be our "Lake of Shining Waters" since the sun was starting to reflect upon it.

The last photos we got were of the project and the book. Although I knew that this was a shot I wanted to take, I didn't realize how much this shot would influence the rest of the photo shoots. I had thought that some of the "book shots" would also have a model holding the book. This shot proved that I needed to take a picture of just the book and knit (and sometimes prop) all on its own.

Robin Hoodie

The Robin Hoodie is the 7th design to appear in Lit Knits. While there are many books on Robin Hood to choose from, I read Howard Pyle's version, The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood which was published in 1883.

The pullover is a raglan, knit from the hood down. Special care was taken to make the cables at the top of the hood match up when grafted together. And the instructions have detailed diagrams explaining how to graft stockinette, reverse stockinette, and how to switch between the two. The cabling that starts in the hood goes down the arms, front, and back of the sweater without interruption.
Bonus: all the sweater sizes reference the different characters in Robin Hood. I wear the Allan A Dale size. The model is wearing the Will Scarlet size.

Although it wasn't as hot as the day of the Tomfoolery shoot, it still wasn't close to being sweater weather. My model sweated it out all the while avoiding ants. There were so many ants.
We were in a pretty secluded area, but some person came by, sat down, and started smoking something that was plainly not just a cigarette. At some point they noticed us, a bunch of people taking pictures of "Robin Hood" complete with bow and arrow. I'd like to think that they thought they had really good stuff that day.

This is my favorite picture from all of the shoots. I couldn't help but put it on the cover of the book.

Showing how the cables ran down the entire sweater was a challenge. It was difficult to take pictures that showed off parts of the sweater without looking unnatural. We tried a bunch of poses. Some of them were good, despite not making it in the book.

We did an Errol Flynn styled pose too, just for fun. It didn't quite show off the sweater the way I wanted it to, but hey, we had to give it a try. Not pictured is me battling a branch and contorting myself around a nearby cement wall in order to get this shot.

After this shoot, we immediately continued on to where the Down The Rabbit Hole shoot would happen. (The shoots were done back-to-back.) The model switched to being the lighting assistant. The flowers were on a sloping hill, so we were all in uncomfortable positions to keep from falling over. At some point he looked over his shoulder and asked, "Do I look like a pin-up?"

I'll let you all be the judge of that.

Sail To Treasure Island

Sail To Treasure Island is based on Robert Louis Stevenson's book Treasure Island which was published in 1883. This is the 6th pattern to appear in Lit Knits. The blanket is knit from the center out with an option to knit a larger border. Although this pattern could easily become a shawl or lap blanket if it were knit with a different weight yarn.

The idea behind the blanket is that it is actually the map to Treasure Island. The outer edge is the ocean. The ocean waves give way to the beach. Past the beach is the forest that covers a good part of the island. And near the center is the texture of the mountains. The increases that give the blanket its square shape also represents the most important part of any treasure map: the X marks the spot.

A slightly more subtle detail of the blanket is that the mountain texture and sand texture are the same cable pattern, but the cabling is offset on the sandy shore. Since mountains crumble to form silt and sand, I thought it would be neat for the cable patterns to be related.

The props I got for this shoot are some of my favorite. Both the compass and coin were my Opa's. The coin in particular is a real piece of eight. Minted in 1744, it is a Spanish 8 Reales. 

Although my Opa didn't live to see this book completed, I was able to tell him that both his coin and compass would be in the book. He was unable to talk at that point due to the effects of Alzheimer's, but he understood. He teared up when I told him. 

The photo shoot for Sail To Treasure Island took place on New Years Day of this year (2013). I blogged about some of the amusing things that happened in an earlier blog post. But I'll let you all in on a few other things. My brother declared himself a diva. This was his excuse for not helping to carry the big black sea chest across the beach. He didn't really want to model that day, but Mum "convinced" him that it was a good idea. (i.e. He didn't have a choice in the matter.) Of course this meant that he messed around a bit. After this picture was taken, Mum yelled out, "Stop messing around! You are still in the shot." To which he said, "Oh."

After we joked about him being a diva, he gave me his best Fabio look.

A picture of the black sea chest almost didn't make it into the book. But we made such an effort dragging it out that I shuffled around charts to make it fit. And what is a map of Treasure Island without a chest full of treasure? (Or potential treasure. You'll have to read the book to find out.)

Getting pictures of such a large item was pretty tough. But I'm quite happy with how all the images turned out in the end.

Blog Tour

I'm pleased to announce that Lit Knits is going on a blog tour. Over the coming weeks, these blogs will be talking about the book and hosting ebook giveaways. The tour will be as follows:

Sept 4th - Kiwiyarns Knits
Sept 6th - Bits And Pieces
Sept 8th - My Sister's Knitter
Sept 10th - Pans & Needles
Sept 12th - Pretty Little Fiber Co
Sept 14th - The Yarniad
Sept 16th - Woolen Diversions
Sept 18th - Savannah Chik Knits
Sept 20th - Dona Knits
Sept 22nd - Jane Richmond

Of course it is already the 4th over in New Zealand, so the first bit of the tour has already begun. So have a peek over at Kiwiyarns Knits post.

And if you cant' wait to get your hands on a copy of the book, it can be found over on bear-ears.com/lit-knits.

Black Beauty Rides On

The fifth pattern in Lit Knits was inspired by Anna Sewell's book, Black Beauty, which was published in 1877. Black Beauty Rides On is a toe-up sock pattern featuring hoof prints that are flanked on either side by cart tracks. During much of the book, Black Beauty pulls carriages and carts, so his tracks would often be accompanied by wheel ruts.

I talked a little bit about the photo shoot during a March blog post. But now that I can actually show the socks, I have a few more details to add. First off, we were really luck to get permission to be in a field full of horses. And many of these guys were curious. At one point in the shoot, we had a series of horses come up behind the model. We didn't want to startle the horses (or the model) so every time a horse would sneak up, we'd say "Horse behind you!"

"Horse behind you!" 

This lasted for awhile. 

One of the shots I was hoping to get was to have the horse's face right next to the socks. The horses were pretty uninterested in grazing right next to socks, so we brought out our secret weapon: apples and carrots. It turns out that it's pretty hard to get a good sock shot next to a horse nibbling fruits and veggies. It does lead to some good outtakes, though.

There were quite a few good shots I wasn't able to use for the book. Either the horse was looking perfect but the socks weren't in focus, or the socks were well positioned but the horse turned suddenly, so all you could see was it's rump. 

But when everything lined up, it was pure magic.

Tomfoolery

Tomfoolery is the fourth pattern to appear in Lit Knits. The scarf is inspired by a particularly infamous scene in Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, which was published in 1876.

After Tom gets into a bit of trouble, his aunt has him whitewash a large fence. Tom, being Tom, tricks his friends into painting the fence for him.

While we were trying to get the "friend painting the fence" shot, I had a little trouble getting everything lined up well. Some of you might have noticed that the apple isn't placed very well in this shot. I had to yell out, "The apple looks like it is going up his butt."

Apparently we are all five-years-old because everyone laughed.

It was brutally hot that day: 108°F/ 42°C. The reflector became more of a fan. Not in the picture (but located to the right) were a bunch of guys playing beer pong. We looked at them funny, they looked at us like we were insane. Honestly, we were all crazy for being outside on such a hot day.

This scarf went through a couple of incarnations. The intention always was to have a color block scarf that looked like a partially painted fence. Originally the ribbed portion was a bit wider. But I had some trouble with keeping the scarf from curling, even after blocking. So a week before the shoot, I knitted a new scarf as fast as I could. I promptly ran out of yarn, bought new yarn, got the wrong dye lot, and ripped out this scarf to make the replacement.

But it was worth it.