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WIP Wednesday: Neck! And Buttons!

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(This is fifth in my series of design process posts. Earlier posts are here: Part Four, Part ThreePart TwoPart One.)

The sweater is progressing, if a little slower than I’d like (I’ve been working on a bunch of pattern writing, which is cutting into my knitting time). But I got the neck finished last night!

gray sweater neckI was going for a “looks like a hoodie from the front, but hardly any bulk in the back” thing, and I’m really happy with the way it turned out! Needs blocking, of course, but I think it’ll be pretty close to the sketch once the back neck is stretched out a little more. I did the neck before the sleeves, as that’s usually the more iffy part of a design for me, so I’ll be working on the sleeves this week.

In other news, I went to a button show this week!

Button show floorIt was, quite frankly, a little surreal. I was hoping to find some neat buttons for future designs, which I did (see below!), but I didn’t quite realize how passionate most of the people there would be about their buttons. These people are SERIOUS collectors. There were buttons there selling for hundreds, even thousands of dollars!

Every once in a while, it’s nice to be reminded there are people with hobbies that are generally regarded as even crazier than mine, heh.

But everyone there was incredibly nice, and I came away with some very lovely (and cheap) buttons!

IMG_6617 IMG_6622 IMG_6628If you want to know more about the button show (you masochist, you), my husband did a great blog post about it–and the bizarre hotel that hosted the show–on his blog here.

My LYS = win!

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I trekked down to Mass. Ave Knit Shop in Indianapolis a few days ago to search for blocking wires.

They had these ones by Fiber Dreams, which are awesome and worked perfectly:

FD blocking wires

Also: I forgot how much I love that yarn store. Five years ago, before I moved to LA, I used to come to Mass. Ave a lot–but I wasn’t as much of a yarn snob then, and I also wasn’t designing. Now I can really appreciate it!

Mass Ave Knit Shop

This wall of buttons makes my heart go pitter-patter. I’ve been to every yarn/button/craft shop in the LA area over the past year trying to find a store with even a fraction of this selection:

Wall of buttons

My other favorite thing is their Madelinetosh TML rack–look, they have a few sample yards of ALL THE COLORS! How cool is that??

Tosh color samples

I think I’m lucky the shop is an hour drive from me…