After all the hooray-shouting and happy dancing around of yesterday, my brain seems to be on holiday today. So no deep, thoughtful blogging this morning - in fact, I almost forgot to blog, getting caught in some investigations on how best to pack and send the books that will go postal.

I'm trying to keep focused on the task by constantly reminding myself that I only need to persevere until a little after noon - then the afternoon is reserved for going to Bamberg, handing in my three legal deposit copies and having a celebratory coffee or three.

Back now to doing stuff!

My little camera has seen quite a bit of action this last while, and yesterday it had to get out of its nest again to take some pictures in our garage - because this arrived here yesterday afternoon:


Just in case that you can't guess what the content of this sweet little package is (delivered on an old DB-pallet (DB is the German rail service), here it is all opened up:


The content?


My book. One hundred fifteen copies of it. They now sit here in the study, making a very nice stack, waiting to go somewhere where they will want to be read, re-read, lugged around, pulled out of a sewing project bag and stuffed back in, adorned with scribbled notes on scraps of paper stuck between pages, accidentally dropped on the floor, pointed at, maybe even given a coffee or tea stain or two that they can boast to their colleagues. Some of the copies printed might be a bit pernickety and prefer the quiet life of a bookshelf, or the moderately adventurous life of a library book, but I am sure those in my stack are all of the hard-boiled kind that doesn't mind to see things like the insides of bags, sewing supplies close by and lots and lots of use.

Since the books have been delivered to me, they should also have found their way to the publishing house and thus should arrive soon if you have ordered from the publisher or from a local bookstore. If you have, at some point in time, written me an e-mail stating that you are bindingly ordering a copy of the book from me, I will contact you per mail before I send out your book, just to make sure that you don't end up with two copies instead of one. I will also bring the books to Freienfels for those that would like to buy a copy in person.

Here are the promised pictures of the Fibonacci knit - first the after-blocking shot:

Now the double-Fibonacci spiral is clear to see. Blocking this form was easier than I had expected - I just blocked each section between the decrease lines, beginning from the middle and working towards the thinner ends. The resulting form means that the wide back piece will drape nicely across the shoulders, and when then hang freely, the ends fall in a pleasing corkscrew spiral:


And then there's a multitude of other ways to wear it - wrapped loosely or tightly around neck and shoulders, draped across back and chest, symmetrical and asymmetrical. And the best thing? It keeps back of neck and shoulders nice and toasty warm, and if you wrap it loosely around and tuck in one of the spiral ends, it will stay on and on and on.




  
I am absolutely delighted with how this turned out! It is comfortable, nice to wear, lightweight yet warm, and not as large as a full-size shawl. I put it on yesterday once it finished blocking and I haven't wanted to take it off since then - I guess this will see a lot of use!

With knitting being so much more communicative and so much better suited to sitting at a table than sewing a tent, I got a lot more knitting done on the weekend than tent-making - even though we took the tent with us, there was somehow no getting around to sit and work on it.

On the plus side, that means I finished the secret weird knitting thing and made a good start on the next project. Both are scarf-like objects, but with a twist - or should I say spiral?

I won't show you the one in progress (yet), but here's the finished piece, happily blocking along.


I'm sorry for the hard-to-discern lower bit, but I ran out of blocking mat and had to continue on the carpet.
The thing is part scarf, part stole, and part cowl, inspired by the Fibonacci spiral. It will not slip off if you simply drape it around the back of neck and shoulders, leaving the front ends to hang; it will tuck up warmly and securely around your neck and shoulders for some extra warmth, and it will always look like something else than a humble, normal scarf. More like a fancy, shaped stole. If you hang around with maths freaks or other geeks, you might even find it a wonderful conversation starter - or a great present for the colder half of the year!

While it looks somewhat lace-like, only the very short, simple and easy-to-remember bamboo stitch pattern is used, and the lacy look comes out in the blocking. There is a fair bit of counting required, but it's easy counting, no squinting and swearing needed. It is worked from the outside edge inward, so lots of stitches to cast on, but less and less to work with every row. The decreases are a bit special and absolutely fascinating - have you ever heard of the bunny-ear decrease before? This piece is worked with bunny-ear decrease and bamboo stitch, a match made in knitting heaven, making it nigh impossible to tell where the decreases take place.

The pattern works nicely with variegated yarn, showing off the colour changes, but will also look stunning in a solid colour (especially if blocked vigorously to enhance the lacy look). I will post some on-person photos tomorrow, and then get the pattern written up and test-knit as soon as possible.

Easter is approaching, and with perfect timing, the daffodils in our garden, kindly left as bulbs by the previous tenants, are blooming. (It's perfect timing because the German name for daffodil is Osterglocke, literally translation: "Easter Bell".) Easter also means that I will not be blogging tomorrow or on Monday.

But before I disappear into the extra-long weekend, here is a link that was announced on a textile-focused list today:

The Ohio State University has initiated a database project to help with the identification of fibres, providing microscope pictures of different kinds of fibres. The Fiber Reference Image Library, as it is called, is intended to serve as a reference library, as the name already says, but also as a teaching tool and information base. If you always wanted to take a really close look at cotton, wool or (my favourite pic) jute fibres, have a look at the database at https://fril.osu.edu!

After the weekend, I hope to have good progress news and pics not only regarding the tent, but also the portioned and packaged gold thread and maybe even the knitting project. And that probably means I should get busy now and stop browsing fibre pictures!

In case the answer is yes... here are some.

The tent (sans the side walls still) went up again yesterday, for another test standing in the garden. While I am able to pitch it single-handedly, it is certainly much, much easier with somebody to help. I danced with the tent on my own once in the afternoon, and we put it up again together in the evening to measure for the side walls again (measure thrice, cut once, or something like that) and check which constructive details needed some more work or a twist. There are quite a few of them (that's the bad news), but the good news is that the tent seems to be moderately stable already in its not-quite-finished state, without the side walls in (which will add stability) and without any pegs and lines (which I hope not to really need, but we will add them just to be sure for good weather and to keep things from flying away in bad weather).


That's how it currently looks. The front still sags (something which I hope to remedy today), and the rolled-up front flap needs some fixtures to serve, half-rolled up, as a projective roof.

And another, very important piece of good news: I seem to have found the right dilution for my waterproofing venture of the cloth - I will be going with water-based sanitary silicone rubber, since I finally found out how to get a testing scrap absolutely waterproof after one application.

And something totally not related to the tent-making saga: We had a friend visiting us yesterday evening, and I made good double use of our chat during the evening by knitting along. Which means that I got a good bit further on the thing on the needles - and here's another teaser pic of it.


I love this structure!

Contrary to how it commonly goes, I actually did manage to finish the long tunnel, completely sew in the second short tunnel, and make another waterproofing test run yesterday. I wouldn't have thought that I really would get all of this done! In addition to that, the most patient and helpful of all men started on the front hem yesterday and thus took a bit more load off my shoulders concerning the stall.

And all that meant that yesterday evening I found the leisure to take out my knitting again for two rows, for the first time since Sunday the week before last. The thing seems to turn out just like I planned, but I don't think I can get it into the testknitting stage before Freienfels, even with the rows now getting shorter and shorter quite fast. I'm a bit sorry about that - I would have liked to finish off that knitting-design project and tackle the next one, but the market stall (and then preparing the things to sell - my gold thread has arrived) has to come first.