Bookworm's friend, and other things

I still have not sent Foxpup to the tech editor.

I don't know why it is bothering me so much - it is 98% ready to go, and yet I am feeling like it is not good enough to send away for someone else to look at. I know the purpose of a T.E. is to improve your work and it is allowed not to be perfect but I'm really dragging the chain on this one.

I'm even writing a blog post to drag it out and procrastinate even more :P

In other news, I am knitting another Collier hat for a friend's birthday, am making a shawl for a friend's wedding gift, and randomly cast on a lap blanket for myself last night with some novelty yarn (don't judge - it was 10 balls for $5 at the Knitworld sale......it MIGHT look ok!)

I also came up with a bookmark/place holder today (procrastination at it's finest - don't send away your overdue design, just come up with a new one!)

It is based of the mitred triangle concept in Joanne's blog http://www.rhythmoftheneedles.net/ where she is using the technique to add straight edges to an afghan made out of mitred squares. I used the concepts and tweaked the technique to come up with a bookmark, which used up 3g of DK weight yarn, on 3.5mm needles, and took half an hour to make - it will be in EVERYONE'S Christmas Cards this year with the obligatory candy cane.

So without further ado; the Bookworm's Friend bookmark pattern.

You have to use a number that is divisible by 4, plus one 1 more stitch.  I decided to go with 36 + 1 so I had a good sized triangle to grip the pages and not just slide off. Each triangle used approximately 3g of DK weight yarn, on 3.5mm needles. The instructions below are for the lacy option, for the plain one (the blue one) just omit the (yo, k2tog) sections and knit all stitches instead.

Row 1 (right side):  K1, (sl 1, k1, psso), k14, (sl 1, k2tog, psso), k14, k2tog, k1.  (33 sts.)

Row 2 and all wrong side row to end of Row 12:  P all stitches.

Row 3: K1, (sl 1, k1, psso), (yo, k2tog) 6 times, (sl 1, k2tog, psso), (yo, k2tog) 6 times, k2tog, k1. (29 st)

Row 5:  K1, (sl 1, k1, psso), (yo, k2tog) 5 times, (sl 1, k2tog, psso), (yo, k2tog) 5 times, k2tog, k1.  (25 sts.)

Row 7: K1, (sl 1, k1, psso), (yo, k2tog) 4 times, (sl 1, k2tog, psso), (yo, k2tog) 4 times, k2tog, k1.  (21 sts.)

Row 9:  K1, (sl 1, k1, psso), (yo, k2tog) 3 times, (sl 1, k2tog, psso), (yo, k2tog) 3 times, k2tog, k1.  (17 sts.)

Row 11:  K1, (sl 1, k1, psso), (yo, k2tog) 2 times, (sl 1, k2tog, psso), (yo, k2tog) 2 times, k2tog, k1.  (13 sts.)

Row 13: K1, (sl 1, k1, psso), yo, k2tog, (sl 1, k2tog, psso), yo, k2tog, k2tog, k1. (9 sts.)

Row 15:  K1, sl 1, k1, psso, (sl 1, k2tog, psso), k2tog, k1.  (5 sts.)

Row 17:  K1, (sl 1, k2tog, psso), k1.  (3 sts.)

Row 18 (wrong side):  P3tog.  Fasten off. 

Stitch the sides together so you have a triangle pocket, I blocked mine lightly to set the shape of the triangle.  Happy reading!

Off now to finish up Foxpup - determined to send it by the end of the night!

A x