About

March 18, 2013 | Elanor

I’ve updated my About page. It now looks like this.

Yours Truly

Way back when, I trained to be an engineer. I helped out as a bouncer at Star Trek conventions (keeping the Klingons and Romulans apart was FUN), I read every Neal Stephenson and Lois McMaster Bujold book I could lay my hands on, I geeked out on the S/MIME protocol, I wrote online casino games and at one point I was team lead on The Lancet website. Then I got a life. Literally.

I taught myself to knit about 6 years ago when I found out I was pregnant. I had this vague, fuzzy picture of myself in a rocking chair, needles clacking away as the angelic child slept in a gauze-draped cot. Yeah, right. So I didn’t really knit again until baby #2 was on the way (when my head went all fuzzy again). That time it stuck, though. Probably because I joined an active and supportive knitting group, The Harrow Knitters. They’re the ones who introduced me to Ravelry. I just kept going, eager to discover new techniques and cool new configurations. Eventually I got to the stage where I knew precisely what I next wanted to knit, but couldn’t find a suitable pattern anywhere. So I just made it. And then, slowly, started writing the instructions down, and turning them into patterns.

Last March, I decided to really go for it and started submitting formal proposals to publishers. My very first one was picked, I was chuffed! Cue many months of frantically trying to MAKE what my head had envisioned. My brain was finally being used for something engrossing, not just entertaining toddlers.

Since then, I haven’t looked back. I have more patterns lined up for publishing in various magazines, and I’ll be releasing more myself too. I’ll put all the news right here on this blog.

Nowadays my favourite thing to do is sit in a Café with my gorgeous babies and people-watch together. We go on a Saturday after ballet while Daddy has a lie-in. They have babyccinos and I have a hot chocolate. There’s usually a biscuit too. We go home and bounce on the bed to wake Daddy and then we all have a “family hug”.

Elanor King: Innovative and Classy Designs.

Find me everywhere as “catchloops”

BTW, I work in inches first, then translate into cm for the pattern

March 14, 2013July 18, 2013 | Elanor

I work in inches because

The clothing sizes that I am used to are in inches
UK and US peeps both can understand inches (Desolée, Es tut mir leid!)
I’m old-fashioned and hopelessly lazy
The units of measurement are incidental anyway – one day, I think I’ll publish a pattern in light years, just for the laugh. Maybe my next Dr. Who one (last one).

So if I give measurements elsewhere in the blog without giving the units, please assume inches.

Unless I’m being derogatory about a male enemy. Then it’s cm mm.

Calculate Sleeve Cap Height Given Top Arm Circumference and Armscye Perimeter

March 14, 2013March 14, 2013 | Elanor

I previously explained why I think the Sleeve Cap can be described by an oval. Basically, a sleeve can be thought of as a cone which intersects the “plane” of the sweater/cardigan.

This produces an ellipse.

The perimeter of the ellipse is at least the same as the perimeter of the matching armscye on the body of the garment. If the perimeter of the ellipse is smaller than the armscye, it won’t “fit” – used in cap sleeves only. If the perimeter of the ellipse is larger than the armscye, you can ease the excess all around, or into the top to produce a gather. In any event, the armscye perimeter can be calculated from the garment body measurements.

You also will have a measurement for top arm circumference. The top arm circumference for a woman of average height is around

Bust	32	36	40	44	48
Top Arm Circumf.	10.5	11.5	13	14	15.5

Don’t forget to add ease! This is an unclothed measurement.

You can see from the diagram below, that the top arm circumference, i.e. the widest part of the sleeve, is equivalent to the width of two ellipses (0.5 + 1 + 0.5 ellipse widths). Hence, the horizontal radius of the sleeve cap ellipse is a quarter of the top arm circumference.

The sleeve cap height is twice the vertical radius of the ellipse, i.e. the same as the height of one ellipse.

If you plug the values for perimeter and horizontal radius into Ramanujan’s Approximation for the perimeter of an ellipse, you can get a good-enough value for the sleeve cap height.

The sleeve cap height is twice the value for c, the vertical radius of the ellipse, approximated by

$c\approx \frac{3p-4w \pm \sqrt{3p^{2}+12pw-20w^{_{2}}}}{6}$

Where p is the armscye perimeter / pi

And w is the top arm circumference / 4

The approximation above is essentially Ramanujan’s Approximation expressed in terms of one of the radii.

Hot Water Bottle Croquis

March 11, 2013March 12, 2013 | Elanor

Here, for your downloading pleasure, is a croquis for a hot water bottle. (Drumroll, please, for this important contribution to the world of fashion!)

Hot Water Bottle Croquis — Hot Water Bottle Outline Drawing

Does this picture look funky to you? Sometimes it displays for me like something in a heliotrope. Let me see if I can fix that….

Colour-In your own Wildacres

March 5, 2013March 5, 2013 | Elanor

One of my testers had a genius idea when she was starting Wildacres. She printed out the schematic and coloured it in to see how the yarns she had chosen would work. You can see it on rav here.

I thought it was such a good idea that I have supplied a picture here for you to colour in too!

Please feel free to download/print out this image and plan your own Wildacres.

I had fun colouring some in using one of the basic paint packages on my computer.

Wildacres Wild!

March 3, 2013October 23, 2014 | Elanor

It’s here, it’s here, it’s here!

That’s me lookin’ like a twit, cos I can’t model for toffee.

I’m so excited about this pattern. I spent AGES calculating yardage(metreage) estimates. I’ve had 11(!!!) testers try it out and the pattern is lookin’ goooooood.

This baby will eliminate your DK stash. You’re going to be buying MORE DK so you can make extra capelets. It’s warm, practical, and it’ll go with everything. Cos you can make it in one colour, three colours or as many colours as you like!

I’m so enthusiastic about this one, I’ve even taken out ads!

So go on, give it a whirl, ‘cos honest to betsy, this pattern is so well written (I’ve had such great help), you’ll be using it for years.

Hugs ‘n’ kisses for my lovely tech editor Steph Boardman and testers rwilliams, ting-ting, gothknitty, msoyster, shan79m, whatifknits, winemakerssister, marjos, podruha, puddleduckproduce, and anniepuffin.

X e

Farnham Maltings Unravel 2013

February 26, 2013February 26, 2013 | Elanor

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways…

Buttons
www.TextileGarden.com have such gorgeous buttons. I had to restrain myself from spending a fortune. I got some pearl buttons that stand out on a shank. These buttons are great, I use them all the time as they’re elegant and feminine. They’re also the perfect size for a 4-ply YO buttonhole. You might be seeing these again this summer ;) ! I couldn’t resist these lovely red oval s either – I think they’ll be great on a grey assymmetric layering piece. And who could leave these sweet little hearts? No idea what I’ll do with them, but they won’t go to waste!
Spring edition of Pompom magazine. I’m working on a proposal (or two) for Pompom magazine, so I wanted to meet the editors and see if they had any hints for me J! The spring edition has a very clever raglan cardi with lace raglan increases. Lobelia by Meghan Fernandes. I might make Roseroot by Anna Wilkinson
Chiaogoo Lace Interchangeables from Tall Yarns ‘n Tales. I’ve been wanting some of these FOREVER. Well, about 6 months. I’ve not been happy with my existing supply of 3mm needles, and I seem to be working more and more frequently with 4-ply and other weights down at that end of the needle spectrum. I cracked them open at lunchtime and oh, they’re so smooth. Me likey, bigtime. I am saving up for the set now. Fortuitously, the 3mm ones are the only size NOT in the set, so I won’t be doubling up. Anyone want to make an offer on my extensive collection of knitpros? J
Project Time! I have an idea for a beaded wrap/shawl and I wanted it in RED. I mean RED. And d’you know what? I couldn’t find a deep, luscious, full-on red anywhere – plenty of dark reds, tomatoey reds, and faded reds – but nothing matched the colour in my head until I found some Deeply Wicked Cherry Red from EasyKnits. I really wanted some 4-ply twinkle in “Night Sky” too, but it had already sold out. And the beads? Those I got from Moon Beads. I picked out some sheeny-jet black ones in size 5. They’re gonna really give the wrap some heft.
My last purchase of the day was a set of blocking wires from Jillybean Yarns. I actually sourced them earlier in the day, but left it to the last minute to pick them up – there’s a yardstick in there! Nice flexible but strong stainless steel wires, T-pins and yes, a Yardstick! It’s huge. My daughter was completely wowed by my new enormous ruler. “What size of paper are you going to use that on, Mummy?”

This was me at my most abstemious. I could have spent a fortune so easily.

The best thing about Unravel though, is bumping into people you already know from the knitting community, including a good many I heretofore only knew online. In my previous post, I mentioned how complimentary people had been about my capelet, and I gotta tell ya, I’m still on a high from that, knitting peeps rock.

Mwah!

X Elanor