Of the 30 fun to work patterns, three are mine. I designed, as the resident California girl, the Surfer Chick Quick Cap, a fun fan-stitch hat. It really does work up fast and, of course looks adorable.



The Chicks' Felted Zebra Slippers are a creation of mine too. These soft and fuzzy slip-ons are all single crochet so that makes them perfect for beginners.



And my personal favorite, Heather's Cafe Cardigan. This top-down raglan cardi totally fun to make, especially while you're sipping coffee at the corner cafe. If you're anything like me that caffeine buzz will have you finishing this in no time!

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Being a strong print designer requires me to be fairly, OK, completely useless at web design. My time is consumed by pouring over paper samples and printing methods rather than learning Dreamweaver and typing code. Because of this my portfolio has always been a large Spink & Gabor case that I tote from client to client. I am good at keeping my print case up to date because who doesn't love any excuse to haul out the spray mount? I wrote a tutorial about mounting portfolio boards here. Aside from that I've never had an easily viewed portfolio. I put some items up on Coroflot last summer but I've never been happy with their site. It's hard to use, the navigation is weak and it doesn't display the pieces as nicely as I would like.

Thanks to Estetica Design Forum I think I've found what I've been looking for, a website to display my work beautifully. FinalCrit.com lets you upload your images and then Presto-Change-O! they're in a fantastic Flash based website! Click here to see my new online portfolio!

Whether you're a young designer just out of college without enough experience to get things just the way you want them or a seasoned specialist like me FinalCrit can help you display your goods just the way you want. For free!

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Emily sent over this fabulous idea for a workspace in my home office. I love how it has book storage, cutting space and a computer area all rolled into one.



The unfortunate fact is we only have a three bedroom house and all rooms are already allocated as one for sleeping, one as an office for Thomas and one as a studio for me. The "studio for me" must also double as a "bedroom for guests," an idea I tried to adjust by suggesting the pull-out sofa moves to Thomas' office, thus leaving me space to have this work island. Sadly even guests have balked at the idea of catching shuteye in his room, insisting my things "are just prettier to look at" (a kind way of saying, "No way am I sleeping in that computer salvage yard!").

Thomas' solution? Pave the front yard, turn the offices into a second two car garage and build a second story that would have a studio, office space and a spare bedroom.

My solution? Don't marry an engineer.

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On paper I need things to be organized. I need my lists to be straight, my letters to be evenly spaced and my lines to be horizontal. I have similar stipulations for my kitchen cabinets and drawers. Plates must go back to the same place they originated from, spoons perfectly stacked, glasses all in a row. My bedroom closet is no different; shirts are stacked by color, skirts are hung from short to long.

But the same rules do not apply to the rest of my house. We like our home to be clean but we share a unique and keen ability to live in adversity among the many piles of life. We will scale mile-high clothes mountains before doing the laundry. We can cook dinner in one square inch if necessary, which it often is.

We're tidy-challenged and we always have been much to the chagrin of our respective families. One infamous time Thomas's Aunt Penni, over from England for a family visit, set her unwavering sights on his room. On his way out for the day Thomas knowingly and specifically instructed her, "Whatever you do, DO NOT CLEAN MY ROOM." Needless to say that is the first thing Penni did, but she made sure to photograph it before she started.



When things are organized I am calmer and happier, but finding the perfect home for things is hard for me. Where do I start? What if it takes too long? Where can I put things so their functional? All these questions swirl around and around in my head, I get stressed out and then nothing gets put away. I do though have a desperate need to break the cycle. The room I spend all day in really needs some attention. In a huge way...



The room has to be multi-functional. I knit, I sew, I paint, I have books, magazines and drawing paper. Now to top it all off I use the room everyday as a home office/design studio. Add in a computer, portfolio and office supplies. Oh, and did I mention this room also doubles as our guest bedroom? Help! My goal is to have it clean by Thursday as a birthday gift to myself. Do you have any pointers, besides renting a dumpster?

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Today was one of those days where I woke up and was excited to spend the day with my husband. Fortunately, he felt the same about me today. We had a big day planned with running errands all over town, and right from the start everything meshed into place. We were chatting back and forth while we drank our tea. The topic changed from the dogs to news to the iPhone.

Yesterday, Thomas installed the 1.1.3 firmware to my iPhone and so this morning he was showing me the new things I could do. The most useful of which is being able to put Safari web shortcuts on the home screen. He went along adding a few of my favorite sites. CNN.com has an icon, dooce.com has an icon... "Do you have an icon for Heather Ink?", he queries knowing full well I did not. "Let's make one, it won't be hard!"

We head off to my office and start clicking away. All we had to make was a 57x57 pixel image and edit some HTML. Now my blog has an iPhone icon! Right there! See it?



Install it on your phone. Right now!

And! In the process I talked him into helping me add a favicon to my blog too. (This is something I had tried to do unsuccessfully about six months ago, but it turns out it was an easy fix and of course the mastermind figured it out while I was showering.)

So now when you add my website to your browser favorites it has this pretty little icon next to it! I'm so excited!



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How to add a favicon to your Blogger blog: Digital Knowledge Center article

Creating an iPhone icon for your website: FOREM article

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On this most super of all Tuesdays, I hit the poles. As promised I took along my camera and documented my experience for the Polling Place Photo Project.

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Heading out to vote in the primary election should be the top priority for Americans, but taking photos of your polling place should be the second priority for designers. In a campaign called Design for Democracy the AIGA - the professional association for design - is working to “demonstrate the value of design by doing valuable things.” Working with different government agencies to redesign the voting experience, the AIGA hopes to improve the interactions between US citizens and their government. Designers across the country can contribute to the cause by documenting their voting experience and submitting photos to The New York Times Polling Place Photo Project.

"The Polling Place Photo Project is a nationwide experiment in citizen journalism that encourages voters to capture, post and share photographs of this year’s primaries, caucuses and general election. By documenting local voting experiences, participants can contribute to an archive of photographs that captures the richness and complexity of voting in America."

Tomorrow is Super Tuesday and I plan to vote and document it and submit the results!

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Polling Place Photo Project: how to participate.

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Finally, after months of deciding whether to get a 'real' job or work freelance, I decided to design some business cards and give the world of freelancing a try.

Conceptually I wanted my business cards to reflect my company as a graphic design studio that focuses on print design. Whenever I begin a project I list all the things I can about a topic. So for print design, let's see, type, printing, color, ink, crop marks, color bars, printing press, ink, misprints, etc. Then I focus on combining some if not all of those things into the logo.

The colors weren't hard, black and pink. So then I started to play around with print bars and ink splots trying to see what looked best together. I tried different fonts some with serifs and some without. I even got a little crazy and did a gradient on Heather.



I started to see something I liked. Black type with magenta ink splatter as the dot above the "i" was really starting to grow on me.

Next came business cards. Originally I thought I wanted an over-sized card, maybe 3 inches square. They passed, but I wasn't in love with them. Something was missing, they needed more excitement.



I went back and looked at my original ideas about printing and print design. What about crop marks or registration marks? What if the printer 'messed up' my cards? How would they look?

I moved it sideways, upside down, backwards. None of those ideas worked. What if the card was cut out crooked? Perfect.



I landed some registration marks, the printer bars, an ink splot for good measure and made sure they were pretty off center.

I love them, hopefully they bring in some business!

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Today's sunrise was beautiful. It was foggy when I woke up, but then suddenly the sun began to appear.



Not necessarily related to the sunrise, I've started a new sweater for a new little niece.



Also not related to the sunrise or to knitting, here's some pictures of Henry being lovable. He's like an amazingly adorable, gigantic teddy bear. I could stare at him all day.

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A fun, free Christmas stocking pattern!

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Finished dimensions: 6" x 23"

Yarn: Mission Falls 1824 Wool.
Color A: Poppy red, 011
Color B: Basil green, 532
Color C: Oyster gray, 003

Needles: US size 8, double-pointed needles

Gauge: 4.5 sts over 4 inches

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Begin:
With color A, cast on 52 sts. Arrange sts evenly on 4 needles and join being careful not to twist stitches. Work in st st for 2".

Make hem:
By folding with wrong sides together, bring cast on edge to meet sts on needle 1. Insert needle into first st at beginning of round, pick up 1 st from cast on edge, K st on needle. Repeat around.

Continue to work in st st for 1" more.

Body of stocking:
Stripe Pattern:
Rows 1-3: Color B.
Rows 4-5: Color C.

Work in Stripe Pattern for 7 repeats. Change to Color B and work 3 rounds. Change to Color C and work one round.

Heel flap:
Change to Color A and K 13 sts. Turn work and P 26 sts. Leave remaining sts on two spare needles.

Working back and forth on only heel sts as follows:
Row 1: *sl 1, K 1,* repeat from * to * across row.
Row 2: sl 1, P across row.

Repeat these two rows 13 times.

Turn heel:
Row 1: K across 15 sts, SSK, K 1, turn.
Row 2: Sl 1, P 5, P2tog, P 1, turn.
Row 3: Sl 1, K to 1 st before gap, SSK (across gap), K 1 turn.
Row 4: Sl 1, P to 1 st before gap, P2tog, P 1, turn.

Repeat rows 3 and 4 until 16 sts remain. K 8 sts and leave on needle. With new needle (needle 1) K 8, pick up and K 13 sts from heel flap. K 26 instep sts (needle 2 and 3). Pick up and K 13 sts from other edge of heel flap, with same needle K 8 sts from heel (needle 4). Round now begins at bottom of heel.

Foot:
Change to color C.
Round 1: K to last 3 sts on needle 1, K2tog, K 1; K 26; on needle 4, K 1, SSK, K to end.
Change to Color B and begin working in Stripe Pattern.
Round 2: K all sts.

Repeat these two rounds until 52 sts remain.

Work in st st until foot measures 7" from back of heel ending Stripe Pattern. Change to Color B and work 3 rounds more.

Toe:
Change to Color A.
Round 1: K to the last 3 sts on needle 1, K2tog, K 1; needle 2, K 1, SSK, K to end; needle 3, K to the last 3 sts, K2tog, K1; needle 4, K 1, SSK, K to end.
Round 2: K all sts.

Repeat these two rounds until 28 sts remain.

Repeat Round 1 until 8 sts remain.

Kitchener st toe sts.

Hang loop:
With Color A, cast on 8 sts. Work in i-cord for 5". Bind off. Attach to top of stocking.

Weave in all yarn ends, hang and wait for presents!

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Click the "Read more" link below to print the pattern.

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Not the most challenging project I've ever done, but fun nonetheless. I have four plain pine chairs, and I thought it would be best to stain them before the (admittiedly pathetic) winter comes. A nice coat of sealant will keep them in good condition.

Before I started staining the chairs I grabbed some sandpaper, because when pine gets wet the woodgrain rises and roughens. To keep the chairs feeling nice I sanded the grain of the chair arms back to smooth. Next I laid out plastic and gathered my supplies including the chairs. It shouldn't take more than a gallon of stain to finish all four chairs. I chose a tinted sealant in hopes if mimicing the color of our ipe deckwood. I found an old plastic container and a decent paintbrush, decanted some sealant and got started. I figured that beginning with the chairs upsidedown I could later fix any drips or blemishes.



I didn't realize how many nooks and crannies adirondack chairs contain. Just when I thought I had finished the underside, I would spot a bare patch on the side of a slat. The project is going to take me longer than I originally anticpated, but that's alright because I like how it's looking!



I will post final photos when I get them all done.

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