Pot Pourri

Since this could be my last post until I get back from San Diego on Thursday of next week (I hope to post to my blog because our hotel is supposed to have broadband, but you just never know), I have a lot more to talk about than usual. First off, take a look at what was waiting on my doorstep when we got back from San Francisco:

Enigma from Emma

This is a little sampling of Colinette's new "Enigma" yarn plus the pattern book that supports it. Emma sent me two skeins to play with. One (on the left) in "Popsicle" and the other in "Florentina". If it's not clear from this shot how absolutely beautifully this yarn takes the dyes, here's a little closeup that I hope is more convincing:

Popsicle and Florentina Enigma

Wonderful stuff, I think! Now I just have to decide what project I want to take on with it. Thank you, Emma for providing the perfect homecoming!

I also decided to try to get some better pictures of the yarn that I bought from ArtFibers. While I was there, I got to swatch the stuff, so tonight I took some snaps of the swatches that I think are much better in terms of both color and knitted texture. Gotta love that Ott lamp!

  
Chai, Biscotti and Mousse Swatches

The Chai and Mousse swatches are all stockinette, but the bottom couple of rows on the Biscotti swatch are garter stitch. I swatched the Mousse on 5.0, 4.5 and 4.0 mm needles and really like the 4.0 mm the best. It's not easy to tell, but the Mouse swatch is actually divided in third with the smallest needle on top and the largest on the bottom. I wasn't able to get a much better shot of the stitch definition in the Mousse. Believe it or not, there was a shop model that used Mousse and had lovely cables in it. It's a very versitile yarn, even if individual stitch definition doesn't resolve very well.

Finally, I've been working on a few more features for the my Palm OS program. Here's a few screenies of the filtering and sorting features that I added.

Needle Records Sorted by Size, Length and Category

Here's a shot of the front screen of the program. The "Show" filter lets you choose whether you want to see all the needles listed or just the ones that are in use or not being used. In this example, the needles are sorted by US needle size, followed by length and category.

Configuring the Display and Sort Options

This screen is reached by clicking on the "Configure" button on the bottom right corner of the main screen. You can decide whether you would prefer to have local or metric sizes displayed in the main list and also select a sorting option for the needle records. All the sort orders that I have configured can be seen in the list in the picture. Are there any that I am missing?

Sorted by Category, Size, Length and Maker

This is the main screen again, and the list is re-sorted by the selection I made on the configure screen. Pretty nifty if I do say so myself! (As an aside, your most recent sorting selection is saved so that when you come back you see the same thing you left). One thing I've been debating is trying to display the sort order between the two buttons on the bottom of the screen. Do you think it's necessary?

I've really only got one more feature left that I want to implement: editable selections for the manufacturer and composition fields so that the user can customize their own lists for each option. I'm playing with that now. I don't know whether it will be ready in time for my project due date, but it will most definitely be a part of the program I share with everyone.

Well that's just about it! Right now I'm trying to figure out what knitting is going to come with me to San Diego. I'm leaning towards Audrey and the Biscotti top (which I started tonight when I needed a little break from programming), with one of my sock projects as "backup".

If I can't post again until next Friday, I wish everyone a good weekend and a great week!

P.S. to whomever was asking me about how I get my screen shots for Palm (I'm really sorry, but I seem to have misplaced your email -- if you email me again I'll send you more detailed information). The screen shots come from the Palm OS Emulator that I use to run and debug the software. The emulator, and the rest of the software development environment) is available to anyone who signs up with PalmSource as a developer.