Knit Picks Curio and Japanese crochet. And big changes ahead.

Phew, it's hot today. Forecast: severe thunderstorms and constant perspiration.

It has been busy here at the Tricksy Knitter household. School musicals. Birthdays.

The big news is in the Careers section. I've been working from home for a few years, either as the creative brains behind CalmSea Media, or the knitter behind Tricksy Knitter.

It's a solitary life, working from home. So I decided to make some big changes. I have started a fantastic new job in UX in a wonderful digital agency in my neighbourhood. UX is the trendy acronym for "user experience" and it's all my favourite parts of digital design and development. More details on the job later.

In yarn-related news, the warm weather is slowing down the knitting and crocheting. I have been experimenting with some smaller scale crochet. Smaller for me, anyways. I got some of Knit Picks's Curio, which comes in lovely muted colours. It has a nice, tight twist to it, 721 yards per 100 gram ball.

Crochet thread is a little old fashioned, but I think you could use this for something quite modern too. I haven't tried knitting with it yet.

You know how I love Japanese knitting books. I bought this Japanese crochet pattern book for edgings. It's a lovely book. I'm not really sure if I'll produce much from it, it's very small scale, and slow-going for me. But I think some of the trims would be really nice added to the edge of a cuff or pocket on a woven shirt. Here's my first attempt. It's not as fine as the one in the picture, but I'll get there. I love the Japanese crochet charts, they are works of true design beauty in themselves.