Holidays are Over?! « »
January 4th, 2009
Wow. The last two weeks or so have been a blur! We spent a week of Christmas at Nathan’s parents’ house in Sioux City, and then a had a second week of Christmas here at my parents’ in Las Cruces. It’s been a great time.
And now…it’s over. Back to work and back to routine. Sigh. I loved having this time to just relax and be with family. I’m blessed to have such great families to be around. Thank you all for a great time.
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Re-doing a neckline « »
December 19th, 2008
The other day, I had a little knit-in with a couple of knitting friends here in town (Cindy and Kathryn.) Cindy had just decorated her condo for Christmas and we wanted to see all of her vintage decor.
While we were sitting around, I started cutting into a sweater, and Kathryn suggested that I do a little photoshoot so that you could see what I did.
The problem was that the neckline of the sweater was just too small. This is supposed to be a demo sweater for my next book (Take it from the Top: a how-to-design book.) Since it’s just going to be photographed flat, it might have been ok to leave it small, but it just bothered me that no human could ever really wear it. SO. I decided to make the neckline bigger.
Here it is pictured wih a package of Harmony Interchangeables so you can see that the neckline itself was maybe 4 inches lying flat.
So, the first thing I did was to insert a circular needle into the row of sts that marked the spot where I wanted the new neckline to be.
After All the sts were on the needle, it looked like this:
Then, I cut away the extra fabric, a couple rows above the lifeline (if you are really perfect, you can cut right at the lifeline, but I leave myself a couple of rows just in case I somehow jogged the needle and my stitches are not really all on one row):
Then, I tore back to the lifeline, picking out all of the sts.
Then, I just used the end of the yarn that was ripped out to cast off.
(My hands are a mess in these pics, thanks to all that bamboo dyeing.)
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knit glam t-shirts and..hey! There’s a new Knitty! « »
December 12th, 2008
Hey! There’s a new Knitty!
For the locals, this is that abandoned lodge on 70 just at the top of the hill on the way to White Sands (on the East side of the road.) We’ve driven by it so many times, and I just had to use it in the photo shoot. Here it is looking from the North:
Remember that Therapi yarn that I like so much? I knit a whole sweater out of it! And the great thing about Knitty is that I get to KEEP IT. How long since I’ve been able to knit a sweater for myself and keep it?! And I really do like this yarn. It’s soft and doesn’t pill (or hasn’t yet..even as much as I’ve been wearing this sweater.)
In other news, I’ve been having the worst mail time of my entire life. I’ve been just having the worst luck!! I mean, I’ve got some sort of force field going on that repels mail and other deliveries arriving at my house. And it’s also somehow affecting mail that I SEND.
It all started a month or so ago. I was mailing out a bunch of copies of my newest book for review, and at the same time mailing various knits and other stuff. I was supposed to send a swatch to a test knitter, and I swore up and down that I’d sent it. And then I FOUND it. Here at my house in it’s envelope and with stamps and everything. And then I submitted a form to the University that would have initiated disbursement of a really big really big check. Well. They lost my request form in the mail! I heard this after having waited 5 weeks for the check! So…maybe in another 5 weeks it’ll finally pay out. THEN…I took two sweaters in two separate pre-addressed boxes to the UPS store. These boxes were two different sweaters going to two different places. They both ended up at the SAME PLACE. One was for a deadline and is still in limbo because the guy that has it’s wife just had a baby and he’s out of the office.
Today, though, the cloud of badmailishness seems to have lifted because MY T-SHIRTS CAME!! (and I got 2 checks today!!)
That was the teaser from this morning. A few weeks ago, I ran into (fellow redhead) Petra of Red Squirrel Knits, who is a wonderful graphic designer. She took my sketch:
and made it into this awesome logo:
I am so happy with these shirts! They were printed by Squeegee Printers, Inc. (the same people who print the Ravelry tees.)
I’m listing these on etsy right now…you can see the size information in the listing, but I’ve got just a few in Ladies’ sizes S - 2X.
I’m usually a 12 -14 in tops, and the Large fits me great. Not tight, not loose.
Posted in Patterns, press, etsy | 3 Comments »
New kits posted! (and a teaser!) « »
December 11th, 2008
Thank you to everyone who purchased a scarf kit. The last few went out in the mail today!
I just posted a new batch of Limited Edition Kits. These are 100g of worsted weight organic cotton. The yarn comes in 4 colors, each of which is natural…the cotton was GROWN to be that color!
These kits are going to be called “Walking in the Desert” and will also include 2 handmade stitch markers and the pattern booklet for 3 reversible, non-curling scarves. (These are the same patterns as in the other kits…but will have desert-themed names in this incarnation.) All packaged in a little box for gifting or keeping.
And…just to tease you…
Posted in etsy | 3 Comments »
New Scarf Kits are Posted! « »
December 9th, 2008
OK, here are the last of the Walking on the Sun kits:
Not much new is happening other than working on these kits! I’m not very streamlined about them yet. I hesitate to get anything ready before it actually sells, because then I might be sitting on 36 sad little ready-to-go items. So as each order comes in, I box up the yarn, put the label on, make the stitch markers, and then put together the booklets…and then package up and address the whole thing. I was up till 4 am this morning winding this new batch of yarn on my niddy noddy. I’m not electric yet, so it takes a little while. My one arm will be STRONG.
This is officially the last of the bamboo. I’ve got an idea for a new (organic cotton) scarf kit…just need to do some swatching!
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Las Cruces Saturday « »
December 7th, 2008
Some Saturdays we just hang around the house doing chores. Other Saturdays, like today, we do a whole lot of fun stuff.
I stayed up pretty late last night reskeining those last 9 Sun-themed bamboo skeins. After breakfast, Mazie helped me shoot some pictures.
(I just added those to the etsy shop.)
After we got ourselves together, we all went downtown to the post office, and then to the Farmers’ Market.
We stopped by the used bookstore, and then went to our friend Maya’s art show / sale in Mesilla. Here’s Maya showing one of the fabrics that she hand prints:
Isn’t it just amazing? All of the gold part is metallic.
She introduced me to her friend Amy, who has a daughter Maggie who’s just a couple of months younger than Mazie. This is me and Amy with Genni, who sews the MOST fabulous handbags and things:
Here’s a shot of some of Genni’s work. You should really check it out in more detail in her etsy shop.
Genni made a knitting bag that is so amazing! And, guess what?
We’re trading the bag for some leather baby shoes for a friend of hers. (I *did* blue ribbon at the fair in leather shoe making! lol) It’s too dark now to get good pics of my knitting bag, but it is beautiful! I’ll post in more detail as soon as I can get some good pics.
PS: Robert the crochet fiend / artist was also there but I didn’t get any pics of him. Next time! And…Hi Allie!
Posted in just chit chat, etsy | No Comments »
Busy Day. « »
December 6th, 2008
I had a friend tell me once that he had gone to visit his grandmother who lived alone in England someplace, and on every day of her calendar, she had written, “Busy Day” and then listed her activities. So sometimes at the end of a really busy day I think of her and say, “Busy Day” in an old English Lady Voice.
All of the Walking on the Sun kits are sold…but I’ve got 9 more hanks of various colors to re-skein (just because they just look prettier that way.) I’ve also got 9 more undyed hanks that I’ll do up this weekend and post on Monday if they’re dry. And that’s it for the bamboo.
Mazie helped me box and send kits all day today. She’s a very hands-on helper, let me tell you! By about 3:30 we were both so exhausted that she fell asleep on the way to my mom’s and I did absolutely NOTHING once I got there. Except make stitch markers. Mom actually helped me with those, too. I’m lucky to have such good helpers!
After that, we went to meet Nathan downtown to see the tree-lighting ceremony. I’m not sure where they used to have the tree, but they moved it to the downtown mall this year, and it was so nice! There was a stage with a couple of guitar-players singing and playing Christmas songs in English and Spanish. And then the mayor spoke, and then they had carriage rides all over the area to the various pars and museums that have luminaria and / or Christmas things going on. We also saw a bunch of mariachi musicians wandering around but didn’t ever actually see them play. We had a lot of fun together.
It’s really nice to see the downtown be busy and active. Our downtown has the potential to be really cool, but at the moment is only at about half occupancy in the storefronts. (Maybe more, but it looks pretty quiet.)
Posted in just chit chat, etsy | No Comments »
Moon bamboo kits are gone…but I restocked with sunny colors « »
December 4th, 2008
WOW! The Walking on the Moon scarf kits have already sold out!
I just restocked my etsy shop with a few Walking on the Sun scarf kits. The colors range from a sunny yellow to hot pink, and are in order in the pic above. From L to R are kits 1 to 9.
It’s sort of cloudy today, so was hard to get great photos…but these colors are pretty accurate.
There are a few more Sunny yarns to be re-skeined.
I’ll list those in the next few days.
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Etsy Scarf Kits « »
December 3rd, 2008
Ok, I’m doing my first ever selling-of-things-that-I’ve-made.
These are yarns that I’ve dyed myself, and scarf patterns that I’ve designed.
I got a little bit sentimental about the last shuttle trip…it could really be the LAST shuttle trip.
I watched the astonauts live on NASA TV, and followed the little science experiments…how cute were those spiders!?
ANYWAY…I dyed a bunch of chain-spun dk weight bamboo and then made up a few little kits. They come with 100 grams of yarn, 2 stitch markers, a little booklet of 3 stitch pattens to make reversible scarves, and are boxed in a cute little box for gifting or keeping.
They’re $25 including shipping to the US and Canada.
Posted in Uncategorized, etsy | 1 Comment »
When is even a long weekend is still too short? « »
December 1st, 2008
When we get to take a rare little trip together just for FUN. Nobody worked. Well, I knit and we took some photos for Knitty, but other than that…it was FUN ONLY this weekend!
We went up to Albuquerque to visit our friends for Thanksgiving, and then went up to Santa Fe for a night.
Here’s Mazie walking around inside the aquarium. She started walking by herself on last Tuesday night, and it’s like she’s been walking for months. She just decided, “Hey Guys! I can walk now!”
Here the two of us are together.
And here she is with Nathan:
I’ll blog more about the weekend, but for now…TO BED!