New Pattern Finished

Reversible Cable Scarf and Gauntlets

I was in Stitches From the Heart last week with my Irish Hiker's Scarf and Ellen Bloom came in. "You know how to make the cable reversible?" She asked and then she told me. I bought 3 balls of Paton's SWS, went home, and whipped up this scarf and fingerless gloves.

I really like the yarn. It is wool and soy and feels a lot like merino and silk, very soft. There is no discernible twist to the yarn, so you can use my favorite join when attaching 2 balls - the spit join!

How do you do the spit join? Shred the ends of the two yarns for about 1.5", finger twist them together, then lick the palms of your hands and rub them together with the yarn in between. An invisible join with no knots or tails! It only works on animal fibers - you are sort of felting them together - and the lack of twist in the SWS makes it super easy.

I love the SWS long color blends. It would make a good substitute for Noro Kureyon if you think it is too scratchy. Of course, the colors can't be compared to Noro, my other favorite yarn besides Koigu.

I donated 25 patterns to SFTH to sell or give away with the purchase of 3 balls of SWS. I will also be selling the pattern as a download on my new website.

The new website is so ready to go live. If it were any closer, it would be breathing. I am just waiting for Jordana to tell me how to make it live.

I now have 17 patterns in my collection plus a kit plus a couple of downloads. It's funny - it takes so long to develop a pattern, knit or crochet the sample, photograph it, retouch the photos, set all the type, get the tech editing, and then print and package the whole thing. It seems like not much is being accomplished. Now I look back and see 17 patterns to show for a year's work (and that doesn't count all the knitting I did in addition) and I feel pretty good about the last year's productivity.

Foxy Knits Trunk Show

The weather was beautiful and the traffic wasn't too bad as I drove down the 405 to Long Beach on Friday morning. I had just dropped the child off at school and needed to get to Alamitos Bay Yarn Co. in time to set up my part of the trunk show before 10 AM. Merilyn gave me an area outside the yarn store annex to set up my display. The exposure was terrific but the problem was that once someone walked by my display and into the annex they were overcome by all that Koigu and my patterns were, shall we say, set aside. There were a few who committed to the patterns before seeing the yarn and walked in, pattern in hand, but I felt we could do much better. Merilyn agreed and on Saturday, the inside was rearranged to acommodate my little collection of patterns and samples. I felt like I had finally been invited to the party.

It was good and bad. Good because I could interact with the customers more fully, help them select their yarn if they wanted me to, and refer back to different patterns as they revealed their preferences and desires.

It was bad because I spent hours and hours in the presence of all that Koigu.

Now let me say that Alamitos Bay Yarn Co. is perhaps one of the tastiest and temptingest yarn stores I've ever encountered. The colors and textures are arranged in mouth-watering cascades that actually took my breath away and quickly overwhelmed my senses. When encountered with so many different choices, and no particular need or desire, I quickly go into overload and was able to walk away with only a set of #2 dpn's (I needed them)

But in a whole different manner, the longer I spent in the presence of Koigu, the more I fell in love. Everytime I helped a customer make a selection, I wanted what she was having. I actually became frantic with worry when someone was buying the last of something I had already lost my heart to. I embarrassed myself with my enthusiasm.

Finally, about an hour before the show was to end, I broke down and began to lay skeins out on a sofa, organizing and rearranging and adding and soliciting the opinions of Debbie and Sharon, who smiled at me in amusement. The thing about Koigu is it is like painting with yarn. And look at the title of this blog! If there were only one yarn company left in the world, I would be okay as long as it was Koigu.

Merilyn says she loves and appreciates the yarn, too, but she doesn't get attached to it. That is why she is such an incredible success.

This is what I came home with.



Don't worry, I did leave some for you. Foxyknits.

Earth, Wind and Fire - Let's Groove

Wow! This video takes me back. I made all the costumes back in my past life. Don't you love the funky camera effects?

Coming into Home Stretch

I've been working like mad (with only a little procrastination knitting here and there) on my new patterns for the Foxy Knits Trunk Show at Alamitos Bay this Friday and Saturday. There are:

Footless Socks and Fingerless Gloves
Ruffled Gauntlets

I only have 2 patterns left to finish up, and then I need to put together some more bead paks. This is the one I completed yesterday.



It is a collection of Cozies for i-pods and Nanos. I also wrote directions for turning the i-pod cozies into i-glass cozies. Most of the styles are crocheted, but I wanted to create one for knitters, too. I had originally intended this one to be included:



But after writing all the other patterns, I realized that the directions for this one would have to include directions for modular knitting, in case the customer had never done it before, and even at the most minimum verbage, the directions would take a couple of pages. I only had half a page left. So it was back to the drawing boards. I needed a design that would be easy to write but had a lot of pizzazz. I came up with this:



It was so much fun to knit that I also came up with a Nano:



And got some other ideas from this one, that are not about this collection. Can't wait to work them up.

My new ideas always overwhelm my enthusiasm for my old ones. Sometimes I long for the set-up I had when I had my store. I had a workroom of skilled craftsmen who would take my half-finished projects or sometimes just sketches and specs and complete them, leaving me free to move onto the next and the next.

What I also had was a huge monthly nut - rent, payroll, insurance, and taxes. I had personality conflicts among staff, equipment breakdown, exacting and sometimes outrageous demands of clients, constant need for advertising and promotion, and the necessity to compromise in order to meet said monthly nut.

So all in all, the frustrations of my slow output are less than the frustrations of expansive output. I am on my own time clock, have virtually no overhead, and prioritize according to my heart not my bank account.

Price Reduction

Remember the 'vintage' belts from my past life as designer to the stars that I found on e-bay? Remember they were listed at $79? Well, the price has been reduced to $14.99 and still no takers. Could that be because they are for a 22" waist? That wouldn't even fit around my head!

I Won A Contest!

I am so excited! I won a haiku contest! Cara at januaryone
sponsored a contest to create a haiku from a list of words.

Here are the guidelines:
How to win: WRITE A HAIKU. But not just any haiku. YOU MUST USE AT LEAST THREE OF THE FOLLOWING WORDS IN YOUR HAIKU: january, one, rock(s), jet, fall, sheep, wool, feet (or foot), knit, yarn, pirate, fest, dude, fantastic, worm (that is WORM. With an O. My 5.5 yr old nephew gave me that one.) AND EVERY HAIKU MUST USE THE WORD SOCK. (So that means FOUR REQUIRED WORDS.)As a lark (and another great moment of procrastination) I submitted the following:

Glad I'm not a worm,
No feet, no socks, no fingers,
Couldn't even knit.

And today Cara sent me an e-mail that I was one of the chosen winners! You can read the others (really much better than mine) on her blog. And while you are there, be sure to check out her banner. The incredibly beautiful photos change (a great way to procrastinate getting back to work)

Here is a photo of the prize yarn. Will let you know which one she sends me.

Book Review: 200 Ripple Stitch Patterns by Jan Eaton

Buy this book here.

Although I was attracted to the cover, I didn't immediately purchase this book because I don't make afghans.
Finally, and just because the cover is so attractive, I did purchase it, and I am so happy I did! Of all the stitch dictionaries I own (and that includes all of Barbara Walker, Nicky Epstein, The Vogue series, the Bible series, and many more) this is now my favorite.
Why do I like it so much? Let me list the reasons:
* Beautiful, clear photos
* Knit and crochet instructions grouped together, not separated. I like this because often when I am searching for a stitch pattern, I don't care if it is knit or crochet, and this arrangement makes it easy to chose one just because I like the way it looks.
* Clear, easy to follow instructions
* Photos of yarn variations along side the original stitch pattern
* Minimal actual patterns. The author has included a few patterns, just to give you the idea of what can be done with the stitch patterns. Since I use books like this for reference for my own designs, I don't care to look at a lot of patterns for things I will never make
* I enjoy the Jan Eaton's sense of color and texture, toned down enough to feature the pattern, not the yarn, but colorful and attractive enough to suggest the possibilities.

The only thing I would have added to make the book perfect would have been charts for the patterns. Charts help a designer, maybe more than a 'user', but they enable you to work the pattern in the round, or to combine a few patterns. They extend the usefulness of the project.

So if you are thinking of purchasing only one new stitch dictionary, this is the one I would recommend whole-heartedly.

I plan on laminating the covers and taking it to Kinko's to be spiral bound.

I am Vintage

Out of sheer boredom, I did an ebay search under my name and was amazed when these 2 belts came up!!
As stated:
VINTAGE 80'S fabric Designer belt with lace, pearls, and stones, made by the designer to the Hollywood stars "Ellene WARREN." This gorgeous, sexy, ultra feminine pink fabric belt is 6 1/2" wide at the peak in front, tapering gradually to 2" in the back where it ties with a white satin buckle (buckle shows some yellowing due to age) . This elegant ladies' accessory is made in delicate white lace, embellished with small faux pearls, both embroidered and hanging, red and topaz colored stones, lined in rich pink satin fabric, and fits waist sizes of 22" to 24". Its ORIGINAL COST WAS $295.00. It was part of an extensive belt collection, so it was used only once or twice and is therefore in near perfect condition!!! You're going to love it! Good luck Bidding!

And the other one: VINTAGE 80'S fabric Designer belt with lace, pearls, and stones, made by the designer to the Hollywood stars "Ellene WARREN." This gorgeous, sexy, ultra feminine belt is 6 1/2" wide at the peak in front, tapering gradually to 2" in the back where it ties with a white satin buckle . This elegant ladies' accessory is made in delicate white lace, embellished with small faux pearls, both embroidered and hanging, red and topaz colored stones, lined in rich red satin fabric, and fits waist sizes of 22" to 24". Its ORIGINAL COST WAS $295.00. It was part of an extensive belt collection, so it was used only once or twice and is therefore in near perfect condition!!! You're going to love it! Good luck Bidding!

I am not sure who originally bought these belts, as I had several customers who collected them. It might have been Sheila E, or a private collector named Bari. They were listed at $79 each.

What a trip! I am vintage collectable!

Lemonade

Well, working that scarf did inspire me to make something new. I made a pillow using some yarns I bought from Stitches donated bin. It was very simple and a little cuter than the scarf (but not stranded color blends - I'll leave that to CES) I will probably submit it to a mag first, and if not accepted, publish the pattern myself. I am constantly torn between getting published elsewhere and accumulating a body of self-published work.

Back of Pillow in Progress

My new website is getting there. I'm putting in all the stuff for my patterns first, then it will go live. I'll add the wearables later.

All I really want to do is knit. Everything else is a distraction.
There are several frustrating things in my life I can't do anything about and the knitting is like therapy. The other stuff - writing patterns and the website, present their own frustrations (four day process just to get a Thawte secure certificate, another few days before that to get the Paypal account changed to be able to accept credit cards on my site instead of sending people over to Paypal)

Now I am becoming incredibly frustrated trying to put my items onto the shopping pages. I understand how to get the pictures and text in, but the product variations (like color choices) are making me nuts.

Knitting holds its own frustrations, but they are acceptable and manageable to me. When they become unmanageable, I just start something new. That's why I have 47 WIPS.

I'm trying to make the pattern writing process less frustrating by taking better notes as I work. What that means is I now have a notebook with better notes. I still hate to stop knitting to write up the patterns. I enjoy taking the pictures and posting them here, though, even if I only have 4 readers. Hello, my friends. You keep me going.