Two Little Pigs

When my sister had her little girl, I knew I would have fun making gifts for her, but I never knew just how much fun! I've become a total sucker for any cute kiddie knitting pattern I see - filing them away until they become age-appropriate and ready to move into the live project queue.

Last week I found this pattern for Piggy Mittens, and it landed in the "must make for this Christmas" file! How cute are these! They are probably a little big, but I'm sure she'll enjoy them for puppets or mittens for the next couple of years. They are a really quick knit, and I made them from two colors of leftover stash Cascade 220. I swear if it got cold enough here to wear them, I'd make a pair for myself!

We're excited to have shipped to one more state - welcome Rhode Island! Only four left to go. How cool would it be to get all 50 by the end of the year.


Shipped to 46 states (92%)

Cheers!

Happy Birthday Green Flash and a Bertha Update

One of the many pleasures of San Diego County is that it is the home of many great breweries. The most well-known of the bunch is Stone Brewing Co, brewer of Arrogant Bastard Ale. Some of our other faves are Port Brewing Co, which also makes a mean pizza, and Alesmith, for which I have fond memories of sneaking out of work early on Fridays with my boss to enjoy their tasting room many years ago.

Yesterday, one of our local breweries, Green Flash Brewing Company, hosted a festival in honor of their 7th birthday, and we were there to help them celebrate. It was a beautiful sunny, warm day for the mostly outdoor event that featured tastings from 20 local brewers, BBQ, pizza, and the opportunity to share a beer with some fellow members of the SD Beer Club.

I wore my Martini Scarf to the event which couldn't have been more appropriate. Not only did it fit the cocktail theme, but the scarf color happened to be the theme color of the event. The scarf caught the eye of a couple of the women in attendance - one who was a knitter, and one who worked for Port Brewing. She asked me if I could knit them to sell in their gift shop. Ha! Clearly she is not a knitter :-)

My hubby and I have a tendency to get pretty geeky when it comes to visiting production facilities due to our background in biotech product manufacturing. Consequently, we enjoyed checking out their equipment room, and bugged a couple of their employees with riviting questions about their process like filling machine dead volumes and CIP chemical content.

On the knitting front, I've finished the tank top portion of the Big Red Bertha Twinset, and it turned out well! I really like the border pattern I chose, and plan to feature it more in the cardigan. This yarn is very soft for 100% merino - not itchy at all! I used about 600 yards of the 2000 yard skein for the tank, so I should have plenty left for a long-sleeved cardigan to match. My apologies for the blurry self-photo of this project.

I also started knitting the most adorable piggy mittens for my niece - I just love knitting things for her! I should have completion photos of the piggies for my next post.


Cheers-

Bertha Red is Out of the Trunk!

I seem to really have a bad case of "Start-itis" lately, but this latest project seems adequately justified in my mind for two reasons. First, I'm consuming stash - and lots of it! Second, if this goes well, I'll make a second one for my sister for her birthday. Therefore, this is R&D.

Just over a year ago, I purchased two "Big Berthas" at the Torrance Fiber Festival. Big Bertha is not the real name for this yarn, it's just the name my knitting buddies and I have adopted for these hugantic skeins of sport weight merino that we bought in bulk from Newton Country Yarns. Each skein that I bought contains 2000 (!) yards, and I got them for about $35 each. What a steal.

So over the last year, I've been thinking about what to do with my Berthas (and how nice it would be to get them out of my yarn trunk), and finally decided to go with a sweater twinset. I haven't drawn the whole garment out as I usually do - instead I'm just playing it by ear as I go, and I'll let the yardage determine my path. All I know is that there will be a tank top, accompanied by a cardigan-ish sort of second layer. The other thing I know for certain is that this will be a combined hand-knit/machine-knit project. I dig the idea of not having to wind Bertha into balls, so I'll be feeding her directly from a swift to the machine. Yay!

My two Berthas are in different colorways. The one I've chosen to start with for myself is a variagation of reds, oranges, and a dark color that is black, navy, eggplant, or some combination of those. It's very fall-ish, and outside my normal color pallete, so I'm enjoying it. The remaining Bertha, Bertha Blue, is in vibrant aqua, green and magenta. It really pops!

Big Bertha is a very soft and "cushy" yarn. It's 6-ply - or rather three plies that are each comprised of two plies. Confused yet? I'm sure there's a name for that, but I don't know it! Anyway, the plies are loosely twisted, and the resulting yarn is very plump and has great elasticity.

I've started on the tank top. I hand knit a 4" wide border that I REALLY like (see top photo), then picked up stitches along the top of it and transferred those to the machine. From there I churned out the front of the top in a few hours based on some gauge calculations. The dimensions seem to be turning out just right. Stay tuned for more updates on my progress.

We've added another state to our "Shipped To" list - welcome Mississippi!


Shipped To 45 states (90%)

Five states to go... Oklahoma, Arkansas, Rhode Island and both the Dakotas.

Cheers!

Torrance Fiber Festival!

Yesterday was the annual Fiber Festival in Torrance, CA. Sponsored by the Southern California Handweavers Guild, this event showcases weaving, but has something for everyone who likes to play with string!

Seven of us from local knitting groups carpooled north to the event again this year. Our routine begins with meeting for breakfast at 8am so that we have lots of energy for shopping when we arrive at the event! The drive was great - no LA traffic to impede our ultimate goal of arriving shortly after the show opened.

There were all kinds of yarns, rovings, fleeces, books, tools, beads, buttons, looms, and spinning equipment. None of us left empty handed. A couple of the girls scored sweater quantities of Malabrigo that I could see they were casting on in their minds before even leaving the booth! Several of the group members are spinners, and purchased beautiful fleece and roving. One lucky shopper purchased two beautiful alpaca fleeces that were in lovely natural light grey and chocolate colors, and were soft as a cloud. Another was excited to find a book she had been looking for.

I was quite disciplined (since I haven't used what I bought there last year yet), and made only one purchase. I scored a skein of Hand Maiden CamelSpin (7o% Silk and 30% Camel) that is in lovely fall colors and is SO unbelievably soft. I've ridden a camel before, and it was a big nasty animal, so I'm always amazed at how soft it's fur can be when spun. I might try to make a little shrug out of it, or if that won't fly, it will become the most luxurious pair of socks EVAH!

After we exhausted ourselves and our credit cards, we piled back in the cars for our next traditional stop for lunch at an area Noodle House, and were joined by a group of knitters from Orange County that we have met through Stitches events. It was a pretty animated lunch since everyone was still on their yarn-buying high! Finally, with full bellies we made our way back down the freeway with our new purchases. The first thing I did when I got home was log into Ravelry to see what I might like to make out of my new camel yarn!

Cheers-

Sweet Coraline

Let me start with a disclaimer. The title, while perfect for this post, should not imply that I am one of those people that have jumped on this resurgence bandwagon filled with Neil Diamond fans. I didn't even like him in the 70s when his songs weren't all tired from 30 years of use. Unfortunately for me, I have had the song Sweet Caroline stuck in my brain the entire time I've been knitting this sweater, so I'm REALLY glad that it's done!

Coraline is finished! The picture doesn't do the sweater (or me, for that matter) justice. The peplum has a cute lacy pattern, and it's very flouncy and flairs out when I twirl around. Perhaps I should have posted video instead of a photo! It fits well and is quite comfy. It's too cool now to wear it alone, but it will be a good summer top when we get back to our warm days.

I have two other completions to report! First, I finished the three quilted bags that I started making when I last posted. They are really cute, and perfectly sized for a single skein project. It was really fun to do some sewing again, and I've forgotten how nice it is to make something that only takes a few hours to complete! I've used them to wrap some skeins of yarn that I purchased for friends for christmas while we were in NYC last month. Hopefully they are too busy to read this! Here's a link to the bag tutorial for those of you interested... I did make the pattern a bit larger for mine. http://www.psiquilt.com/2009/08/friendship-bag-tutorial.html

My other completion is the design for Mystery Sock II: Girls' Night Out. I've finished the first test sock, and am finalizing the pattern and test knitting it as I work on sock number 2. It's really cute, but you don't get to see a picture or it wouldn't be a Mystery Sock! I will say that it includes a mosaic pattern that will be a great learning project for people new to 2-color knitting. Mosaic colorwork is so easy, and it looks great! This sock will be presented to participants in a series of 6 clues that start at the cuff and work down to the toe. I'm thinking this will be our first Sock-aholic fun project for the new year!

Today is Halloween, and hubby and I are dressing up and going out tonight to a Black and White party at a local restaurant. I'm going to be a dead nun, and hubby is still undecided. Pics in my next post! It's our first nice meal out since starting the South Beach diet 4 weeks ago - which is going very well by the way! Looking forward to a nice glass of wine :-)

Cheers -

Crafting AADD

I used to have so much more discipline. I knew that because I'm the type of person who doesn't like to be surrounded with a lot of unfinished business, I tried to minimize the number of projects I had going on at once. Something has changed. Either I don't know myself so well anymore, or I don't care what I think anymore, because I just keep starting projects, and none of them seem to be hitting the "Done!" pile.

Maybe it's just the approaching holidays. I love to make gifts for people who enjoy receiving my handmade items, and most of the things I've started lately fall into that category.

Today is a flagrant example. One of my Ravelry Buddies recently shared these darling little quilted tote bags that she was making. The bags are about 5 inches high by 8 inches wide and are just cute as can be. I got to thinking that these bags, if made a bit larger, would be the perfect way to wrap up gift skeins of yarn for knitting friends. So this morning, with 5 active knitting projects in tow, I started digging through my FABRIC stash to start making quilted bags. It's been so long since I did any sewing besides mending, that this is going rather slowly. I've found fun things I'd completely forgotten about, like my rotary cutter and teflon cutting board. Last time I used these, mind you, they were kind of a new craze in sewing! On the "not so new" list is my old 60s era Kenmore machine which has been used by three generations of women in my family. It's a beast, but it still plugs along!

Took me a good hour to graph out how to enlarge the pattern, and another hour to cut out the pieces for one bag. My stash of quilting fabric was bigger than I thought, but some of it is pretty dated design-wise, so I'll be heading to the fabric store as soon as I finish this post. I also need some minor things like sewing machine needles... and why have I saved old broken ones with no tip on them? Stay tuned as I share the rest of this experience as I try to remember how to sew. I used to be so good at it... but like everything else (except extra pounds), if you don't use it, you lose it!

Speaking of extra pounds, we're still doing well on our South Beach diet. Hubby is doing really great. I'm not losing as quickly, but then I have less to lose and consequently cheat. I need to find sugar-free candy corn. Those darned things are addictive!

I'm really cruising on my Coraline Top. The front, back, and one sleeve are done! I'd like to finish it to wear to the Torrance Fiber Festival on Nov 1st - that will depend, of course, on how many other projects I start between now and then!

I'm pleased to report that our "shipped to" map has filled in a bit more - Hello Delaware! We've also been doing some international shipping recently, so you can find martini scarves and zebra socks in places like Poland, Australia, Canada, Austria, and the UK! Too much fun!

Cheers!

visited 44 states (88%)

Here Come The Kits!

Since my last post, I released the Drinking Gloves pattern for sale in the online store. I was pretty darned excited that day, because I used some new functionality in my e-store software that allows people to purchase pdf files and get an instant download. It works great! Had to place an order from myself to check it out - ha! I must admit, it's really nice to receive an occassional order that I don't have to make or ship anything to fill.

I thought the Drinking Gloves would be a great pattern to use to test out this pattern-selling method, because this would be a hard design to sell as a kit. There are three contrast colors in smallish amounts that would be painful to measure out and skein.

But... customers spoke! I got immediate feedback from members of my Ravelry group (what a great group it is - join us!) that they would be interested in kits. And how did I respond? Of course I can put together kits! Since I haven't started advertising this design yet, it's the perfect time to get the kits together so that I can launch it with two options: pattern only, or the whole enchilada.

So what was the first step? Finding the perfect charm for the commemorative stitch marker, of course! I started including a coordinating stitch marker with kits a while back - just because I think it's fun :-) My charm source didn't have any glove charms that weren't gardening gloves or boxing gloves, so I found another five-fingered option, and I think this is way cute and perfect. We have a new local bead source in town, and I found some cool cube-shaped turquoise stone beads that will look really good with this for the stitch marker.

The next step - making lots and lots of teeny skeins of yarn - see top photo! Hope to launch the kits on the website on Friday :-)

On and off the needles since my last post is an Xmas present for my neice. I'm not going to talk about it because I'm making a matching one for my sister, and she might read this. I'll have to post these gifts after the holidays! I should make some more progress on my Coraline front this week because I have to take an overnight trip for some family business which means travel knitting time :-) We all love that! I've also started working on what will likely become Mystery Sock II, which uses the Mosaic knitting technique. I've never tried mosaic before, and it's so fun and easy!

Cheers-