Road Trip – Wisconsin Sheep and Wool style

It’s true! I’m going on a road trip. Early tomorrow Gale from Gale’s Art will be coming by with her vehicle packed to the gills. We will wedge me in and head off into the wilds of the MidWest to attend Wisconsin Sheep and Wool. I am going to be helping in her booth and she has given me a little space to display my samples and patterns. So very excited about it!

If you are in the area or traveling to this fiber event please stop by and say Hi! I have heard wonderful things about this festival and cannot wait to take pictures and video and everything. If you are interested in my trip you should watch my Instagram for the pictorial story. I am sure there will be yarn, sheep, and silliness. I also talked about the trip on my most recent video blog if you want to check that out.

But before I hit the road I have a few things I have to share here!

First – the Fix-a-Stitch Give away has come to a close and I posted the video announcing the winner this morning!

In the video I ask for a little feedback about give-aways. Specifically, do you want more? If so, what should I give away? I’d love to hear your thoughts on this matter. Going to the Post Office this morning and mailing off the package left me with a spring in my step and a smile on my face. Which is a feeling I would like to have more, so I am on the side of more give-aways.

When I get back from Wisconsin I have sooooo much going on. I cannot wait to share all of the awesome with you. I have no fewer than SIX patterns slated for release in September. Can you believe that? Hopefully it will make up for the slow summer. At least it is proof that I was knitting all summer.

Finally, I need to make plans for the winter. Do y’all have any thoughts on what kind of new patterns you might like to see? We started up a great chat in my Ravelry forum about what kind of shawl shapes people like and if you want a little peek into what might be coming down the pike you might want to mosey on over there. And the conversation can continue, please feel free to jump in!

 

 

Win a Fix-a-stitch (and bonus yarn)

I am hovering somewhere between excited and nervous. I am doing an official give-away! But of course me being me I had to do research into how to do it. And then I ended up reading pages and pages of legal mumbo-jumbo and getting a wee bit scared about the whole prospect. But then I talked to some individuals more experienced in this process and managed to deescalate  from scared down to nervous. But mostly I am excited!

A couple of weeks ago I made a video on how to use the awesome Fix-a-stitch tool. I just realized I never put it on this here blog so here it is!

As you can see, you need one of these in every knitting bag and I am perfectly happy to enable you in this regard. The lovely people at Fix-a-Stitch gave me one to give away to y’all! Additionally, what is a knitting blog give away without yarn? Not really a knitting blog give away, eh?

Recently I was pawing through my stash and came across an unfortunate circumstance. You see, I have a tendency to fall in love with yarn in color combinations when I am in yarn stores. So I purchase said pairs of yarn and frankly they are married in my eyes. Those two yarns simply go together. And I have every intention of designing something with them. You know, after they have had the appropriate aging time in my stash (stash is like wine, none shall be used before it’s time). The unfortunate thing is that often that aging time allows the yarn manufacturer the opportunity to discontinue the yarn.

*pout*

I can’t design with discontinued yarn. I mean, I could but y’all wouldn’t like it very much. If a knitter likes my pattern and yarn selection so much that they want to knit the exact same thing, well I want them to be able to. Starting with a discontinued yarn really isn’t meeting that need. But my stashes loss is your gain! So to keep the awesome Fix-a-stitch company on it’s journey to the winner’s home I have selected a married pair of discontinued yarn to go along for the ride.

Click the picture to get to entry form!

This is Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool XL in two fabulous colors. I adore the green and charcoal together and in my mind it was going to become a cowl, or maybe a hat, or possibly finger less mitts. It’s bulky so there is plenty to make a nice accessory. Or you know, live in your stash, it has experience. 😉
I am running this as a Rafflecopter giveaway so there is more than one way to enter. When you click on the link it will take you to Rafflecopter and you will be prompted to either sign in with FaceBook or your email. If you win I will be using your email to contact you, so you might want to consider what email address is associated with your FB account. I recommend using your email.

You can get one entry by subscribing to my YouTube channel Watch Barbara Knit. You can get a second entry by subscribing to my e-Newsletter. And then you can get a third entry by using Social Media to share one of my Ravelry patterns. This third option is a repeatable option in that you can do it once a day for the entirety of the give-away. If you want more specific information you can check out my YouTube announcement by clicking here.

And of course – there are official rules. They are in the description of the YouTube video but I will put them here also. I apologize in advance for their boring-ness. If you have any questions please ask in the comments and good luck!

Contest Rules:

This contest is being run through Rafflecopter, a full list of Terms and Conditions are available on entry. To enter click on link provided and select one (or more) of the three options provided. If you are already a newsletter and/or YouTube channel subscriber go ahead and select those options. These two entries can only be used once. The Social Media option can be used once per day for the duration of the contest.

Entries will be accepted starting on or about August 17, 2016 and ending September 1, 2016 at 11:59 PM EST. This give-away is free to enter, no purchase is required. Open to US residents 18 and older. Void where prohibited by law.

The prize includes: (1) Fix-a-stitch set, approximate retail value of $14.99 and (2) balls of Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool XL, approximate retail value of $20.

Winner will be selected through Rafflecopter on September 2^nd and announced within 5 days following winner selection. Winner will be announced via YouTube and contacted via email to the email address they entered with.

Any personal data collected through entry in this give-away is only for use in running the give-away. No information will ever be shared or sold to any third party.

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How I learned to stop worrying and love the chart

Well, not precisely but I like amusing myself with silly titles (as y’all well know).

Once I figured out charts I totally fell in love with them. They are such a concise method of conveying a huge amount of information in a small amount of space. Take Golden Lion Throne. To communicate the information needed to knit the pattern you can either use 2 pages of charts or 5 pages of written text. For me that is pretty much a non-decision.

But I know that some people aren’t fans of charts so I try to include written instructions whenever possible. And I know some people will never be fans of charts – and that’s OK. But if you want to be able to knit from charts then one of the prizes in the Lace-a-long might be for you!

This book could be yours!

How can you go wrong with a book named Charts Made Simple? I was lucky enough to win this book as a door prize at Small Knits Symposium and I was cackling with delight. But when I got home and was sorting my swag like Smaug I realized that while I wanted this book that there might be others out there that needed the book more than I. And really, what better prize for a Lace-a-long? So now it is a prize (it is even signed).

How cool!

There are many reviews of this book out there, so I don’t think I need to throw mine on the pile right now. You can check here, or here, or here or even here and scroll down for the Amazon reviews.  There is pretty much a general consensus that JC Briar has written a great book to help the knitter better grasp the concepts of how charts work.

So, even if you cannot currently knit from charts, you can pick out one of my lace pieces and knit from the written directions (except Atreides), win this book and then confidently knit everything else from charts! This is the second post about prizes for the -a long and there will be a couple more so I hope you are enjoying them. Even if you don’t want to knit a long it is fun to look at cool knitting related stuff, eh?

 

 

 

Blue Sky Day

As a resident of the (American) South and a knitter I have a love / hate relationship with wool. I love to knit will wool and revel in all of its wonderful wooly knitting attributes. There are many things where substituting another fiber simply will not work. But …

I live in the South. It gets hot.

Really hot for extended periods of time.

I think it is why I have such a fondness for lace when dreaming up a new pattern. But it also means that I have a special place in my heart (and my stash) for yarn companies who offer non-wool yarns and interesting wool/non-wool blends. One such company is Blue Sky Alpacas.

Yes, yes. I know, alpaca is considerably warmer than wool. You have totally busted me as a total hypocrite. But alpaca is so soft. I really have an alpaca problem. My best friend says I have “alpaca-radar” where I can walk into any yarn store and immediately find the yarns that contain alpaca and that is pretty much true. The soft halo and beautiful drape seduce me every time. So I guess I should modify my above statement. I am a huge fan of Blue Sky Alpacas because of their great non-wool options and the ridiculously soft and beautiful alpaca.

One of their yarns, Worsted Cotton, is my go-to yarn for anything and everything baby related. Before you get all ewwww cotton on me, this is not dishcloth cotton. This is a soft, fluffy two ply of organic cotton that knits up beautifully and comes in a large range of both soft and bright colors as well as multi-color. When someone close to me is fixin’ to have a baby – this is where I start in blanket planning.

Wee Kimono for what turned out to be gigantor baby.

When my nephew was “in the oven” I knit a baby blanket out of the colors Azul, Aloe and Honeydew. Unfortunately I have only pretty crappy pictures of the blanket because really, how interesting is what is essentially a giant washcloth. But with a skein of the natural cotton and the scraps from the blanket I also made the adorable jacket above. Light, soft, easy wearing. Perfect for our weather and a wider range of wearing possibilities.

Why am I babbling on about Blue Sky Alpacas you might ask? Did they pay you, you might ask? Well, no – they didn’t. But I was lucky enough to get my hands on a skein of their brand new yarn at TNNA.

This color is Cherry Blossom

And it is so very, very lovely. I just want to sit and hug it, and pet it, and name it George. As you can see by the tag it is a 50/50 blend of Alpaca and super soft merino. Just like the Worsted Cotton it is a super lofty 2 ply that creates a soft, fluffy yarn. I so desperately wanted to wind this up and start playing with swatches but I said to myself “Self, hands off!” It occurred to me that one of you getting your hands on this new yarn would be  a great prize in my Lace-a-long! (Also, on the BSA site they have this awesome, wee stitch sampler that you can scope out).

So that is why this bad boy is still pristine in its skein. It will be given away to a lucky knitter participating in my Lace-a-long. I figure that by the time the -a long is over that people might be wanting to knit up something maybe not so lacy. And this yarn fits that bill (although chunky lace is a-w-e-s-o-m-e).

As an Aran weight yarn I anticipate that this would knit up crazy fast and since the put up on it is 150 g (ove 200 yards!) one skein is more than enough to do a whole project. I could see it being a great, close to the neck squishy cowl. Or I bet you could get a chunky pair of fingerless mitts out of a skein. I have no doubt that you could manage a hat easily.

I was totally curious so here, I did a Ravelry search for you with the parameters of knitting>aran>accessories>under 218 yards. Man, there are a lot of things there I could make. I have the pattern for this hat and it would be fabulous in that pink. Can you imagine a giant, pink, fluffy alpaca/merino pom pom. Arrrrrgh, it is a good thing I have already published this skein on my list of prizes in the Rav group or this puppy would be going back into stash.

Obviously you need this yarn, so come over and join in the Lace-a-long. We just got started on May 15th and the -a long will be running until July 31st. You can jump in at any time and use any of my patterns that have lace as a design feature. Everyone is welcome and we hope to have a grand old time!

And the winner is …

ME!

Well, not specifically that I am going to give myself the prize, but I think I am the big winner here. I am completely floored by the response to this and deeply humbled. Thank you all for your kind words and support. I wanted to reply to every single reply here – but then realized it would make figureing out the whole drawing thing a complete PITA.

You know how many total commentors there were? Bear in mind that I was prepared to be pretty excited if I got between 25 & 30. But nooo, y’all are too awesome for that! My final list had FIFTY EIGHT names on it. 58.

I think that is amazing for my little blog and really, thank all of you.

Enough blathering  – it is cutting to the chase time.

For the Runner Up – who gets a copy of Curiosity for themselves and one that I will gift to the knitter of their choice:

It is like the Magic 8 ball of the Interwebs

Congratulations SherryG! Based on poking around in the new members of the BBD Rav group I believe that this is SherryGlover1. I will be sending you a Rav message to confirm and discuss which of your lucky friends gets a copy!

And for the Grand Prize of the skein of Arroyo in Marte, the Curiosity pattern and two for your friends:

Sweet Sixteen

Congratulations MJ, MJLegg on Ravelry! You also will be receiving an Rav mail from me to discuss shipping & stuff. I hope you are ready to knit with this yarn. 😉

Look! Bonus number!

Why lookee there – I just happened to draw one more name. I love playing with the Random Number Generator. Since I had such great response I thought I would give away one more pattern. so tmeelliott – you will be getting a surprise Curiosity pattern in your Ravelry Library.

Again, thank you all for playing this little game with me. The response has been great and it encourages me to try and cook up more for the future. I hope that those of you who found this as an introduction to the blog stick around, and those who have been here a while – you are why I keep writing all of this babble!

So, what’s next on y’alls list to knit for the Spring? What is exciting you? Socks? Shawls? Monsters? I would love to know.

 

Liberated Yarn

As with many transactions, when working with a yarn company the process starts with a proposal. The designer (moi) sends a fleshed out idea, usually with a swatch or two, to the yarn company and politely asks if the yarn company thinks it would be a good match for their yarn. With the Quickies program Malabrigo has created a more formalized process that allows things to be a little less “shot in the dark”. You know that someone at the company is actually looking forward to seeing your proposal and will give it serious consideration, as opposed to it going directly into the “circular file”.

Then, at some point in the process, you get asked – “What yarn do you want”? And let me tell you, when Malabrigo asked me what yarn I wanted to work with I was like a kid in a candy store. Of course I want it all but all wasn’t really an option. Although Curiosity will work in just about any yarn we decided to go with sport weight and I adore Arroyo. It has the wonderful Malabrigo softness and color with the added bonus of being super-wash. Beautiful and easy care? Yes please!

It’s an arty shot of Curiosity

And then, how do you choose a color? So many colors to choose from. But in the end I fell head over heels for Marte. I really cannot begin to describe how happy the rich colors of Mars make me feel. In the end I think it was the perfect choice. Interestingly, at first I was unsure how big the shawl should be. I was pretty sure that a single skein would be enough, but because of the strange shape I wasn’t 100% confident. When I expressed this uncertainty to the lovely lady of Malabrigo she had a logical solution. She sent me two skeins. More yarn? It would take a stronger person than I to say no to more yarn.

But in the end one skein made a great size for the shawl and I ended up with an extra skein. Lucky for you!

Arroyo, Marte the actual skein

I say lucky for you because I am going to give one of my readers this extra skein. That’s right! A giveaway. A first for this blog, but hopefully not the last.

Now, I have participated in these kinds of giveaways before – always on the other side. And there are always silly rules. So here are mine, I have tried to make it as easy as possible:

How to enter:

You have several options as to how you can enter this drawing. Doing more than one thing will not get you more than one entry. You can:

1) Share the link (and post an image if you like) to Curiosity (either the blog post or Ravelry page)  in your preferred social media venue where you kibitz with knitters. Pinterest, Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Tumbler ….

2) Magic link to the Curiosity pattern page in the Ravelry group of your choice that is amenable to this kind of sharing.

or, if neither of these options appeal to you:

3) Join my Ravelry group (if you have not already done so) and post a hello in one of the threads.

Once you have done this, come back here and leave a comment on this post letting me know of your nefarious deeds. Please leave your Ravelry handle in your post so that I can contact you if you are the winner. Or if you are not on Ravelry please leave a method of contacting you. I will assign numbers to the entrants in the order they post and then will use a random number generator to choose the winner(s).

What you will win!

The winner will receive the skein of Malabrigo Arroyo in the color-way Marte shown above. They will also receive a free copy of the pattern and they will get to pick out two of their knitting buddies to whom I will also gift the pattern.

And because I don’t want to just pick one name, I will pick a “runner up” who will receive a free copy of the pattern for themselves and one to give away.

Deadline:

You have until Saturday, January 19th at midnight eastern standard time to enter. The winner(s) of the drawing will be announced on Monday the 21st of January.

I think I have covered everything. Feel free to ask any questions and if I have missed something let me know. Also, please feel free to pass along this give-away to anyone you think might be interested. The more the merrier (but less likely you will win – so maybe not?) 😉