Great Mail Week

Have you ever had a great mail week? Where you open the mailbox and find something awesome? Walk up to your door and find a package? Answer the knock and it is your friendly parcel delivery person? I hope you have because it is fantastic! I had a great mail week this week. I received two knitting related packages and opened them both as “Unboxings” for my YouTube channel.

The first was something that I ordered for my booth at the Summer TNNA show. Its use is the only thing that really makes it knitting related.

The second was my Secret Shopper for this month. Have I mentioned how much I love doing this? There are so many amazing products out there for knitters and I know that I will never find them all. Having one of you kind souls share with me some thing that you have discovered is absolutely amazing.

A huge shout out of thanks to CathyG (it’s a Ravelry handle) to being my intrepid shopper this month! If you have an idea for Secret Shopper, something you think I need to have, please drop me a note and we can see if we can schedule you.

Indie Designer Gift-a-long 2014

Things have been crazy busy! I have been knitting up a storm on projects that had to be sent off to others and will be coming out on their own schedules (which I have no influence upon). Then, this past weekend, I attended the Wine & Wool knitting retreat and taught a couple of classes which I have been preparing. Finally I have been working on the behind the scenes planning for this year’s Gift-a-long which started up this past Thursday.

What is this Gift-a-long thing you may ask? Well, it is a group effort by a bunch (and by a bunch I mean almost 300) of independent knit and crochet designers to have a bit of fun with our fellow crafters. It is being run in a forum on Ravlery which you can find by clicking on this link. Each designer has selected a range of patterns from their catalog to offer for 25% off for the sale portion of the -a long. These patterns went on sale on Thursday the 13th and will be on sale until this Friday the 21st.

These are the patterns I picked

But the -a long doesn’t stop with the sale. There are threads that are a hoppin’ with chat and inspiration. You check into the thread that reflects what you are knitting (or threads – you can knit all kinds of stuff) and let the mods know what you want to knit. When you finish it you post a picture in the FO thread and you are officially entered to win one of the dozens of physical prizes or thousands of digital pattern downloads.

Prizes are also being awarded randomly based on participation and in fun games. To recap, we have a sale on thousands of patterns, physical and electronic prizes and encouragement to get some of your holiday gift knitting done (for others or for yourself – we aren’t picky). It really is a win, win for everybody involved. Please come in and join us. I am part of the moderating team for the Scarves, Cowls and Neck Thingies thread – so if something like that is on your list then I would love to see you jump in. I spy in the other threads to cheer on anyone knitting my patterns – so make sure to magic link me if you post something.

There is Water at the Bottom of the Ocean

A final note – you might have noticed that There is Water at the Bottom of the Ocean is in my collage. A happy coincidence occurred that the pattern rights opened up at the same time as the exclusivity expired – so it is now available for purchase. I cannot wait to see people knitting it up! Expect to see another blog post on it soon because it has been almost impossible for me to keep mum about it!

SAFF (part two)

When last we saw our intrepid adventurer … There was yarn, lots of yarn. I don’t think I will ever get tired of yarn.

Both The Unique Sheep and Dragonfly Fibers were in the big arena and I spent  most of my time there on Saturday (they had heat and food) but if you remember we started out the day in the barn and that is where we finished out the day.

I had been forbidden to purchase anything until I had seen everything. Having seen everything I was ready to do some damage. I made a bee-line directly to The Ross Farm set up.

This man is proud of his sheep, and he should be

It is out of my normal comfort zone, but this yarn really seized my imagination. Completely un-dyed, the range of natural colors was stunning. This farm is dedicated to preserving rare and heritage breeds of sheep including Leicester Longwools. While some of the yarns are blends of different sheep they raise, other skeins are not only breed specific, but actually sheep specific. Like the yarn is named after the sheep that the wool came from.

How awesome is that?

I spent a goodly amount of time chatting with these dedicated farmer/artisans and I really hope that I can do justice to the yarn that I acquired from them. It is beautiful, textural and interesting and I am going to have to spend some time in the “getting to know you” stage with this yarn. Not to leave you hanging, here is a shot of one of the gorgeous samples they have on display:

The Qunita Cowl, and gorgeous yarn

Next on my plan of attack was The Copper Corgi. I have been eyeballing The Copper Corgi ads on Ravelry for some time now and have friends who rave about their yarn, but wanted to see it in person. It is necessary to see it live to be able to choose between all of the stunning colors.

How do you choose?

It was hard. Really hard. Once I manage to get photos of my loot you will see what I chose. It rocks. Rich colors and stunning variegated is what you can expect from this dyer. One thing I really loved was the depth of color in the more “neutral” yarns. Brown can be – eh, brown or it can be ooooooh, brown. The same with grays. I was also impressed by the lighter end of her range, how something can be so light and have such depth at the same time is beyond me.

Another bonus? They are based out of Savannah, GA – so for me that is kinda local. Yay local! I have been noodling on trying to drum up some other GA based designers and dyers and seeing if we can cook up something that is all about the Peach State. Of course, I prefer pecans. With peaches. Peaches and Pecans, how could you go wrong?

 

All in all SAFF was a wonderful experience. I went with friends who, over the course of the weekend became good friends. We bought yarn, ate delicious food and explored the awesomeness that is Asheville. What more could you want?

Crafty but not mine

I have mentioned my son here before, he is a madman and a great deal of fun. Well, this past weekend I received the most awesome mother’s day gift ever.

One turtle to rule them all.

I don’t know that there is a better turtle ring out there. The husband did really well this year. He used an etsy artisan who specializes in taking drawings by kids and turning them into jewelry. I think it came out awesome and am totally in love with this ring.

Sometimes I get a bit down on etsy, but then you find an artist like this and remember what etsy is really about. If you are careful and vet the store carefully you can actually support a small artist just trying to do their art.

Another thing I was thinking about. With this post I have strayed away from my main subject of knitting. How do y’all feel about that? I have no intention of turning this into a “slice of life” blog, but would y’all be interested in hearing more about other projects I might have?

One might have recently acquired 8 new mouths beaks to feed … there could be pictures.

Yarn Ogling

Without diving into my past posts (never look back) I am not certain, but I believe I mentioned to y’all that I went to Rhinebeck Sheep & Wool Festival. Not wanting to taunt those not lucky enough to go I haven’t made a big deal about the trek, but I thought I would be remiss in not sharing the spoils.

Believe it or not, I didn’t buy very much yarn. It was all so much to take in it was nearly impossible to make any decisions, but I didn’t come home empty handed. And if you are anything like me then you would love to look at some pictures of yarn. I know people who can look at pictures of yarn all day. I mean, I have a close friend who looks at pictures of yarn all day. 😉

In trying to decide what to purchase I attempted to restrict myself to things that were outside of my comfort zone. And the last thing I need is any more sock yarn. So here are a few of the items I decided not to catch & release.

Brooks Farm Yarn Surrey

This is a DK weight yarn with a fiber composition of 50% Wool, 50% Alpaca and a skein size of 420 yards / 180 grams.
I normally do not go for what I call “barber poll” yarn – but this yarn is just so beautiful. The thing that normally turns me off is that the two plys are frequently drastically different colors and I believe it is the mono-chromatic color that really drew me. When you add the fact that the center ply is a single while the much thinner wrapping ply is tight. The whole thing is beyond soft and I cannot wait to work with this yarn.

Sliver Moon Farm DK, 8oz

The lovely lady who was my tour guide for Rhinebeck introduced me to this new-to-me dyer and I cannot decide whether or not to thank her. Another DK weight yarn, the base  is a fairly typical awesome smooshy 100% wool superwash yarn, but the colors were just beautiful. I was torn between two skeins for like, 10 minutes before I finally made the decision. But what is really amazing on this is the put-up and price. It is 560 yards and the skein was under $40. Yeah Really!

Bittersweet Woolery, Consort

Teetering out on the edge of my comfort zone, lace weight silk. From independent dyer Bittersweet Woolery it is 100% silk with 875 yards/100 grams. I want to love knitting with lace weight yarn as much as I love the look and feel of lace weight yarn – I just haven’t gotten there yet. Something about the teeny needles and the teeny thread just terrifies me. But this is beautiful stuff. Again with the beautiful colors from this dyer, but this time there was no question what I would be buying. This color called to me across the booth and this yarn has very interesting construction. It is very tightly cable plied, and looks almost like mono-filament. The drape on this thing is just insane and it feels like water in the hand.

Now what I need to do with these yarns is have a little “getting to know you” time, and I thought I would invite y’all along to see the conversation. What I do is wind the yarn and then have a little swatch-a-thon. I cast on and knit some garter and then some stockinette. I change needle sizes and see what that does. I knit some texture, cable & lace to see what the yarn likes and dislikes. This helps me better understand the yarn and learn what it wants to be when it grows up.

So what I need to know from you is

1) do you think this would be a fun spectator sport &

b) which of these contenders would you like to see put through their paces?

Please feel free to put in a good word for your choice in the comments.