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Mini Moo Business Cards!

I’ve been meaning to order business cards for a while, and when I saw Moo.com was having a 30% off sale a few weeks ago, I jumped on it.

Here are my adorable new Mini Moo business cards:

They are SO CUTE. Seriously. Here’s a pic with my hand, for scale:

Now I have cards to give out at fiber fests, yarn stores, or when I meet fibery people!

Socks! Well, sort of.

I finished a huge and tedious design project in laceweight a few days ago (yippee!) and was itching to get my hands on some worsted-weight yarn.

This lovely has been marinating in the stash for a while:

Malabrigo Rios in Indecita

And since my new place is rather drafty on the feet (even in the 100 degree + weather we’ve been having), I decided to whip myself up a pair of slippers!

I’ve only ever knit two pairs of actual socks (meaning, ones that can go in shoes, made with actual sock-weight yarn). Those were enough to show me that while I like the idea of hand-knitted socks, the amount of time they take and the rapidity with which I wear through them don’t work for me.

I really enjoy top-down sock construction, though. So when I found this pattern (Arwen Slipper Socks, Rav link) on Ravelry, I decided to (uncharacteristically) forgo designing my own chunky socks and just settle down for some relaxing direction-following.

It’s great so far:

Look at the yummy heel flap–somehow they always look cooler to me in a chunkier yarn:

The pattern says the socks require about 200 yards and I’ve got 210… but I’ve also got size 9.5 feet! Here’s hoping I don’t run out….

My LYS = win!

I trekked down to Mass. Ave Knit Shop in Indianapolis a few days ago to search for blocking wires.

They had these ones by Fiber Dreams, which are awesome and worked perfectly:

Also: I forgot how much I love that yarn store. Five years ago, before I moved to LA, I used to come to Mass. Ave a lot–but I wasn’t as much of a yarn snob then, and I also wasn’t designing. Now I can really appreciate it!

This wall of buttons makes my heart go pitter-patter. I’ve been to every yarn/button/craft shop in the LA area over the past year trying to find a store with even a fraction of this selection:

My other favorite thing is their Madelinetosh TML rack–look, they have a few sample yards of ALL THE COLORS! How cool is that??

I think I’m lucky the shop is an hour drive from me…

Arrived!

I’ve arrived at my new home in Indiana, and now I finally have time to get back to blogging!

Of course, now that I have the time, I’m working on a top-secret project I can’t show anyone. Ha. But trust me, it’ll be awesome.

For this project, I need to buy some blocking wires for the first time. I’m going to visit a few LYS (oh darn, right?) to see if anyone has them to purchase right away, but I might end up needing to purchase them online.

Knit Picks has these ones for $19.99:

But I’m a little worried about the speed of shipping. I’m trying to get the project done by the weekend, and my (non-negotiable) deadline for this piece is the week after that… so unless I paid for super-expedited shipping, I’m not sure I’d get them in time.

I saw a few mentions on Ravelry of buying welding rods from a hardware store (plenty of those around!). I found this picture online when I searched for “welding rods for blocking”:

Those look pretty good, but I also found lots of pictures of wires in spools, like this one:

And I wouldn’t know the first thing about straightening the wire to make it useable. Hrm.

Probably my best bet is to call around to the LYSes and see if anyone’s got them. I would much rather have wires designed for the purpose, even if they’re a little more expensive.

Do you have blocking wires? Where did you get them?

An Explanation for my Absence

Hi out there! Sorry it’s been so long, but I have a good excuse. After much deliberation over these past few weeks, the husband and I decided to move to Indiana! At the end of this month, we’ll be putting our belongings and our cats in the car and driving cross-country to set up our new life there. We’ll be very close to my family, which is awesome.

Of course, this decision necessitated a huge flurry of preparations. We’re selling most of our furniture, so we’ve been juggling Craigslist postings, cleaning, decluttering, organizing….

Well, I say “we”, but I really mean my husband. I’ve mostly been sitting in my chair, knitting frantically on the first of the two commissioned designs I have to finish before we leave. Any lesser man would be a whiny mess, but my husband has been unbelievably understanding and amazing about this.

So this means you’re not going to be seeing much blog posting from me in the next few weeks. But I miss blogging! About mid-July, when we’re settled in, I’m going to get back into a regular routine. So hopefully I’ll see you then :-)

Review: Kirby’s Epic Yarn

I got the yarn for one of my commissioned designs and have been knitting as fast as my fingers will go… but of course, I can’t show any of that here.

So instead, I’m going to talk about something only tangentially-yarn related: Kirby’s Epic Yarn!

I got this Wii game as a gift a few weeks ago (my brother’s comment as it was gifted: “How do you not have this game already?”). I played a few Kirby games when I was younger, but this one isn’t much like those at all. Instead of being able to inhale his enemies and take on their traits, Kirby is made of… wait for it… yarn. So he can transform into other shapes by himself instead.

: Our hero.

The whole world of the game is a smorgasbord of crafty materials: fabric, yarn, buttons, beads. There are patches to pull off the walls, zippers to unzip, fabric to fold, and things to sew together.

The main villain knits his minions using a pair of very angry-looking knitting needles and wears a sock around his neck:

Now, my favorite games of the past few years are the LEGO Harry Potter and Star Wars games–so I’m not exactly a hardcore, Call of Duty-type gamer. But I have to say, I was a little disappointed in this game. Once I got over the novelty of everything being made of yarn and fabric, the gameplay didn’t do much to hold my attention. It’s easy. Like, really, really easy. I’m playing in two-player mode with my hubby, and we both agree that the game was probably aimed more at the 7-12 year old set.The cutscenes are narrated by a guy who sounds like a kindly old uncle telling a story to his toddler and feature lots of highbrow lines like this:

So… yeah. It’s not a bad game, especially for those more interested in the fibery aspects than the gameplay. The design is pretty awesome, at times even inspired. And I have a high whimsy threshold, which means I’ll probably keep playing the game to the end.

Have you tried Kirby’s Epic Yarn? What did you think?

An absence of knitting….

For the first time in about five years, I haven’t knit a stitch for the past four or five days. I’m waiting for two (count ’em, two!) shipments of yarn for commissioned designs that both have tight timeframes… so I haven’t wanted to start anything, knowing I won’t be able to pick it up again for a few months.

But pattern writing and math for Blue Betty are happening, so that’s good:

And lots of writing is getting done (my other artistic pursuit), so that’s good too. But I hope my yarn comes soon–my fingers are definitely feeling a bit itchy!

FO Friday (and new pattern): Rosanna Wrap!

It’s so nice to have a plethora of projects that I’m allowed to show off!

This is my newest design, Rosanna Wrap:

I picture this wrap being perfect for dressy nights out in the summer–it looks fab with a little black dress. And it’s long (75″), so there’s enough fabric to actually keep one warm.

Blocking the finished wrap was a bit of an adventure. I wanted a nice straight edge (obviously), but I don’t own blocking wires (haven’t ever needed them before) and had only about 50 pins. First, I went out and bought a couple more packs of pins. Then I used a method I found on Ravelry: I ran cotton yarn along each edge, pulled tight, and then braced the cotton with pins so the lace was pulled tight and able to open up.

It worked rather well, if I do say so myself–but slowly weaving in the cotton yarn and putting in a few hundred pins isn’t an experience I care to repeat very often!

I also decided to up the dressy-factor by adding a knotted fringe. I had to look up tutorials on how to do this and I figured others might have to as well… so I included my own photo tutorial in the pattern.

Here are the specs on my FO:

Pattern: my own Rosanna Wrap, available to purchase on this website or through Ravelry here.

Yarn: madelinetosh tosh merino light, 2 skeins in Tart. I blogged here about my worry that my two skeins (purchased at different times) were too different from each other… but oddly enough, that appears to have been completely addressed by blocking. The dye ran pretty severely when I soaked the FO–I had to empty the sink and add fresh water five or six times before it was clear. The excess dye seems to have evened out the difference in the colors, which is so lucky I can hardly believe it. But the proof is in the pictures!

Check Slouch Update

My new pattern in Knitscene Accessories 2012 made Ravelry’s Top 20 list of what Ravelers are viewing!

It’s only the second time that’s ever happened to me. It’s just as exciting as the first!

New pattern: Check Slouch!

Knitscene Accessories 2012 is now available for digital download and pre-order–and one of my patterns is in it!

This is Check Slouch, my first magazine pattern:

I am beyond thrilled with the amazing photography and styling. (And I wish I had that model’s hair!)

Check slouch

The hat is knit in the round from the bottom up and uses a super-easy slip stitch pattern to form the checks. There’s only ever one color being used per round, which makes it suitable for colorwork newbies.

The physical magazine will be hitting newsstands at the beginning of June–I can’t wait!

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