Enter Our “Endless Summer” Pinterest Contest!

Thanks everyone!  The comments are now closed & we’ll announce our winners by 8/9!

Yesterday, after we rolled out our brand new and lovely Sunstruck needles, I saw a reverberating message throughout our social media channels:  “Whelp! Found my (insert birthday/holiday/what-have-you) present!”. But why wait? What if you could win a full set of interchangeable Sunstruck needles?


sunstrucksummer

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Podcast Episode 193: Interview with Mary Scott Huff

This week, Kelley gets a chance to catch up with designer Mary Scott Huff. One look through her book The New Stranded Colorwork and you can clearly see that Mary’s passion is definitely colorwork knitting. Which is exactly why she’s the perfect person to write a book of the techniques for color knitting! Her new book Teach Yourself Visually Color Knitting highlights Mary’s expertise on the subject alongside clear, concise images that will help new knitters learn to master colorwork. Kelley talks with Mary about this unique process of writing a technique-based book, along with getting a few handy tips and tricks as Kelley and Mary walk through each chapter of the book which includes intarsia, entrelac, stranded colorwork, and even embroidery! Mary’s enthusiasm for color knitting is so infectious; you’ll be tempted to cast on a color knitting project right away.
You can find Mary Scott Huff’s latest book here:
Teach …

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Weaving in Ends

Weaving in your ends is one of the last steps in finishing pretty much any project, and is almost impossible to avoid one way or another. Now, how you weave in yarn ends – that is a whole other story! There are so many different ways to weave in ends. Some knitters save all of the ends for last, some weave them in every few inches as they go along their projects. And sometimes, it also just plain depends on what kind of yarn you are using!

And in this case, we have a handy video tutorial that shows you just how to make sure those ends stay woven in when you are working with smooth yarns and plant-based fibers like cotton and linen blends. So grab your tapestry needles and get ready to finish all those projects that have a few (or many!) leftover ends still hanging out.

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Eat Your Veggies!

I knit some wee veggies yesterday! I rediscovered Wendy Phillips’ FREE Carrot and Raddish
pattern tucked away in the middle of my (rather extensive) Ravelry
queue and quickly knit one little radish and two cute carrots.I was so charmed by them that I couldn’t help myself and added some beady eyes and stuck sewed some pin backs to them. Now I’m ready to venture out on the town, taking my little garden along with me!

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Endless Summer Braid


(photo from Endless Summer Braid pattern page)

Remember when I was thinking about knitting a collection of headbands to use in Mexico instead of hats? Well, last week I found myself without any projects in progress. Except for a pair of socks, I didn’t have anything ready for me to knit.

I scrounged around in our office yarn stash but I only came up with a couple of matching colors in anything I found appealing. It was exactly the incentive I needed to try some of the headbands in my Ravelry queue

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Baby Tubies Socks

We’ve had a lot of recent new additions to our office – babies! So several of us have been scrambling as to what to knit up for these little darlings and but IDP Designer Nona Davenport has released a free pattern that is the perfect solution.

(It doesn’t hurt that she has an adorable model!)

Baby Tubie Socks! These are cute little socks, modeled on the classic knee high tube socks. Perfect for babies of either sex!

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Measuring Wraps Per Inch

One of my crafting goals that I set for myself way back at the beginning of the year was to learn how to spin. I had used a spindle on and off for a while, and felt that it was finally time to step it up a notch and try spinning with a wheel. It took a few bumpy starts, but once I got the feel for it I knew that I was completely hooked. I’ve been spinning up yarn faster than I can use it, and have gotten quite the ever-expanding fiber collection already!

However, the one thing I have noticed is that I am still in the learning process for spinning with a specific weight of yarn in mind. So far, I have been spinning away, happy to see how the fiber twists up and plies together – all with no specific end goals or projects in mind.

But for now, I am left with many skeins of yarn ranging from light sport all the way up through super bulky. So far, I’ve found myself spinning from 4oz. batts and rovings, which means that my finished product is going to be a single one-of-a-kind skein. This makes it tricky when it comes to using up my handspun yarn. I don’t want to fuss with too many gauge swatches to find out what weight of yarn I have, since it is already a limited quantity.

This is when I turned to wraps per inch as a tool to help me gauge my yarn!

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Seattle Stitch N’ Pitch 2012

I make no secret of the fact that I love baseball – from April to October, my brain is filled with practically nothing else. While I’ve always liked baseball growing up, it wasn’t until the last couple of years that I became completely obsessed with the sport (living in Boston when the Red Sox won the World Series in 2007 will do that). And since I now live here in the Pacific Northwest, I’ve become a big Seattle Mariners fan as well – I’ve gone to several games at Safeco Field, and I watch as many televised games as I can during the season. But one surprising thing I’ve never done is go to a Stitch N’ Pitch. Well this year I changed that!

This year’s Mariner’s Stitch N’ Pitch was less than a week after our beloved #51 Ichiro ran off to join the New York Yankees. But all us M’s fans were determine to cheer on our team in their game against the Kansas City Royals.

Arriving at Safeco, all the crafters were greeted by The Mitt with a special addition to it:

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Let the Games begin!

Today was the opening ceremonies of the 2012 Olympic Games! Of course
since I’m at the office I didn’t get to see them, but we’ve got a
couple of weeks to catch up.

For those of you who did get to see them, how were the ceremonies? what did you think?

Now, I’m not much of an athlete myself, unless
sitting-on-your-kiester is a new marathon event. But I do like to knit,
so I’m taking part in the Ravellenic Games! If you’re not familiar, that’s the knit-along competition that is timed to coincide with the Olympic Games on Ravelry.
Even if you don’t compete, it’s fun to see what everyone is working on
while they’re watching their favorite sport! I’ve only just barely cast
on, so there’s not much to see – but I’ve chosen quite the challenge for
myself, and it involves a lot of Palette and about three dozen bobbins. At least.

Honestly, for me, it’s not about winning or prizes or competittion, but the challenge of it.

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