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….my Affirmation Marker is larger than the beginning of my Jolly Green Socks for Socks for Soldiers. This time I am going to use Tina’s pattern for Two At A Time Toe Up Socks. I love her garter stitch heel that extends under the heel. I’m going to add a special touch – double strand the garter stitch section for extra padding! I can tell you that it is much easier to knit with Sarge than black yarn! <
Wow, it’s been exactly a month since my last staff blog post–oops! Time flies when you’re knitting snowmen. Yep, that’s what I’ve been up to this July. We decided that we wanted a “mascot” of sorts to show up in our holiday catalogs and emails, and the next thing I knew I was knitting wee snowmen with accessories. There are three different snowmen: Lumpy, Rosy & Slim. They each have their own unique shape and outfits and you’ll be seeing them cropping up in September. Of course, we’ll be offering my patterns too so you can make your own as ornaments or toys. I decided to give you a sneak peak of Slim (he’s Frosty’s cousin and the most traditional of the three). I was really pleased at how his felted top hat came out, since I just improvised the pattern on …
We’re hosting an event in Portland, OR, next Wednesday July 30th from 5:30-7:30pm with Miriam Tegels at the North Portland Library.
Miriam is in the Guiness Book of World Records as the World’s Fastest Knitter!
Miriam is coming from the Netherlands to visit us (Knit Picks is her newest sponsor!) and film a few tutorials on how to knit faster. While she’s in the United States, she’d love to meet American knitters like you. So bring your knitting and come say hi to me, Marci, and Miriam at:
North Portland Library meeting room (upstairs!)
512 N. Killingsworth St.
Portland, OR 97217
5:30-7:30pm
Wednesday, July 30th, 2008
We will be providing light refreshments. Please comment if you’re planning on coming so we can buy enough snacks.
We may be filming at the event, so just a heads up that if you come, you may end up in a Knit Picks video. By attending the event you are giving us your …
I’ve been away so long! I think I may finally be caught up after my vacation, so can post a few pictures of what I’ve been working on. The Myrtle Leaf Shawl went with me to Italy and really helped the airplane and layover hours pass pleasantly. It’s getting a little big to carry around now, so I found an old plate box to keep it in. I love cool containers! I’m about a third of the way through the second hank of Shadow lace yarn. I’m just going to make the Shawl two hanks long and then use a third hank for the border.
Pattern: Myrtle Leaf Shawl from Victorian Lace Today
Yarn: Shadow in Campfire, a discontinued color from my stash
Needles: US 3 Harmony Wood 24″ fixed circular
And, here are my meeting socks. It looks like I’ve been …
I met Judy, TassieKnitter, when I joined Ravelry. We spent many months happily chatting about our knitting and spinning projects before she mentioned that she would be visiting America in the summer. And, in my area, no less!!!
Between Judy’s touring touring around with her friends and my schedule, it took us awhile to get together. But, yesterday afternoon we met at Nordstrom’s downtown. Xena was very pleased to meet a new friend! Judy had already hit a few places I would have recommended – Powell’s books, Dublin Irish shop and Knit Purl.
Since Judy had already been running around all morning, I decided a quick trip to the little Elephants Deli next door to Nordstrom was in order. She grabbed her first Brownie in America and I had an oatmeal/chocolate chip cookie. Some Dry Lavender soda finished off our …
Read more »So as I mentioned in my last post, Miriam and her son Thuur are visiting our offices this week from Holland.
We kept Miriam pretty busy yesterday filming video tutorials and posing for a catalog photo, so we decided to do something a little more low key today and film Miriam and Thuur out and about in Portland. First we headed to Multnomah Falls.
Thuur got some amazing shots of a hummingbird. I’ll have to see if I can borrow a couple and post them for you.
Then we snagged lunch in downtown Portland at Veganopolis. Thuur’s vegetarian and I’m vegan, so Veganopolis was a perfect choice. It was delicious! We’d planned on doing more sightseeing downtown, but today was unseasonably rainy so we decided to wait until later in the week.
Those of you in …
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We were expecting 35-40 people last night including our staff so imagine how surprised we were when 83 of you showed up! 3 more knitters and the fire marshall might have crashed the party!!
We’re so glad you could all make it!! I know the event was pretty early in the evening- the library closes at 8 and it was the only venue I could find that wasn’t already booked with wedding rehearsals or yoga classes! Thanks to all of you who came straight from work or skipped dinner to come out and meet Miriam. We hope you had as much fun as we did.
For those of you who couldn’t come, we took lots of photos and Alison and Kelley recorded some video of Miriam’s talk.
First she explained how she got so darn fast and the process of applying …
It’s time for us to begin our yarn planning for 2009. We set aside a day or two to focus on all of Tina’s numbers analysis, customer suggestions and any other new, exciting ideas we have for improving our yarn lines.
I am still absolutely thrilled with my little Flip Mino. After about half an hour, I realized that it might be fun to videotape a bit of our planning party. You can get an idea of how our collaborative efforts work. Bob just shakes his head but there is a method to our madness. We stick to one yarn type (lace, for example) at a time and work through all of the styles.
First, some lace planning.
Then, some sock yarns. We tend to get a bit animated when it comes to yarn color selection. Socks are such reflections of personality.
In case you were wondering about …
Read more »What a difference 0.75mm makes!!
I fell in love with the Woodland colorway in Palette that Melissa came up with for the Autumn Rose Pullover by Eunny Jang. I thought I’d better be a good girl and do a gauge swatch. Good thing I did! I started out on US 0 (2.00mm) needles because I always knit fingering weight socks on this size needle. My swatch was so pathetically stiff and dense that I gave up half way through. I checked with Melissa, and she knit her swatch on US 2 (3.00mm), so I tried that but was seeing daylight between my stitches. So, I went down to US 2 (2.75mm) and came up with the perfect (for me, anyway) swatch! 0.75mm hardly seems like much, but it sure made a huge difference in the results!
I’m really excited to start this pullover now – it’ll …
I’ve been on 2 camping trips so far this summer, one in Powell, Idaho in June, and one last weekend at Loon Lake. I thought camping required a different kind of knitting, something easy and brainless that you can knit at dusk around the campfire or early in the morning when the sun is up but you haven’t had your instant coffee yet.
I’ve got an ancient laptop at home and no wireless connection at my house (gasp!), so when I want to check my e-mail or browse Ravelry on the weekends, I have to haul my old laptop to the nearest coffee shop with wireless. I hate the strap on my current laptop bag, it digs into my shoulder, so I usually just drop my laptop into a tote and go, which isn’t the best idea. I know my elderly laptop deserves better.
So when …
