Project: Wild Mare
Pattern: Wild Iris
Designer: Sivia Harding
Available: $6 as a single pattern, or $26 for the 7-pattern ebook
Yarn: Mad Tosh Light in “Mare”
This is my third cowl from Sivia’s series — I’m definitely enjoying them. This is a mobius, with a sweet little lace bind-off and perfectly placed button. I love it.
Last week I was honored and excited to speak at the March meeting of the Nashoba Valley Knitters’ Guild! I meant to take a group photo or something for the blog, and then completely failed, so you’ll have to make do with a photo of the cute little project bag they gave me:
I have to say I was a little nervous about this speaking engagement! I know I talk to knitters all the time, about knitting in general and also my own designs, but I felt a real pressure to be “good enough” for this group of finely honed knitters. After talking things over with the guild president, we settled on my talking about the design process in general, with a focus on my process and my shawl design Evolution in particular. The guild is doing a KAL for Evolution as we speak, so it seemed like a perfect focus — and I knew I still had all my graph paper notes and swatches in a binder from The Fiber Factor.
I went through my drawers and storage bins and found as many samples of my designs as I could. I also brought my design swatches, hoping that this would also be interesting to the group. I also brought print copies of my shawlette design Heartsick, which I gave away to everyone who came, along with a code to get a Ravelry copy of the same pattern. I decided to donate my contributor’s copy of Fresh Designs: Kids to the NVKG lending library. I figured if all else failed, they couldn’t hate me too much if I brought presents!
I’m pleased to say that the talk went well — everyone seemed interested and engaged. They asked lots of questions and I felt that I was bringing them new ideas and information. I was especially touched when one member came up afterwards and said I had been very “inspiring.” I couldn’t have wished for more!
A Hundred Ravens can be found at the Wayland Winter Farmers’ Market most Saturdays! Snugged in amongst the plants and, um, garden decorations you will find a wide variety of delicious local food and other neat stuff. Kate sells hard copies of many of my patterns, and has lovely samples worked up in her yarn. The butter-yellow Levade in Llyr is one of my favorites.
But.
It’s even better on a dinosaur.
(The raptor is a yard ornament. That you can buy. To put in your yard. And terrify people.)
This week I cast on for a new design project, for Classic Elite’s Fall 2014 collection. I can’t tell you much about it, but I will say that it uses two colors of Alpaca Sox (one handpainted, one solid) and that I am so pleased with how it’s coming along.
I finished, finally! 🙂 I give you … a very BRIGHTLY colored cowl/wrap:
Project: Firebird Rhea Silvia
Pattern: Rhea Silvia
Designer: Sara Morris
Available: $6 on Ravelry
Yarn: A Hundred Ravens Iachos in “Midst Her Fires”
Two skeins of Iachos ends up being not quite enough yarn for a Rhea Silvia. If I’d read the pattern thoroughly, I would have know this. Instead, I got caught off guard … fortunately, I was able to bind off a row or three early on both edges, and it still looks pretty good. Even with blocking, I’m finding the border flares more than I like. If I make another Rhea Silvia, I’ll probably decrease more when transitioning from the cabled body to the border in order to limit/eliminate this flare.
That said, I’m delighted with the end product! Kate’s yarn shines (glows, even!) in this pattern. The striping and pooling of hand-dyed yarn can be SO much fun! I’ve been wearing it doubled-up (see below) and getting lots of compliments.
Oh my, is it Thursday already? I feel like I’m only just barely recovered from my two-day stint at Stitches East.
I should say up front that it was a BLAST helping out at at Kate’s booth for A Hundred Ravens. I drove down with Donna and about half the booth stuff on Thursday for setup, and then Lauren and I left Friday and stayed the rest of the weekend. We described ourselves variously as booth babes, helper monkeys (my favorite), groupies, and ??probably other things too?? :). The booth was beautiful and inviting, and we had lots of traffic.
It was so fun to meet all the shoppers, many of whom had never seen Kate’s yarn before! What a pleasure to share my love of the colorways of A Hundred Ravens.
Because there were three of us staffing the booth, everyone got to steal away for a little bit from time to time. Armed with my shopping list and a map of the show floor with certain booths highlighted, I was able to get around to everything I wanted to see.
In bought yarn for four projects (left to right):
I also picked up some not-yarn goodies:
I was especially excited to visit the Skacel booth, which featured the designs from The Fiber Factor. I visited my things, and chatted with Cirilia and Jodi. Both are lovely & delightful — so glad to meet them in person. Jodi almost let me steal my hat, but that would have been wrong. Besides, I already have yarn to knit one for myself! Once or twice someone visiting the booth recognized me from the show — that was cool! I also got to check out the other contestant’s designs in person! It was great to get my hands on them and see the answers to questions I’d had about construction and technique :).
On Sunday I roped in some friends to help model my entries:
This same awesome group of friends stayed until the end of the day on Sunday, and then helped Kate, Lauren, and me break down the booth in record time. Kate and I pulled into the loading dock line as the 2nd and 3rd cars, and still had to wait 20-ish minutes before entering the building (did I mention we got to drive inside! whee!). By the time we had packed the cars and headed out, the line was at least two dozen vehicles long … HOURS of waiting, no doubt.
On Saturday last, seven of us packed into my minivan and we drove down to the Big E to touch, covet, and even acquire some of loveliest yarn, fiber, and animals I have yet to see. I shared a bunch of photos as we went via instagram — here are some of my favorites…
Kate’s gorgeously colorful booth for A Hundred Ravens:
Cool gradient combos for shawls and blankets:
Jen’s new bunny lording over all our purchases:
What it looks like when seven avid knitters/spinners/felters buy stuff for a day:
Did I mention the bunny?? Hawthorne is awesome.
If all goes well … my friends and I have just arrived at the NEFF . I have mad plans to instagram the heck out of this trip. One of us (not me!) may even come home with their very own Angora bunny!
My instragram name is remilyh — I’ll see if I can manage to live tweet @RemilyKnits or live facebook to Remily Knits or something. Lookit me, doing social media!!
In the mean time, you can read about our NEFF 2012 trip, and say “awwww” at the cute bunny:
Here’s my stuff from last year … my first drop spindle and first yarn ever! I’m pleased to say that I have spun EVERYTHING that I bought last year. I’ve even made stuff out of the yarn from the blue braid, the orange braid, and greenie-purple blend in the bag. I also just (just!) finished a big project with the laceweight yarn. (Tune in next Friday for that update!)
I’ve been working very hard the last few weeks on my project for Challenge #5 of The Fiber Factor. You can view my mentoring video and my progress video if you’re curious to see more, and I’ve posted a ton of photos of my work-in-progress in the Fiber Factor forums.
Here’s a taste of what I’ve done … I finished the last bit of sewing this afternoon, and tomorrow it ships out! This time around, the pieces will all be in a runway show, and we’re being judged (in part) on runway impact. So, wish me luck!!
Coool stuff going down at Stitches Midwest 2013!
The judging has HAPPENED — and we have a teaser video:
The challenge #3 garments were on display at the Skacel booth — thanks to Pam for snapping them and sharing them!
Also thrilling — my design for Challenge #2 was pulled for the fashion show! (photo from Knitting Universe)
Remily Knits 