Hi all, I just wanted to share this lovely find I came across while browsing the web recently.
Although I'm more of a knitter than a crocheter, it was love at first sight when I came across this book preview for "Crochet with One Sheepish Girl". Take a peek below and you'll see what I'm talking about!
It's July. Hot, sunny, beautiful July (at least here in the US), which means most of us aren't thinking about Christmas and winter and the cold and all that jazz. But you should.
Why?
Because...drum roll please....it's time for the Christmas in July sale! Yes, you heard me right. Christmas in July.
What does this mean for you?
It means all items in my Etsy shop are on sale! Yes, on sale! All items in my shop are 25% off with coupon code CHRISTMASINJULY2014.
So, go to town! Be proactive and way ahead of schedule by getting your Christmas gifts early! Don't forget this sale runs from today July 10th till July 20th. Ten whole days of shopping fun!! Visit the NiseyKnits Etsy shop now to get your own handknitted item!
Have fun! And thank you all for your support!
CHRISTMASINJULY2014
I had forgotten about these lovely, quick scarves that I made a couple of years ago. However we recently traveled to the East Coast, and I needed some quick, instant gratification projects to keep me sane. Also, I was on a plane for almost 6 hours each way. Did someone say perfect knitting time? Oh yeah! I pulled out my huge size N crochet needles, grabbed a few (ok a lot) skeins of my super-bulky lovies, and went to town.
I didn’t do anything different from the previous chain scarves I had made. In fact, I made one in my favorite color combination, Thunder and Grassy Green (I’ve probably made about 5 in this combo).
I also tried a Sea Blue-Grassy Green combo, and I love how it turned out. So very pretty, and very similar to the Thunder/Lime scarf above. Green and blue (in all different shades) look so good together!
I tried turning up the heat on the chain scarves by working with 3 colors instead of 2, in one of the scarves (it’s getting hot in here!). I quite like the effect. I think the two shades of pink and white play very nicely together.
Now that I’ve started, I don’t want to stop. I’m thinking of these color combos next.
And here's the whole color palette that I have available to work with!
What colors do you think I should make for my next chain scarves? Let me know in the comments below. If I create your suggested color combination, I will send you a 30% off coupon to use in my Etsy shop!
Have a lovely week!
I'm at my day job, and one of my colleagues who knows how much I love to knit and my knitting crush on BrooklynTweed, alerted me to the news that BrooklynTweed has a new lookbook out featuring children's designs! Woohoo! I'm embedding the lookbook below so you can take a look at some of the delicious designs Jared and his team have come up with. I'm so excited by this.
I love all the patterns, and I'm going to need a bit more time to just absorb and devour all the little neat details of the designs. From my quick glance though, I'm so enjoying these three designs:
Sock Monkey Sweater - This little cutie looks like a distinguished professor in this outfit. I love it.
Berenice - This lovely sweater transforms this outfit! She looks so elegant and fun at the same time!
Spore - Y'all know I'm an accessories girl, so this one got me right away! And look at those cables! Jared, you slay me again!
Take a peek at the lookbook. Which of these designs do you fancy? Let me know in the comments section below.
Have a lovely weekend!! :)
One of the first designs I came up with (if you can call it a design), was a simple lace scarf for my MIL. At that time I hadn't yet discovered bulky and superbulky yarn, so I swooned at the thought of all things lace! I still love lace, but the "bulkies" give me such awesome instant gratification that I keep forgetting my first love. Anyway, I just wanted to share a few pictures of this sample of my Evelyne scarf, handknit by my friend Sara (a friend I made in college in 2001!).
As always, I'm so grateful for my partnership with my fellow small business owner and photographer extraordinaire, Kwaku of Nkadu Photography, and my ready-for-whatever go-getter model Lilia!
I hope you enjoyed the photos, and see you next week!
A year or two ago, my friend Melissa of Colliding Stars (who just got two adorable baby hats that I wrote about here), asked me to knit a lacy scarf for her. At the time, I had just lucked into a huge stash of Classic Elite Waterlily yarn, and quickly whipped up this lacy scarf for her using a diagonal lace stitch I had fallen in love with recently.
Now that the temperatures are heating up and we are very clearly heading into summer, I thought I’d pull it out so you could also whip up your own Colliding Stars scarf.
I'm thinking this pattern would look great in cotton yarn (I have some Classic Elite Sprout yarn that would work perfectly for this! ).
With this scarf, you can stay cool when out in the sun, and wrap up all comfy-cosy when indoors in air-conditioning. Check out the pattern instructions below, or easily download the pattern PDF from Ravely here: Colliding Stars Scarf.
See you next week!
Colliding Stars Scarf
Finished Dimensions
8in x 80in
Yarn
Classic Elite Yarns Waterlily (100% extra fine merino; 100 yd [91m] /50g): #1919 Petunia, 2 skeins
Needles US #13 (9mm) straight needles
Notions Crochet Hook E/4 3.50mm Tapestry Needle for weaving in ends
Gauge Not important
Notions 2 stitch markers
Abbreviations k2tog - knit 2 stitches together wyif - with yarn in front yo - yarn over
Pattern Instructions Cast on 21 stitches (or a multiple of 5+2 stitches, and 4 edge stitches)
Setup
Knit 2 rows, keeping 2 edge stitches on each side separated by the stitch markers. Knit the first stitch on each row and the slip the last stitch purlwise on every row to create a selvedge.
Diagonal Ridges Pattern (Edge stitches not shown)
Row 1: K2tog, yo, *k3, k2tog, yo; rep from * to last 5 sts, k5. Row 2: P2, *K3, p2; rep from * to end. Row 3: K4, k2tog, yo, *k3, k2tog, yo; rep from * to last st, k1. Row 4: K1, *p2, k3; rep from * to last st, p1. Row 5: *K3, k2tog, yo; rep from * to last 2 sts, k2. Row 6: K2, *p2, k3; rep from * to end. Row 7: K2, *k2tog, yo, k3; rep from * to end. Row 8: *K3, p2; rep from * to last 2 sts, k2. Row 9: K1, k2tog, yo, *k3, k2tog, yo; rep from * to last 4 sts, k4. Row 10: P1, *k3, p2; rep from * to last st, k1.
Repeat pattern until scarf is as long as you would like. Knit 2 more rows and bind off all stitches (or until there’s one stitch left on needle if you want to work the optional crochet edging).
Optional Crochet edging 1. Switch to crochet hook, chain 4 stitches, and sc to first selvedge stitch on the side. 2. Sc into next stitch, chain 3, and sc into same stitch. Repeat row 2 all along one side of scarf and cast off.
Finishing Instructions Weave in all ends. Soak/wet scarf and block to desired dimensions, making sure to open up eyelets so the scarf is light and airy.
Recently some very close friends on the East Coast had a lovely baby girl. Very soon after that, another friend who also owns an Etsy business had her baby and ordered hats for the little darling. What did this mean? Lots and lots of baby hats to knit! Luckily for me, I have a large stash of KnitPicks Swish Worsted yarn in child-friendly colors, just waiting to be knit up! It sure felt odd knitting with such thin yarn, since I've been living in superbulky land for the past 6 months or so. Challenge accepted!
I had been eyeing the Golden Pear pattern by Melissa Thomson, and jumped on the opportunity to knit it up in bright green and rouge pink, toned down by a light dove grey. This hat went to my little East Coast lovie.
A few days after sending this off, I heard from my friend Melissa that she had had her baby and wanted a baby hat in this same pattern! Oh there was no hesitation on my part, as I was already in love with the pattern. Hers was shades of purple, with a little grey thrown in.
Now since I was on a roll, I figured, why stop now? I pulled out another new love, the Little Scallops hat pattern by Maria Carlander, and whipped up another hat in the same dove grey and Rouge Pink (those baby hats are addictive!!).
Full disclosure - I think this year's knitting might be full of baby hats, because they are fast, super cute, and you get to try out so many color combinations and yarns. My knitter hat is jumping for joy at the thought! Hope you'll join me for this next "level" in my knitting journey. :)
A QUICK NOTE
If you received or saw the spam post last weekend, I sincerely apologize for that, and reassure you that no user information was exposed, as the blog is separate from where your email addresses for the newsletter is stored and sent from. Once again, I'm so very sorry for the inconvenience caused.
I thought I'd give you all a break from my hat addiction and share with you how I made the goodie bags that I gave to all my customers in December last year, both at the Bazaar Bizarre Holiday Fair in December, and also orders I received online from my Etsy Shop. Here's what the finished goodie bag looked like. (Please forgive my photos, as I took them the night before the fair. The lighting is not too good.)
These goodie bags are very simple to put together, so you can be like me and make them the night before your 2-day craft fair and go to bed at 3am for a 6am call time (So fun! I would totally recommend it!...NOT :P), gather some friends together for a goodie-bag party, or make it a fun family activity. Either way, making the bags themselves is easy. It's making so many bags that takes time.
Here's what you need for your own set of goodie bags. Feel free to substitute your preferred goodies. It was Christmas, so I thought Chai tea and chocolate would give people warm thoughts, as they enjoyed my chunky handknits. :)
What You need
TL:DR Instructions
Add your goodies 1 and 2, along with 1 or 2 business cards to the organza bag, tie the bag shut, and finish off with the hang tags. As an extra, I added a discount code to the back of the hangtags. :)
The Long version (with gratuitous use of photos, because...you know...I have lots of them)
The bags....
...and the tags (I love these tags!).
...but don't forget your cards!
And the tea...
...plus Ghirardelli (I'm so sorry for the rhymes...it's a late-night inspired thing that I can't seem to shake off).
Now for the haaaaarrrrdddd work! Add the 2 chocolate pieces and one tea bag to the goodie bag.
When that's done, take some extra photos just for fun.
Then add your pretty business cards, because you want your lovely customers to remember you when they're sipping on their tea, and munching on those delicious chocolate squares.
Now finish this up with your lovely hang tags, and you're good to go! Lots and lots of goodie bags for all!
Hope you enjoyed this long tutorial. See you next week!
I've been so quiet on here that it I wasn't sure how to break the silence. :( So I thought, why not just jump straight back in and share this awesome gift I received with you. About 5 months ago, in my regular 9-to-5 job, I came across a lookbook by one of my all-time favorite designers, Jared Flood of BrooklynTweed. Now if you've been reading my blog for a while now, you know how muchI admire (and covet) his work and talent. I was therefore beyond overjoyed to talk to our marketing team and ask if there was anyway we could work with them.
A few months have gone by now, and we'd been working on a few things with the BrooklynTweed team when this showed up in the office for me!!
Oh yes!! I get to try BrooklynTweed's Shelter yarn, and that gorgeous cabled hat pattern, Habitat! Woohoo! I can't wait! Can you feel my joy?
Then, to top things off, BrooklynTweed just came out with their new lookbook, Wool People 7! This girl is very happy over here!
A review of my favorites from this collection will be coming up shortly!
Have a great day and a lovely weekend, and thank you for sticking with me despite my long absence on this blog. :)
I can't believe it's almost mid-February and I've barely been on here. Please accept my sincere apologies. I've done a lot of "I miss my blog" and "I want to knit" posts...in my head, but nothing on here. I'm so sorry about that. Today's post is a very, very short one, as I just wanted to show some love and share some of the hats I mentioned in my last post. So, full of photos, sparse on text. And since it's almost Valentine's Day, I'm showing only the hats with a little pink in them.
Enjoy, and I hope to have the blog back on a weekly rotation soon!
