Working hard for Christmas

I am so sorry this blog post is a day (or two) late. I've been working really really hard to finish the custom orders I received at the Bazaar Bizarre Fair two weekends ago. All the members of my family are also either sick or recuperating, which has made my work go slower than expected. For this I sincerely apologize. However, I thought I would duck in here quickly and share some of the things I've been working on for the custom orders. Here they are.

There's a couple of Procragratification Infinity Scarves...

... a few chain scarves

    

...and my newest, the Fibonacci-inspired chunky cowls.

      

 Remember, the 15% off coupon (SFETSYHOLIDAY2012) is still active. And if you order now, you will definitely get it before Christmas (no custom orders though, sorry). Visit my Etsy Shop here for more knitted goodness!

Have a wonderful week!

My first holiday fair with Bazaar Bizarre

I am back from the Bazaar Bizarre Fair up in San Francisco this past weekend, and it was the bomb!! So many people, so many lovely vendors! It was wonderful...except for the rain. It rained nonstop on Saturday, making the drive up to the city and back quite scary. In fact, on Sunday morning my booth mate was worried for our safety and left me a message that she was taking a local road (El Camino) instead of the highway (101) because there were so many accidents. However, after we arrived at the fairgrounds on Sunday morning, the sun came out and shone the rest of the day! SMH! I loved the rain on Saturday because I felt it made people more willing to look at handknitted scarves and cowls. One customer actually came in and bought a hat because it was cold outside (and also because the was wearing this beautiful cobalt blue blouse and the hat matched it perfectly! LOL! )

I shared a booth with the awesome Amy of Jumbo Jibbles, the designer and creator of "whimsical plush and personalized jewelry". (I bought a giant blueberry from her for my son...that's my word and I'm sticking to it! :P).

This is what our booth looked like on Saturday morning - my half...(notice the yarn shop that had the booth right next to ours! So wrong! I was sooooo good though. I bought no yarn...but I did get some stitch markers. :) )

...and here is Amy's half of the booth:

The first couple of hours on both days was slow, but traffic picked up steadily and we made some sales. I also got quite a few custom orders. All in all, this was a great fair and I'm glad I got the experience. It's killer on your feet though, with all the standing around and walking. On Sunday my friend Alisa graciously agreed to come along and help us, so we could take a few breaks here and there. Thank you so much Alisa! I also have to thank the SF Etsy team, who had a booth at the fair manned by volunteers. These volunteers came around periodically and also watched our booths so we could take bathroom breaks or find something to eat. That was just super helpful.

As you can probably guess, I'm still exhausted from the fair but...A luta continua (as one of my middle school teachers used to say). I'm starting to work on the custom orders as well as on stocking my Etsy shop for the holiday season. Do take a look as I have a few new items on there. One of them (which was a big hit at the fair), is this chunky necklace scarf.

Let it hang long and it works as a statement neck piece. Double it up and your neck is kept warm from any sudden cold chills. Hand knit in a 50% wool - 50% acrylic chunky yarn, this scarf-necklace twists up prettily so you can hide it in your handbag and pull it out whenever there is a sudden drop in temperature. It's available in various colors and you can also customize it by choosing up to 3 colors to make the scarf you want. Get adventurous and try this scarf! :) Plus, the 15% off coupon (SFETSYHOLIDAY2012) is still active till the 14th of this month!

I hope you all have a wonderful week!!

Update - Melody's Stole Knit-a-Long Weeks 3 & 4

The past few weeks have been quite slow in terms of knitting this stole. Almost all of us fell sick in my household, meaning that most of my knitting projects are way behind schedule (I'm currently recovering from a terrible cold). I also traveled to Indiana for 3 days, which also reduced my knitting time (and got me off schedule a bit so I missed putting up an update), and then Thanksgiving was here. Still I tried my best to knit a few rows of the stole to keep the momentum going. Here it is.

I also wanted to share how I keep track of my rows when knitting from multiple charts. I know there are row counters around, but because my charts don't have the same number of rows, I actually prefer to write down and mark off the rows as I finish them. To do this I usually carry a piece of paper/a small notebook and a pen/pencil in the knitting bag (ahem...ziploc bag) that I have the knitting in.

I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving, and I'll see you next week.

PS: If you are looking for a lovely holiday gift to give to friends and loved ones during Black Friday and Cyber Monday, visit my Etsy shop at http://NiseyKnits.etsy.com and use the coupon code SFETSYHOLIDAY2012 for 15% off your entire purchase!

Also, if you live in the Bay Area, please visit me at the Bazaar Bizarre Fair in San Francisco on Dec 1st and 2nd in Booth #156! (THIS WEEKEND) http://www.bazaarbizarre.org/sanfrancisco/shows/holidayshow/

Saturday December 1st & Sunday December 2nd 2012 Concourse Exhibition Center EAST HALL 620 Seventh St. (at Brannan) San Francisco, CA 94103-4901 Saturday & Sunday 11-6PM – FREE TO ATTEND

Prepping for the Bizarre Bazaar Fair

Hi everyone, I've been busy fighting off a terrible cold and prepping for my first major holiday fair, the Bizarre Bazaar Fair. It's quite hectic here so I'm just going to leave you with some pretty photos from a photoshoot that my friend Sam Kessie did for Eden's Corner Hair Salon (in Atlanta, GA), using my scarves.

Have a wonderful rest of the week!

The joy of gift knitting - Part 2

Last week I took an impromptu trip to Indiana to visit one of my BFFs. She just had a baby girl and had requested (more like demanded...hehehhe) that I knit the little cutie a hat, a sweater and a blanket. I bought the yarn (Lion Brand Vanna's Choice Solids & Twists) on my birthday and started on the awesome Moderne Baby Blanket by Kay Gardiner and Ann Shayne from the Mason-Dixon book. I love this blanket pattern and thought it would be perfect for this little girl. What I forgot was the fact that the stitch count go progressively larger as the knitting went along, and that I was also supposed to be preparing for a craft fair as well as working on a pattern submission. Eek!

Once the blanket was finished, I started on the sweater. The pattern I used was Lillie's Baby Cardigan by Laura Edwards. Would you believe this was my first time knitting a baby sweater? And it went so fast too! I don't even know why it took me so long to make one.

And finally, the hat(s). I knew from the get-go that I was going to knit another Aviatrix baby hat by Justine Turner (I made the first one for my son last year). It's such an awesome design and works so well for those little babies. Anyway, the first one I made was in just one color, so this time I decided to be more adventurous and do two colors. Since the baby has a small head, I only worked 3 repeats of the main pattern. Oh, I forgot to mention that I actually knit this while I was with mommy and baby in Indiana, and as I didn't have a button on me, I didn't technically finish the hat. Oh well! Mommy is better at sewing than me anyways. :)

Now since the baby couldn't technically wear the hat (due to the conspicuous absence of a button), I had to knit another hat during the trip. I found this super quick pattern by Woolly Wormhead, Baby Rollin' Beret, and whipped one up quickly before I left.

And one more just because...here's the whole set together.(Sorry about the weird angle).

It was too short a trip, but I'm so glad I was able to see my friend and her daughter, share in her joy and give to them from my craft. Happy Thanksgiving everyone, and see you all next week.

PS: If you are looking for a lovely holiday gift to give to friends and loved ones during Black Friday and Cyber Monday, visit my Etsy shop at http://NiseyKnits.etsy.com and use the coupon code SFETSYHOLIDAY2012 for 15% off your entire purchase!

Also, if you live in the Bay Area, please visit me at the Bazaar Bizarre Fair in San Francisco on Dec 1st and 2nd in Booth #156! http://www.bazaarbizarre.org/sanfrancisco/shows/holidayshow/

Saturday December 1st & Sunday December 2nd 2012 Concourse Exhibition Center EAST HALL 620 Seventh St. (at Brannan) San Francisco, CA 94103-4901 Saturday & Sunday 11-6PM – FREE TO ATTEND

The joy of gift knitting - Part 1

I haven't knitted a gift for someone in a while, and so I was quite excited to make this quick gift for Claudine, our neighbor who has become a dear friend and another grandmother to my son. She follows my blog (hi Claudine!) and really liked the lacy mitts I posted about in this Short Sale blog post (PS: The headbands and mitts are still on sale, so please let me know if you'd like something). It turns out that our birthdays are one day apart! Such a fun coincidence, isn't it? So when Claudine custom ordered a pair of mitts, I thought it would be better as a birthday gift. Now even though our houses are separated by a fence, and we usually pass things over this fence all the time, for some reason I wasn't able to get her gift to her until last week. Here are a few pictures I took of her enjoying her mitts.

 Thank you Claudine, for being so wonderful, caring and supportive. :) I hope you enjoy your mitts!

Stay tuned for Part 2 next week. You won't believe what I made. I'm giddy with excitement about this set of gifts. :) Have a wonderful, wonderful week!

PS: Fundraising for Hurricane Sandy survivors is still ongoing

Please help me support those affected by Hurricane Sandy by purchasing something from the NiseyKnits shop. I will donate 25% of all proceeds from this month to the Red Cross and Samaritan’s Purse to help rebuild affected areas in New York and New Jersey.

Update: Melody Stole Knit-A-Long Week 1

The Melody's Stole Knit-A-Long is trucking along nicely. It's not late to join if you'd like to work on a lace project with other knitters and get help as we all go along. The pattern is free, and it's free to join the KAL also. You can use whatever yarn you want for the stole, or you can purchase the Lace Yarn used in the original pattern from Sandrasingh.com. She's offering the yarn at 15% off during this time period for the KAL. Each skein has 950yds, so you can make TWO stoles out of one skein if you wanted. So awesome. I'm going to be making my stole out of the Sandrasingh.com Yarn Lace, in the Love Potion colorway.

It's so pretty isn't it?

I cast on for the stole on Monday night and knit the first 10 rows of the pattern (the setup rows, which is all garter stitch and the edging for the stole). I'm loving how it looks. It's so pretty and so soft! I'll check back with you next week Thursday to keep you up to date with the progress.

Well, don't hesitate any longer and come join us in the knit-a-long. We are waiting for you! :)

A sneak peek, and fundraising for Hurricane Sandy survivors

I can't believe it's November already! Where is the year galloping off to? Frankly I'm a little frightened at the speed with which the years are passing by. Plus it means I have less time than I think I do for knitting. Oh well... For the past two weeks I've been super busy working on a pattern for a scarf and a matching hat. I have never designed a hat before, and it's been quite daunting. Figuring out the math for the hat was challenging, mainly because I wanted to keep the pattern on the hat even while shaping the top of the hat. Anyway, here's a sneak peek of this pattern. It should be out soon, just in time for Christmas gift knitting!

I hope you like it as much as I do.

Fundraising for Hurricane Sandy survivors

Please help me support those affected by Hurricane Sandy by purchasing something from the NiseyKnits shop. I will donate 25% of all proceeds from this month to the Red Cross and Samaritan's Purse to help in rebuilding affected places in New York and New Jersey.

Melody's Stole Knit-A-Long

Hello! I hope you are all having a great week so far. For those of you on the East Coast, I hope you and yours are well and safe during this Hurricane Sandy. Today's post is to give you a quick update on the Melody's Stole Knit-A-Long (KAL). The official start date has been set for Monday Nov. 5th (next week Monday). I'm working with Sandra Singh, the owner of Sandrasingh.com, and she is hosting the KAL in her Ravelry Group here. If you are already a knitter and would like to try out lace knitting, this pattern is easy enough to follow along, and there will be lots of hand holding by me and other knitters in the KAL.

Best of all, Sandra has been so kind to offer 15% off her Sandrasingh.com Lace for anyone participating in this KAL (You can purchase the yarn and download the pattern here.) So, you have a free pattern, 15% off a humongous skein of yarn (that skein is enough for 2 stoles), and a lovely group of knitters to help and encourage you through this project. What are you waiting for? Come join us in this fun KAL here: Melody Stole KAL.

Melody's Stole: A new free pattern

Earlier this year, I was contacted by Sandra of www.sandrasingh.com about designing a shawl using her newly launched lace yarn line, Sandrasingh.com Lace. I have to tell you that this yarn is one of the softest I've worked with. I really wanted to do justice to this yarn with my design. My initial plan was to redo my Evelyne pattern for her, but the more I looked at and played with the yarn, the more I wanted to do something different. I wanted a zigzag design to the shawl, but not one with sharp turns. I wanted it to be super lacy like Evelyne, and I knew that I wanted some garter bands separating the lace sections. I also wanted a zigzag border to match the zigzagging of the stole's body. After a few swatches, I finalized the pattern and got to work on this stole in May. It took a little bit of time as I was working on this design and a few other secret projects. I finished in June and sent it over to Sandra, who loved it (Thank God!). Here it is, Melody's Stole.

I'm so glad the pattern is out now. I hope you love it as much as I do. Did I mention that it's free? Visit this link to download it from Sandrasingh.com. Here's what you'll need to make your own Melody's Stole.

Size 21in x 61 in

Yarn Sandrasingh.com Lace (100% merino; 950 yd [869 m]/100 g [3.53 oz]): Electric Blue, 0.5 skeins

Gauge 14 sts and 16 rows = 4" in Right or Left Diagonal Openwork Pattern 32 rows = 4 inches in garter stitch.

Tools US #8 (5 mm): 32" circular (cir) needle or straight needles 2 Markers (m) Yarn needle

We are planning a KAL (Knit-A-Long) for this shawl, just in time for Christmas gifts. Please leave a comment below and let me know if you would be interested in participating in this fun activity.

Enjoy the rest of your week!

PS: Please share with your friends and family who might also be interested. KALs are more fun with more people, don't you think?