Sock Blocking

I didnt get out of my booth much, but i didnt see Purrfectly 's wooden sock blockers so i came home from STS MW and needed sockblockers!

JoAnn's had on sale half off (now $7.99) their ArtBin boxes, which i needed more bins to store yarn in for different companies and submissions.



inside each container are 4 divider sheets. since i don't really need them, they are going to be sock blockers. 4 boxes= 16 sock blockers.



Kezzi has now gotten taller than me, and her sockblokcers need to be bigger, so we measuered the length of her foot and extended the size of the blockers so they can holder her socks.



We could Sharpie intials on them so each of the sizes for the kids could be easily identified.


enrolling her help soon i had a nice stack of sockblockers



which needed to be dressed of course



but what to do with the scraps????



wee tiny sock blockers



more scraps? with Chanukah being 100 days away, i need to get crafting! i decided the kids need mittens. so how about tracing their hands so i dont have to guess at size? this means the also will not be suspicious in the coming months. ("...um, hey let me see your hand and where your thumb is...")



this also means MITTEN BLOCKERS!!! so i rounded off the hand shapes, added the name followed by the age of each of the kids.
so as long as they do not read my blog, it will stay a surprise.

Stitches MidWest-Schaumburg, IL

Last week i flew to Chicago, alone...which i have not flown alone since the week before my 18th birthday. that was the summer i met Sam and i've followed him around the world ever since.
anyways, my "taxi" turned out to be a Limo. which was a new experience also.


The hotel for the event was amazing but my hotel room at the courtyard was much bigger and nicer than their rooms. AND staying in the same hotel, room below mine was Jennifer from Holiday Yarns.
You may know her as yarn dyer for the Tsarina Tsock kits.

ofcourse i needed the vintage sock kit (remember when yarnharlot made all those tiny leaves?) and the phoenix for my mythology girl, and cowboy socks for the boys. Jennifer also had the most amazing smelling anti moth potpourri! seriously, i am going to need a pound of it for sachets for every drawer/clost/stash bucket. soo good!
the really cool thing was for each colourway, she had knitted sock toes so you could see exactlu what the yarn was going to do. so many yarns look great skeined and horribly as socks. this made it much easier,(no harder) to choose sock yarn. i wanted soo many of them :0)
we had a blast together, with her mom who is wonderful, and discovered we were mishpocha.




Creative was in the booth directly behind mine, since i have several skeins of her yarn waiting to become socks, i did not bring home anymore calypso BUT did take advantage of the lace weight being 50% off.

SomeBunny aka Kimberly came by and brought Franklin Habit with her. He was delightful to talk to, and let me get a picture with him and be a geeky fan.


PJ party:


Friday nite at the PJ party Franklin wore the amazing lace nite cap that he did the article in knitty on. if i can find the pictures i will load them.

jewelry making demos by Leslie Wind


My Aunt Carolyn flew up from houston and spent the weekend with me. we had so much fun. Leslie Wind shared the booth with me so she jopined us for dinner with Debra and Jeff of Debra's Garden and Rose Hunter who was teaching heirloom rugs over the weekend. we laughe dall nite. oh- and Adam, Debra and Jeff's son, so Aunt Carolyn wasnt the only non-knitter.
While in chicago Aunt Carolyn stumbled onto the set of Transformers 3 and got some amazing pictures. if she had a working computer, i'd show theose to you too.

so that is a brief sum up of Sts MW 2010.

August

summer is not slowing down here, things are just gearing up.

PennyRoses Yarns Luxury Summer Sock club released the first kit featuring a pattern i did for Ruth, Fata Morgana Miarge Socks and heatwave colourway yarn. its always fun to get and idea and start researching and creating. the visual anamoly caused by varying temperature layers they believe caused the stories of the flying dutchman.
Ravelry Link: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/fata-morgana-mirage-socks


Brigit has been working hard test knitting a new sock for my Flower Fairy Socks KAL
and the pattern will be out soon, featuting bavarian twisted stitches.
Sneak Preview:
Canterbury Bells




in 2 weeks i wil be at Stitches MidWest, booth 732.
Demoing Intwined Pattern Studio's software. The latest issue of the Knitter magazine (UK) has us featured in "things we love". so exciting!
let me know when you get a copy, i have only seen screen shots.

Leslie Wind will be sharing the booth with me. you remember her fab cable needle necklaces i blogged awhile back? she now has a cable needle ring for sock knitters so its a smaller diameter and right at you finger tips from some tricky sock designs (do you know anyone who has tricky sock designs? hmmm)

also blackthorn knitting needles! i love these have you tried them?
i cant tellyou how many DPNs i have snapped or the boys have snapped for me. these however are made from the same stuff the stealth's outer skin is made from. virtually unbreakable but stll amazingly light.
so stop by the booth and test drive them

after i come home i will be getting ready for the tour of roses trip to poland and germany. if anyone wants our fundraiser gourmet home made super yummy Strawberry Jalepeno BBQ sauce let me know i still have several jars left- $8 pints and $15 quarts.

Design with Intwined II

Intwined Studio Contest:

if you have Intwined Pattern Studio, share a link to what you have made with it between now and October 31. Each entry will qualify for a chance to win a lovely prize!
knitting, weaving, cross stitch ...any craft pattern qualifies

Blog about Intwined and send me the link to your blog post for a bonus entry.

Prize:
Yarn and swag

See what people are saying about Intwined:
www.intwinedstudio.com

How to enter: Leave a comment, include a link to your pattern, blog post, too!

Cool Beans!!!

I was blessed to get to be apart of SockMadness 4 this year.
My pattern CoolBeans was round 2. and now that SM4 is over (won by the fabulous EricaG) Cool Beans is now available to the public.

A fairisle sock tribute to Coffee

Creatively Dyed Yarns Version

techquilter's amazing version

CoolBeans Sock Pattern $5

winner!!!

Using the amazing skills of a four year old and a bowl of papers with names written on them, the Intwined Studio Winner is:
Ashley of AshleyKnits!

as soon as i get your address, i will send you the knitting prize basket!
congratulations!

not quite pemberly

but we finally moved into our own home!
some where midst the boxes you can find us at what is known in our family as "Chesed House". tirzah had hoped for a more austen like name.
and with all the new colours it was decided that david crowder's "o happiness" is the theme song of the house.
i havent knit in 2 weeks.
i am not sure where anything is, but it is good to be home.

the winner of the Intwined Studio pattern concert will be announced in the next post.
i am waiting for dsl connections so i can contact the winner and gettheir info.

also big news at our house:
i am going to poland and germany this fall.
it is very exciting and more info will follow of course.

Stitches West 2010

wow i am soooo tired
the night before stitches i couldn't sleep- got maybe 2 hrs.
it didnt help that we also put a bid in on a house and dropped the papers off on the way out of town.
my hands were shaking at the opening of the first 2 market sessions.
by today i was doing a little better and actually got hungry and wanted to eat while i was there.
jordana paige did a wonderful blog post on how she used intwined studio for her latest pattern "Shane" so it was great to be able to thank her in person. she was our first celebrity endorsement.
friday i turned around to see cookie A in our booth and gasped. she demo'd Intwined pattern Studio in her class, the she sent janel laidman over who was so sweet and gave me a copy of enchanted sole. i wish i had my rivendels on when she was there.
i adore the becoming art yarn that is coming home with me, got to get in person chameleon colorworks yarn, creatively dyed yarn (calypso painted with over 500 yds!)
00000 and 000 DPNs, and some other wonderful stuff.

march 3 a new book will be out "how to knit a love song"
the author Rachael herron was lovely and i am so excited for her.
i can't wait to read her book.

Michael of fiber beat is way too much fun!

and the editor of knitter's magazine, Rick Mondragon asked if he could do a write up on us! so watch for future issues! ( i will let you know when i do which one summer or fall when i do)

it was so good to see becka and husboy. we had a wonderful time celebrating her 30th bday. and wow ! what an amazing ammount of hair on her head!

it was soo good to see merike! not long enough!
hopefully at stitches south we will have more time. i may have to take a class so i can talk to her ;0)

pictures of course to follow:

Talia's Wings

It's almost time for Sock Madness 4, so i thought i would release the pattern used in round 3 of last year's Sock Madness 3.



the socks are ofcourse named for our youngest daugter Talia.
Talia means dew from heaven, but is also according to hebrew legend, the angel who keeps the sun in its course.
So the golden angel wings which melt into hearts were perfect for Talia Socks.



gritterknitter did a lovely job modifying the pattern to fit her daughter's feet for matching socks.

Intwined Pattern Studio Contest

Favor Software's Intwined Pattern Studio has been available to purchase for almost 2 weeks now. So far it has sold in 8 countries: Korea, Sweden, Germany, Ireland, England, Austrailia, Canada and the USA.

Being that it is so easy to modify the stitch sets to your liking, it lends itself well to creating mulitlingual patterns.



Very often I would rather knit from a chart. I can keep track of my progress and see what it is supposed to look like. With Intwined, besides designing, I can create and graph charts from the written text of patterns for my own personal use.
or vice versa, chart the graph symbols and receive text if charts aren't your thing.
You can go from idea to PDF without needing any other software and you don't need to take classes on how to use it in order to get a design out.



When you think that its the price of 2 skeins of yarn- the good stuff ofcourse- and that I at least spend that much and stash it, its a pretty good investment that doesn't take up closet space :0)
I am very excited to see how things go at Stitches West in less than 4 weeks.
it is very exciting to get to see atleast one crazy idea take off. :0)



Intwined Studio Contest:
if you have Intwined Pattern Studio, share a link to what you have made with it between now and May 31. Each entry will qualify for a chance to win a lovely prize!

Stop by booth 1135 at Stitches West and mention the contest for another chance to enter.

Blog about Intwined and send me the link to your blog post for another entry.

Prize:
Yarn and swag...i will post more on the prizes in a month.

pain from paradise to PortAPrince

24 hours ago I dropped my children off at my mother’s to sit with beloved friends who were fighting for their daughter in law’s life. Stephanie was feeling run down and went to the ER, houre later she was flown to Sacramento with bits of her family in tow. Including her 6 wk old daughter, Evelyn , 5 yr old son Gavin, husband, brothers and cousins…culminating in 4 generations gathering to proclaim their love for her.
No cause, no reason, no idea how to treat this beautiful 27 yr old who was losing blood as fast as they put it in. little by little Stephanie’s body shut down. The amazing CICU staff brought her back from the brink, tried every treatment comprehensible. I doubt if Dr House himself could solved this one.
I have never seen anything more heart breaknmg than a daddy whispering to his infant baby that her mommy loves her while the staff are asking where he stands on DNR. So strong, so tender.
Stephanie stopped breathing, and the last machine turned off as a bell announced the birth of a brand new baby, we think the 10th born that day. Very surreal, very complete.
Baby Evelyn has been admitted to the hospital, pre pnemonia. Blood work being done since during her mother’s mysterious illness she was still on breast milk. Pray for the family, pray for Justin, Cat and Brian, all the mourning hearts. Pray for baby Evie safety and health. Pray for answers and healing.

Saturday we picked up the girls from their rosebowl adventure and we
hung around Sac for a bit. B Dalton is sadly going out of buisness but happily we got to bring home a sack of books.



And then i got to meet up with Marisol of Purls just wanna have fun
Sac was almost half way between us, so it was a great rendevous spot.
Marisol will be joining us at Stitches West, so be sure to stop by Booth #1138Intwined Studio

locksley

i am currently addicted to RobinHood thanks to netflix
its nice to have something we all want to watch and don't have to send the kids to bed first.



so if arrow motifs show up in the socks, you will now why

News!

So a year ago, i took my knitting software and tossed it into my husband's lap declaring my frustration with it, and asked....ok demanded, that he make something better.
Taking it up with his boss, the 3 guys at Favor Software came up with this great new Knitting Design Software. Intwined Pattern Studio

"Intwined Pattern Studio is pattern design software designed to be easy to use, powerful, and flexable, at the same time that it's affordably priced. Here are just a few of the many features:
*Create an entire pattern and print it or save it to PDF directly from our software.
*70+ stitches and 40+ cables available from the default Stitch Library. (Ablity to add stitches, and change icons).
*Type in your pattern and generate the chart on the fly, this can handle circular and flat knitting styles.

We will have the software debut at Stitches! Yipppeee!
As of This moment we are booth #1138
So Stop by and say hi if you are going to be there!

darcy and leslie

i went to the mailbox today in the down pour, its 2 houses to the east of my house so it sounds really adventurous.
being in the small 300 people town, my postmaster is a friend. Tiff gets as excited about our mail as we do. she loved all the postacrds from india and nepal.
so i opened it right there.
:0)
inside a plain bubble envelope was the most amazing Cable pendant engraved "Love Darcy and Leslie"



i love it! did i mention its on a thicker cord so i can't loose it?!
not only is it invaluable to knitting but its my favourite jewelry.
years ago when leslie had this idea, i was totally for it so i would not loose my cable needle in the middle of a project or forget i hooked it on my shirt collar.
i am so proud of where she has taken it. 6 magazines i think so far have done a spotlight on it. (vogue,interweave, spinoff)
so if you get a chance go congratulate her!
http://www.lesliewind.com/

and schmooze with darcy too!
if you stop by you can enter to win your own Cable needle necklace!