Tag Archives: blog tour

cey & i: blog tour, day ten

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i often have ideas

in the recesses of my head,

that i don’t have the means to make real.

either i don’t have the skills (yet), or the perfect yarn for the job doesn’t seem to exist (yet),

or (as was the case with the ‘tensity’ bags)

i need a little outside help.

my original sketches looked like this.

just at a glance you can see how much changed:

i replaced both the yarn and the colors,

and somewhere along the line i decided that the sling

was more rocker while the shoulder bag was more boho afterall.

IMG_2809urbafter searching all the nooks and crannies of the internet,

only to discover that the straps i had in mind

were available nowhere,

i got in touch with laura of jul designs.

i had worked with her closures before and so admired her pieces.

we decided that i would knit both bags and then

send them to her so she could design the handle kits

to fit perfectly.

the result

of our collaboration

is ‘tensity’, both as a sling sack

and as a more typically shaped shoulder bag.

one last little secret.  the two bags are knit identically

(except for the yarn colors).  they’re exactly the same.

this means if you invest in both sets of hardware,

you could be carrying it as a sling

or as a shoulder bag

to suit your

own mood at the time.

this would totally work for me,

as somedays i’m more ‘in your face’ rocker

and others i’m more ‘go with the flow’ bohemian.

check out the deal of the day and enter to win a free copy of the tensity pattern

over on the picnic knits blog today.

corrina also lets us in on

whether she’s more

rocker or

boho.

why don’t you check out her designs

and see if you can guess her style before you read it in her own words?

last blog tour stop tomorrow  stay tuned.

‘invest’ taken from 11: 1-5 of ecclesiastes.

cey & i: blog tour, day nine

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osci rockerboho collagefresco is a yarn

that has oh so much going for it.

wool makes it warm, alpaca makes it so soft,

and there’s just enough

mohair

in the mix

to give a warm glow sort of halo

to the projects knit up in it.

i, like lee meredith,

like options.

this particular hat has load of them.

i actually went ahead and knit myself a version with no pleats,

just extra room and comfortable slouch to spare.

that’s a go-to kind of hat for me.

today on the blog tour, lee’s blog ‘do stuff’ is up.

be sure to comment for a chance to win a free copy of ‘osci’

and while you’re there, check out her ingenuity and creative-vibe.

as far as things knitting related, but not knitting exactly,

i love the old album yarn bowls.

so much.

‘glows’ taken from 24:11 of ezekiel.

cey & i: blog tour, day eight

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check out the moth heaven blog

for today’s tour stop.

funny,

i hadn’t told julia

the inspiration behind

the front detail of forte, she figured it out on her own

and she was spot on.

fact is, that all the patterns in ‘artistic differences’

are named after musical terms or

sound related words.

‘forte’ is the only full word that i used, the others are all shortened.

this way the reference is in there, but the origin doesn’t hit you over the head.AD-6754_medium2

i like things that you have to think about a little.

can you tell just by looking,

what the other patterns

names are shortened forms of:

terva, trume, chroma, silve (this one is a bit of a stretch, i admit),

setto, imp, cade, osci (having to do with sound waves)

and last, but not least, tensity?

have fun guessing

and have a good day. we’ll talk tomorrow.

‘stretch’ taken from 9:8 of job.

photo courtesy of classic elite yarns.

cey & i: blog tour, day seven

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oh, how i have longed for

a quiet space to be alone with the music in my head.

especially on a show night, there is no room to think.

i never did have the advantage of a fire escape to retreat to,

but i would have loved it out there.

the sounds of the city, the night’s lights, a slight breeze,7160intand ‘cade’ at my neck to pull up as a snood if the breeze turned stiff.

today for the blog tour, ruth (of rock + purl)

is featuring this cowl and taking comments for a giveaway.

…back to the fire escape of my dreams.

this particular fire escape

didn’t have quite the romance of the daydream.

to get this shot, we walked up to the sidewalk

(club passim is one level underground)

around the block to door # 26,

up three flights of stairs to the offices,

out the french doors of the conference room onto the fire escape itself,

and then two and a half flights down the actual fire escape

on the outside of the building.

i say ‘we’ because lindsay and i were up there together.

i’m just outside the camera’s lens to the left.

this is one of my favorite shots of the day.

it’s easy for me to look at her in my boots and my skirt,

playing my guitar in a cowl i knit

and feel like i was

really there.

but then again, i was.

‘think’ from 18:12 of matthew.

photo courtesy of classic elite yarns.

cey & i: blog tour, day six

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i love clogs.

i have for awhile now.

the weight of the shoe itself makes me feel substantial,

a force to be reckoned with.

another, more crazy, truth is that i am only recently

discovering the joy of wearing hand knit socks.

not sure what took me so longIMG_8333bt

(perhaps a lasting bout

of second sock syndrome)

but now i’m all in.

with hand knit socks in the drawers,

i wanted to pair them with clogs and slides.

alas, heels are functional

and not often the pretty part of the sock.

since what i wanted didn’t match up with what i found,

IMG_8326bti set out to fill the gap.

garter stitch runs

from the cuff

through the heel flap

with a back center column

of paired knit stitches.

these are

the rocker version of imp.

for contrast,

the remainder of the sock

is straight up stockinette.

its opposite is the boho version:

mainly reverse stockinette stitch with a column of garter stitch

dividing two wide vertical stripes of stockinette stitch up the back.

imp boho side and heeled heelmy friend lindsay pointed out

how all that reverse stockinette stitch gives these socks

a sort of ‘princess sole’.

all i know is that they feel good this way,

and that’s what i wanted.

the imp socks are featured today

on the blog of my favorite local yarn shop, ‘in the loop’.

if i could give you anything knit related, i’d give you a lys as supportive as they are.

‘princess’ taken from 45:13 in the psalms.

cey & i: blog tour, day 4

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it is a given, that the area ‘backstage’

pretty much any backstage

at nearly every venue anywhere is

going to feel somewhere between cold and not at all warm.

‘on stage’, however,

at the exact same club,

is going to be “wow, it’s getting really hot and the temp is rising”.

you’ve got lights (lots of ’em), the warm generated

by multiple pieces of electric amplifying equipment,

and the body heat of the crowd.

for me, the silve mitts

are at least a partial answer to this phenomenon.7347btthese fingerless gloves are fitted.

i like things to fit snug on my wrists

and guitar playing would be impossible with any positive ease.

the yarn is classic elite’s mountain top vail,

which is a sweet, luxurious mixture of

the ‘ooh so soft’ of baby alpaca

and the sheen of bamboo.

this makes them

just right for warding off the backstage (or early morning) chill,

while fine enough to fit in your back pocket (or jacket pocket)

when things start to warm up.7365bt

for today only,

buy the pattern

through ravelry,

and you’ll automatically

get 10% off in your cart

(no code required).

be sure to check back

tomorrow

and i’ll direct you

to the next stop

on this blog tour

for ‘artistic differences‘.

while it is still called today, hop on over and read the knitter’s pride blog tour post.

at this very moment in time i am so very

ready to start packing for vklive next weekend in nyc.

‘warm’ taken from 2:16 of james.

photos courtesy of classic elite yarns.

cey & i: blog tour day 3

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when i design,

i live with the pieces.

they spend time with me on the couch,

at the kitchen island, shrouding the to-do list on my desk.

since i was being really particular about the fit of chroma,

it spend a lot of time

in pieces

on the dress form, which i moved room to room.

the kids are so used to this kind of behavior from me

that they hardly notice anymore,IMG_6567 3but it struck me as i took this quick shot one summer afternoon

(as my son and his friend from down the street were building)

that my working form,

clothed in a bias cut dress and the dark teal rocker shrug,

does not do a good job of blending into the background

of the front hallway.

c’est la vie.

today for day 3 of the tour,

check out tabetha hedrick’s blog as she features this shrug

(and just so you know for in the future

tabetha’s always got gorgeous photos of knit things up

for ooh-ing and ahh-ing over).

‘summer’ taken from 26:1-2 of proverbs.

cey & i: counting by tens

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ten patterns, ten days,

ten…oops, i mean eleven, ‘artistic differences‘ pattern giveaways,

and a free pattern to boot.

i can hardly stand all this excitement

this early on a tuesday morning.  wink.

for starters, today is the kick-offIMG_8018bt

on the string theory yarn company blog

of the book’s tour (ten days long)

for my new collection.

there are ten patterns

and each day of the tour

one of those patterns will be given away free.

as to the eleventh giveaway,

IMG_8029btbe sure to continue on,

the day after the tour ends,

for a wrap up on the classic elite blog

where one winner will receive

a copy of ‘artistic differences’

and yarn to make the pattern

of their choice within.

as if that’s not enough,

‘tring‘ was released this morning.

this little project bag (think socks or a hat)

is reversible so you get two personalities in one

(see how i tied it into the rocker vs boho theme of the book there?).

i’m too excited today to sit still, so let’s head on over

to janet’s string theory yarn company blog

and get this party

started.

‘released’ taken from 105:20 of the psalms.

a heathered hunt

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fill in the blanks.

‘i really like ________’

‘i find lace knitting ________’

and ‘i approach knitting lace with a great amount of ________’.

my answers would be ‘buttons‘, ‘daunting‘, and ‘trepidation akin to fear‘,

but it’s a good guess

that heather zoppetti would be likely to say

‘lace‘, ‘exciting‘, and ‘enthusiasm‘.

Everyday_Lace_-_Strasburg_Arm_Warmers_beauty_shot_medium2i agreed to

review her new book,

‘everyday lace‘

with high hopes

that i might

learn something

and i did,

while also

unexpectedly gaining

a growing interest

in exploring

the fascinating realm of lace myself.

heather lays things out so clearly

that i found myself wondering ‘what am i so afraid of?’.

i mean why am i willing to rip out 12 rows to fix a cable,

but terrified of having to pull out 3 rows to a lifeline

for correcting a lace mistake?

i fear that my own misplaced paranoia is to blame.

picking a lace pattern isEveryday_Lace_-_Christiana_Headband_beauty_shot_medium2

my next step.

heather offers up

so many great options.

the strasburg

arm warmers are

just beautiful,

and i have

the perfect button for

the cristiana headband.

ah, back to buttons.

i love them.  i have my grandmother’s old button tin

and can dig through it endlessly

which always makes me smile as i remember

these buttons which she eagerly sewed onto knit sweaters and handmade blouses.

some of the ‘everyday lace’ patterns require buttons.

official scavenger hunt question:

just how many of heather’s patterns in ‘everyday lace’ call for buttons?

huntImageand along those lines:

which pattern of mine has the most buttons?

(hint: it has more than 20…)

have you not yet heard about heather’s clever scavenger hunt

(which could win you yarny prizes)?

check out all the scheduled stops here.

the first questions were posted yesterday on amanda’s blog.

the third set will go up on stephannie’s blog on the 27th.

have fun hunting!

i’m off to find fabulous fingering weight yarn

to match this perfect button…

photos by joe hancock.

courtesy of h. zoppetti & interweave.

‘eager(ly)’ taken from 31:13 of the proverbs.

the corner of aioli & main

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:rewind…

it is 7pm on a sunday night.

i am fumbling w/my first ever pattern proposal.

i have knit and  blocked the swatch, written a description,

and laid these out neatly in a word document.

i am just not able (try, try again as i may),

to sketch my idea for ‘vashti’ out clearly.

and i call my dad (next door),

say something convincing,

and then hover over

his shoulder as he

draws each line

(and redoes

the ones

i balk at).

…fastforward:

‘vashti’ is now part of

‘more knitting in the sun for kids‘

only because dad bailed me out in the last hours

before the sand, in the hourglass

holding the minutes

until the submissions deadline, ran out.

thanks dad.

be sure to visit laura’s blog thursday,

it’s the next stop on the blog tour.

and thanks for stopping by.

photo of ‘vashti’ by nicole.

‘sand’ taken from 27:3 of proverbs.