Tag Archives: classic elite yarns

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 five

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imagine with me for a moment.

it’s 2am.

you had dinner

before sound check began,

which means you haven’t eaten for at least 8 hours,

but it’s 2am.

did i mention that it’s cold out?  yup, it is.

it’s making the cold backstage

before the show seem7365bt

like a better place

to be.

so,

the best

nearby spot

for good food

is chinese.

thing is,

you have to

stand outside to eat.

nothing personal,

it’s a takeout window

and everyone

enjoying the dumplings and crab rangoon at 2am is

standing outside in the cold with you.

6674btnow,

you have to eat.

you will never sleep well,

as hungry as you are,

without food

in your belly

and nothing

sounds

nearly as good

as piping hot

chinese food

in this very moment.

i didn’t have a sweater

like setto at the time.

if i had, i would have brought it to every cold weather gig.

the squishy cables would have stretched over whatever else i had worn onstage

and the cozy neck would have made my neck feel, well, cozy.

the cables stretch and hug

fitting your particular curves to a ‘t’,

both before, and after, all that chinese food…yum.

head on over to mari chiba’s blog today.  be sure to leave a comment

because you could win your own copy of the pattern for setto

from my book ‘artistic differences’.

tomorrow is another day,

with another tour stop.  you know i’ll have all the info

right over here

just waiting for you.

‘food’ taken from 17:4 of first kings.

both photos courtesy of classic elite yarns.

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: blog tour, day 2

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today is boot sock day.

appropriate since it’s 15* outside.

these were designed to go from comfy boots to stage shoes

and back again without a hitch.

trume socks side by sidethey’re as pretty as they are practical.

the angora and nylon in the mix make them super snuggly,

while the rich colors and tweediness keep things interesting.

the rocker style (lighter in these photos) is straight ahead ribbing.

the boho version is wide eyelet lace

to sweeten things up a bit.

either way, they’re cushy and warm.

check out the slate falls press blog today for a chance to win the pattern,

and a discount on it if you don’t want to wait.

joanna also asks me

music related things like ‘if you could be an instrument, what would you be?’.

betcha can’t my guess my answer before you look…

‘straight’ taken from 15:21 in 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.

cey & i: worth mentioning

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this sort of thing is simply not done.

large yarn companies do not put their weight and resources

behind indie designers while simultaneously

giving those indies the freedom to express themselves through ‘doing their own thing’.

1101540778ArtisticDifferences-cover-dbi should say ‘it hadn’t been done’, but it has now.

classic elite yarns did just that,

took the path not taken,

in collaboration with both julia farwell-clay and myself.

now, you can call it what you want,

but588940896FromFollyCove-cover-db

in a day and age when ‘branding’ is king,

for a well established company

to go that far outside

their own comfort zone stylistically

is brave, and groundbreaking,

and maybe even a little bit fierce

(i mean ‘fierce’ here in the best possible sense).

so when you see ‘artistic differences‘ and ‘from folly cove‘

some afternoon (at tnna, vklive ny, or your lys)

let your mind consider for just a minute that it took

two designers and

a whole lot effort from a supportive yarn company

(run by a team of powerfully creative women)

to take these ideas from possibility to becoming real.

if that doesn’t make you smile,

a big old unexpected in the middle of an average day kind of smile,

in the midst of the dog eat dog kind of world that business tends to be,

i don’t know what will.

‘path’ taken from22:37 of 2nd samuel.