Sunday, April 21, 2013

Stop in the Name of Love

 
 
I reached my goal, 500 sales on Ravelry before my one year anniversary of my Adirondack pattern. 504 to be exact.
 
 
 
My latest design, however, has not been for my own internet sites. I have a new design for The Yarn Company in NYC. It will be an exclusive design to them and they will sell it in a kit with the yarn. I posted my progress on Facebook and The Yarn Company will feature it in their next newsletter.
 
I started with Lorna's Laces Solemate in the Stoplight colorway, exclusive to the shop.

I had just one skein to work with. I knew it would be some kind of neck piece.  It wasn't really enough yarn for a shawl. I didn't really want a cowl.

I figured I would probably need some buttons so I checked out my glass vintage buttons. I decided on the gold translucent buttons.


It became a collar, I guess you could call it a cowl with buttons.
The pattern is called, Stop in the Name of Love. 


 
The leftover yarn became wristlets.






 

Saturday, April 13, 2013

Ravelry Love

 
If you do not know what Ravelry is, stop right now, do not pass go, do not collect $200, go check it out here. Of course, if you are not a knitter, don't bother.
Some people say it is like Facebook for knitters, but it is so much better. Most people use Ravelry as a reference, to find patterns they might like to make, check out yarns, chat with others in the forums or to organize their own projects and library.
I use Ravelry primarily to sell patterns, lucky for me most people use Ravelry to buy patterns. I noticed that as I was approaching the 1 year anniversary of my Adirondack pattern on Ravelry, I have almost 500 sales! I'm hoping to make that by April 20.
My shawl page above has the pattern for sale and it will take you to my Ravelry store, just in case you are interested.
 
 
Original Adirondack made with Madelinetosh Vintage.

Adirondack adpated to sock weight yarn.

Speaking of blogs, that is the other thing I use Ravelry for. I know a lot of people find blogs cumbersome to follow, either using an RSS feed or adding it to your email which is sometimes an option, but who wants more email?
I simply friend anyone who has a blog I would like to follow, yes you can have friends on Ravelry, but you can friend anyone you like and they cannot ignore you or take their time trying to decide whether to accept your request or not or unfriend you. (Not that I have any experience of that on Facebook or would ever do that to anyone.)
After you set up your personal page and friend all of the people whose blogs you want to follow, like The Yarn Harlot, Sarahmontie or Franklin Habit (yes, they do not have the option to not accept you as a friend), you can simply click on your friends list and you will have some choices. You can just admire your list of friends, or you can check out the activity of your friends, like their posing of their projects, or you can see the list of friends' blogs. They are all in one place for you, of course this only works if they are on Ravelry; it may not work for Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, unless they are knitters.

 




Monday, April 8, 2013

INC 8 EOR, Red, Ribbon, Alpaca

This is what I wanted to name my "art" pieces. My sister convinced me to go with, In The Round, Red; In The Round, Ribbon, and In The Round' Alpaca.  I know no one would understand the title I wanted to use but that was OK with me, I even thought it was a little cool, but logic won out.

The opening of the Ocean County Artists' Guild Fiber Art Invitational was yesterday and I have to say there was a lot of energy all afternoon. Having nine different artists each with their own interpretation of fiber art gave the show a very diverse feel.

In my last post I gave a little background about the pieces and their progress. In this post I give you the finished product.

I went with my pieces and an open mind to the Guild the Wednesday before the show. The curator of the show wisely had the idea to hang the pieces separately. I was thinking I might use dowels to hang them, but I didn't have any with me. Friends ran home to gather up dowels and we played. Each one seemed to fall into place differently.




The red one hung by itself on the wall, with the top quarters draping down and creating a tent like look.
The alpaca one was above a small table and reminded us of a spider web when it was spread out like a full circle. On the table I had a slide show running of the vests being modeled.
The ribbon one hung high above the antique fireplace and mantle showing the full drape of the ribbon yarn and making quite an impact when people entered the room. On the mantle I placed 8 by 10 photos of each one being worn as vests.

I would show the alpaca and ribbon vests displayed at the show in addition to the red one, but I am having technical difficulties and cannot figure out how to keep the photos from coming out sideways! (My son and husband have weighed in on this problem and we're still working on it. Basically I have a love/hate relationship with my computer.) I am definitely a better knitter than I am a techie.




The curator of the show, Francine, in front of a collaborative piece between two artists.

The Guild was busy all afternoon.
I didn't have permission to publish anyone else's work, so you will have to go to the Show to see the rest, check out the Guild's website for more details.

Here are the three vests being worn, wearable art.




Have you knitted anything that you would consider a piece of art?