Designing Knitwear with Kat

Only have a second....getting ready for Stitches Midwest!

Check this out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhWvv4J2cOc 

Sneak Peak of Socks a la Carte

We just returned from TNNA and boy are we tired! It was a fun show and it was great to see so many of the shop owners in person that I talk to on the phone. My proudest moment of the show was seeing the cover of our new book. A few details have to be perfected (like my name being on the cover), but it was still very exciting to see! The book is being pre-sold on Amazon.com for now and you can check it out by clicking the picture here:

Free Pattern - Spring Lace Scarf

Hi everyone! Vickie just sent me a link to this fabulous lace scarf designed in Craft by Melinda Morrow.

It's a free pattern for 2 weeks, so grab it while you can!

 

Behold Therapi! As promised!

Jonelle finished up the Therapi swatch pictures today so I created a preliminary page with the colors we had available. Click here to check it out. This yarn is soooo gorgeous!

I Love Mondays

For those of you that don't know, I'm still attending ASU and have a full course load. Well, one of my classes is Geography of Europe (yes, this is one of those super easy classes that I'm taking to keep my sanity enrich my knowledge of other countries and cultures.) This class is an online class and every Monday I have to take a lecture quiz. I have all week to watch the 11 lectures, but of course, I wait til the last minute every week, and I totally love it. Here is why:

For the 5 hours or so that I sit at Hayden Library listening to lectures, I get to knit my little heart out. Since it's a little unusual for someone to be knitting at our library (trust me - I've been going to ASU for 4 years and I've never seen anyone else doing it.) Pretty much everyone that walks by me looks at me as though I've got a huge pair on ateliers on top of my head. No one bothers me. It's fabulous.

What you see sitting on top of my laptop is the beginnings of a very soft Therapi scarf. I'll be posting the pattern in Ravelry soonish. Jonelle finished preparing images of about the first 20 Therapi colors so I'll get a page up tomorrow with those beauts on it.  I think I have a new favorite yarn....well, at least until more Saphira arrives. Wait til I show you what that's all about! :D

Addendum

I just realized that I hadn't mentioned a single thing related to knitting in my last post. This poses a problem because a blog about knitting should be about.....um.....knitting!

I actually did manage some positive knitting on this trip. Which is great because usually when I travel I end up ripping out way more than I've knit. I started a pair of mittens in Therapi (50% fine wool, 20% silk, and 30% Bowlder, a crushed jadeite-based fiber). I don't have a page posted at soysilk.com yet because we still haven't received all of the samples. However, this yarn is ridiculously soft and I'm definitely going to need to knit a lot more somethings! I'll post some pictures of the mittens when one is completed and the other is on the needles.

Also, I'm glad that I posted my previous post sans-yarn anyway because my cousin, Megan, found my blog. Then I found hers. She just graduated from UC Berkeley and has apparently become quite the knitter herself. I couldn't be more proud, though I'll definitely have to hook her up with some of SWTC's finest!
 

Trip to California

Jonelle and I started our "working vacation" in California with the Shopatron Client Conference held in San Luis Obispo, CA.

Here is a picture of the plane we took to get to San Luis Obispo. Jonelle is not a fan of small planes (even regional jets) and she referred to this one as our "paper airplane to SLO." 

The ride was a bit bumpy, but not bad (even if we did have to sit next to the potty.)

The Shopatron Client Conference was great. Jonelle and I both attended separate classes and during the 5 minutes we had between each, we’d race to the other room to compare notes as quickly as possible, grab some coffee, and then back to our respective rooms. We both learned a ton and walked away with several “pages” of notes (we both have tablet PCs that we take notes on. My laptop is probably the one thing I couldn’t live without…next to yarn.)

Cheryl and Tina from Cherry Tree Yarns also attended the conference, so during the general sessions and breaks, Jonelle and I had great company to knit with. We didn’t remember to have a picture taken with all of us. You wouldn’t need to know what we actually look like to pick us out of the crowd though. We were the ones in the back of the room happily knitting away while listening to the various presentations.

The folks at Shopatron were great hosts and took the entire conference to a restaurant in downtown San Luis Obpiso called Novo. I took this picture from the patio that we had dinner on The weather, food, and company was great.  The picture really does it no justice. It was absolutely perfect outside!

After the conference was over, Jonelle and I headed to the airport to pick up our rental car so we could drive up to Napa to spend the rest of the weekend at Johnnie and Jonette's house. We had decided to drive up the Pacific Coast Highway......bad idea. Here are a few reasons why:

-  The Hearse(t) - When I made the car reservations, I was informed that we would be getting a Mazda 6 or "similar mid-size car." Well, as we were walking across the rental car lot, we passed by Mustangs, Seabrings, and other neato cars. When we got to the stall they said our car was in, our mouths dropped. We'd be cruising around California in what resembles a hearse!!! (No offense for any of you who may drive this model of car, but it was not what we were expecting.)

 

- The Drive - This sounded like a fabulous idea. After all, the weather was in the mid-80s and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. Once we got to the point where we were driving along side the ocean, we saw a spot where we could pull off to look at the elephant seals. Here they are:

 

 

Jonelle called her girls to tell them to look for a picture of the seals from me since I had taken some with my phone. (Free plug here - I LOVE my iPhone. If i could take one item with me to a desert island, it would be my iPhone. My iPhone is better than any man - it doesn't sass and it always does what I tell it to.) All her youngest heard was that we went to the beach without her. (Don't worry though - Jonelle brought excellent surprises to her girls and they aren't mad anymore.)

I'm not sure if many of you are aware, but the PCH is a long, windy, twisty road that once on you can't get off. I managed to get car sick and lose my lunch around Big Sur. Not fun. We did manage to get on a regular highway near Monterey.

By this time, we were several hours behind and just wanted to get to Napa. So we were on this regular highway and traffic was a little icky since it was about 5PM on a Friday afternoon. As we were approaching San Fransisco, the highway sort of splits and one part heads off toward San Fransisco and the other toward Berkeley. Jonelle is driving and announces that we need to head toward Berkeley. "OK!" I say as Jonelle's arms involuntarily jerk the car toward San Fransisco. She immediately realized her mistake and we both uttered a stream of words not fitting of any lady.  We pop over the top of this hill and see:

All we could see were brake lights for MILES from cars waiting to pay the toll and then make it across this bridge into SF. There was no where to turn around....we were stuck.

Finally, around 9PM, we get to Johnnie and Jonette's house. The rest of the weekend was fabulous. Napa is beautiful and the Becks' home is fantastic. You definitely need to read Jonelle's blog about the time she spent with her nephew. The pictures are hilarious.

P.S. If you ever get a chance to walk around downtown San Luis Obispo, you have to stop by two places.
The Sock Drawer - where they sell ONLY socks (I know, I know, knitting them is *way* better but this store is pretty neat too.)

And Bubblegum Alley. Here is a really awful pic of me making my contribution to such a historical site. Call me nerdy, but it was a huge rush. I've never stuck my gum anywhere but the trash can and it felt so.....illegal.....to stick it on a wall in public!

Never a dull day at SWTC

Yesterday, Jonelle and I had intended to wrap up the last minute details for the book we've been working on.  Well, that's certainly not how the day worked out. We got totally slammed with orders (not that I'm complaining!) so we spent a huge chunk of our time in the warehouse picking, packing, and shipping.

When we finally got a chance to break for lunch, I grabbed my stuff and headed for my car. But ss soon as I could open the front door, Harold whooshed by me so he could go outside. That big galoot headed for the shade and plopped down. Well, I didn't think it'd be a great idea to leave a massive dog outside by himself since he looks scary (Don't be fooled, he's a big baby.) so I tried my darnedest to get him back inside.

After about 5 minutes of trying to convince him to come back inside with me, I took a step back to analyze the situation.
110 lbs of stubborn dog vs. 130 lbs of famished girl = this dog is going nowhere

This is Harold looking at me, as if to say, "Sorry, but no. I'm not moving. Sorry."

I love my job :-D

Knit One, Purl One.....Slide One?

Yesterday I spent the whole glorious 90 degree day poolside with the Raffino family. Jonelle packed a *huge* bag of our new yarns for us to wind into balls, knit swatches, and dream up design ideas. We'll have more details and pictures of the new yarns soon, so sit tight! You won't want to miss these babies!

You can see here how hard we were working!

The kids had a blast going down the "fast slide" and all three of them double-dog-dared Jonelle and me to go down the fast slide. So we put down our knitting and showed those kids how it's done! It was really fun too til you get to the pool at the bottom. The water was freezing!

I think we were probably asked about dozen times what we were knitting. This one lady sat down with us and chatted for a few minutes about how she grew up in Canada with a ton of sheep and how she and her siblings used to spend their nights carding wool. Lucky! I think I spent most of my childhood nights either reading or playing on my original Nintendo.

Since today is Monday, we have a ton of weekend catching up to do so I'm off to take some of the pressure off my inbox. Happy knitting!

This is what happens when I leave two Raffinos in the building alone for too long.....

Click here to read how Joe and Jonelle tried to blow up the building.

I hadn't even been gone for half an hour! Sheesh!