New yarn!

It feels like forever since I bought yarn (in reality it’s been a few months . . .) so this new stash is super exciting! I was at Knitty City today dropping off more Koigu kits and finally bought the Madelinetosh I’d been eyeing during my last few trips.

What you see above is 5 skeins of Madelinetosh Tosh Sport in the color Graphite, which is this wild gray with a green tone (the photo doesn’t do it justice AT ALL). I know just what I’m going to knit with it, too, a pullover with a subtle Henley neckline and cables. I even already did the sketch!

I’m not allowed to cast on even for the swatch though because I still have to finish the secret project, which needs to be mailed out on Monday at the latest . . . so I guess this gorgeous yarn is sort of like a carrot to get me to knit faster! Here’s hoping it works ;o)

I know what I’m working on this weekend. What will you be knitting?

Minis are in the mail!

Yet again, it’s been a crazy week. Last week was a highly-injurious (is that a word?) one, too, complete with a pretty bad burn on my hand, cracking my head against a table, and literally slicing a piece of my index finger off with a rotary cutter . . . here’s hoping this week will bring fewer ouchies.

In any case, all the club packages went out in the mail yesterday and I’m so excited to hear what you all think when your shipments arrive! I cannot tell you how adorable all those Koigu minis were to have around the living room as I was working on making them and packaging them up  . . . I almost didn’t want to send them away!

Those of you in the US should be receiving your packages by the end of the week, and international members will hopefully have yours next week. I’m working on a small project using this month’s minis (hint: it’s crochet! and it involves sewing!) and will have it as a free pattern for you guys soon, but will wait to reveal it until after the packages have mostly arrived to preserve the surprise of what colors are in this shipment.

As for everything else I was behind on last week, well, I’m still behind. I asked for and was granted an extension on my pattern for the magazine, so was able to meet the club deadline, but now it’s back to cranking on that project non-stop until I can pop it in the mail to them. I’ve also been working on Quiltfolio and will be starting a Kickstarter to raise money for it (so that I can hire someone to help me get it launched faster!), and have made and delivered a ton of new kits to Knitty City  . . . basically, it’s non-stop over here. All the time.

Oh and I think I mentioned that all my yarn inventory now lives in a storage space? I thought you guys would get a kick out of seeing what it looks like when you open the door to the 9-square-foot unit:

It’s pretty much all yarn, plus some quilting fabric and batting . . . when I ship out an order, I go to the storage space, pull out the stuff for the order, then sit in the aisle packing it up to drop in the mail! So far this system is working out pretty well, and it means the apartment is way less crowded than the old one was. I do miss having all that wonderful color around me all the time, though . . .

 

SWAMPED

It’s amazing how losing a week to moving has made me fall so behind on everything. As of Monday I’m done moving things back and forth and now have a storage space literally full of yarn and fabric to visit every few days (will take a picture to show you later today). I miss my stash but it’s also really nice to be able to have some visual space at home! My old apartment pretty much looked like a hoarder’s . . .

Right now I have a few pressing deadlines I have to meet and it’s stressing me out. The first one I absolutely cannot blow is for a design that got accepted into a major knit publication (can’t tell you which one yet) and is due in about a week. I need to get it done and in the mail ASAP, so absolutely all “free” time will be devoted to this project and the sewing machine will stay put away so I don’t have that distraction. But I know I can’t knit for that many hours without injuring my hands, so I’m also working on the club.

There are so many steps to plan and coordinate to do a club!

Introducing my new baby: Quiltfolio.com!

You know me, I can never work on just one thing at a time . . . well for the last two weeks or so I’ve been hard at work coding up a brand new website from scratch and I’m super excited! The site is called Quiltfolio and it is a lot like Ravelry(tm), but for quilters.

As I have been learning more about quilting I’ve often wished there was a place like this for me to easily see what others have done with a pattern or technique, or to simply find other quilters . . . Flickr is helpful if you know of a group you can browse through, but that’s about all I’ve found so far to fill this need. Since I didn’t find such a place, I decided to make it myself!

If you’d like to be one of the first people to receive an invite when I’m ready for you, please head on over to the Quiltfolio site and sign up your email address for that mailing list. I’m aiming to launch by the end of May!

And if you’d like to keep up with what I’m doing over there, I’ve started a Quiltfolio blog to document the process of building the site as well as write about my quilts. I’ll be covering the knitting here and the quilting there from now on! Oh and I also have a Quiltfolio Facebook page and Quiltfolio Twitter account if either of those is your preferred method of getting updates.

Oh and one more thing: if you’re a Rails programmer or a web designer and you want to contribute to Quiltfolio, please email me! I could definitely use some help from other passionate quilters who’re also computer nerds like me ;o)

Even more practical sewing!

First off, thank you to everyone who signed up for the Koigu Mini-Skeins Club! There are still a few spots left if you still want in!

I’ve definitely been bitten by the fabric bug! Every shift at the store seems to yield yet another project I just can’t wait to work on . . . here’s what I made over the last few days:

First up, a laptop case for my Air, which was getting all scratched from being dragged around everywhere (which is totally the point of getting such a thin and light laptop!). I didn’t use a pattern, just sort of thought about what I wanted and planned it out, and went from there. It turned out pretty much how I wanted!

Signups are open!

To join the clubs, click here and choose your shipping option. Slots are filling up fast so don’t wait if you think you might want to join!

Introducing the first-ever Chiagu club: Koigu minis!

I’ve been hard at work planning for my first-ever club, and it’s now ready to be announced! The Chiagu Koigu Mini-Skeins Club starts shipping next month, and signups open tomorrow, April 19th.

Basic club details:

Receive 6 mini-skeins of Koigu KPPPM in your mailbox automatically each month!

Each skein is approx 25 yards, so 6 skeins is almost as much yarn as one full skein of Koigu . . . but 6 times more fun!

The club is a monthly, with payments automatically through PayPal each month. So you can cancel anytime! And yes, international customers are welcome.

That’s the basic premise of the club, and all the details are in the club FAQ page, please check it out!

I’m so excited to hear what you think of my first club!

UPDATE:

Sign up for the Koigu Mini Skeins Club here!