PDXKnitterati

Hot new colors for spring

Posted on January 21, 2011 | 11 comments

At least according to Pantone! These are the top 10 colors for women’s fashion this spring, as chosen by NY designers. I learned about these at a mini-session with Vogue Knitting editor Trisha Malcolm at TNNA. She gave us these color cards. (You may get a truer reading if you go to the Pantone website.)

The color of the year is honeysuckle, or Pantone 18-2120. Pretty.

What else did we learn? White is the biggest trend for spring. Plan on seeing lots of it, especially with navy, because navy is the new brown. Remember when brown was the new black? We’re so over that. You’ll also see navy with citrus (green or yellow) and honeysuckle.

Other fashion trends for spring: sheer layers, especially lightweight cowls, scarves, and wraps. Less shape: we’ll be seeing comfortable billowy shapes replacing the refined look of fall 2010. Trisha says that the long sleeveless vest will be the “it” garment, and knitters will make it more interesting with embellishments like lace or cables. Sounds good to me.

Here’s the back of the card with the rest of spring’s trends.

And when you’re done with spring? The color for fall is wine. Trisha says that the good news is that wine is a color that looks good on almost all skin tones.

Do you follow fashion colors? I still mostly knit with blue and purple, because I like them. Wine looks good, too. In fact, this reminds me that I should finish my Heather Hoodie. I set it aside last spring when I realized that it wouldn’t be done before the weather got too warm. I’m cold now, so that’s a great incentive to pick it up again, and I can wear it next fall, too, when it’s the very fashion-forward wine color! (Really, it’s called Bing Cherry, but that’s our little secret.)

Instead of a vest, I’m making this with long sleeves. I’m so glad I wrote good notes before setting this project aside! I picked them up at the shoulder, worked a modified drop shoulder sleeve cap, and am knitting them flat down to the wrist. Yes, I could have done it in the round, but I like my 26 inch circular and didn’t want to have to change to dpns part way down. And I like mattress stitch seaming on stockinette.

One more tidbit from TNNA: The Noro rep told me that Silk Garden Lite is coming back this spring. I’m pretty pleased, because that means that my Infinity scarf is no longer designed with a discontinued yarn. I’m feeling so au courant…

11 Comments

Posted in Knit

Tagged color, heather hoodie, Knit

30 seconds of fame, and a book

Posted on January 19, 2011 | 11 comments

If I’m mentioned in two blogs, isn’t that 15 seconds of fame, twice?

This week Beverly from Yarn Intercept interviewed me for a feature on her blog. Click here to visit Beverly’s blog and find out 10 things about me and my knitting!

And I discovered that my new Yarn Train friend Sandi is a blogger, too. She chronicled our yarn crawl here.

What else is new? Working, working, working, and no daylight pictures. But here’s a book I bought before going to TNNA.

It’s The Knitter’s Guide to Hand-dyed and Variegated Yarn by Lorna Miser. I borrowed a copy from the library, and liked it so much that I had to buy one. I have a prickly relationship with variegated yarn. They’re so pretty in the skein, but they don’t always do what I want or expect them to do when I knit with them. Sometimes you get this:

These are all the same yarn; the only thing that has changed is the length of the row. Crazy, huh? I remember a lovely yarn that I used for a shop sample. I wasn’t anticipating this:

The book first goes through how to predict what might happen based on the length and frequency of color patterns in your yarn. It then gives all sorts of stitch patterns and ways of combining yarns that might mitigate some of the craziness in variegated yarns. There are also patterns for garments that show how this is done, if you don’t want to figure out your own. I’m using some of the ideas in a super secret design project that I’m working on. I’ll show it to you…someday. For now, I’ll keep showing you my new books. There are several more!

Do you like variegated yarns? How do you use them?

11 Comments

Posted in book review, Knit

TNNA inspiration

Posted on January 17, 2011 | 10 comments

Last Saturday and Sunday I walked the floor at TNNA. Lots of yarn and needles and bags and designs and more to see. I don’t have a ton of photos from the floor, because cameras are technically not allowed, but here’s a rainbow from Bergere de France. (I had met Vincent the night before, so wasn’t shy about asking for a photo!)

The Lantern Moon booth was beautiful, as planned, and the butterflies all stayed in their places (hooray).

The Pico Accuardi booth had a woodland theme, complete with its own pixie.

BTW, his sweet hat is a felted creation by Sarah at Attitude Hats.

I took a few mini-session classes. The first was on social networking, led by Erin Slonaker, editor-in-chief of Yarn Market News. One thing that she told us about that I’d never heard of: Pinterest. It’s like bookmarking, but publicly, and it’s very visual. You can make beautiful pages of things that interest you, and share them. Erin talked about things going viral via Pinterest. Go look! Here’s Erin with the YMN cake at Soho Publishing’s Sunday reception. You may know her as the designer of the Leyburn Socks on her Pepperknit blog.

I also took a class on blogging/social media with Benjamin Levisay (CEO) and Kimberly Reynolds (social media director) of XRX, Inc. Their point? Do it! But don’t stress about it. They said that a company should have four things in the social networking world: blog, Facebook, Twitter, and a Ravelry page. We’re getting there…I need more hours in a day.

I had two mini-sessions with Trisha Malcolm, editor of Vogue Knitting. One was on teaching, and one was a color forecast for spring/summer. I’ll tell you about the colors later, when I can take a picture of the color card. So gray here in PDX this weekend, and I haven’t been home during the day.

Lantern Moon had a champagne punch reception to celebrate their 10th anniversary TNNA show.

The team from Soho Publishing brought us a cake!

Jess, Casey, Sarah, and Mary-Heather from Ravelry helped us celebrate.

I love Mary-Heather’s shawl, and I can’t remember what it is. I tried looking at her gallery on Ravelry, but couldn’t find it. Do you recognize it?

Kristin Omdahl (far right) came by to showcase her new book, A Knitting Wrapsody. She had some friends model samples of a few of the designs. They are really lovely. The book comes out next month, and it looks great. Best feature: it comes with a dvd to demonstrate less familiar techniques. What a great idea.

You can see how I was wearing many hats at TNNA last weekend: blogger, LM blogger, designer, LYS teacher! One last cool thing: Unicorn Books had a book signing/giveaway almost every hour. It took me a while to figure that out, so I just ended up with two. I’ll tell you about them later, after I can take a picture or two, and maybe even get a chance to sit down and look at them!

This weekend? The Day Old Pastries played at a MLK Workday and Celebration for the Portland Backpack Lunch Program. It was a fun gig, and that’s another hat for me!

10 Comments

Posted in Blogging, Knit

Tagged TNNA

SEA-PDX yarn train 2011

Posted on January 16, 2011 | 18 comments

We interrupt this TNNA blog-fest with a report on the Seattle to Portland Yarn Train Yarn Crawl.

I started my day at Urban Fiber Arts, Cindy Abernethy’s shop. It was full of happy knitters. Susan Stambaugh of Abstract Fiber was there, and she brought spinning fiber in a new colorway, Urban Joy, in honor of Cindy’s fairly new shop. Gorgeous!

The PDXKnitBloggers/PDXSpinnerati were out in force, too: Karen’s mom, Karen, Judy, Bobbie.

I met Kathee of Kathee Nelson Art Yarns, and she showed me some of her pretty fiber.

I ignored the siren song of the cupcakes at Cupcake Jones (a coupon!) and went over to Knit/Purl next. There were lots of happy knitters there, too. I actually ran into my across the street neighbor who teaches there, too. Hi, Judy! And I saw Jared Flood’s yarn, Shelter, for the first time. The colors were deep and luscious.

After Knit/Purl, I went to Starbucks across the street, and found more PDXKnitBloggers: Camille, Kathy (also a Turkish Delight spindler), Angela, Rachel, Tami. Please note that Tami’s shirt and shawl are raspberry, not pink.

We were discussing where to go next, and talking to the yarnies at the next table, who wanted to know how to get to Yarn Garden. I offered to drive them, and I assured them that I was not an ax murderer. Norma, Sandi and Anna trusted me, and we went to Yarn Garden, where they had a good time.

We also went to Happy Knits, and Twisted, because Sandy wanted to see Blue Moon Fiber Arts yarn, up close and personal. She got her wish! And she definitely got some yarn, too…

OT: Interweave Knits is offering a free download of 7 hat patterns here.

18 Comments

Posted in Blogging, Knit, spinning

Tagged SEA-PDX Yarn Train

More Friday at TNNA

Posted on January 14, 2011 | 7 comments

I went through the pictures on my camera, and realized that I didn’t quite finish Friday. You can see the Lantern Moon part of it over at the Lantern Moon blog. And here’s the rest of *my* Friday story.

After set-up, there’s a frenzy known as Sample It. Vendors can sell special samples at this one hour event. And it goes fast! There was lots of fun stuff to look at. I didn’t buy any yarn. It was close a couple times, but I kept thinking of all the yarn that was waiting for me at home. And you know I don’t stash…much.

Our friends at Pico Accuardi Dyeworks and Knitted Wit were there with Baby O.

And so was Carrie of Irishgirlieknits! She designed the cowl she’s wearing, and you can see it in the poster in the upper left corner, too. She was in the Kollage booth; they were using her pattern to promote their new Recycled Blue Jeans yarn.

Later on Friday evening, there’s a fashion show. Joel introduced the fashion show, wearing the cutest accessory ever. By the end of the evening, Baby O had his own fan club.

Here are a few of the thing that caught my eye in the fashion show.

This is the Birgitta shell, designed by Marly Bird in Lhasa Wilderness by Bijou Basin, a 75/25 Yak/Bamboo blend. Very soft. Bijou Basin Ranch raises yaks to sell premium yak fiber products. I fell in love with their Mahika Beanie kit by Anne Lukito at Sample It, too. And they’re really nice people.

Look at this dress! This is Brompton, designed by Kim Dolce in Universal Sensational. I love the lines and colors of this piece. Doesn’t it look fun to wear?

I think the cardi on the left is Manana by Kim Barnette in Classic Elite Sprout. I think. Simple, with a nice border.

These pieces are from Great Adirondack Yarn Co. They have much more color than I usually wear, but I love how the color highlights the geometric action on these three pieces.

Lantern Moon’s Bali Weekender bag was in the show, too. I really want one of these; it’s even prettier in real life.

And this was my favorite piece in the show. It’s the Warren 2-Way Jacket designed by Irina Poludnenko in Tahki Ripple. This yarn knits up into a really interesting fabric; it’s kind of crisp and kind of stretchy at the same time. It’s thick/thin, and very textural. It must be new, because I don’t see it on the Tahki website yet. The jacket can be worn this way, long, or flipped upside down and the fabric that gave it length becomes a big shawl collar, and the previous collar becomes a short jacket. I saw it at the Tahki Stacy Charles booth, and even tried it on.

I love the little fishtail at the center back.

I’m not sure I like it as much short, but it would really depend on what to wear with it.

And that was Friday. More to come…

7 Comments

Posted in Knit

Tagged TNNA

The yarn train is coming!

Posted on January 14, 2011 | Comments Off

Just a quick note: The STP (Seattle to Portland) yarn train is coming Saturday, January 15. Portland knitters, come meet and greet the Seattle knitters! Check the links on the yarn train page for a brochure and coupons to local yarn shops. Here’s what happened last year.

There will be lots of knitters swarming the local yarn shops, especially the downtown ones that are easily accessible from the train station. Hope to see you around!

And I haven’t forgotten…I’m working on TNNA posts, right now.

Comments Off on The yarn train is coming!

Posted in Knit

Tagged yarn train

Friday TNNA report: The fun begins

Posted on January 12, 2011 | 7 comments

I went to the TNNA trade show with Lantern Moon, and it was busy, fun, mind-blowing…the list goes on. I went wearing four hats: LM blogger, PDXKnitterati blogger, designer, yarn shop teacher. I was inspired in all of these aspects of my fiber life! We went down to Long Beach on Thursday, and landed during a gorgeous sunset.

The Lantern Moonies (10 of us) all stayed in this house across the street from the beach. It was much more congenial than staying in a hotel. And you really get to know your fellow Moonies when they’re also your fellow roomies!

On Friday I helped set up the LM booth.

I visited my friend Lorajean and her baby O. Pico Accuardi Dyeworks was there, and they were also distributing her yarn line, Knitted Wit.

And at the end of the day, it was time to kick back with some knitting!

There were some knitting lessons for two new knitters…more on that later.

7 Comments

Posted in Knit, travel

Tagged TNNA

Almanacs

Posted on January 6, 2011 | 6 comments

I have had a copy of Elizabeth Zimmermann’s Knitter’s Almanac forever. It’s an inexpensive little thing; I think it cost $6.95.

There’s a new commemorative edition, with writings by the Yarn Harlot and, oh, I don’t know who else because I haven’t had a chance to open the book yet! I’m on my way to TNNA with Lantern Moon. I’ll update from there…

Seeya!

6 Comments

Posted in book review, Knit

‘ukulele and more music

Posted on December 30, 2010 | 14 comments

Just to be clear, we did make it back in time for Christmas. It was theTeen’s last appearance as guitarist/liturgist in the Christmas pageant run by the youth. He’s a HS senior, and I’m having empty nest syndrome already…

(incoming flock of angels, just had to share)

But not so much empty nest syndrome that DH and I didn’t abandon him to his own devices for a week so we could play and Christmas shop in Hawaii. DH and I took a ‘ukelele class with this guy one afternoon.

It was easy to pick up a few chords, and as I tell my Pastries, three chords makes a simple song. Since there are only 4 strings, it’s a bit easier than guitar. I can play a barre chord! DH fell in love with the instrument, so I offered to buy him one for Christmas. We shopped here, based on the recommendation of one of my guitar buddies.

Lovely instruments, but we weren’t quite ready to buy.

We went to a show at the Maui Arts and Cultural Center and saw slack-key guitarist George Kahumoku, Jr., and Daniel Ho, who sings, plays piano, ‘ukelele, slack-key guitar, and I don’t know what else. Both of these talented gentlemen have won Grammy awards for their work. Uncle George even let us hold them for a photo op.

When we came home to rainy Portland, it was time to jump right back into Christmas week activities. We finished our uke shopping at Artichoke Music, our favorite local music shop. (We bought our first guitars there many years ago.) There weren’t a lot of ukes in stock (a run on ukes for Christmas, who woulda thunk it?), so we ended up buying a Fluke. Interesting construction, made in USA, big happy sound. It’s very sturdy and DH will be able to take it on his many travels. A winner!

Here’s one knit related thing in this post. Sharon won this vintage learn-to-knit booklet in the white elephant gift exchange at the Lantern Moon holiday party. I love the expression on the knitter’s face.

What’s your favorite knitterly gift this year?

14 Comments

Posted in music, travel

Tagged grammy, ukelele, ukulele

Tempus fugit

Posted on December 30, 2010 | 7 comments

Time flies!

DH and I escaped the pre-Christmas bustle and spent a week on Maui. It was warm, and mostly sunny. Perhaps not the most knitterly weather, but I managed, somehow. Here’s the view with and without knitting.

It was a perfectly relaxing week, which was just what we needed. The guidebooks all say that you should go up Haleakala (the volcano) to see the sunrise. You’d have to leave at 3 a.m. to make this happen, and drive a long winding road. In the dark. We decided that the only way we’d see the sun rise over Haleakala would be from our front porch. The sky was glorious just before sunrise.

And the sun itself wasn’t half bad looking, either.

We did go up Haleakala one afternoon, and it was beautiful in the crater. There are so many colors of sand and rock! We hiked down a bit; coming back up was a lot more work. We started at 9700 ft., but I forgot to check my iPhone altimeter to see how far down we had gone. (Yes, there’s an app for that.)

On the drive back down, the clouds had come in and the sun was shining on the water in a most hazily glorious way. I couldn’t tell where the horizon was because of the clouds. I wasn’t quite sure what I was looking at, because it was so bright, so I just took pictures and hoped for the best.