Indie Emporium - The Debriefing of Day 2

We rearranged the booth on day 2 to be more open and inviting. We wanted people to browse, touch, try on, admire, etc. I think the lights being on helped us as well.There was definitely more space for people to walk around in the booth with two sides open than there was when the booth was a big u.
Dawn entertained people both young and old with her spinning all day. I didn't get to catch her demo, but I did get to watch off and on during the day. He booth was right across from ours, which made it fun and easy to harass each other.
This kid was adorable and the parents were nice enough to let me take a picture.
This kid was adorable too. 99% of the time that Bridgette was holding him he was smiling and giggling, but I couldn't resist posting this pouty picture.

And these adorable children belong to a couple old friends of mine. How cute are they???

Anyway, business was better for me on day 2 and I did make some awesome swaps and buy some awesome stuff. (coming in the next post: The Loot) I saw a lot of people I know come through and it was fun to see people I hadn't seen in a while. The box lunches from Dilly Deli were wonderful and I really hope they do that again next year!!! The camaraderie among the vendors was wonderful and the silent auction seemed to go fairly well.

I did stay for the fashion show, which was a lot of fun. I wish I had thought to take pictures during it. Oh, but I can't forget to mention that before the fashion show Sherri and I had dinner at Mods Crepes and I am in love! I had never been there before but I am definitely going back again! For dinner it was the spicy turkey cranberry and for dessert Nutella and banana. (yes, I ate 2. Wanna make something of it? Actually, that dessert one I took to go and ate later in the evening) There were some designs in the fashion show that I could totally see myself wearing and other things that were so far fetched I couldn't picture anyone wearing it. But that's how fashion shows always go, huh?

I'm very excited about next year. The dates have already been announced - the last weekend in September. If you didn't come out and see us this year, then you definitely have to next year!!!

Indie Emporium - The Debriefing of Day 1

Day one of Indie Emporium was filled with anticipation and fun. We set up our booth and chatted with the other vendors most of the day. We scoped out the wares being put up for sale and planned purchases or swap proposals. See how pretty our booth is? We scattered my hats and cowls amongst the yarn and roving. What we totally didn't think about was a mirror. Doh. But now we know.
We started checking on the line about 5pm. We watched Thom hand a silly duct tape sign for all the world to see.
We found friends in line to chat with. First we found Merin who had donated a pretty purple shawl to the silent auction. Then we found the loons pictured above. Brandi, Claire and Sarah were braving the chill to get one of the much sought after swag bags of awesome.
Bridgette did not like me standing in the middle of the road to take pictures of the line but a) there were no cars coming either direction and b) that was the only way to show the entire length of the line waiting to get in. Waiting to see our awesomeness. How cool is that?
I saw the cupcake girls arrive from alter[egos] (I think thats how they write it). I stalked them all the way to the kitchen. That is my pumpkin spice cupcake pictured above. Yum yum yum.

The crowd was fun and varied. I admit I thought business would be a little more hopping that first night, but next year we will know to bring some lights for our booth and a mirror for the trying on of garments. I like the idea of the party atmosphere that first night, but it is hard to get people to look at things like a black cabled hat or a dark brown cowl in the dark. We did definitely meet great people and lots of cards were taken. If you are one of those awesome people who took a card, I look forward to hearing from you!

Day 2 coming shortly!

INDIE EMPORIUM

Today and tomorrow I will be at Indie Emporium sharing a booth with Farm Girl Fiber, Lowder Colours Farm & Angora Jane. Stop by our booth and enter to win an awesome Knit Kit basket complete with yarn, pattern, stitch markers and more!!! Indie Emporium is 7p-10p today and 11a-5p tomorrow. Don't miss out on the awesomeness, come see us!!!!

Cotton Give Away!!!

There is an awesome give away going on here. So much pretty yarn!

More again!!

Only a few more days until Indie!!!

We ambushed Heather's hubby and got a good pic of the X beanie.

Well, we thought it was good, he wasn't so sure.

Back to Heather and some Cozy Cables.

And the one she totally thought wouldn't look good on her, the Turquoise Slouch. But it really does look good, doesn't it?

I could go on and on about how you just have to come see me at Indie Emporium, but I have to go to work, so go to the website and figure that part out for yourself. It's going to be awesome.

More Heather & SomerKnits

Here we have more from yesterday's fun and silly modeling session.

The lacy turquoise beanie is really cute on most people. Definitely on Heather. I probably should have gotten a shot from the back or the top though to better showcase the lacy part.

We had some modeling help from Molly for one of the beanies. The Simple Lines beanie is warm and generously sized, but not to the point of qualifying as slouchy.

Here is one of the Button Pinch hats. I still love this look on pretty much everyone.

And here is a cotton, rayon & silk pinch hat, which I have not yet found a good button for. Nothing I have really goes with it and I haven't seen one yet that just speaks to me.

Another shot of the Casual Cowl, looped twice this time.

Thanks again, Heather! And there are still more pics to post. :-) Btw, we didn't even get through everything I have AND I have already completed a couple more things since then, so if you want to help me make a record of my stuff by modeling it for me, hit me up.

I know I keep saying this, but I am SUPER excited for next Friday. Absolutely can't wait. The Anticipation is killing me!!! So please come visit Bridgette, Kate, Jane and I at Indie Emporium. There are going to be a whole bunch of amazing local designers and makers there. I really think everyone is going to have an absolutely awesome time.

Back to knitting furiously! This past week has been great for my stock of stuff, hopefully I can keep up the momentum this week!

Modeled

My lovely friend Heather spent part of her morning helping me out. I wanted to document the stuff I've made recently. I want to be able to put pics in a book or on-line and be like, yep, I can make that. And I think it is easier for people to picture themselves wearing things if they have seen it modeled rather than just laying around on my desk, where I take most of my pics. So, without further ado, 5 of the gems we took today:

First up is Inspired. Definitely looks good with a long sleeve T and it could go 2 wraps or 3 if its really cold.

The Button Pinch looks cute on Heather. It makes me wish it was cold enough to wear mine.

The Sampler Style Casual Cowl looks snuggly, but just as the name implies, casual.

Personally, I love this one. The Slipping Away cowl looks great with Heather's brown coat. It adds some color and some warmth up at the neckline.

And then there is the one she liked so much she bought it. The Just Because Cowl. It's super long and the yarn is kind of squishy and snuggly because it is a boucle knit in a very open stitch pattern. As Heather learned it can be wrapped 3 times without actually getting tight up against your neck. I think I might try and whip out another of these before Indie Emporium, in case other people like them as much as Heather did.

More soon, we seriously took a ton. I hope to see everyone at Indie Emporium next Friday and Saturday, where I will have all of this and much more!

Tax Class Day 2

Another exciting day of tax review class yielded not only some new knowledge, but also some new knits.

I call it Inspired. And it really is awesome up close. It's a cowl that can be wrapped at least twice.

Here it is laid out for blocking.

And here's a close up of the stitch pattern.

Next I used a lovely Noro cotton, silk, & rayon blend to make another pinch he. It's super lightweight and so soft to the touch.

And then I cast on and started a giant (at least 3 wrap) cowl in a lovely alpaca blend that I can calling Seeded since the whole thing is in seed stitch. It should be super warm and luxurious when it's done.

The teacher did start using knitting in his examples during the later part of the day. It was pretty funny. He did also say that he teaches all over the country and I am not the first person to knit through his classes. It sounded like its not actually all that uncommon and he mentioned how he understood keeping your hands occupied could allow you to listen better (and stay awake). So there you have my 2 day tax review class. Now I am ready for both tax season and Indie Emporium.

Tax Class - Day 1

3x3

Sampler Cowl Variation

(that's called "I ran out of green yarn and was stuck in tax class...)

Too long to get a good pic of, so I folded it.

And one for me.

I told you that cameo desperately wanted to be on an off white pinch hat.

Need I say more about tax class?

Day 2 tomorrow.

Falling off the wagon

So I know there hasn't been much blogging the last couple weeks. I have wanted to, really. Part of my issue is that I want pictures with most of my posts, so I delay writing about things until I get un-lazy and get the pics off my camera. Or go take the pics for that matter. But also, I've been busy getting ready for Indie Emporium, trying to has as much cool stuff to sell as possible, deciding on pricing, making business cards, tagging everything with care instructions, etc. It's exciting but I'm also a little nervous. I want my stuff to make a good impression. I don't want to over or under price things. I am not trying to be Anthropology, but I am also not trying to be Old Navy (or Walmart). Now, thats as far as pricing goes. As far as cool-factor goes, I would LOVE to be Anthropology. Who wouldn't?

Right now I have 8 hats and 3 cowls and a whole slew of stitch markers. I'd like to finish another cowl and make a few more hats in the time left before the show. I did get a little side tracked after going to War Eagle this past weekend with my mother and grandmother. I found a cameo in an antique store somewhere along the trip back that told me it HAD to be on a cream colored hat. Seriously. I knew I had one skein of cream colored Lorna's Laces in my stash, so I cast on for a pinch hat. I figured that would be pretty fast and then I could get back to my Indie knitting. The Lorna's is a finer gauge than what I normally knit the pinch hats with though, so it's taking a bit longer than they usually do. Perhaps if the weather decides to cool off by Indie then I can wear my new Cameo Pinch hat so people can see how cute they are on.

I haven't forgotten that I promised more on the Journey of 1000 coasters. That is coming soon, I just want to get some pics up with that post. But really, you want to be one of the first 50 people in the door of Indie Emporium friday night. Trust me, you do.

Almost there

I am almost done with my journey of 1000 coasters (or 50 coasters, whatever). Thanks in part to the super wonderful help of the awesome Rori and the excellent Sarah. I have 4 more to go. 4. I made 2 last night. Maybe I can get all of those last 4 done tonight.

And then the possibilities. See, when I am in the middle of something I have to do, I am often struck by many things I want to do. I know this phenomenon is not unique to me. Far from it. But I have been looking at and wondering, gazing and planning during this entire long coaster journey. There are a jillion things on my 'want to do' list, many of them before Indie Emporium. And there are things on my list I want to knit for Christmas and things on my list I want to knit for myself and so on and so forth. But when this happens, when I slog through something on the 'have to do' list, often times I am overwhelmed by the possibilities of what to knit next and there is this moment of freeze where I dig and dig through patterns and paw through yarn and take just about forever trying to decide what to do next, when really I could be doing it.

So, my goal is to make a plan in my head whilst knitting these last 4 little coasters tonight and hopefully by the end of the evening I will have cast on for some awesome non-coaster something. Wish me luck!

thought

If evening bags functioned more like Mary Poppin's carpet bag, it would be easier to fit knitting into them.

The Fair - Just a few days late

So no ribbon for me at the fair this year. I did go ahead and take pictures though.

Here is my Honeymoon Shawl. I thought that they could have done a much better job displaying it than they did. Other shawls were so nicely displayed and mine was just kind of dropped over a bar. A bar wrapped in paper. It might have been better on just the bar itself.
Next up Sara's Starghan. They laid it over a table like a tablecloth. Thats fine because you get to see more of it that you do of the ones folded up. I had high hopes for this one. A friend of mine won first, and her blanket is very pretty, but I looked and looked and looked and never could find a second or third place in the baby afghan category. It's like they decided to only award first and be done with it, which I think is rather rude.
I re-blocked the blanket before taking it to the fair, but probably not well enough. Its been in use since last March, after all, and likely washed many times. At least miss Emagene likes it.
See that blanket on the left there? That's Calista's first place baby afghan and then next to it are two other knit baby afghan entries. There were plenty of crocheted baby afghans around, I forget who took first in that. We did enjoy looking at everything. Sometimes it's all so jumbled though that you can't quite find everything that is supposed to be in the same category, so how are you supposed to tell how they compare? I know the judging is already done, but sometimes we knitters like to form our own opinions, you know?

My friend Kat did very well at the fair this year and we managed to find all of her stuff to take a peek. All in all we had a good time. We go our free ice cream cones from the Dairy Farmers Association and we ate an Indian Taco and Curly Potato and had some super sweet lemonade. The weather was beautiful and perfect for being out and about. We ran into a few friends and one of them even ate the infamous Krispy Kreme Burger (um, gross)!
It was a good day at the fair. Now I need to go ahead and start planning what to enter next year.

All the Goings On

It's been a quiet week for blogging, mostly because there is so much going on, I wasn't sure what to write about. That and not having the time to sit down for more than 10 minutes a day really kills the blogging mojo. So here is a quick and dirty update on all the things swirling around right now.

Today I am going to the Tulsa State Fair to see if I placed with any of my entries. I know there were about a zillion entries into the Adult Accessories Other category for knitting, so I don't hold a lot of hope there. There were many far more complicated shawls than mine that were entered, so I really just hope to see that one displayed. The baby afghan, on the other hand, I really was crossing my fingers on. It's just so cool looking. But I heard that a friend of mine's baby afghan got the blue ribbon, so I am hoping to find red or white or something. If not, there is always next year and maybe I will do better about planning in advance.

Meanwhile in current knitting I am undergoing the journey of 1000 coasters. Ok, so it's not really 1000. It's not even 100. More like 50. But it feels like a zillion. And they have to be done by october 10th. At least I have help from the lovely Rori. :-) To know why all the coaster knitting, you'll have to come to Indie Emporium. Hint: you really want to be one of the first 50 people in the door that Friday night! (I will be glad when they are all done though, I would really like to get back to knitting stock)

Working on a SomerKnits logo. I'm not so good at that part of the process, so help is always welcome.

It has gotten cool here in Oklahoma and it is definitely shawl weather most days right now. I am inspired to pick back up the Everyway Wrap that I started last year as a knit along with the Tulsa Knitters group. I need to check in with everyone else to see if anyone actually finished theirs yet.

Ok, less typing more knitting! ;-)

Sampler Style Casual Cowl Pattern

As promised, the full pattern in one post.

Sampler Style Casual Cowl

You will need:

2 colors of worsted weight yarn, preferably one smooth (color A) and one textured (color B). This is a good stash buster project as it only takes about 200-250 yards of color A and 150 yards of color B

Size 10.5 US 20 inch circular needles

Pattern:

Cast on 100 stitches with color A.

Join in the round taking care that the stitches aren't twisted. Place a marker to indicate the beginning.

Section 1:

Work 6 rounds in k2, p2 rib

Section 2:

Drop color A behind work and start with color B. Knit 1 round

Drop color B behind and pick up color A. Knit 1 round

Continue in this pattern of single row stripes until you have 7 rounds of color B. End with a round of color A.

Section 3:

Cut color B, leaving a long enough tail for weaving in.

Using color A, work in box stitch:

Rounds 1 & 2: k2, p2

Rounds 3 & 4: p2, k2

Work rounds 1-4 twice then rounds 1 & 2 again.

Section 4:

Round 1: Drop color A behind work and pick up color B again. In color B, (k1, sl1) around

Round 2: Knit

Round 3: Drop color B behind work and pick up color A. In color A (sl1, k1) around

Round 4: Knit

Work all 4 rounds a total of 3 times then work rounds 1 & 2 again.

Section 5:

Cut color B, leaving a long enough tail to weave in. You are done with color B.

Pick up color A.

Pattern stitch: (k3, p3)

Work 6 rounds of pattern stitch without regard for where the ending marker is. After 6 rounds, bind off all stitches loosely and weave in ends.

Block lightly if desired.