Friday, April 30, 2010

East Coast Tour and NEW design previews!

I'm excited to share my upcoming travel dates to the East Coast during May/June!

Philadelphia Loop May 21-23
I will be at Craig's shop all weekend with my trunk show and classes on Saturday and Sunday.
More details here.

New York City Knitty City May 25-26
Evening class 6-8pm on May 25, trunk show all day with designer talk/sit 'n knit on May 26, 6-8pm.
More details here.

New York City Purl Soho May 27
Trunk show all day, class from 7:15-9:15pm. More details to come.

Salem, MA Seed Stitch Fine Yarn
May 29
Trunk Show all day and class from 2-4pm.
More details here.

Dorchester, MA Stitch House Dorchester May 28
Trunk Show all day and class. More details to come.

Brunswick, ME Purl Diva June 2
Class from 12-2pm and trunk show from 5-8pm
More details here.

I am looking forward to this trip and would appreciate meeting you if you're in any of these areas! Also, I have a few free days
between Boston and Brunswick and will be looking for things to do. I was thinking about taking a little break from the tour to visit the area around Portland, ME. Any other suggestions whether it's in the Boston area, Brunswick or anywhere in between?

Now, I would be happy to finally share with you some sneak peaks at new design prototypes!




And that's just a little taste.

StevenBe, new hat

My most recent knitting expedition was at the Yarn Over event in Minneapolis, MN. Steven Berg from the StevenBe: A Yarn Garage Workshop was kind enough to host me for the weekend and boy does he know how host a fiber-filled weekend! If you haven't been to his shop and are ever remotely close to the twin cities area, you must stop into his new location, which is a converted fire station. It is an eclectic collection of Steven's unique style and really sparked my creativity.


I got to hang out and chat with other knitters for the weekend to live music, wine tasting, and delicious food.


There was so much visual stimulation throughout the weekend with an enormous amount of fiber and creative knitters. I felt like I was petting something every 10 seconds. I also got to sit in on Cookie A. and Lucy Neatby's classes, which were very educational to say the least.

In design news, I finally finished editing a reversible beanie called Skid.


Skid features traveling slipped stitches on a reverse stockinette background, but when turned inside out, it offers a simple striped stockinette option for wear.


I knit the first version about a year ago, but the pattern is now available as a $6 pdf download.


I'm working on another hat pattern at the moment that I hope to release soon as well!

Seattle Recap Part 2

I thought I'd share more about the rest of my Seattle trip.

The main reason for the trip was Cat Bordhi's Visionary Retreat on San Juan Island, which was inspiring to say the least. The location and company couldn't have been any better.

I met a couple of the other men going to the retreat and caught the ferry to San Juan Island.


I could go on that scenic ferry ride every day (lots of good knitting time)! Also, it was the perfect weather for my knits to get some practical use before summer.


We got to stay in cozy cabins while knitting all day and talking about everyone's project ideas. How exhausting, right?


I was thankful for the time to escape for the week amongst other knitters.


I also managed to finish some new design prototypes and snap new photos of the Boneyard Shawl and my new Herbivore.




The week on San Juan Island provided much needed clarity and support for this upcoming pattern collection and I'm excited to continue working on it and seeing the other visionaries' projects develop.

At the tail end of my trip I managed to visit and teach a class at Wild Fibers in Mount Vernon, WA


and spent some quality time with one of the only male knitters in Mount Vernon, Sam. He finally wasn't the only guy knitting in Sarah's shop!


I was lucky to pass by the tulip fields in full bloom near Mount Vernon too!



It was hard to leave the Pacific Northwest, but I'm hoping to go back in the future to see much more of the Seattle area.