Yarn – Page 3 – Mamas2Hands

Jan and Andee’s Yarn Retreat Adventure

March 22, 2015March 22, 2015Celebrating, NatCroMo, Yarn, Yarnie Friends7 Comments

The last weekend of Jan’s Colorado visit was the Longmont Yarn Shop Spring Renewal Retreat. This was the event that we had actually planned Jan’s whole visit around. This was my first yarn themed retreat and I was really looking forward to some relaxing with yarn and fiber loving friends. People who understand when you say, “I have to pet this yarn.” or “The yarn was calling to me.”

Jan and I were also excited about getting some nice walks in. Jan wears a pedometer and is always good about getting me to go for walks when we get together. I got a pedometer too, in preparation for her visit, and am getting into the habit of paying attention to the number of steps I do each day. 10,000 minimum is the goal.

Friday, March 13th we loaded up the car and were on our way by 9:30 that morning. We had decided, since the retreat was in Loveland, we would make a trip a bit further north and stop by the Lambspun yarn shop in Ft. Collins.

We ate our lunch outside on the patio and were seated beside this fountain.

There is a wonderful little restaurant that shares the building with the yarn shop. We had our lunch there, then spent a lovely couple of hours exploring the shop and seeing if there was any yarn we needed to adopt.

Sweet little birdhouse in the gardens next to the restaurant patio.

Jan was actually shopping for yarn in large amounts for a couple of projects on her “to-do” list. She doesn’t have easy access to any yarn shops near her home. Partly because she works some long hours at her day job and can’t really drive at night. She was having a great time exploring the options, and we had fun searching for the perfect yarn.

For some reason we both kept being attracted to linen yarns. Blends and 100% linen. I got the 2 different yarns above to experiment with and Jan purchased some other yarn that was an interesting blend of linen and rayon. I was trying to be good about not purchasing yarn that I wouldn’t have time to work with this year.

Shirley, the shop owner, was working on a felting project using a blending board that really piqued my interest. I considered purchasing my own blending board but the price was a little out of the budget for this trip. I may put it on my list for Christmas this year as I think I would have a great time playing with it.

Finally we tore ourselves away and headed off to the Sunrise Ranch for our retreat.

I use the GPS on my phone thru Google Maps to navigate when traveling. There was an update not too long ago and the voice is now very robot like. Jan and I had been calling my GPS gal, Gina, last summer when we did our road-trip to Chain-Link. We decided Gina now sounds like she has become assimilated by the Borg (from Star Trek Next Generation). Fortunately, Borg Gina directed us to the ranch without any problems.

The Sunrise Ranch is nestled in a beautiful valley with a lake to the south, gorgeous colorful red bluffs to the east and lots of wonderful options for hiking. We got checked in and did a little exploring and a short walk before dinner that evening.

SR First night goodies — The goodie bag and my yarn from the evening.

After dinner was the welcome meeting followed by a White Elephant yarn exchange. At the welcome meeting Gail and Jane from LYS distributed “goodie” bags with a water bottle, a bumper sticker, a needle/hook inventory card (that has our shop dog “Kit” on it), and a little felt zipper bag.

The bags were identified with our name tags for the retreat and most everyone made yarn “necklaces” to wear their name tag on. Jan and I took photos of ours.

The other event for the evening was a White Elephant yarn exchange. I’d never participated in one before and it was great fun. My ribs were tender from laughing so hard. I ended up with some Yak yarn that I’d never seen before, so that will be fun to play with.

Saturday, March 14th was the first full day of the retreat and it was Pi-Day! That morning started bright and early with a yummy breakfast. Then Jan and I decided to go for a walk. My fellow teacher from the shop, Gretchen Hofer (whom I took my lace knitting class with), joined us.

It was a beautiful morning and we all took lots of photographs. The one above was my favorite shot of the lake, it was so calm the water looked like a mirror.

Since it was Pi-day I was wearing my new T-shirt, Gretchen made sure we got a photo of me at 9:26 a.m. This Pi-day was extra special because the date allowed for more of the decimal places to be included. Normally for simple geometries you just use the first 2 places after the decimal: 3.14. There are of course many more decimal places to be expressed in Pi.

We all had fun on the walk, saw a pheasant take flight and even spotted a snake trail in the frost (though fortunately didn’t meet the snake). By the time we had returned to our room I had gotten my 10,000 steps in for the day already.

After lunch, everyone got together for Show and Tell. I brought my finished lace scarflette to show, as well as a cloche hat that I have been experimenting with. It was wonderful to see all the projects the other attendees brought to show and to hear the stories behind them.

After dinner that evening we all gathered in the big Living Room area of the main building (called the Pavillion). Everyone had various projects they were working on, so folks had even brought their spinning wheels and looms.

Gail was working on a very interesting weaving piece that would be felted after she finished the weaving. It had big open spaces in it. It came out really neat. I may have to drag out my Cricket loom and give it a try.

Sunday, March 15th I was very excited because the morning activity was Needle felting and trying out the Zoom Looms.

For the needle felting we were using the little felt bags that were in our goodie bags from the shop. Jan wasn’t going to the morning activity so she gave me her little felt bag to play with. I decided I would make a design on it and give it back to her.

It had been awhile since I had done any needle felting. I had forgotten how much I love playing with fiber this way. Gail and Jane had provided a wide assortment of yarns and roving in a variety of colors, so it was almost like painting.

I was also excited to try out the Zoom Looms. These are pin looms and I hadn’t ever worked with one before. I had seen them all over the place at TNNA a year ago and had wanted to play with one. So this was my chance. I really liked how quick it was to weave my little square. I’d been good about not getting a blending board, so I decided that I would be purchasing a Zoom Loom before the weekend was over.

My goodies purchased from the Vendor sale.

After lunch was the Vendor sale. I purchased a Zoom Loom, some lovely handspun from our LYS spinning teacher, cute project bag and a beautiful shawl “stick”. Once Jan and I had finished our retail therapy we went for a photo walk near the Pavilion building.

We had both wanted to get a photo of the sculpture pond and when we got over there we spotted a brick labyrinth path in the lawn just past it.

We decided to walk the labyrinth and then finished our photography. It was an unusually hot day for March, somewhere in the mid-80s, so we decided we would save our big walk for the evening once it had cooled off a little.

Jan, Gretchen and I went for our walk after dinner. We got some good photos of the valley and saw a wonderful noisy little creek while on the walk. Afterward we hung out in the Living Room visiting and playing with yarn for a little while, but we were both pretty tired so headed to our room.

Monday, March 16th was the last morning at the retreat. We got ourselves packed up and loaded the car right after breakfast. Our usual group went out for one last hike around the ranch. Then snuck in a little time crocheting and visiting with the other retreat attendees before it was time to leave.

Pretty little mosaic at entry way near pond.

Jan and I decided we had enjoyed having someone else plan and prepare meals, as well as doing the dishes, that we would make our re-entry to “real” life gentler by having lunch in Loveland at PF Changs. Borg Gina got us to the restaurant fine, but we had a little argument with her when it was time to drive back to Boulder.

Fortunately I knew most of the way I wanted to take and we headed home via the scenic route. When we got to Longmont we decided to go back up the mountain via the road thru Lyons, another town I haven’t been to since the flood. There were signs of the damage from the flood, but the canyon was still beautiful and Jan really enjoyed the drive.

Once we hauled all the stuff up from the car at the house, we ran a couple loads of laundry and played with our yarn and goodies from the retreat. We also started talking about what we would do for our “visit” trip next year.

Funny thing about the retreat weekend. I spent most of my crocheting time working on a very large experiment swatch. Unfortunately, after we got back home, I realized I really wasn’t happy with how it was working out. So I spent most of the evening unraveling the swatch and winding up the yarn. Such is the life of a designer.

Jan is Here!

March 8, 2015Celebrating, Crochet, Humor, Yarn1 Comment

What better way to celebrate National Crochet Month than having one of my best crochet buddies here visiting for 2 weeks! We are going to have such a great time. Jan’s flight got in Friday just before noon and we had some fun playing in Boulder before heading back to my mountain home.

We had lunch at Mad Greens and then our desert was some yummy french fries from 5 Guys, our favorite. We decided we’d better walk off those fries, so we headed across Boulder to visit Shuttles Spindles and Skeins yarn store. We did our walk while moseying around the store, petting yarn and drooling over buttons.

Jan's Yarn and Buttons — Jan’s Yarn and Buttons

A few buttons decided that they needed to go home with Jan. There was also some Southwest Trading yarn she couldn’t resist.

I had to adopt some buttons too, and a lovely ball of Berocco Mixer.

Saturday I taught at the Longmont Yarn Shoppe and Jan joined me there as one of my students. She has been wanting to take my Perfect Fit Crocheted Hat class for ages, so the timing of her trip worked out perfectly for her to get to be one of my students this weekend.

Both of us are keeping track of our daily steps, so we decided to get a walk in at one of the Longmont parks beforehand. Since it is very muddy and slushy up here on the mountain, not to mention a tad colder than down in the plains. Our first choice of a park was busy with a special event so we headed across town and ended up at Lefthand Creek Park.

There is a nice paved path around the park, as we explored we discovered that there were art installations all along the way.

The first sculpture we met were these “interesting” ants, they sort of freaked us out.

We really liked this snake. The tile work was amazing and the sculpture is actually functional as the head of the snake is a drinking fountain. We didn’t try it to see if it worked though.

We turned around a headed back to the car after we reached these wonderful Dr. Seussian looking “trees”. We decided we would have to go down again and attempt to do the entire path to see all the other artwork.

After a quick stop at the grocery store for a few items, we headed on over to the yarn shop for some pre-class shopping and I set-up for my class. Students get a discount at the shop the day of their class, so of course Jan needed more yarn.

She obtained two lovely hanks of Raven Ridge Hand-Painted Yarn’s “Alight” 50% Merino, 50% Silk. The color is outside her usual palette, but is really gorgeous.

Then she needed to adopt a ball of the luscious Berroco Boboli Lace.

Alens have landed at LYS. — Aliens have landed at LYS.

During the class Jan and one other student finished their class project very quickly. I had the students practice measuring and making hats to fit “heads” which were whiffle balls. Jan and I decided the holes in the balls actually make these look like they are little faces. Next time I teach this though I think I need to use “egg” shapes. Fortunately with Easter right around the corner I should be able to find some that will be just the right size.

Next weekend is the Longmont Yarn Shoppe’s annual retreat. We are going to be hanging out with other yarn enthusiasts and eating great food at the Sunrise Ranch in Loveland, Colorado. It’s a long weekend, Friday thru Monday, a nice amount of time away from my boys and family responsibilities. So I’ll likely be posting after we return on the following Tuesday.

Where’s Andee?

February 7, 2015Crochet, Hooks, Latest News, Product Reviews, YarnLeave a Comment

Hey there, yes the blog has been very quiet.

Mainly because I have been very busy with lots of challenges and changes in my business. I’m working on implementing some new ways I publish my designs and expanding how and where I teach crochet and healthy crafting.

One of those changes may be moving my blog to a more customized website, the learning curve for that has been a bit more extensive than originally expected. I have every confidence in accomplishing it, just takes more time than I have easily to hand.

Meanwhile, here is some eye-candy for you yarnie ones. The following are few of the wonderful goodies I acquired at the TNNA Winter Trade Show in Phoenix the second weekend of January. Was a perfect time to travel south as the weather in Colorado and on my mountain was very cold and snowy. Spending a couple of days in warm and mostly sunny Phoenix was a nice change. Brutal returning to snow, ice and freezing temperatures when I came back though.

This was an exciting new product that I first saw being used by another attendee. The “Yarnit” is just too darn cool. Completely protects your ball of yarn and travels along with you easily. You can learn more about their products and where you can purchase them at their website.

I’m really enjoying these new larger sizes of the Clover Amour hooks. They come in a range of sizes. K-6.5mm, then 7mm, 8mm, 9mm and 10mm size. The handles are shaped just like the Amour Yarn hooks, but the material is different. The hook part is a wonderfully smooth hard plastic with the handle a slightly softer plastic.

The best thing about these larger hooks are they have a decent length of shaft above the handle. This is really key if you want to crochet any stitches taller than a single crochet. Most of the larger sizes of hooks with handles on the market sacrifice shaft length to accommodate the handles.

The yarn above is from ElementalAffects and I’m going to be doing some exciting things using their yarns this coming year. The 2 hanks I brought home with me are both Fingering weight, the Cormo is 100% Cormo wool and has a lovely tight twist that gives marvelous stitch definition; the Civility is 70% Merino wool with 30% Mulberry silk so very soft with luxurious drape.

I only got a little bit of yarn during this show. Monday is usually the day at the show that I get samples of yarn, but our time on the floor was cut short when the fire alarm went off around noon. Then it was time to catch the shuttle to the airport and head back home.

Since my return I have been finishing a slew of patterns that will be self-published on Ravelry over the next couple of months. Currently they are out for final testing and technical editing. I’ll let you know as they become available.

Where I am now? Learning new stuff and creating new products for other crocheters and crafters. I’ll be back soon, I promise.

Shopping at the Show

August 19, 2014September 14, 2014Chain Link, YarnLeave a Comment

Something I always enjoy at the conference is doing a little shopping (okay, maybe I should say a Lot). Though it can result in an interesting challenge for packing my suitcases to fly home. This year my time at the conference was book-ended with shopping.

Jan and I had decided, since we were driving up to Manchester from her home in New Jersey, we should figure out a way to go visit WEBS during our trip. Usually Wednesday is Professional Development Day, this year there were other events happening, but we decided to spend our Wednesday at WEBS.

If you’ve never heard of WEBS, you can check out their website at www.yarn.com. They have great yarns and wonderful sales on yarns, as well as a fabulous selection of tools.

Jan’s GPS took us on a interesting route to get there, but eventually we did make to our destination. I was having so much fun I didn’t really get much in the way of photos. We ate our lunch at a little picnic area that was across the parking lot from the store.

I exercised a bit of self-control shopping at WEBS because I knew that there would be lots of shopping to explore at the show as well. I did manage to find a few things I couldn’t live without. Some yarn, knitting needles, crochet hooks and point protectors for knitting needles.

Jan was very focused on getting yarn for particular projects she wanted to tackle and of course she added to her crochet hook collection.

Thursday evening was the market preview and I purchased a few things. These cute little sheep for my boys and a sheep pillow/pin-cushion for me.

Ellen Gormley was having a book-signing in the Crochetville booth so I purchased her latest book “Marvelous Crochet Motifs”. I really like that this book includes text and stitch diagrams for the instructions. There are 24 motifs and 24 half motifs, as well as pattern instructions for making 4 projects.

I spent most of the time at the preview saying “hi” to friends and exploring all the various booths with an eye toward serious shopping on Sunday. After all my classes and socializing of the previous 3 days, Sunday was my day to get down to some real shopping. As always, Jan was available to help me find everything I might have missed.

Our first stop of the day was to attend Mary Beth Temple’s demonstration of “Arm Knitting”. I managed to take this photo of her with her eyes closed, but it is so easy to arm knit, that you can do it with your eyes closed.

I purchased her book “Arm Knitting” from her booth. The book has clear instructions on how to arm-knit as well as 15 patterns for various fun projects.

Then Jan and I got down to some serious shopping. We both had things we had been looking at thru-out the market days and now it was time to make decisions. There were many booths with yarn, but it was a little harder to find things like hooks or buttons.

I did splurge on this 18 inch Tunisian hook, it’s a size N (10mm).

By the end of my shopping on Sunday I had a nice pile of yarn (plus I had Wednesday’s purchases).

There was also my new “Hooked for Life” bag, a few tools, buttons, beads and other miscellaneous goodies. The little sheep are missing from this photo because the boys would not return them to me for photography purposes.

There was some very nice yarn in my goodie bags from the show as well.

I’m looking forward to next summer’s conference in San Diego. I’m hoping with the show being on the West Coast we will be seeing some new vendors and fun stuff happening in the show marketplace.

Estes Park Wool Market 2014

June 15, 2014Inspiration, Latest News, YarnLeave a Comment

The first full weekend of June was the Annual Estes Park Wool Market. In 2013 I attended it with my friends April, Brenda and Renee’. All 3 of them spin and Brenda convinced me to give spinning with a drop spindle a try. Though I’ve not had many opportunities to practice my minimal skills since then. Last year I purchased some gorgeous dyed silk fiber to spin. It is waiting patiently for me to find the time to attempt it.

This year April came out to Colorado with her husband, though Renee was having fun at the beach with her family so couldn’t make it. Brenda and I met up with April at the Market.

Unfortunately I didn’t get to spend as much time with Brenda and April as I had hoped. Instead I spent most of my time at the Market on Saturday visiting with the folks at the Bijou Basin Booth and at the Buffalo Gold Booth. I purchased some gorgeous yarn and hope to have a few designs to show everyone using these yarns by Spring 2015, earlier if I can manage it.

I was very intrigued by the Buffalo Gold buffalo down yarns. They are supposed to be very durable and not inclined to shrink like wool. The hank of “Haven” is destined to be used in a fingerless mitts design. I’ll be posting about that design once it is available.

I caught the end of the Sheepdog demonstration, I’m always amazed by the concentration that the dog has. The dog in the photos is a young one that is just starting to learn the ropes, I was still impressed.

I did get to spend some time visiting with the Goats. I’ve been dreaming of getting a few goats just because they are great animals for keeping the underbrush trimmed down for fire mitigation. I also just like them, they all seem to have strong personalities.

The white Angora goat in the front is a 3 month old male and was for sale for $50. I was really tempted, but I think my husband would have been a little startled if I brought a goat home. It can be a bit confusing for some folks, but the fiber from an Angora Goat is Mohair. Actual Angora fiber, as you see it labeled in garments or yarn, is from Angora rabbits.

Before we left the market we all went in to see the rabbits. Brenda got a bag full of lovely angora fluff to spin with and we all admired the fuzzy rabbits. They always make me think of cuddly toys they are so furry and poufy. There were even a few for sale, but I figured my husband wouldn’t be any happier about a surprise bunny, than he would be about a surprise goat.

After we had all finished at the market we headed to downtown Estes Park for some dinner. It was nice to have a bit of time to relax with April, Brenda and their husbands. This was the first time I had been back to Estes Park since the September floods and it was good to see that the town was making a strong come-back.

When I got home I showed the boys the photos I had taken at the show and they begged me to take them the next day. So the following morning we loaded up the car and headed over again for a few hours of visiting animals.

The boys enjoyed meeting some Paco Vicuna. One had been recently sheared and the other had about 2 inches of fleece. They enjoy feeling the softness, but they found the little herd of baby Vicuna to be very adorable. The babies weren’t interested in being pet, but they didn’t mind being admired.

The rabbits were having judging going on, so they were all getting spruced up and the fluff was flying as bunnies were brushed and made to look their best. I was admiring this handsome grey French Angora Rabbit. There were even some bunnies that weren’t Angoras. A few lop-eared bunnies were there to be sold and are supposed to be really nice pets.

There was a lovely fluffy little rabbit, he was full-grown though no bigger than many of the youngster bunnies, who was super friendly and snuggly. A Lions-head something or other, can’t recall the name of the breed, but if he had been for sale we might have ended up with a bunny.

Finally we headed off to meet the sheep. There was a lovely Shetland Ram that a woman was showing. He was on a lead and snuggled up to her like a dog. The boys were good about asking permission to pet him and he loved the attention. His wool felt just like most of the Shetland wool I’ve worked with in yarn, so that was fun to experience.

She had some lambs for sale and we walked all around the sheep stalls looking at the various lambs. This beautiful little Shetland lamb really caught my eye.

The boys were very entertained by this sweet little lamb. He was quite vocal and bouncing around his pen. My best guess was that he is a bottle-fed lamb, as he had no fear of humans at all.

My favorites were still the goats though. This sweet little goat and her pen mate were just as interested in me as I was in them.

The cashmere goats were very soft to pet.

Our last visit was to the alpacas. Only good picture I got of them was this pen of youngsters ranging in age from 6 months to 1 year.

I told my husband that I needed a small herd. Just one goat, one sheep and an alpaca. He didn’t agree. Ah well, maybe another lifetime for that dream to come true.

Another Awesome TNNA Show

May 13, 2014May 13, 2014Chocolate, Creativity, Hooks, Latest News, TNNA, Yarn, Yarnie FriendsLeave a Comment

As some of you know, the first weekend of May (2-5th) was the TNNA Summer Trade Show in Indianapolis, IN. This is the show where all sorts of needleart craft vendors have booths that show their wonderful merchandise for the coming Fall/Winter season.

There is yarn, and tools, and yarn, and accessories, and yarn, and books, and yarn. Yeah, you can tell what I was paying the most attention to.

Most of the folks attending the show, besides the many vendors, are shop owners looking for the products they will be selling in their stores. So there really isn’t much to purchase there. It’s more a matter of talking to the various vendors about how a freelance crochet designer/teacher like myself can utilize their products. The main thing being designing with some of those lovely yarns.

I took a flight out of Denver on Friday and it must have been the TNNA flight. My friends and fellow designers Jill Wright and Tabetha Hendricks were seated across the aisle from me and one of my seat mates was a yarn company sales rep. The TNNA show is more of a working show, everyone is in and out of meetings so it is sometimes just a quick hug with friends. It was fun to have some time to visit with Jill and Tabs on the flight.

Seattle Skyline Chocolate Bar Karen brought.

I was rooming at the Hyatt with Karen Whooley. We had a great time catching up between meetings and inspiring each other. We also each brought chocolate to share. I brought my usual assortment of Chocolove bars, with extra “Cherries & Almonds in Dark Chocolate” ones to give to Mary Beth and Karen. Karen brought a wonderful sculpted bar from Dilettante Chocolates. They are a family-owned company from Seattle that has children in school with Karen’s.

Every time I go to a TNNA show I am always a bit overwhelmed. There is so much to see and everywhere you look there is color and exciting yarn. Sometimes I think I get a bit lightheaded from all the yarn fumes. I always go with an eye toward a particular goal for my business. This time it was to reach out to more of yarn companies there and see about using their products in my upcoming indie published designs.

I am particularly drawn to the hand-dyed yarns. The colors are always so wonderful and get my brain ticking over. I also spoke to many of the yarn companies about US made yarns. Some companies are really working on having products that are all domestic, sheep-to-skein production of yarn. Something I am strongly in favor of as it creates jobs in our local economies. As well as being better for the environment since the yarn isn’t being shipped across the planet to get to it’s end users.

Some of the yarn companies were kind enough to provide me with a skein or two of their products to swatch with for my designs. Fortunately I left room in my suitcase to bring those home with me. Keep a watch here on the blog as I’ll be letting everyone know when I have patterns coming out using these yarns.

In the tools department I was very excited to see that Clover has steel hooks now in their Amour line of crochet hooks. For those of you unfamiliar with the term “Steel hook” it is usually referring to the tiny hooks used for crocheting with very fine thread. Those hooks can be the culprit for many hand injuries for crocheters, because they are tiny and steel is a very cold conductive metal.

Clover now has 7 different sizes of steel hooks, ranging from Size 0/1.75mm to Size 12/.6mm. I got a Size 8/.9mm to test drive. So I’ll be writing more about these wonderful new hooks very soon.

One of the companies that I was excited to see at the show was American Orthopedic Appliance Group with their many styles of “Thera-Gloves”. They were kind enough to share a sample pair of their “Designer Series” gloves with me that I will be doing a more in-depth review of later this summer. They have a variety of styles of therapeutic support gloves that you can see at their website: http://www.thera-glove.com.

Speaking of hands, I’m always looking for lotions to use on my hands. Colorado is a dry climate and my hands tend to really show it. Back in January I made a trip to Ft. Collins with one of my friends to visit the LambSpun Yarn Shop. They had nifty “lotion bars”.

They looked like soap and it was suggested that you put them in a soap dish as a way to have them available to use. I really like the formulation, but there is no way putting the bar on a soap dish will work at my house. There are boys, dogs, and a cat. Too many opportunities for something undesirable to happen to the lotion bar. Not to mention I am on the go a lot and want to be able to take my lotion with me.

It was great to find the Milk & Honey products at the show. Davin makes these lovely lotion bars and packages them in a tin that can fit very nicely in my project bag. She had the lotion bars in 3 different scents and I loved how they are molded in a shape. The little tin in the photo is some of her “Anywhere Balm” that is lavender/mint. This is a great lip balm and is also now living in my project bag.

By the end of Monday at the show both Karen and I were exhausted. Fortunately our flight wasn’t until 8 p.m. that evening. We went back to the hotel and had a late lunch at the restaurant, which revived us a little. Then it was time to retrieve our bags and take a taxi to the airport. As we were doing that we both got messages that our flight was delayed. We were flying out of Indianapolis on the same flight, but Karen would have to switch to another plane in Denver to complete her journey home to Seattle.

Tired but Happy. Selfie of Us at Airport.

We headed off to the airport and decided to see what the airline folks could do about Karen’s flight. She ended up having to take a different route home. So we said good-bye at the airport when it was time for her flight. As it was, we both got to our respective homes very late that night.

The next morning I slept in late and then spent the rest of the day unpacking from the trip and making lots of notes about my meetings from TNNA. A week later I am still feeling inspired and excited about the yarns and products I saw there. I’ll let you know more as I test out some products and swatch with the yarns. Looks like I’m going to be even busier this year.

Getting Together to Crochet!

November 20, 2013November 19, 2013Celebrating, YarnLeave a Comment

My favorite thing about discovering the online world of crocheters has been that it has helped me find real life crocheters (and knitters) to hang out with and share our enthusiasm for all things fiber and yarn.

Today I’ll be making the drive down the mountain to hang out for a few hours with fellow crocheters at the Longmont Yarn Shoppe from 10:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. It’s a great place to meet, wonderful natural lighting, beautiful yarn and even a shop dog.

This past weekend I braved the wind and snow on my mountain to drive all the way to Denver to spend Saturday evening with my yarnie friends at the Lambshoppe on 12th Street. We had a great time laughing, eating chocolate, admiring each other’s yarn and fiber. Sue let us see the gorgeous cashmere fiber she is spinning into yummy yarn (so soft).

I purchased this yarn that is destined to become either a snuggly sweater or wrap for me. I want something to keep me warm this winter. I keep promising myself that I’m going to crochet something beautiful just for me, so getting this yarn is a good start.

The drive back from Denver that night wasn’t too bad until I got up on the mountain. Then I had a few exciting moments with blowing snow that would temporarily obscure the roadway. Fortunately, I am a very experienced mountain driver. A few times I stopped to let the snow clear away and then continued on, I also slow down so I don’t come round a curve in the road and find myself in trouble.

It is clearly winter up here on the mountain now so getting out to meet up with my yarnie friends could be a bit more of an adventure, but I have good tires. And what’s life without some adventures?

What’s This?!

November 16, 2013November 17, 2013YarnLeave a Comment

One of the fun things about being a designer, is sometimes you get surprises in the mail. Such was the case for me this past Wednesday, when I checked my mail that afternoon there was a package for me.

Of course, I ended up giving a lift to a neighbor, so the box got moved to the back seat of the car and I forgot about it. The next morning I drove my boys to school and when I was unloading them from the car I noticed the box. “I wonder what is in there” went thru my mind as I walked the boys into school. Once I was back home I grabbed the box and headed up the stairs into the house to open it.

The wrapping for the package was a bit banged up from it’s journey to reach me. Since the flood mess in September all our mail is being forwarded, so items sent to my Jamestown PO Box take a little longer to reach me. As you can see there were bits of black and red showing, which made me very curious.

This was the box inside the brown paper.

And this is what was inside the black box.

I’ve already worked with all of these yarns a bit, but I am excited about these colors. Especially the Red Sassy Lace. I can see something very fun for Valentine’s Day out of that.

I scanned the yarn information from that long card so you can see what a gorgeous variety of colors are available in each of these yarn lines. Click on the image to see it larger, or check out these yarns and the other new yarns for 2013 on the Red Heart website.

One of the easiest projects to make up with all of these yarns is a ruffled scarf. You can see them everywhere. If you haven’t tried making a scarf like those yet, Mikey from the Crochet Crowd has a great video showing a super easy way to crochet one with Sashay yarn (Mikey also has videos of how to crochet a scarf with the Sassy Fabric and Sassy Lace). I really like his technique for this as it gives lots of ruffles.

Only thing I would do different to how Mikey shows you is to start my ruffles a little further in from the beginning to leave a tail, then weave the beginning tail like he shows you to weave your ending tail. Just cause I am fussy about raw edges in my work.

With the holidays rapidly approaching these yarns would be great to work up gifts with, or make a snazzy scarf or pin for yourself to dress up your holiday outfits.

Wonderful Yarn Store

March 2, 2013March 2, 2013Celebrating, Crochet, Yarn4 Comments

It took me awhile to get to Longmont to check it out, but I am very excited that there is a new yarn store there. The store opened back in September 2012, but things have been so busy I only recently got to visit it.

My fellow designer and CGOA pal, Brenda Bourg, joined me for this outing. Longmont is somewhat a mid-point between where the 2 of us live in Colorado, so it was ideal to find a place to meet there. Being we are both yarn nuts a yarn shop is perfect.

The name of the shop makes me smile, Longmont Yarn Shoppe. LYS is the acronym used in the online yarn communities for “Local Yarn Store”, so it is very fitting.

The store owner, Gail, welcomed us in warmly as she was just opening her doors for the day’s business. Brenda and I both thought the shop was really beautiful. It has a very open feeling with tall ceilings and skylights that provide lots of natural lighting. There is a nice big work table where stitchers can gather to visit while playing with yarn. And the store even has a sweet friendly “shop dog”, who adds to the overall homey welcoming feel.

This shop does more than give lip-service to the idea of “crochet-friendly”. Everything from the wonderful big sign on the wall that says “Crochet”, to offering a variety of interesting crochet classes with a CYCA certified instructor.

Brenda and I both purchased some yarn and visited with other shoppers while sitting at the work table getting some stitching in. We’ll definitely be visiting this store more in the future. If you are in the Longmont area you should stop by to play with some yarn there too.

Smiling at Sparkles

February 28, 2013February 28, 2013Yarn5 Comments

Okay, if you have been reading my blog for any length of time, you likely know I have a thing about sparkly yarn. I love it! So I am thrilled that I’ve been asked to design something in Red Heart’s “Shimmer” yarn.

This is a lovely yarn with a subtle color-matched sparkle that is so fun. It’s available in a variety of solid colors and subtle color-changing heathers.

I really like the colorway “Lipstick” that I’m working with. Strands of different colors from purple to fiery reds to hot pink give it loads of punch. And this yarn feels amazingly luxurious for a 97% Acrylic yarn (the 3% metallic polyester is what gives it the sparkle). What is really great is the sparkle isn’t scratchy feeling.

Of course, I can’t show you the design I’m working on, but I’ll let you know when it is available. I’m very sure this won’t be the last design I make in this yarn.