Yarnie Friends – Mamas2Hands

Festival and Conference Season Begins

April 23, 2019Fiber, Latest News, Yarn, Yarnie FriendsLeave a Comment

A couple weeks ago I spent my Saturday at YarnFest in Loveland, Colorado. This is a great festival that is “local” for me. There are loads of classes and a fun marketplace celebrating yarn and other fibery fun.

I got to see a number of friends and had a little retail therapy time. My first stop and purchases were with the folks at Brown Sheep Company. I’m looking forward to making something summery with the pink yarn. Hopefully I can finish it before the CGOA conference in July.

I had lunch with my good friend Karen Whooley, she taught 4 classes at the festival. We had a great time catching up. Once she had to head back to teach her afternoon class I met up with my friend Susanna.

Turns out Susanna is nearly as dangerous an enabler to shop with as my dear friend Jan. I ended up purchasing a few more items than I had originally planned on. The gorgeous yarns below were too tempting.

This lovely fluffy dark yarn is a Cashmere/Wool blend. There is a little over 320 yards in the 2 balls, so I am hoping to create a lacy cowl or a shawlette. The fluffy halo of the yarn will make for a warm fabric even if it is created with very open stitch work.

Susanna had to bring me to see the yarns at the “Knit Stitch” booth. She had made a hat using some of their lovely hand-dyed yarn. I couldn’t resist this pink and lavendar yarn with it’s bit of sparkle, the color name is “Doodlebug”. I am planning to make myself a beautiful hat for next winter. I think it will look terrific with my silver hair.

A YarnFest tradition for me is to visit glass artist Jodie McDougall’s booth. She always has wonderful glass buttons and goodies. This year I had to adopt some adorable sheep earrings. I’ve been wearing them a lot since the festival. I especially love their little feet.

I was thrilled to see my friend Paula of KnitBaahPurl was at YarnFest again. I had to purchase one of her T-shirts for a new sleep Tee. I really loved this “now I lay me down to sheep” shirt, and it’s in a lovely lavender purple color.

Paula creates all sorts of fun sheep and yarn themed artwork that she sells on T-shirts, mugs, wine glasses, cards and other fun items. I especially love the ecumenical nature of most of her illustrations. No matter what your yarnie art…her artwork will fit the bill.

My final purchase of the day were some cute little stitch markers from the Longmont Yarn Shoppe booth. Who hasn’t played “yarn chicken” when finishing a project? The chicken may actually be inspiration for a crochet or needle felted sculptural piece in the future. I also found the little squirrel to be too cute to resist.

Looking back over all my goodies from YarnFest I’m realizing that I actually exercised some restraint. I stood strong against many of the temptations. Now I just need to crochet like the wind with all this yarn in my stash so I can get more yarn at the other Festivals and Conferences coming up.

In mid-June the Estes Park Wool Market will be here, that could be dangerous to my budget. I’m planning on joining some friends there to tour the vendor barn as well as check out the various critter barns.

The second week of July will be the CGOA conference, which includes a lovely boutique Marketplace. This year’s conference will mark the 25th anniversary of CGOA so there will be extra fun things happening there. If you haven’t had a chance to register for the show it isn’t too late. You can check it out at Crochet.org.

I hope to see some of you at a Festival or Conference this year. But even if you can’t join me at the ones I’m at, do a little research in your area to see if there is one going on near you. It’s a great place to meet fellow yarnies and take classes to expand your crafting skills.

Summer is Flying By

July 24, 2017August 2, 2017Celebrating, Crochet, Paid Pattern Links, Yarnie Friends3 Comments

This summer is going so fast, I’ve been traveling for both work and family stuff, so the times at home are super packed with household and work tasks.

We got back from our Lake Huron trip the evening of the 11th and I hit the ground running the next day.

It was Casual Crochet meet-up and the end of our Testing Pool CAL. Everyone that could make it was there to get their photo taken wearing their cowls. A number of these ambitious crocheters had made 2 cowls. Can you tell that the Aqua colorway was very popular?

For naming this cowl I took all the names of my testers and put them in a hat. We drew out a name and this cowl is now known as the “Kellie Cowl”. That’s Kellie at the lower left in the photo.

You can purchase the pattern for this cowl in my Ravelry shop. It comes with detailed stitch charts for the foundation, joins and increase point.

I’m headed out to Chicago for the CGOA Chain Link Conference this week, so this may be a one post week again. We will see how busy it all is there and if I will have a decent internet connection. If you are coming to the conference be sure to say hello. I’m looking forward to seeing lots of my yarnie friends and making new ones.

Getting into the Swing of Things Again

April 6, 2017April 6, 2017Celebrating, CGOA, Chain Link, Chocolate, Creativity, Crochet, Inspiration, Latest News, Yarnie FriendsLeave a Comment

Well, it’s been a bit of a hectic re-entry to life in our “normal” routine. We have had lots of snow and some very cold temperatures since our return, not what one would think of for Spring weather, though fairly typical for our springtime. I had quite a few things scheduled for this week, which would have been fine if I hadn’t had the wild 4 weeks preceding this one. I’m slowly chipping away at the mutant To-Do list though.

One of the best things about coming home from Spring Break was picking up our mail. This nifty little box was waiting for me from my dear friend Bonnie Pierce.

I met Bonnie and her husband Bill at the first ever CGOA conference I went too. She was wearing one of her gorgeous Free Form crochet capes and I practically attacked her to look at it closer. I was completely on my own at that show, but Bonnie and Bill took me under their wing and included me in many of the group events they were involved in.

They even rescued my hook case that I had left laying on the table one afternoon. Bonnie and I chuckle about it every time we get together. But it has been far too long since I last got to spend some in-person time with Bonnie. Fortunately we stay in touch online thru social media and messaging.

Recently Bonnie and I decided we needed to have a piece of each other’s work. These 2 drop-dead gorgeous scrumbles are what Bonnie sent me. I’m so inspired by her work, though a little chagrined at how clunky and chunky my own Free Form efforts look. Bonnie is truly a talent with her Free Form artistry.

She is well known for her bullion stitches. Which she had tried to teach me numerous times with limited success.

This flower with the sparkly embellishment is currently my favorite bit on this scrumble. But every time I look at them I see something that delights me.

When Bonnie and I met in Portland in 2008, one of the things we bonded over was Chocolate. We both have a love of wonderful dark chocolate. She told me about a Portland chocolate company called “Moonstruck” and shared some that she had with her. It is marvelous stuff and whenever I find the brand I purchase a few bars, but it is rather scarce in Colorado.

So it is very fitting that Bonnie included some delicious chocolate in the package too. I’ve got to get my piece finished to send to Bonnie now and will have to hunt down some special Colorado chocolates to include. This might require me attending the Chocolate Festival again, sigh, the sacrifices I make for my friends.

I’ve been busy with working on developing classes since our return from our big trip. This cute little needle-felted sheep is one of them. I’m finding the needle-felting quite addictive, I think the total attention that is required is a great form of meditation. That’s been very good for me as I process everything the last 4 weeks has thrown at me and my family.

I hope you are all having a beautiful springtime. April is looking to be another fast-moving and busy month. I’ll try to keep up with the blog and (fingers crossed) to have some more videos for you very soon.

Congratulations to the Winner

March 20, 2017August 8, 2021Celebrating, Prizes, Yarnie Friends5 Comments

I had meant to get a blog post up yesterday but I was enjoying the day with my kids. We had a nice hike in our neighborhood that included a good chuckle at our neighbors sign on their gate. We had noticed all their chickens running around in the yard first, so the sign was particularly funny to us.

Copyright Karen Whooley – Photo by Anne Podlesak

Sunday evening I pulled all the names for the entries into the drawing for an Ebook copy of Karen Whooley’s beautiful new shawl book “A Garden of Shawls”.

The winner is Judy L. She said she has just started crocheting shawls, so this book will be a great start to her shawl pattern library. Congratulations Judy!

For those of you that didn’t win, you can still order the book on Karen’s website and orders placed before the end of March (and the end of NatCroMo) are entered into a drawing for some gorgeous yarn giveaways. You can find all the links to Karen’s site and read my review of the book (if you missed it the first time round) at this blog post.

I hope you are all having a good start to your week and you’re able to get some crochet time in too.

“A Garden of Shawls” book

March 13, 2017March 13, 2017Book Reviews, Crochet, Yarnie Friends12 Comments

Today I’m excited to share a review of a fabulous new book from my friend and colleague, Karen Whooley. As many of my long time visitors know, Karen was my mentor when I got started as a designer 8 years ago. The photo above was one of our first attempts at a “selfie” back at the 2014 CGOA conference in Manchester.

Karen and I have always shared a love of designing wearables, especially wraps. In her new book “Garden of Shawls” Karen has created 12 beautiful wrap designs worked in lightweight yarns. She has a great eye for creating fun balances of lace work and solid fabric that will have you grabbing your hooks and yarn to get started on these shawls.

I love the lay-out of this book. Each project has stitch charts and super clear schematics as well as concise written instructions. This means you can have a very clear picture from the start of your project to the end about how your shawl should work out.

If you are like me, you likely have been to a fiber festival where you just couldn’t resist purchasing a couple of gorgeous hanks of lace or fingering weight yarn. Karen has designed most of these shawls using 1 or 2 hanks of yarn so you can finally take those lovely hanks out of your stash and turn them into a beautiful wrap that you will wear for years.

I had a hard time deciding which of the 12 Shawls in the book were my favorites. Currently I’m voting for these four…

Breeze – This shawl is the style I associate with Karen the most. She has a knack for end to end construction that creates a lovely border on the one side of each row. You reach the end of the rows and your shawl has a gorgeous border all done. So clever! Many of the wraps in the book use this technique.

Solar – This shawl just struck me with its happy color choices, but even in another color series it would be lovely. The radiating spokes of the top-down construction combined with the eyelets that showcase the “ripple” style patterning are eye-catching and entertaining to crochet.

Drift – Another top-down shawl that uses gradient changing colors for a dramatic border. I love the textural interest Karen created in this shawl by including post stitches.

Ecliptic – a more traditional top-down Triangle shaped shawl with graceful columns of shells ending in a soft scalloped border.

Print copies of this book will become available in Apirl, but you can pre-order your copy. She has a couple of ordering options, you can get an Ebook version only or a print version + a free Ebook. You can place you order here on her website.

Best of all, if you live in the USA and place an order during the month of March you will be entered into a drawing to win one of these awesome Goodie Bags from Karen. You can find out more about those by clicking here to visit her blog.

I hope you get a chance to check out Karen’s book and that you decide to add it to your library. It is definitely a good investment. If you would like an opportunity to win a complimentary Ebook copy of the book leave your name in the comments on this blog post by Sunday March 19, 8 p.m. Mountain Time and I’ll announce the winner on March 20th here on the blog.

More Books and Fiber to Play With

January 14, 2017Celebrating, Creativity, Humor, Inspiration, Needle Felting, Yarnie Friends1 Comment

It’s been a busy week since my last post. I’ve been working on 5 different things all at the same time, a couple of them were to do with opening my Etsy Shop. I have set the 15th of January as my goal for getting my shop open, that is tomorrow. Eek!

I may only have a couple of listings when I open my shop, but I figure you have to start somewhere. Funny thing is, the making items part is actually the easy task. It’s the getting all the information online and figuring out how to do all the listing stuff that slows me down. I’m hopeful that once I’ve gotten some practice listing items on there I will be faster.

Meanwhile there is yarn and fiber stuff happening too. Last night I was getting ready to do reading time with my boys and my husband said, “Oh I forgot, you got a huge box in the mail.” Then he handed me the box. It was from my friend Pam in New Jersey.

We spoke on the phone a few weeks ago. She was doing some clearing out and she wanted to see if I would like any of the stuff she was getting rid of. At first I said “No” because my own studio needs a serious clear-out. She wasn’t giving up that easy though, and began to tell me about some books she thought I would like. She also knows I have been doing needle-felting and offered some roving and felting tools that she thought I would find useful. Plus, as she put it, the roving would make good packing material for the books.

By the end of the conversation I had agreed that the books sounded very interesting. Here they all are: 3 books about crocheting with wire, 1 about wire-wrapping, and the last is any interesting book about Textile Techniques in Metal. She even included a couple of articles from Bead & Button issues that were about crocheting with wire. Very distracting and fun.

Then there was the colorful bag of roving.

I was expecting wool roving, but Pam included some lovely alpaca and silk as well.

Look at this beautiful stack of hand-dyed silk hankies. Pam and I have similar tastes in colors, so these just about jumped out of the bag into my hands. I haven’t played with silk in this form before, though I have read about it.

Last of all was a handy Needle-Felting tool from FeltCrafts. This will be very useful when I am working on some of my larger projects. I’m looking forward to testing it out. Don’t you love the fun little container it came it? It is really nice when one can keep all the sharp things gathered up.

I am very glad that Pam talked me into acquiring these new goodies, now I just have to behave myself and get some of the other stuff on the Mutant To-Do List done before I play with them.

Farewell Summer

September 21, 2016September 23, 2016Latest News, Yarn, Yarnie FriendsLeave a Comment

Today is the official last day of summer on the calendar, though summer has been gone up here on my mountain for quite a while.

We have lots of fall color happening, this year we seem to be missing red. Many of our alpine plants that display red foliage in the fall are instead various shades of orange or brick. With all my love of science you would think that I would know why the colors of autumn are different from year to year. Not a chance.

Even without red I am enjoying the changing colors. Our fall color display is very meager compared to what happens in the northeast. Mostly the color change is subtle with the evergreens becoming a darker green and the old needles adding a tinge of rust color before dropping.

The aspen trees are gold again, though some of the trees on our property skipped the gold stage and went straight to brown. Others were speckled heavily with dark brown spots. Fortunately for my photography attempts there were a few making a pretty display against the blue sky the other afternoon.

In hopes of improving some of my photographs I bought this set of lens to use with the camera on my phone. The set has 3 different lens, a Fish-eye, wide-angle and macro. The macro lens is actually part of the wide-angle lens. In fact, that has been the only issue I have with the set so far, it’s a bit tricky getting the wide-angle lens attached to the macro lens.

They all fix very compactly inside the handy carrying pouch, and it is all small enough that I can put them in my pocket when I am taking photos.

I decided to try some of them out yesterday on my way home from “Casual Crochet Wednesday” at the Longmont Yarn Shoppe. I’ve been wanting to get a good photo of a particular section of the mountainside along the road up to my house. These scrubby bushes have been showing some beautiful orange leaves the past week and I knew they would be gone very soon. It was a little over-cast this afternoon, but I had a lot of fun clambering around and taking photos.

I used the fish-eye for this shot.

This is a similar shot using the wide-angle. You can see how the Fish-eye lens distorted the trees. I don’t have any macro shots for you right now. The macro lens is for really close-up shots, like less than 2cm from the object.

This is a shot of the same scene without any additional lens. In many ways I thought the regular lens captured the color of the foliage better.

Once I was back home I got to admire my new yarn purchases. I needed a couple more colors of Berroco “Vintage” for my project I’ve been working away on. I’ll be able to share more about that in a couple of weeks.

I also got this lovely ball of Ella Rae “Seasons”, this is a fun color changing yarn that you may recognize from my Corner-to-Corner Scarf projects last fall. I worked a couple of samples with it. This ball is destined for a little experiment that is related to the project I’m using the “Vintage” for. Are you curious now? Don’t worry all will be revealed.

Of course, just to give myself a bit of a carrot, I purchased this awesome tube of colorful fiber from Frabjous Fibers out of Vermont. I’ll be using it for needle-felting. Now I have to stay focused on the other projects before I can play with it.

That might not have been my best plan though. I really want to play with this gorgeous fiber. Each color has lovely tonal changes in it and is going to be perfect worked into some fun sculptural pieces. I’ll be combining this fiber with some of the fiber that I got on my trip to the Scotts Bluff Valley Fiber Arts Fair.

Before too long I’ll likely be posting photos of our first snowfall, though I’m really hoping it will wait until October. I hope those of you that have been tormented with extremely hot summers are experiencing some cooler temperatures now. Enjoy the autumn colors, I know I am.

Crocheting in Longmont

September 14, 2016September 14, 2016Celebrating, Crochet, Free Pattern Links, Yarn, Yarnie FriendsLeave a Comment

Today I was at my crochet group in Longmont at the Longmont Yarn Shoppe, “Causal Crochet”. We had been getting together on the third Wednesday of each month for 2 hours starting at 10:30 a.m. This was our first meeting on the 2nd Wednesday of the month, and we will be having 2 meetings a month from now on.

If you are in the area you can join us at “Causal Crochet” for at least the next 8 months on the 2nd and 3rd Wednesday of the month. We will see if the schedule still works for everyone once summer rolls around.

Our group today discussed what our fall “Crochet-A-Long” project is going to be. Looks like we will be working on a blanket square. I’ll be putting the pattern up here on my blog and my YouTube Channel during the first week of October. That’s just 3 weeks away!

I was teaching a private crochet lesson today after the group met. This weekend I am teaching a “Learn to Crochet for Knitters” class, but one of the knitters that wanted to take it wasn’t going to be able to make the class. Instead we made arrangements to have a one hour lesson together at the shop. I think it went very well and she is well on her way to being able to add crochet to her knitting projects.

It’s always so fun to see a crafter get the hang of a new skill. This was my little practice piece for demonstrating the stitches to my student. I was working with Berroco “Vintage” yarn. I have 3 hanks of the green color in my stash, left-over from another project and I decided I needed to add some new colors for a project percolating in my brain.

Fall is definitely in the air up here on the mountain, even though it is late summer most days down in town. I’ve been seeing lots of sunflowers blooming everywhere. They are one of my favorite flowers, maybe that’s because I grew up in Kansas (The Sunflower State).

I picked the 2 yellows and the brown to go with the green I already have. They really put me in mind of sunflowers. Will have to see what they grow up to be. Berroco’s “Vintage” is a great machine washable work-horse yarn that is a blend of 52% Acrylic, 40% Wool, and 8% nylon. The nylon makes it very durable, which is really nice for afghans, blankets and hard working hats or scarves for the family.

If you are feeling too impatient to wait for my new afghan square, you can check out some of them I’ve already published here on the blog.

Whirlwind Afghan Square: the pattern is here on my blog, and I have 2 videos to help you work it here on my YouTube Channel: Whirlwind How-To Part 1 and Whirlwind How-To Part 2.

Annetta Square: the pattern is here on my blog.

Hot Spot (Annetta Square #2) : the pattern is here on my blog.

The Humble Granny Square: the pattern is here on my blog.

I hope all my US readers are enjoying some cooler temperatures and enjoying the last bits of summer. Soon we will have snow up here on the mountain. I’ll be digging out my warmer clothing in the next couple of weeks. The good news is, I will have lots of opportunities to wear some of my favorite scarves, shawls and hats again.

Prize Winner!

September 6, 2016Celebrating, Crochet, Free Pattern Links, Pattern, Yarnie FriendsLeave a Comment

Last Autumn I facilitated a Crochet-A-Long at my local yarn shop: Longmont Yarn Shoppe. I introduced our Causal Crochet group to the “Corner to Corner” crochet technique. Each crocheter picked a yarn in the shop that they wanted to try, and we each made a scarf.

One of the participants was Margie C. She enters the Boulder County Fair each year, submitting a number of crochet projects and this year she decided to enter the scarf she made. Last month when we all got together she shared the following photo with the group.

Her scarf had garnered 3 ribbons! Yay Margie!

If you would like to try your hand at the corner-to-corner technique you can find my tutorial and pattern on my blog post: Playing with Corner to Corner.

Corner to Corner is a really fun crochet technique. My favorite aspect of it is that you have that “small start” that I love to use. When you use a yarn with long gradual color changes you can get a truly impressive looking piece of fabric with minimal ends to weave in.

I’m heading off this weekend to Scotts Bluff, Nebraska for the Scotts Bluff Valley Fiber Arts Fair. I’ll be teaching 2 classes on Saturday, my “Playing with Triangles Shawl” in the morning and my “Don’t Let Your Hobby Hurt” in the afternoon.

I’m really excited about teaching the shawl class, I’ve added some fun variations to the basic shawl pattern and I’m hoping to inspire my students creativity. If you are in the area you can still enroll for the Saturday classes, just visit the website for more information on how and where to register.

If Scotts Bluff is too far away for you, you can find the pattern for the shawl here on my blog in my post: Playing with Triangles (the post also includes a link to an animated tutorial version of the pattern).

Hopefully I can get some pictures of the beautiful landscape around Scotts Bluff to share with you all next week. And some cute fiber critters as well.

A Sanity Break

September 2, 2016Health and Self Care, Latest News, Yarn, Yarnie FriendsLeave a Comment

The past couple of months have been rushing here and there in preparation for and then dealing with back-to-school for my boys. I’m getting back into the school routine but it hasn’t been easy. I’ve also been busy with lots of crochet work that I can’t quite share yet.

Fortunately I got to take a little break this week.

My friend Sharon lives in California and she is having an adventure with her friend Carol. The two of them are driving across the country and back on a 3 month road trip. They are stopping to visit friends and family along the way and having a great time.

They had just spent a couple of days up in the mountains of Colorado around Grand Lake. They got to drive one of my favorite adventure roads, Fall River Road on their way to their friend’s cabin in Grand Lake. On their way back down to the plains we arranged to meet in Estes Park. There is a wonderful shop in Estes Park called “The Stitchin’ Den” that has lots of lovely yarns and embroidery supplies, and I suggested we meet there.

I live about 40 minutes drive away from Estes Park, Colorado. My drive over was a little longer as I encountered road construction delays. Seems like this has been the summer for serious road construction repairing damage from the 2013 floods in a lot of Colorado. I really enjoyed my drive though, the scenery along the way is breath-taking everywhere you look, and it was a beautiful day.

The timing worked out quite well. I parked in the big lot at the library in Estes and had just texted Sharon I was there. I asked her to text me when they got to town. A few moments later she texted me they were in the parking lot. I went looking for them and when I found them I got my first big hug of the day. Sharon gives great hugs.

There was Sharon, Carol and the friends they had been staying with, Linda and Larry. It was around noon and they were all very hungry and we decided to find somewhere to have lunch. “Claire’s” was open and I had always heard good things about it, we walked across the town square park to take a look at the menu.

The menu met with everyone’s approval and we were seated in just a few minutes. Everyone enjoyed their lunch and we had a lovely visit. Sharon had funny stories about driving Fall River Road, she wanted a “I survived the Fall River Road” sticker. After lunch they decided not to join me at the yarn shop since Sharon is on a yarn diet. She and Carol have a limited amount of space in their car for cargo on the trip.

We had to get a photo of Sharon and I together. Carol was our photographer, since neither Sharon or I are very good at the “selfie” thing. After a final hug the 4 of them headed off and I walked over to the yarn shop.

It is a really fun shop with various levels and nooks and crannies full of lovely fiber and yarn. I decided I really needed to adopt some purple yarn. This is more of the wonderful Ella Rae Lace Merino, but in a lighter weight than I had made my Mountain Top Beanie from. I was also interested in working with it because it was a tonal colorway instead of the busy variegated style.

I am thinking these 2 hanks will become something open and lacy to be worn close to my skin. The texture of this yarn is so soft and comfy. There is over 900 yards all together, so I should be able to make something very nice.

On the way to Estes Park I had seen my favorite historic landmark and told myself if it wasn’t raining on the way home I would stop to take a photograph. This is “The Chapel on the Rock” at the St. Malo Retreat Center. I had a nice little walk taking photos and still managed to make it home before my boys were back from school.

I hope all my U.S. readers have a lovely Labor Day weekend. It’s the weekend that marks the end of summer for many of us. I hope you all get a little time for a “sanity break” of your own.