One million stitches

by Shannon on May 8, 2012

This morning I woke up with a horrible headache, so instead of going straight to the studio I was drinking coffee and reading Twitter. I realized I was only a few followers away from 7000 (?!), and wouldn’t it be fun if we could all do something TOGETHER?

Then I remembered two things: the 1000 Journals project and the Exquisite Corpse project coordinated by Jared Flood.

How’d that song go? Whoomp, there it is? Yeah, that. I’ve been itching to curate another fiber art show for a while, and if we’re going to harness the collective powers of a bunch of knitters, we might as well go big or go home, right? So here’s what we’re going to do:

  1. There will be multiple projects (all types of garments and accessories) winging their way around the country/globe. If you want to play, you need to commit to doing your stitches in the specified amount of time and to sending your piece on to the next person in line.
  2. I will arrange for yarn support. If I really wanted to have fun with this, I’d pull some oddities from my stash and make one of the projects all about THAT.
  3. We’ll have notebooks going around with each project box. Say hello, make a pretty page, tell us a story…
  4. At the end: exhibition(s) + mag article in Knit Edge + book published by Cooperative Press.

Cool? Any other ideas/wrinkles you can think of? Put them in comments.

Want to play? Fill out this form. And share, share, share the link with your knitting friends.

There are also more details on the form on how we can protect as much of your personal info as possible, i.e. shipping address, etc.

Let me head this one off at the pass RIGHT NOW: hello crochet friends. You are welcome to join in, too. I’d rather start up a crochet-specific track, though, than mix knit and crochet inside pieces. So if you crochet, use the Other box on the form to tell me what you’d like to participate in making. Thank you!

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Compliments Collection blog tour

by Shannon on May 4, 2012

Bijou Basin Ranch has long been one of my favorite small yarn companies, and I really enjoy working with them in a variety of ways, both as a designer and as a publisher. BBR has just released its first collection of patterns in booklet form, featuring 13 new designs by author/teacher/TV personality/friend Kristin Omdahl. Today we’re a stop on the blog tour for her Complements Collection. Featuring 7 knit and 6 crochet projects that use 3 balls of yarn or less, the booklet is not only excellent value for money whether you’re a knitter or crocheter, but it’s also easy on your yarn budget! (Although, take one look at this page and tell me you’re on a yarn diet…it’s just not possible). The Complements Collection is available in both paperback and digital book form: you can find it here, here or here.

The Amaryllis Knit Hourglass shawlette is probably my favorite pattern in the bunch — it’s just the sort of thing you’d want to wear during a transitional season like, oh…right now (at least in Cleveland! We can’t seem to decide if we want to be 40 or 80 degrees on any given day). Knit in Lhasa Wilderness, which is 75% yak and 25% bamboo, it’s got drape like you wouldn’t believe.

I was fortunate enough to see the pieces from this collection and the booklet itself during Stitches South — if you’re looking for some great springtime accessories, and especially if you both knit and crochet, patterns from The Compliments Collection will garner you quite a few!

GIVEAWAY: We’re giving away a copy of the booklet to one lucky reader! Leave a comment and tell me what your favorite color of Lhasa Wilderness is and why. I’ll pick one comment, so give it your best/funniest shot!

If you don’t win here, visit one of the other blogs on the tour for another chance to win!

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New toy for color creativity

April 24, 2012

Here’s a fun app my photo-app-mad husband just shared with me today: Color ViewFinder. You can walk around without actually snapping a photo and basically multi-sample colors in a given space, then click to save the palette. It’s kind of like Design Seeds but with your own environment as its inspiration! Here are some colors [...]

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Sale on my book!

April 17, 2012

We’re doing a sale on The Knitgrrl Guide… in honor of Tax Day (ugh) here in the US. Here’s the scoop on the CP site, and here’s the pin on Pinterest — repin it, if you would, please? I’m curious to see just how many people are using Pinterest these days. Thanks!

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The most boring person alive

April 6, 2012

I try not to have too many aaaaaagh I am swamped aaaaaagh posts here (seriously, who needs that?), but it has just been that kind of year so far! We’ve got an immense Cooperative Press photoshoot next weekend, so I feel like the only things I’ve done for weeks on end are: planning for photoshoot [...]

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Win $100, witness my chrysalis stage

March 26, 2012

The Cooperative Press spring survey is live and you have until the end of the week to take it. One randomly-drawn respondent will win $100! (Though of course we know you’re taking it out of love, right?) CP takes up a lot of my time these days, so it’s very important to me — thank [...]

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Designer 101 class signups are open!

March 15, 2012

My popular Designer 101 bootcamp class is accepting signups for its next session! The class, which is run through my virtual online teaching space, has helped dozens of knitwear designers of all experience levels develop their business skills and design aesthetics, as well as learn about practical considerations (from contracts to photography, and everything in [...]

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Whirlwind

March 15, 2012

It’s been an incredibly exciting week, one of those weeks where your brain hits the “full” mark way too early and you just can’t absorb anything else. Here’s the scoop: I went to Austin for SXSW Interactive, where I was giving a talk on niche publishing. I used what we’re doing at Cooperative Press with [...]

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What a week.

March 6, 2012

It’s only Tuesday and this week is kicking my you-know-what. I’m trying to prep so I can fly out to SXSW this weekend (I’m leaving Thursday, full day planned for Friday, stuff on Sat/Sun, speaking Monday, flying back at the very crack of dawn Tuesday), I’ve got the usual crazy Cooperative Press workload plus setting [...]

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New pattern + important project

February 27, 2012

This is my latest pattern, Restraint. This is my most excellent husband, Tamas. It’s so hard to be married to a knitter. (Yes, that was sarcasm). You get things custom-knitted for you, you’re even given input on what you would like to have in the final product, and all the knitter asks is for a [...]

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