Fiber Arts Friday & A Cozy for Your Coffee

Some people think a coffee cozy is just silly.  Maybe.  Maybe not.  Those who use them are generally happy with the result-keep your coffee warmer, longer, while keeping your hands cooler.  At the same time, you can let your mugs with advertising or editorial comments go undercover.  Works for me.

What also works for me is making a coffee cozy while testing a stitch pattern, swatching for a larger project (check your gauge!), or using bits of left over yarn.

How To:
Using size 2 (US) needles (I used two dpns because that's that I had in easy reach), cast on 62 stitches.

Knit 4 rows, working back and forth, (two ridges of garter stitch).

Next row and every row till about 1/2 inch from desired height, Slip the first stitch as to purl, *YO, Slip1 as to Purl, K2Tog.* Repeat from * to * till one stitch remains.  K1.

When within 1/2" to 1/4" of desired height of coffee cozy, work 4 rows of K (two ridges of garter stitch) and bind off.

Leave about 10" to 12" of yarn.  Using a tapestry sewing needle, sew the two top corners together, run the yarn down the side of the piece, and sew the two bottom corners together. Weave in ends of yarn.

This is not a fancy pattern.  You can play with it make your coffee cozy as plain or fancy as possible.  This stitch pattern is one of my favorites because it doesn't use a purl stitch, which are often more painful to my arthritic hands.

If you make coffee cozies (or any other cozies!) please post a link to a photo in the comments section.  I'm looking forward to seeing your work.

And . . . . it's Fiber Arts Friday!  If you have a fiber related (yarn, knitting, crocheting, dyeing, spinning, sewing, quilting, anything fiber arts!) blog post, please post a link to your blog post in the comments section.  And I always appreciate a link back to my post.  Thanks in advance!

Monday: Just Another Day In The Office

Unless you work from home.  Then Monday opens up a whole different world of opportunities.  What to do today?  What to do first?  Well, that's often determined for you.  What has to be done today?  What has to be done first?  For me that involves a cup of coffee and reclining in bed with my laptop.  After I let the dog out.  Twice.  Because he didn't like the back yard this morning. 

Monday mornings in my 'office' also involve researching market trends, developing marketing strategies, and much more.  Like 'Social Networking'.  Yeah, I love my job.  Mainly because I love my colleagues and customers.  It's not a chore to network with you.  It's a joy and I am truly blessed to be able to share what I love with awesome people who want to to know more.  This blog post is dedicated to all of you-friends, colleagues, customers, and just cool people who like to check in to see what's going on in my little world.

If you have ever owned your own business, you fully understand that "a prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and among his own relatives and in his own household.."(1)  I am fortunate to have a husband who recognizes the value of my work and my business.  But I understand how rare that is.  Often family members fail to see the value of what we do while 'strangers' encourage and support us.  I sometimes have mixed emotions when I look on Facebook and see the 'Likes' for my posts and comments.  They are, more times than not, 'Liked' by people halfway around the world that I've never met and are likely to never meet.  All the while, my many of my 'friends' and family (who I know visit Facebook because of the games they play) seem to never see a link.  I understand life is busy.  But really.  How long does it really take to click a button? 

And it's not just Facebook. On Ravelry, it only takes a moment to click the 'Love' or 'Agree' buttons. (and I wish more sites had those options. I often 'Agree' on Facebook, though I don't always 'Like'. ) On Twitter, just an occasional response to let me know that someone in my list of 1000+ followers are actually reading an occasional tweet is appreciated.

Do you read my blog? Or did you just click to see if there are any photos and then move on? I didn't realize how often I was doing that to other people till I started keeping track of my own blog statistics. Now I try to make an effort more often to at least leave a short comment to let the writer know I did read the post and I appreciate the efforts they are making, whether to promote their business or the industry in general.

I'm going to wind this up because I really do have work to do this morning – besides laundry. I still have a sock to finish and photograph, patterns to write and format, trying to remember how to list the patterns for sale on my website, a serious website update, soap to be made, new patterns that have been spinning around head to be designed, and the rest of the never ending list of tasks. But I do love doing them all.

(1) Mark 6:4 - New American Standard Bible (©1995)

Another Non-Update and Patterns

I'm still not back to dyeing.  Working on getting there, though.  I did over dye a skein of yarn yesterday and will post pics when I get photos of the dry yarn.  That will be Day 6 of 300 Days of Dyeing.

In the meantime, though . . . I'm putting out a call for designers.  I want to offer my customers a complete shopping experience, but sometimes I just have to admit that I can't do it all.  Like design.  I have written a couple of sock patterns.  And have a couple more forming in my mind.  But I know not everyone knits socks.  Believe it or not, not everyone even wants to knit sock.  I know.  Mind boggling, huh?  Well, not really.  Until you do it, knitting socks does seem a little overwhelming.  And some people try it, succeed, but just don't enjoy it.  Anyway.  I know you want more than just socks.  So  . . . . if you or someone you know is a knit or crochet designer and would like to another outlet for offering your patterns to the public, we might be able to work something out.  Contact me and we'll see what we can come up with.  In the meantime, check out the designs from The Pattern Market

EMBROIDERED FELTED BACKPACK, JULIE ARMSTRONG HOLETZ

.

A Little Bit of Luxury

Do you deserve a little luxury?  Just for yourself?  Of course, you do! And you know it, too.  But you've probably been denying yourself so you can do something a little extra for someone else. 

I know because everyone does that.  It's just human nature.  Well, everyone does that except me.  I'm not denying myself.  I've found a way to treat myself and someone else, too.  You see, it's this yarn that I ordered. When I was told by the sales rep that it was 'luxury' yarn, I was thinking to myself, "OK.  But it's still yarn." And then it arrived and I knew beyond a doubt  . . . well, after I let my husband cut the box open because he was afraid my shaking hands would cut myself and then I ripped open the bag  . . . then, I knew beyond a doubt that when it came to luxury, this was the real deal!

Since then, I have been treating myself by handling this silky soft, just the right balance of body and drape, I-just-want-to-touch-you yarn every chance I get.  Through every step of the dyeing process, I have caressed this twisted fluff and let it caress me back.  (Am I in love?) And I know that as soon as it's dry I'm going to wind a skein into a ball and cast on.  And I'll treat myself all over again while knitting.  I don't have a clue yet what I'll make.  It will probably become a gift to someone else and they will be treated to luxury for the long life of the item made.

Do you want to see what I'm making such a fuss about? Well, you'll have to wait, like everyone else, for the big reveal. To be one of the very first to see this yarn, sign up for my email newsletter before September 2.  Just to make sure you get signed up, go ahead and do it now. 

Now, for 300 Days of Dyeing . . . Days 4 and 5 have been spent dyeing my new yarn line, so I can't post photos now.  Just rest assured that I'm (mostly) keeping up and I only have 295 Days to go. At this rate, I'll be finished by this time next year.

The green/gray/brown in the lower right was the color of the shawl.

Since I can't give you a peek at the new yarn, I'll show you a photo of one my current projects.  Last year I knit a shawl in a colorway that I simply loved.  I used worsted weight yarn.  Though it knit up quickly (which was good), I never wore it (which was bad.)  The shawl ended up across the end of my bed one cold night and I tucked my feet up underneath it.  It was so warm, I decided to use the same yarn base to knit an afghan for the bed.  Then I decided that since I loved the colorway and it was just sitting there, I would unravel it and add (many) more colors.

It is a simple mitered square pattern.  I'm not sure how large I'll make it. Right now it covers my legs without much left over.  But my husband felt it and decided we should keep it for our bed (my plans all along!), so I'll need to keep knitting.  Speaking of which, I think I'll watch a movie now and work on it little more tonight.

Until tomorrow,
Enjoy!

Deeper Roots

Have you ever been thinking about something and your mind just goes from one thought to the next?  The thoughts are all tied together.  But the first has nothing to do with the last. That happened to me a couple of days ago.  And suddenly that light bulb over my head lit up and I thought, "I'm going to have to write a blog post about this!"

Now, as I said, that was a couple of days ago, so I have no idea what I was thinking about at the time.  But I do remember the part about the roots. And watering the garden.  Maybe that's where it started.

Our garden is about to take over.  Once again, I planted the tomatoes way too close.  And as usual, during the very hot and dry weather this summer, we only watered them two or three times.  The pepper plants in the containers got watered more often. But the tomatoes were left to their own devices, to survive or die as they might.  And they survived.  Every single stinkin' last one of them.

Do you know why they survived? Not because we watered them, but because we didn't.  The tomato plants had to sink deeper roots to draw moisture from deep in the soil.  The deep roots received not only moisture and nutrients from the soil, they also received stability.  The plants grew slower during the dry spells.  But they grew stronger with the nourishment they received and the stability provided by the deep roots.

What has this got to do with anything?  Well, I'm not sure now what it had to do with what I was thinking of a couple of days ago.  But this concept can be applied to many aspects of our lives.  The similarity between the tomato plant story and the support provided by our families is pretty obvious.  And I'm sure you can find ways to apply it to other areas of your life.

I see similarities in our knitting/spinning/quilting/love of arts and crafts communities, too.  I'll tell you a little about my situation and how it applies to me.  I work from home and don't get out much.  For the most part that's fine.  But when I started knitting again, I missed the companionship of other knitters.  When I wanted to learn a new method of casting on, I didn't have a friend close by that I could ask to show me. I was in a 'knitting' drought.  I had to look elsewhere for what I wanted.  That 'elsewhere' was the internet.  Then I discovered a great river of knitting.  I sank my roots deep into that moist soil and began to grow. And get stronger.  And more confident.  The nourishment I received from putting down those deep roots to get what I needed where it was (rather than waiting for it to come to me) gave me stability.

I now see the knitting/spinning/quilting/love of arts and crafts communities growing and spreading.  People like me, who once made our way to the internet to find what we couldn't find in our home towns, are now meeting in person to share their love of their crafts.  Because of the deep roots, nourishment, and stability, we are now finding one another and adding to our numbers.

And my tomatoes are, too.  Adding to their numbers, I mean.  There are quite a few ripe tomatoes that need to be picked and canned. I better get busy!

TeresaLeviteStudio Artisan Studio ArtFire Buy & Sell Handmade

Everything on sale 10% off!

TeresaLeviteStudio Artisan Studio ArtFire Buy & Sell Handmade