Thursday, January 31, 2008

February's "Teaser"

I'm such a yarn tease but you know what? I can't help it! When the yarns are in the envelopes and ready to be going out the door tomorrow I just can't resist!

Lynda...thanks again for a wonderful selection and I hope you guys enjoy this one. I'm pleased with it and you'll notice the skeins are a little different from usual - shorter and more plump which makes them oh-so-squishy! I love that this new skein length has upped the squish factor! For those of you who don't have swifts, it should be much easier to wind and for those who do, it'll fly off your swifts when winding into a cake. I am quite sure I'll keep this style for the rest of the club yarns - hope you enjoy it!

Is it bad of me to already be thinking about March? Okay, never mind...let's get these out in the mail and off to everyone!

If you are a late comer to the club, I'll know tomorrow if I'm including you with this shipment (I've emailed you already) - I'm quite sure I'll be able to sneak you in. If you have extra yarns coming with this shipment, your packages will go out on Saturday but won't actually get in the mailstream until Monday. I need tomorrow to get them organized for you.

As always, happy knitting and enjoy everyone - I had a lot of fun with this colour this month :)

Monday, January 28, 2008

I'm So Excited

Hey, I actually won something and it was something that was worth a great deal to me! Not only did I win something, but I found out that I have good taste too. Win free yarn, find out you have good taste...win/win situation for me!

Hi, I'm Lynda and I won the February contest for choosing the art piece that Roxanne is going to use to base the yarn colors on, woooo hoooo! It's a gorgeous piece, and when I saw it, I immediately thought that it looked like February, but it also looked like Roxanne. You know, not that Roxanne looks like discarded roses, but it looked like the kind of work that she does in her dyeing. Anyway...

My husband and I own our own trucking business and we travel the United States from North to South and East to West and all the while, I have the opportunity to knit. I do have other responsibilities that cut into my knitting time, like paperwork, homeschooling our son, paperwork, surfing the web, paperwork, trip planning, load finding, fuel finding, etc. I am extremely fortunate that my DH is a nice guy and tolerates my yarn habit. He's very good about helping me to contain the yarn that I carry on the truck. Oh wait, that's not true, he complains about the yarn on the truck and then threatens me with losing it if I don't contain it....that's how it works. But, I do have a rather large plastic bin of yarn, 2 knitting bags and a tote bag full of yarn that is available to me. I also have yarn stashed at my mom's in Colorado and several boxes and bins of yarns stored/stashed in our container in West Virginia. I also have a couple of favorite LYS that I shop at when I can convince DH to stop.

I really like to knit socks because they are small, I can have several pairs going at any given time, they don't take long and sock yarn is absolutely gorgeous. I have started knitting different things here lately because DH and I found out that his middle son and daughter-in-law are going to provide us with our first grandchild. How cool is that, although I am not old enough to be a grandma. I think it will be fun and our daughter-in-law appreciates hand knits.

If you want to find out more about me, you can go to my blog and sporadically catch posts about my knitting and our travels across the country. I am getting together another post that will have some pictures of our trip across Vail Pass in Colorado the other day and so pictures of FO's and Wip's that haven't been pictured before on there.

Thanks Roxanne, for the chance to win and for having such good taste as to pick the artwork I chose for you.

Lynda

February's Inspiration - Pierre Auguste Renoir

Thanks everyone for entering all your suggestions for this month's art piece! It was fun to read through everyone's favourites and when I came across Discarded Roses suggested by Lynda, I couldn't resist! It's a Renoir piece and flowers...so pretty and very nice for the month of February. It has colours we haven't touched on yet too - reds/greens! Yum. So with that, we do have a winner! I'm sure lots of you know Lynda but she's going to drop on by and introduce herself in what I thought might be fun - a contest winner spotlight each month! So take it away Lynda... :)

And stay tuned for next month's contest too - this month was so much fun I'd thought it'd be great to continue!

Friday, January 18, 2008

February Contest - Get Involved!

I’ve been really thinking about how to get everyone more involved in posting here and on Ravelry and here’s my first idea - let’s have a monthly contest!! And yes, it does involve free yarn…if you get chosen!

Let’s try it out for our upcoming February month. Here’s what I’m after - suggest an art piece for me to dye and tell me why you think it’d be a great piece to use!

In order to win, I will have to choose your art piece as the colourway for February. What do you win? The following month membership free! Yup, that’s right…free! Free yarn and free shipping!!! So get your thinking caps on and post away!

The only thing I ask is the following:

**You have to have been a member for 3 months and also a member for the coming month you’re suggesting for. The 3 months don’t have to be consecutive either, just 3 months so tell me how long you’ve been in the club when you post.

**You can only make 2 suggestions - any others will be disregarded - hold that thought until the next month as I plan on doing this every month.

**Please make sure it’s a fine art piece so as to keep with the theme of the club - it’s masterpieces we’re after!

**Duplicates will not be considered so please try to suggest something someone else has not - only the first suggestion will count.

And that’s about it until I think of something else….LOL Now get to suggesting and have fun with it…I do every month.

If I don’t choose any of the suggestions which I reserve the right to do - don’t worry, I’ll do a random drawing of all those who entered to give away the next month’s free membership.

Oh yes, a good resource I use to find the artwork is Art.com.

(cross-posted on the Ravelry group - please feel free to suggest either on the blog here or in the Ravelry group)

Sunday, January 13, 2008

I'm a tad obsessed...



With what you ask? The REIMS STOCKINGS pattern...LOL! Mostly it's because I almost have the pattern memorized and it's an easy knit when you do that...can just keep knitting without referring to the pattern charts all the time. I quite enjoyed knitting this one - the colours came out quite fun. Photos are of each side of the sock since the colours came out slightly differently on both.

Have you started knitting with Flaming June yet?

Thursday, January 10, 2008

January's "Spoiler"

Hopefully everyone or most of you have your yarns by now...the postal system seems to be cooperating a little better this month - guess it's not Christmas anymore :) Don't click the photo unless you want to see the yarn up close! Have you decided what to knit with this yarn yet? I'm working on another REIMS STOCKINGS (linked to Ravelry project) sock because I pretty much have the pattern memorized so it's easy for me to knit after a day of dyeing yarn :)

I haven't thought about February yet BUT I am leaning toward something Valentine-ish in colours. What does everyone think?