Time for May's Contest!

I'll be away for a week in April so I thought I'd get a head start on the suggestions for May's art piece. All I pretty much have in mind at the moment is something seasonal - cheery and bright would be good instead of dreary :)

Rules are the same as when we started the contest in February.

Oh yes, if you are on Rav and need a reminder of what colourways/artists we've already done, please click here. You can also make your suggestion in the Rav group here if it's easier for you!

Good luck everyone!

April's "Teaser"

A little hint at April's colourway! Everything will go out tomorrow and for those that ordered something extra with this month's yarn, I may need an extra day to get it together for you so you may get a shipping notice a day later - if I'm good at getting it all together, it'll go on the first with the others :)

This month's colourway was indeed a challenge! At first I thought maybe I could dye the yarn to create the cubes like in the painting but since we knit in a circle, that's a bit of a mathematical feat so I decided to try to get the colourway to look "blocked" with colours. I hope everyone enjoys this one - I'm anxious to see how these knit up as I have never dyed this way before but I like the results! It looks very "artsy".

Enjoy everyone and have a great week!

Woohoo!

Hi everyone, I’m Tara.. I’m very excited to have my suggestion chosen. I chose this painting because it reminds me of flowers and gardens and renewal. I especially love the earthy tones in the painting surrounding the blocks of color. I don’t know about yall but I am very ready for Spring to get here because it is just ugly outside.

I’ve been a fan of Roxanne’s yarn for awhile now and just love the idea behind this club. I am getting quite a collection of gorgeous sock yarn. I suppose I’d better knit some socks instead of just petting and admiring all my yarn.

I can’t wait to see what Roxanne does w/ these colors. I know it will be lovely.

April's Inspiration - Paul Klee

This painting called Flora on the Sand sings Spring to me and thank you to Tara for suggesting it!! I have a few ideas on what to do with these colours too so I'm anxious for April to get here now...LOL!

Tara will drop by and say hello to us all too...congrats Tara for being this month's winner!

March's "Spoiler"

I think most everyone should have their yarns by now! If you don't and you're in the USA, it's been too long so please email me! I am trying to wait as long as I can before posting a spoiler photo so most everyone has their yarns!

Have you made a suggestion for April yet? If you haven't, please make sure to!

Go with the Flow Flaming June Socks :)

I just wanted to share my Flaming June socks. The yarn looks so beautiful in the cake but WOW! It looks truly terrific when knitted up. I love how the colors stripe and the blue and gold mix and highlight each other. I am in love with the way they look. The pattern is Go With The Flow from IK's 25 Favorite Socks. I think this is my favorite yarn so far. But I say that all the time!

April's Coming - Time for Suggestions!

Time is quickly going by and April 1 will be here quite soon! Let's start the guessing for April's art piece! I don't have any real inclinations for April so I'm open to anything, however, since it's April some may want a few seasonal colours so the only thing would be let's try to stay away from dark colours and lean toward more cheery colours :)

Rules are the same as when we started the contest in February. Good luck everyone!

Oh yes, if you are on Rav and need to get a reminder of what colourways/artists we've already done, please click here.

Invoices for April's membership will be coming out in the next day or two.

March's "Teaser"

Here's a little teaser of this month's colours! I enjoyed dyeing this month's colours and what I found interesting between this Van Gogh and the last we did is that his colourations seem similar from one painting to the next - the big difference being this one is much brighter and lighter than the last!

Enjoy everyone and I have dyed these yarns in such a way that you could easily do a simple sock pattern and have all the colours do the work for you! That's my plan with this one anyways :)

Have a great weekend!

March! I Won?

I'm so tickled, I'd like to thank the academy, and my agent...and ...and...

NO. Really. I'm delighted to have won! This painting was the first I saw when I went out to search, and nothing else (tho' there were many I liked) said "early spring" to me quite the way this one did. I cannot wait to see how Roxanne interprets it - I just know it will be gorgeous!

I'm Knitnana and you can visit me at my blog where I detail everything knitting-related in my life. I'm also Nana Sadie Rose, which is my fabric bag business. I live with my two kitties: The Meezer and The Calico Curmudgeon, and I sew, knit, and work a full time job and have a business client as well. (Whew!)

(No, I have no life outside of that, it's true!)

Well, not exactly true. I have countless friends all over the world, thanks to the internet! And I have a daughter, three grandsons, and a Big Sister I knit for, when I'm not just knitting for me. I don't knit sweaters. None. Nada. Never. Socks, felted bags, scarves, shawls, mitts. Lace and cables. But no sweaters...

What I enjoy doing most is knitting to classical music, opera, and books on CD. I see that as the ultimate retirement to aspire to. So I'm stashing yarn now for my retirement - and Roxanne's yarns are my most favorite of all (so there's a LOT of Zen Yarn Garden in my stash!!)

Thanks, again, Roxanne! I can't wait to see this colorway!

March's Inspiration - Vincent Van Gogh

For the month of March I was looking for something that said "Spring" to me and when Sallee suggested Van Gogh's Almond Branches in Bloom as a piece to consider, it really left a great impression not only for it's fabulous colours but also because it really does remind me of Spring and everything getting ready to bloom.

Thanks again everyone for all the wonderful suggestions - some really great ones come through each month and I appreciate everyone taking the time to look up and suggest art pieces too - it really helps to inspire me :)

Sallee is going to drop by and introduce herself and this week I'll be painting the yarns for everyone - yay! I can't wait :)

Yarn Weights - Your Preference?

We haven't done a poll for awhile and last time I asked this question was in September of 2007 so I'm curious to see if the answers have changed since then so please enter your choice(s). Thanks! :)

No Purl Monkeys

I have been looking at doing the Monkeys pattern for awhile and when I saw someone had done it without all the purling I decided it was time to try this pattern too! Not that purling is bad but it's less thinking when you read the chart/pattern...LOL I'm such a lazy knitter but I like results without too much effort!

Everyone ready for March? Don't forget to get your contest guesses in soon so I can consider them. Deadline to get your entry in is February 24, 2008.

February's "Spoiler"

I am hopeful most of us have received your yarns but if you haven't, please don't click the photo to be taken to a larger photo of the spoiler.

What have you decided to knit with this colourway? I'm working on some no-purl Monkey socks :)

March's Contest - Here We Go Again :)

I am going to start taking suggestions for art pieces for March's inspiration! Have something in mind you'd like to suggest? Here's your chance! Same rules as February's contest with one added note - previous contest winners are not eligible (Lynda that's you LOL) for this month but we'll put you back in the mix again in a couple of months :)

What am I leaning toward for March? Something with a bit of a Spring feel - after all, it's coming soon!

You can leave your suggestion here or in the club's Rav group.

EDITED TO ADD: If you would like to see all the artists & colourways done to date, please click here for a summary of these (Rav link).

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 :)

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!

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)

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?

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?