Thursday, May 29, 2014

Designer Perks - Free Yarn

I just got a box of yarn samples from Plymouth yarns.  I dropped off a business card sometime back at an industry show and here it is!


All these yummy  yarns (13 skeins) to inspire new designs.  I actually already have a free pattern on Ravelry that uses Plymouth Alpaca Baby Grande (baby blue on the bottom right)  and here is the link to the free download.







Monday, May 26, 2014

Power of Social Media

I just went to my college reunion and was on linkedin finding my classmates and connecting, when I saw a face that I am familiar with on Ravelry. She's quite a prolific poster and also in the SF Bay area so I friended her on Ravelry and we met for coffee yesterday.  We attended a very small science and engineering school with very few women so it was nice to meet another alumna.  When I went to college I toyed with the idea of going to fashion design school but decided career prospects are better in the sciences even though I was interested in both.  I think I made the right decision, after school, grad school,  I took fashion design classes at the local community college and was just short 2 classes for a diploma when I had to drop out because I had to travel for my day job.  And now I design knitwear in my "spare" time so I get the best of both careers.  My Ravelry friend is doing the same, she has a job and dyes and weaves off-hours -  and she also used Nancy Robert's technique which I just blogged about, it's really a small world.

Saturday, May 10, 2014

Dyeing Machine Knitting Dyed Blanks

The Machine Knitting Guild of San Francisco Bay Area, it is a mouthful but a great group.  We have Nancy Roberts of Machine Knit to Dye for do a dyeing demonstration today.  She knits up a blank, dyes it in different colors and then unravels and use it for fair isle and jacquard knitting.  Nancy showed us some of her very beautiful colorwork and this is an example.   I am thinking of finally trying dyeing.  I always worried about the mess.


On a sadder note, one of members passed away unexpectedly.  She was very enthusiastic and energetic, hard to believe that so much vitality suddenly disappeared.  We took some time in our meeting to reminisce and tell stories.  It was very touching - this is a great group of knitters and friends.