$70 Tank

Do you ever get this? Someone you know (usually a nonknitter) comes up to you and says “wow, you must save a lot of money by knitting your own clothes.”

I get it pretty regularly. Happened to me last time I was visiting one of my cousins. Guess what my response was.

Absolutely! This tank only cost me about $70 and provided me with hours of entertainment.

I love seeing the look of shock come over their face.

WWSIP

This Saturday is World Wide Spin In Public day. We will be meeting at the same place that we met for WWKIP, Teazer World Tea Market Downtown. Bring your spindles, wheels and fiber and spend the morning spinning with us. We will start spinning at 10:30 am. If you have never spun before we will have extra spindles so you can participate. We look forward to seeing you there!

Photo 1 courtesy of Teazer World Tea Market Photo 2 courtesy of Velma's World
You can read more about spinning in public over on Velma's World

Teazer World Tea Market

2405 Capitol St # 104
Fresno, CA 93721-2256

(559) 237-7037

What better way to spend a morning than sipping tea & spinning yarn.

Photo 3 courtesy of Teazer

ETA: We will be giving a fiber gift to everyone that comes out on Saturday!

One Day Wonders

My niece went home with my sister on Monday & now I can't stop knitting baby stuff. Isn't she adorable!


Last night I cast on this little sweater. And by the end of the evening it was all knit up. I couldn't believe how quickly it went. The pattern is Inca-Dincadoo Cardigan from Luxury Yarn One Skein Wonders. The pattern calls for organic cotton, but I used this lovely bamboo yarn & some funky sparkly pink eyelash yarn instead. I love how it turned out.





This morning I got up & sewed up the seams. And tada, we have a sweater! Now I need to go shopping for cute little buttons. Oh, and I am also casting on another sweater. This time I am using our sock yarn in Lizard Breath, which is also available in our sea cell & merino sock yarn.

For reasons I probably shouldn't share with the world, it reminds me of my sister & I absolutely have to knit it into a baby sweater for my niece.

Tips for Designing

1. Listen to your yarn. Sometimes, you want to make something work, but the yarn just doesn’t want to cooperate. That is ok. Listen to the yarn & try something different.

2. Don’t be afraid to rip.

3. Play- sometimes the best creations come from just fooling around.

4. Try new techniques. Trying something new can cause you to think outside of the box, which can lead to a new design element.

5. Try new materials. Different fibers will speak to you differently. As will different needles.

6. Write it down. You really won’t remember it later.

7. Keep a notebook to put all your ideas in.

8. Use pencil when charting by hand.

9. Remember there are no rules, there are no knitting police.

This Just In

This Tuesday our yarn & fiber are going on a little field trip. They will be spending the next two weeks at Ancient Pathways. During these fabulous two weeks you will get to oooh & aaah over our 40 lines of yarn & spinning fiber. Yes, that really is a lot of fiber. As a special little treat for all that were unable to attend Sock Summit, our three submissions to Dye For Glory will also be available.

Today I will be reskeining & labeling the last of the skeins that I have dyed especially for this show. This will also be the first time our new label will be seen in public. There are only a handful of skeins that will have our new label because as much as we would like to relabel everything. We thought it would be a bit wasteful to toss a thousand perfectly good labels. For those lucky few that will be able to get their hands on our skeins with the new label, we would love to hear what you think of it.

On a side note, if you look down & to the right you will see something new. We now have out Twitter stream on our blog.

ETA: Oh, and look up. We have a new logo! Watcha think?

So Much to Share!

1. I know I should know how to do this, but I don't. And the first step to solving the problem, is admitting you have a problem, right? So, here it is: I don't know how to create links in my blog. There I said it. So what am I going to do about this? I am just going to put the website here until I can figure it out. (ETA: Kiel has shown me the way of the link, so I am including them now.)

2. You can now find Anzula yarn in two new shops. You could already get our yarn at Ancient Pathway in Fresno, Dulitz Tree Farm in Springville, and Janna's Needle Art in Fresno. Now you can also get our fibery goodness at Knitique in Elk Grove and The Knitting Room in Lodi. Exciting, right!

3. I am now a Thea. My little sister had a little girl last Wednesday. Meet Olivia Marie!

















Isn't she beautiful! She decided to come a month and a half early. You wouldn't believe she is only 4 pounds and 6 ounces. But next to my sis, you realize just how tiny she is. I can't wait to meet her.


















My sister was able to hold her for three hours here. I am so happy for her.

4. I have finished loading all of our sock yarn on Hyena Cart. I am really proud of this. I still need to get everything up on Etsy, but it's a start.

5. I realized something the other day when I got an email from Facebook. The email stated that Suzanne tagged a photo of me in her album. I clicked the link, and saw this:

























I was confused for a minute. It is pretty obvious that I am not in this picture, but then I realized the yarn looked pretty familiar. It was Anzula superwash merino/cashmere/nylon sock yarn. That is when it dawned on me. We need an Anzula page on Facebook. So, here it is: The Anzula Facebook Group
The sweater is pretty awesome, Suzanne said it only took 1 skein of our sock yarn. Pretty cool! I think I need to make one now. Ya know, cause I'm a Thea and all. She made it in a weekend.

6. We are going to be at Lambtown USA this year. Lambtown is in Dixon, and is going to be October 3rd. If you have not heard of Lambtown go here.
You don't want to miss it. There is a sheep to shawl competition, lamb tasting, classes, lots of fiber & yarn, and lots of other really cool things going on.

7. I love dyeing yarn, but sometimes draw a blank when it comes to naming the skeins. I was talking about this on Twitter the other day and someone said they would like to help. So I posted pictures on Flickr.com & created a Name this Yarn set. This all got me thinking. What would be cooler than to have you be part of the creation of Anzula yarn. So from now on I will be posting new yarn here, and you will get to be part of the naming process. We still only dye small batches of generally non repeating colorways.

8. I am going to knit on my silk & linen lace shawl now. Happy Knitting!

The Sock has Left the Building

The Sock Summit has come & gone, and I feel like a little bit of me is missing now. For so long I have been preparing for this wonderful event & now it is over. Kinda crazy. None of this would have been possible without the help of a whole whack of people, especially our little corner of it. I am so thankful to every one of you that helped out*. From skeining, to labeling, to feeding me, to helping me back up my crazy trailer, to loading & unloading, to design input, to... I could not have done any of it without my wonderful friends & family. Thank you.

So... wanna see what we all helped create?

We started out with a blank canvas,

















and worked to create something beautiful.









After the booth was set up we went to a dinner hosted by Lantern Moon at the Kennedy School.


















Wednesday we got up bright and early to go to a class taught by Barbara Walker.












































After class I went back to the booth,














and waited for the Market to open. We had a crazy busy two hours, then went to the Opening Reception.

















Friday morning I went to Cat Bordhi's class.
















then talked in the Color Me Crazy booth. Sorry no pic.
Saturday morning I went to Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's class, again sorry no pic.














Then did a spinning demo.

Sunday morning I had a class with Nancy Bush. Who I have to say is the nicest, most humble, and incredible teacher.

















Then after the market, went to the Luminary Panel.














Sorry about the grainy pics. I had to do some editing to get them to come out.

































We went back to the market place after the Luminary Panel,














and were one of the last ones to break down.


















One of the Canadian vendors & their crew helped us pack up the truck. Which was especially cool since we were short handed.

Now I am home again, and not quite sure what to do with myself. But it sure is nice to spend time with my hubby and animals. I'd like to say I don't have much to do, but that just isn't true. I have a full schedule of massages, am preparing to send out the Sock Summit special orders, and am meeting with LYSO to carry my yarn. Oh, and there is the constant updating of the Etsy & Hyena Cart shops. Yeah, not sure what to do with myself. Right...

*A special thank you to my husband Kiel, Diane, Susan, Wendy, Darin, Yelley & Wendi.