A Few Designers I Follow

All this rain has kept me housebound with a good excuse to do a lot of knitting and web browsing.  Here's my latest Quarters Cap with my new knitting bag in my favorite colors:

There are so many wonderful designers out there, many with interesting and creative web sites, that I have decided to make a list of my current favorites on this blog so that I can keep track of what they are up to.  Here are some of them:

  Kirsten Kapur has a nice web site with lots of hats, mittens and shawls.  Anne Hanson is probably on a lot of lists; her designs are beautiful and her patterns are always well done.  Knititude is Angela Hahn's site.  I like her  summer sweaters and would like to make the  Sorelle Lace-Edged Pullover  for myself.  There's a California designer by the name of Alana  Dakos with a site called, Never Not Knitting, and I stopped by her very busy booth at Stitches. Her designs are really attractive and she has a nice line of children's designs and her patterns have to be the most beautifully designed that I have ever seen. I happened to meet a woman wearing her Cream and Sugar Cowl made with yarn from Wool Candy:

                                                                                      

  My plan is keep updating my list as I come across new designers.  Anyone know of a designer that I should know about?                                                                                 

Bite Me New England

A few years ago, there was a cute yarn shop in Alameda called, Yarn!  The owner, Janis Tester, had great taste and I loved her window display which was a giant basket of yarn with two very large straight knitting needles.  I used to drive by there alot while working and always had to resist the temptation to stop by.   One year she even joined us at our South Bay Knitters Retreat  up in the Santa Cruz mountains. Janis closed the shop and she and her husband moved to Massachusetts where she is spending alot of time   cooking and started a blog called, Bite Me New England.  It's  a funny blog about her experiences cooking in her new home state and the accompanying culture shock of someone from California searching for fresh vegetables in winter, and elusive spices and other ingredients . She also includes some nice recipes and lots of photos:

   Janis' recipe for Tater Tots:                                                                          

     A Tuna Parfait:                                                                                                            

                                                                                     
                                                    So I have heard of Potato Chip Knitting and now I am in the middle of it.  For anyone not familiar with the phrase, it's like eating potato chips; it's hard to stop and you just want to knit more of the same because it it so much fun.  I made the Quarters Cap by Kristin Nicholas because I wanted a quick knit hat for my husband that would use up some of my stash, deflect the looks I am getting from him for my Stitches haul and remind him what a valuable thing it is to have a wife that can turn out such wonderful and useful stuff.  Here is the first hat:

This was fun to do and I finished it in about 2 days.  I started thinking of other color combinations and started a second one for myself in more stash yarn:

                                                                                                                                                                        
It's knit in four quarters (thus the name) and here is the second one half way done:

                                                                                                                                                                           Similar colors to my new knitting bag!                                                            

Snow Scenes in March

The Lake Tahoe area has really been hit with record snowstorms this winter, which is a bummer if you are trying to drive up here, but is so great for those of us who like snow sports and for the local economy.  The snow plows are running out of space to throw the snow and we are having the same problem at our house.  Here is a picture of our driveway:

And here's Jim with our well used snow blower:

Went snowshoeing at Sugar Pine State Park at Lake Tahoe today and it was so quiet.  I had the place to myself:

                                                                                                                                                                        There's a snowshoe track that winds along the water and ends back at the Ehrman mansion at the Park

                                                                           
                                            A lonely snowman on the dock.
                                                                        

                                                                              
Finished my socks that I made from the Opal sock yarn I bought at Stitches.  This is a record for me, but I loved the colors and couldn't wait to finish them.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

More About Stitches

Years ago, I would come home from Stitches laden down with all my purchases.  This was before Internet shopping was in full swing and there was a very limited number of yarn shops available.  I just couldn't pass up all that beautiful yarn!  Neither could my friends from South Bay Knitters as we would get together   for a post Stitches meeting to show off all our great finds, some projects getting done right away and others to languish in our growing stashes.

Here's what I came home with after two days at the Market:

                                                                                   
 A beautiful shawl pin that I picked up at Black Water Abbey Yarns.  Also some cute sheep buttons.  What will I use them for?  I don't know, they are just cute!

Here's the patterns I bought from Coco Knits:

 
Some Noro Silk Garden I bought at Webs:

                                                                                                                                                                         A new bag for my knitting projects with lots of zippered pockets.  Good for travelling:

                                                                                                                                                                   And looky here!   Some Opal sock yarn and I have already finished the first sock!

                                                                                                                                                                       Cookie A, sock designer extraordinaire, would be impressed - even if it isn't her design!  Hi Cookie!

                                                                                                                                                                      Time to put my buttons away for next year!

                                                                                                                                                            
                                                                       

Stitches West Part II

With my Knitters shopping bag and Stitches directory in hand, I headed off to the market on Friday to do my part to support the knitting industry.

                                                                            

 The whole thing is really visually overwhelming;  so many gorgeous hand dyed yarns, beautiful sweaters, shawls and interesting sock projects displayed and a moving fashion show taking place on the floor as knitters walked around wearing their handknits:

                                                                          

                                                                            

 This is  the Renaissance Shawl by Jane Elliot.  And here is the Thordis Shawl in one of my  favorite colors.

                                                                                

                                                                              

Here's the Debbie Bliss Cable Vent Jacket

                                                                                  

                                                                            

Lots of button vendors:

  These buttons are from Alice's Tapestries and Art Buttons of Santa Fe, New Mexico  and this picture doesn't begin to show all the really unusual and beautiful buttons and bags she carried.                                                                         

Ali McGraw of Love Story fame was signing books at the Ruhama's booth:

                                                                            

Ruhama's carries the Kauni  yarns and they had some beautiful samples on display:

                                                                              

                                                                                                                                                                

I bought the pattern and yarn for the Brady Scarf:

                                                                             

Here's Jessica Bailey wearing the Liesl  seamless tank from Coco Knits:

                                                                            

It looked really great on her.  I bought the pattern and I think I'll make it in the Louet Euroflax.
Also bought the pattern for the tunic Silke after I saw it on this woman:

                                                                                    

It was made in Elsbeth Lavold Silky Wool.

Lots of nice jewelery and bags.  Here's a knitting bag I bought for myself:

                                                                                   

More about what I bought in my next post when I get my pictures organized!

                                                                                 

Stitches West

Stitches is always fun to go to and this year was no exception.  A bigger market with lots of new vendors    with so many beautiful hand dyed yarns, books, needles, buttons, etc. that it was too much to take in on one day.  Two days still didn't seem like enough time, and I know I missed alot, but I was way over my Stitches budget and there is always next year....

Thursday night was the Ravelry party with Casey and Jess and it was fun to get to go to one of their events.

    Jamie and I ran into Beth Brown-Reinsel of Knitting Traditions fame, and we talked about the time we took a class with her on knitting a Gansey sweater with a group of knitters from the Salt Lake City Knitting Guild.  What a great weekend with that bunch!  I still think her patterns are about the best written ones out there.

                                                                                                                                                                       
Here's Beth with a knitter who was showing off her beautiful glove that she had just made:

    

It was easy to spot Jasmine of the Knitmore Girls Podcast in the crowd:

                                                                                                                                                                         Here's Wonder  Mike of the Fiber Beat Podcast with a member of the Skacel team:

                                                                                                                                                                      And on to the market on Friday morning!