Vacation Sock Madness and More News...

Hi Knitters,
I am going to quickly talk about a couple of the news items first. I am teaching one class on Saturday, April 14th, 2012, in Madison, Wisconsin, at the Knit Circus Retreat. There are still a couple of spots available if you'd like to join me. There are a few other classes with openings, too. Hope to see you there.

Click here for the Knit Circus Retreat Class information!  

One more quick thing I want to mention is that I noticed yesterday that my YouTube Channel has just gone over 1,000,000 viewings! That is so incredible and hard to believe. Thank you, thank you, thank you! I love doing tutorials and whatnot so I will continue to post videos over there. You can subscribe if you want notices of updates. I don't mention my stuff on YouTube very often so the number of viewings is pretty surprising.

My channel has 42 videos which are mainly tutorials. I started filming at my kitchen table in 2007 with my 15 year old son (he's now 20!) behind the camera. I have had two new camera updates since I started so the picture is little clearer now.

Click here for SusanBAnderson's YouTube Channel!

There is one more news-type item but I'll save it until the end.

Now let's move onto the sock madness of last week. While on vacation, I posted a quick photo of a sock I was working on. I linked the Etsy shop, Cakewalk Yarns. A couple of days later I received a message on Ravelry from the owner of Cakewalk Yarns, Rose, and I asked her if I could share it with you. She said yes, so here it is:

Thank You!!

Sent at 10:29 AM April 7, 2012

Hi Susan!

Well, I’ve hardly had a second to sit down to the computer & thank you properly for mentioning my shop on your blog this week. Droves (and I mean droves!) of your readers have hopped on over to check out my shop - I can’t dye Cherry Blossom fast enough for them :) I am so grateful. I appreciate your kind words & taking the time to show off your socks!

Enjoy the rest of your vacation. --Rose

How fun is that? Yay, Rose! I am so glad to send business your way. For those of you who are keeping Rose busy with your orders, I guarantee you won't be disappointed. I finished the first sock in Cherry Blossom and started the second sock.

Click here for Rose's Cakewalk Yarns shop!

I am crazy over this splattered yarn. It knits up like a dream and the colors come in and out of play in the most pleasing way. Above is the Cherry Blossom colorway which is incredibly sweet and fun.

I used US size 1 Signature Needle Arts double-pointed needles (in the top photo). I used my regular old How I Make My Socks pattern, which I store right in my noggin. That way it is always available.

I have two more skeins waiting to be knit into sock-y madness, one is called, Hero Squad (click here to see it better), and the other is called, Sudden Valley (click here to see the color better). My girls are in love with this yarn so I think I will end up knitting a pair for each of us.

Isn't it the coolest ever? Cakewalk Yarns are so unusual and different. The base is lovely and really thin, kind of a light fingering weight. I love it! Rose has great customer service and she is located in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Remember the Vesper Candy Corn sock? I made great progress on the second sock on the way home. I finished the gusset decreases and now it will be easy and fast going to the toe. I'll show you when I finish the pair. I have loved this yarn for years and years. It is wonderful.

It is hard to get this yarn and there is some available in the shop right now so jump over if you are interested!

Click here for Vesper Self-Striping Sock yarn! 

Okay, one last sock and sock yarn for today! After I shared my love of self-striping watermelon yarn, I was sent over by a lovely friend of mine, Wendy on Facebook, to this fantastic Etsy shop called, Knitpurlgurl.

Unbelievably so, there is some yarn available in her shop for pre-order right now! Run! This is another difficult to get your hands on yarn.

Click here for the Knitpurlgurl shop on Etsy!

I am absolutely loving this squishy, hearty, rainbow sock yarn. You get a cute themed stitch marker with your order which is a fun touch. You will love this yarn, too. Abi Grasso is an insanely amazing dying talent, I can't understand how she dyes her yarn. It must be so intense. She puts stripes, hearts, gnomes, mushrooms or toadstools, stars and stripes, watermelon stripes, Christmas themes, bunnies..... and more into her patterning sock yarn. I have never seen anything like it.

I have a skein of her heart yarn I got around Valentine's Day (I haven't started those yet) and a skein of her watermelon striping yarn but I really want her snowman yarn.... wish me luck!

Don't miss this shop if you like fun striping and patterning sock yarn like I do!

I finished one sock in the Rainbows and Clouds colorway on vacation. I have had a love of rainbows since childhood so this one is right up my alley.

Click here to see the Rainbows and Clouds sock yarn in the shop!

TC wants these socks for herself in the worst way. We'll see. We may have to share.

If you order from Knitpurlgurl tell Abi I said hi!

Now I'll end with one book and one magazine.

Instead of buying new books for the trip, I went to my book shelf and pulled out a couple of books that I've had for a long time but haven't read. I ended up reading, The Secret Between Us, by Barbara Delinsky on my vacation.

Barbara is a knitter and she so sweetly came to a book signing I had in Boston a few years back in 2007. It was so strange because I had just finished her book, Family Tree, which involves knitting and Madison. I didn't know this before I started reading the book. Also, I had never read a Barbara Delinsky book before Family Tree (which I highly recommend). Then a couple of weeks later I met her. Isn't that strange coincidence?

Anyway, The Secret Between Us, is an intense read that keeps you wondering what will happen next right from the first page on. I could not put it down. It is a riveting story about a single mother trying to cover up a horrible mistake her daughter made. As a mother I immediately could relate to the main character's urge to protect her daughter from harm. It wasn't light reading, it was slightly angst-filled, but very entertaining. There is no swearing or racy-ness, just good character development and story-telling, which is Barbara's clear talent.

I enjoyed the book very much. I read that Barbara has over 25 million books in print. She is doing something right!

I was at Barnes & Noble with TC a couple of days ago. We had a Hunger Games book 3 emergency! I saw the spring issue of Your Knitting Life on the stands. I had heard I was featured in this issue so I picked up a copy.

I did the interview with them way last fall so I had kind of forgotten about it. The brief one-page article is really well-written and good. I had to just share the article title and sub-title with you. I don't know why but I think it is funny. I never imagined myself being known as a "Critter Knitter" but I am good with that.

You just never know where you're going to end up in life, right?

Click here for the Your Knitting Life website!

I know that was really a long post and if you can believe it, I actually took stuff out. I have too much to tell you I guess. Thanks for staying with me to the end.

I'll be back soon with the tropical yarn shop I visited in Key West.
best, susie

Island Life

Hi Knitters,
Today is the first day my house has been empty. Everyone is back to school and work so I am glad to get back to visiting with you. My family and I spent the last week in Key West, Florida. It's a spot we have always wanted to visit but never have before. We took advantage of spring break lining up at the same time this year for all of the schools. All of the kids were able to come on the trip which felt so good.

I was talking to my editor yesterday and he asked what my favorite part of the trip was and I had to say it was my pink cruiser bike with the handy basket. I loved and rode that bike so much all week. Once we got on the island I don't think we drove more than a couple of times the entire week. We walked and biked everywhere. I want one of these bikes at home to keep....

The weather was gorgeous, hot and sunny every single day. We took advantage of a state park just a few blocks down from the place we stayed. It was so beautiful and convenient.

We biked out on this gigantic and colorful pier a couple of times.

It was just stunning in the bright sunshine. One of my sons fished off this pier but didn't have much luck.

TC got a pink bike, too, and Peachy picked a white one. The boys all had black bikes.

We stayed in the Truman Annex which is a spectacularly well-kept area. The Little White House sat directly in front of our condominium, just steps away. It was old-fashioned and sweet looking. Harry Truman spent many vacations here along with other presidents like Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter and John Kennedy. There were many other visitors with famous names you'd recognize on the sign outside this historic house. There were many historic buildings and houses everywhere you looked. We went by Ernest Hemingway's house but never went in. It was really pretty.

This is the entrance to our condominium. It was quiet and clean and plenty big for our large family. The building backs up to a fantastic boardwalk which we spent lots of time walking on. There was a local coffee shop and an ice cream shop that we frequented along with other cute little beachy shops along the way.

I just loved all of the colors and brightly painted houses. There was tons of artwork nestled into the community. Mosaics and paintings kept catching my eye in unexpected places. There were also roosters all over the place and cock-a-doodle-doo-ing all of the time. That was amusing to us.

We stayed right on Front Street which, in my opinion, is the prettiest street on the island. It was clean and colorful, lined with beautiful houses (some big, some small) and inns and bed and breakfasts. My favorite thing was the huge front porches and white picket fences on all of the houses. I've always wanted a big front porch like that.

My husband loved these extra-gigantic palm trees. They were impressive.

Cruise ships rolled in and out during the week. This was a foreign cruise ship but we never found out exactly where it came from.

This was the view from our pool, lovely and bluer than blue.

My fisherman son got lots of good fishing time in. He caught quite a few fish and always quickly throws them back in. He loves the water and the ocean.

Peachy loved the trip. She is the fairest of us all so I tried to keep her from getting a sunburn and succeeded this time. That's a full-time job in itself. Three of us have my olive dark skin and the other three have lighter skin that needs closer attention in the sun.

This son is already back at college and I was so glad to have him with us on the trip. The others are back to their real lives as well. The food, sun, water and activity is always fun but the best part of any trip is that we get all of that time together as a family. When I said my bike was my favorite part of the trip earlier? I'd like to change that to having uninterrupted time with my family as my favorite part of the trip. That's a given.

As my kids get older I value these fleeting weeks together more than ever as I know that busy schedules and lives will get in the way more and more as the years go by.

I hope you all had the chance to enjoy your families and dear friends last week, too.

I'll be back very soon with some island knitting.
best, susie

My Boys

Hi Knitters,
Sometimes I look at those three men and I can't believe my eyes.

TC and I visited a tropical yarn store today! It was interesting. I picked up a couple of fun things. I'll share more on that soon....

Bye for now my loves.
best, susie

A Little of This, A Lot of That

Hi Knitters,
I am off this week to a faraway island where I'm doing a little of this...

very little....

and a lot of sitting back with my family by my side to enjoy the spectacular ocean view!

Yarn:  Cakewalk Yarns in the Cherry Blossom colorway! (I love it sooooo much. Check out her entire shop.)
Pattern: How I make my socks!

Thanks for the Lost Banner Hat love. The pattern has been flying out of my Ravelry pattern shop.

Take care and I hope you are enjoying your view this week.
best, susie

New Pattern, New Winner, New Award!

Hi Knitters,

First off, I am so honored to have won the Readers' Choice Award for 2012 for Favorite Knitting Blog/Website! Thank you so much for the nomination and for voting for the award. It is quite a thrill. I was lucky enough to be asked for an interview after winning the award, too. 

I especially want to thank my loyal and fun Ravelry Group, Itty-Bitty Knits, for voting for me. I know they helped greatly. I will proudly display the award logo on my blog sidebar. Thank you, again, to everyone for voting and for the support!

Click here to see more about the Readers' Choice Award Winners!  There are winners for the knitting categories of favorite yarn company, favorite needles, favorite book, and favorite designer along with my category for favorite knitting blogger/website.

Click here to read my interview with About.com!

I love everything about this blog and have enjoyed the work I have lovingly poured into it for the past six years. It feels good to know that others are enjoying it, too. 

On to other news, I randomly selected and contacted a winner for a copy of Kata Golda's Hand-Stitched Felt book. The winner is deliamae (rav id)! Congratulations! Thanks to everyone who entered and I will have another giveaway and review soon.

Now for the new pattern! In case you don't know about the original hat photographed in my blog banner, it was knit in my own handspun worsted weight yarn from Fiber Optic Yarn gradient roving. It was a gorgeous hat, one of my favorites for sure. One day last fall my daughter bustled off to school wearing this hat. I hesitated a little but decided not to say anything and to let her wear it. That was the last time I saw the hat. It has been lost ever since.

I posted the photo on my blog banner and I have received many, many requests for the pattern which I didn't write down at the time I made the original hat. I have now re-knit the hat in Malabrigo Worsted and I have written out the pattern.

Here are a few more shots of the handspun version of the hat:

Above is the beautiful Miss Molly modeling the Malabrigo Worsted version of the Lost Banner Hat. The Malabrigo Worsted is the perfect yarn for this hat. Really, any worsted weight yarn in wool, any wool blends, superwash wool or cotton will work great for this project. You only need one skein or about 200 yards of worsted weight yarn to make the hat!

Here is some information you might like to know about the pattern:

Size: child (adult)

Finished measurement: 17.5 inches (19 inches)

Note: The finished hat is very stretchy and is to be worn with up to 3-4 inches of negative ease. The adult size easily fits my head circumference, which is 22 inches.

Yarn: Malabrigo Worsted (100% merino wool; 100 grams/210 yards), 1 hank

Samples are made in Malabrigo Worsted in the Kaleidos colorway, and my own worsted weight handspun from Fiber Optic Yarn and Dyeabolical Yarns.

Needles: US size 7 (4.5mm), 16-inch circular and a set of 4 double-pointed needles or the size needed to obtain gauge

Gauge: 5 stitches per inch in stockinette stitch

Materials:

Ruler or tape measure

Scissors

Stitch marker

Yarn needle

The photo above is the top of the Malabrigo Worsted version of the hat. Doesn't almost everyone have a skein of Malabrigo sitting on their shelf? Here is the perfect project for that languishing skein!

The hat above is made in my worsted weight handspun. The roving was from Dyeabolical Yarns and Fiber. The yarn turned out great and I love the finished hat. If you are a spinner with a skein of worsted handspun with around 200 yards, this pattern could be for you.

The pattern for the Lost Banner Hat is available in my Ravelry pattern shop. You don't have to belong to Ravelry to purchase patterns on Ravelry, it is open to everyone.

I hope you enjoy the new hat pattern. It is a simple unisex hat that is for children, women, men, teens, everyone! It is the perfect quick gift knit and can be worn many ways.

Click here for the Ravelry project page for the Lost Banner Hat! 

Click on the button below to purchase the hat pattern for the Lost Banner Hat!


Wow! What a week it has been. I found out that Itty-Bitty Hats, my first book, is going into its 7th printing, which is amazing news. I won this fantastic award. And best of all, I get to come on this blog every few days and share time with all of you! Thanks for the support and fun. I love being here with you.

best, susie

Kata's Hand-Stitchery ~ a giveaway & review for you!

Important News! The publisher, STC, just contacted me and has offered a copy of Hand-Stitched Felt to a winner! This is now a giveaway post. Please leave one comment with an email address or rav id on this post to win a copy of Kata's beautiful little book of felted whimsy!

Hi Knitters,
I took a brief break from yarn and knitting a couple of weekends ago. I had been knitting up a storm for some deadlines and needed a quick reprieve. I looked at my bookshelves and pulled out Kata Golda's Hand-Stitched Felt. I am completely taken with these sweet, innocent, childlike, hand-stitched designs. I have never met a more charming book than this one. I am a complete fool for hand-stitching and wool felt.

I have been wanting to make one of Kata's creations for a long time and I happen to have quite a nice collection of wool felt from Purl sitting in my stash. I seized the day!

These adorable little animals caught my eye right away. Each animal is about 11 inches tall so they are a good-sized stuffed toy. It was hard to choose which one to make first because they are all so cute. The clothes are just as sweet and hard to choose from.

Here is what I decided upon...

..... Kata's mouse!

I started out with this sweet pink mouse wearing the shirt and pants. I just love the way it turned out. The pattern templates are all included in the back of the book so it is all right at your fingertips. I used computer paper to trace the pattern. For the wool felt, I soaked it in Soak Wash and put it in the dryer to soften it up before cutting and stitching. Then it smells good, too.

The toy is stuffed firmly and with the layers of wool felt and tiny hand-stitching, it feels like heaven in your hands. I really wish you could hold this mouse. You would instantly want to make one of your own. A handmade toy is like nothing else.

Kata's instructions were very clear and easy to follow. This is my first felt hand-stitched toy and I didn't have any troubles at all along the way. I love how the outer seams are done in a simple blanket stitch, one of my favorite stitches. I also love the little imperfections hand-stitching brings to a project.

I added my own embroidered details. I loved making the clothes and picking out the colors so much. I was so inspired by Kata's designs that I immediately had to try designing my own little felt animals.

See that little bunny in the green dress? That's from my own sketch that I then cut out from the paper I drew it on and used as a pattern. I appliqued a tiny carrot on the dress. It turned out very sweet.

I then wanted to try my hand at making a bear. I sketched out a bear and although not finished yet, it is turning out really cute! I'll remember to share him when I finish. I see many more felt toys in my future.

Next up for another felt project for me are these tiny Everyday Journals. I am obsessed with tiny journals and handmade books so this should be perfect. What a great gift idea, too! I'll keep you posted.

In fact, speaking of gifts, these projects work up incredibly fast and are perfect for personalized and thoughtful gift giving. The hand-stitching and imperfections make them so freeing and fun to make. You can do no wrong. Hand-Stitched Felt is packed full of little handmade gift confections. Other projects included are a glasses case, a little purse, a stationary pouch, a door sign, a pincushion, a potholder, and finger puppets to name a few. 

I am so charmed by Kata's designs and sketches. I think you will love this book, too.

Click here for Kata Golda's Hand-Stitched Felt book!

Click here for Kata Golda's website!

Let me know if you have tried something from this book or if you are inspired to try something!

And now, don't forget to leave a comment to win a copy of this adorable book!

Happy Wednesday.

best, susie