I'm working on a new knitting pattern for the ribbed neck warmer I showed yesterday on the blog. Here are a few other versions of it, with and without a felted flower and leaf. The pattern will include instructions on how to add the flower and leaf and basic felting instructions for recycled sweaters. Watch for it soon in my shop and on Ravelry.
I don't know if it's the end of August and a bit cooler weather or what, but my sales have taken off at the Saturday Market. I had 18 sales last week and 12 this week. I can't keep up with producing product that fast, especially my neck warmers. This is one I sold this week along with a gorgeous green alpaca one in the same design which I didn't even have time to photograph.
Of course, I have a pretty big inventory of items, some of which have been around for a while. These two bags sold , the "squiggles" one was a 2007 creation and the rose and oatmeal bag was something I finished last November. It was nice to see them both go to "good homes" at last.
I had a great day at the Saturday market today, made 18 sales plus I have a couple of actual and a few other potential custom orders from the day. In the last week or so, I've sold a few favorite items and I thought maybe it was time to show them off one last time.
I'm hesitant to share information about this great giveaway because I so want to win it for myself. Here's your opportunity to win a set of Knitpicks needles, their new acrylic ones. Check it out here.
If you are a knitter, check out these new links and tools I've recently discovered. Each one represents a knitter's treasure:
Knitting Chart Generator: http://chartgen.orangellous.com/index.php
How to make a magic ball for knitting: http://www.jimmybeanswool.com/2009AugNewsletter.asp
Periodic table of knitting (a work in progress): http://www.flickr.com/photos/maryjoy/3492334994/
Knitmap: a searchable map of knitting stores around the world (even has my local LYS's): http://www.knitmap.com/
Knitting humor: http://www.stitch-witch.net/knittinghumor.html
Pickups without hiccups (picking up stitches on a long edge): http://the-panopticon.blogspot.com/2009/06/pick-ups-without-hiccups.html
The Blog Carnival for August for Etsy Bloggers suggests the following theme:
Have you been playing this summer? Did you go on vacation, or stick close to home? Let's see some photographs!
I have had an opportunity to play a bit this summer, though I wonder where the summer has gone. Because this is my first year participating in the local Farmer's Market I feel like I've spent much of my summer on that endeavor. I work full time so my weekends are precious and with almost each Saturday taken up by the market, my summer seems to have just blown by.
I did have two trips to see my now one year old grand daughter in Southern California and in between I had a wonderful long road trip through Montana to Spokane and up into British Columbia to the Castlegar/Robson area. My grandparents had a summer home in Robson they called "camp" where we spent many summer days growing up. It looked like this back then:
And to the right is a view of the lower Arrow Lake (a widening in the Columbia River) from the property. If you look closely you can see a stern wheeler on the lake. Nowadays with a paper pulp plant across the lake from camp, it isn't quite the same serene spot, but it still holds many warm memories for me. So, I still love to visit. On this trip, I got acquainted with my only cousin and his wife and visited my aunt who is now 92. We spent a few hours pouring over old fam
ily pictures and reminiscing. I brought home some old family photos including one of my great grandmother whose photograph I had never seen. I brought home a box of photos. It is a precious memory of my summer adventure.
Memories for Life is the featured Blogger this month for my group, the Etsy Bloggers. You can find her shop here and her blog here.
Her shop is filled with adorable photo albums including cute items from flip flops and word albums like the one below. In her shop profile, she admits that she"paper crafts for life"....and it sho
ws!
Sorry I've been absent for most of the past two weeks. After my trip through Montana to Canada and No. Idaho, I was home a few days before leaving for Boise then California. I got to celebrate my grand daughter's first birthday with a Hawaiian luau. Here she is in the outfit I made to match the Happy Birthday banner I made.
And speaking of banners, I was inspired by my first effort to make a similar banner for my upcoming craft show. Normally, we share a "Southeast Idaho Etsy" banner for the Farmer's market, but the event on Saturday will just be my creations so I wanted something that said "HomeMadeOriginals". As I begun, I definitely began to regret the length of my shop name. I cut triangles out of three shades of denim and used three different shades of sweater felt to make letters. I added a few felted flowers to give it a bit more finished look.
I really needed to wait for better light and find a good location for the photo, but I was impatient to get it posted. I'll try for better photos of my craft booth this weekend.
Here's a photo of my drive home through Montana....beautiful scenery, long drive!
