We did these cute "I Make Pretty String" t-shirts awhile back. I mailed one to Wendy Johnson of WendyKnits fame and she was nice enough to take a quick snap and send it over.
She looks pretty great in it don't you think?
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Wendy and Pretty String
We did these cute "I Make Pretty String" t-shirts awhile back. I mailed one to Wendy Johnson of WendyKnits fame and she was nice enough to take a quick snap and send it over.
She looks pretty great in it don't you think?
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Spring 2011
Alrighty then. This is the second go-round of this blog post. The first one disappeared in an unfortunate delete incident. I may have gotten a little distracted by Fleetwood Mac Rumors. Anna put it on a few minutes ago and it brings back more than a few memories. Some of those memories make me blush.
Let's get back to the here and now rather than 1977 shall we?
We started shipping the Lorna's Laces Spring 2011 colors in the past couple of weeks. If they haven't arrived at your LYS yet, you should be seeing them shortly. We did five, four multi's and one nearly solid.
As with the past couple of season, we've been leaning towards whimsy with the names. This series derived from a facebook post I made lamenting the underutilization of the word "shenanigans". I was flooded with words along the same vein and we decided to embrace it.
Shenanigans, the namesake for the collection.
We all fell in love with this color the instant it came out of the dyepots. We were worried that it might feel a little autumnal, but we decided to go ahead with it because we liked it so well. Besides, it just screamed Shenanigans to us.
Next up is Tomfoolery.
This is our bright for the season. Magenta, rich orange and golden yellow make for nothing but fun.
Monkeyshines is and elegant neutral.
This colorway developed from a email I got from an LYS owner. One of her clients had mentioned that golds and greys were all the rage in home decor. She sent along a few pictures and it really got my creative juices going. I developed several variations on this theme and it was hard to narrow it down to this one. It's fun to do this sort of collaboration. As they say, two heads are better than one!
The last of the four multi's in Hullabaloo.
It's actually a little more muted than this photo represents it. I think it's a perfect gender neutral color. There's touch of aqua in it, but not enough so it tips to reading "boy color". Besides kids stuff, Hullabaloo seems like a perfect match for blondes although now that I'm writing this, I can picture it being wonderful for folks with darker coloring as well.
Last is our nearly-solid, Kerfuffle.
It's a deep, rich grey with a little purpley/blue/stormy skies thing going on in the background. I've got this one on needles making Anna Bell's Favorite Cardigan from Modern Knits Vintage Style.
Let's get back to the here and now rather than 1977 shall we?
We started shipping the Lorna's Laces Spring 2011 colors in the past couple of weeks. If they haven't arrived at your LYS yet, you should be seeing them shortly. We did five, four multi's and one nearly solid.
As with the past couple of season, we've been leaning towards whimsy with the names. This series derived from a facebook post I made lamenting the underutilization of the word "shenanigans". I was flooded with words along the same vein and we decided to embrace it.
Shenanigans, the namesake for the collection.
We all fell in love with this color the instant it came out of the dyepots. We were worried that it might feel a little autumnal, but we decided to go ahead with it because we liked it so well. Besides, it just screamed Shenanigans to us.
Next up is Tomfoolery.
This is our bright for the season. Magenta, rich orange and golden yellow make for nothing but fun.
Monkeyshines is and elegant neutral.
This colorway developed from a email I got from an LYS owner. One of her clients had mentioned that golds and greys were all the rage in home decor. She sent along a few pictures and it really got my creative juices going. I developed several variations on this theme and it was hard to narrow it down to this one. It's fun to do this sort of collaboration. As they say, two heads are better than one!
The last of the four multi's in Hullabaloo.
It's actually a little more muted than this photo represents it. I think it's a perfect gender neutral color. There's touch of aqua in it, but not enough so it tips to reading "boy color". Besides kids stuff, Hullabaloo seems like a perfect match for blondes although now that I'm writing this, I can picture it being wonderful for folks with darker coloring as well.
Last is our nearly-solid, Kerfuffle.
It's a deep, rich grey with a little purpley/blue/stormy skies thing going on in the background. I've got this one on needles making Anna Bell's Favorite Cardigan from Modern Knits Vintage Style.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
knit.sock.love
I took some time on Sunday to read Cookie A's latest, Knit.Sock.Love
This book is absolutely stunning. Stunning I tell you. Laura Kicey did the photography and she did a stunning job. Did I mention it was stunning?
It's a collection of 19 patterns. Some of them are old favorites like Monkey and Hedera while others are brand spanking new. She's broken the patterns down into three sections, Columns, Tessellations and Diagonals. Within each section, the patterns are presented in increasing levels of complexity. It's all very organized which makes me very happy.
The Columns section are variations on vertical design elements. Repeating elements are stacked on top of one another. Cables immediately come to mind. So do some simple lace patterns. Columnar patterns make it easy to keep track of where you are by checking your current work with the work below.
This is Stalagmite. It's shown here in our Shepherd Sock color 22ns Turquoise.
The next segment is Tessellations. (Please tell me I'm not the only person who'd never heard that word before.) A Tessellation is an arrangement of shapes on a surface the leaves no gaps between them. Mosaic tiles are a good example. The world famous Monkey Sock is probably one of the best known examples in the knitting arena.
This section includes Clandestine. Lorna's Laces worked closely with Cookie in the creation of a special color for this sock, Cookie's Deep Dark Secret. The marriage worked quite well, don't you think?
The final section is Diagonals. Cookie describes diagonals as patterns that travel off the grid. She's embracing the idea of adventure and pushing boundaries. How cool is it that a sock can do that for us? I think my favorite of these socks is Sake. (Named after sake sashimi rather than the rice wine.)
The patterns are available as singles or you can go ahead and buy the book. I always prefer to own a book. It keeps things nice and tidy for me.
Would you like a copy for yourself? I have a signed one right here. Reply to this post by Friday, February 18th at 5PM central time and me know which pattern you want to knit and we'll let the random number generator pick a winner. We may even throw in a skein of yarn to enable you even more. (I've only put up three pictures, you should really take a look at them all here. There are so many nice ones. Rhombus and Stricken. Cusp and Wedge. BFF and Marilinda.)
We all need a little sock p0rn in our lives. Especially when it's this stunning.
**Also, you all should know that the book was written before we changed our put-up. Now it's 100g and 435 yarns so you'll only need one skein of Lorna's Laces for a pair of most socks.
This book is absolutely stunning. Stunning I tell you. Laura Kicey did the photography and she did a stunning job. Did I mention it was stunning?
It's a collection of 19 patterns. Some of them are old favorites like Monkey and Hedera while others are brand spanking new. She's broken the patterns down into three sections, Columns, Tessellations and Diagonals. Within each section, the patterns are presented in increasing levels of complexity. It's all very organized which makes me very happy.
The Columns section are variations on vertical design elements. Repeating elements are stacked on top of one another. Cables immediately come to mind. So do some simple lace patterns. Columnar patterns make it easy to keep track of where you are by checking your current work with the work below.
This is Stalagmite. It's shown here in our Shepherd Sock color 22ns Turquoise.
The next segment is Tessellations. (Please tell me I'm not the only person who'd never heard that word before.) A Tessellation is an arrangement of shapes on a surface the leaves no gaps between them. Mosaic tiles are a good example. The world famous Monkey Sock is probably one of the best known examples in the knitting arena.
This section includes Clandestine. Lorna's Laces worked closely with Cookie in the creation of a special color for this sock, Cookie's Deep Dark Secret. The marriage worked quite well, don't you think?
The final section is Diagonals. Cookie describes diagonals as patterns that travel off the grid. She's embracing the idea of adventure and pushing boundaries. How cool is it that a sock can do that for us? I think my favorite of these socks is Sake. (Named after sake sashimi rather than the rice wine.)
The patterns are available as singles or you can go ahead and buy the book. I always prefer to own a book. It keeps things nice and tidy for me.
Would you like a copy for yourself? I have a signed one right here. Reply to this post by Friday, February 18th at 5PM central time and me know which pattern you want to knit and we'll let the random number generator pick a winner. We may even throw in a skein of yarn to enable you even more. (I've only put up three pictures, you should really take a look at them all here. There are so many nice ones. Rhombus and Stricken. Cusp and Wedge. BFF and Marilinda.)
We all need a little sock p0rn in our lives. Especially when it's this stunning.
**Also, you all should know that the book was written before we changed our put-up. Now it's 100g and 435 yarns so you'll only need one skein of Lorna's Laces for a pair of most socks.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Eight is Great
Things I am grateful for:
1) Wine. Red or white. Pink in the summer. I'm not that discriminating.
2) Chocolate. The darker the better.
3) Coffee. With enough cream to make it a beautiful shade of milky brown.
4) The Lorna's Laces crew. Who bring their best and brightest every day. And aren't too fussy when I don't.
5) Knitters. Who always seem to have sunny, yellow dispositions.
6) Lorna Miser. The goddess of all things purple, who entrusted me to continue her creative vision.
7) My darling husband. Who looks best in a green shirt.
8) Eight years of making pretty string. In all of the colors.
My life is good.
1) Wine. Red or white. Pink in the summer. I'm not that discriminating.
2) Chocolate. The darker the better.
3) Coffee. With enough cream to make it a beautiful shade of milky brown.
4) The Lorna's Laces crew. Who bring their best and brightest every day. And aren't too fussy when I don't.
5) Knitters. Who always seem to have sunny, yellow dispositions.
6) Lorna Miser. The goddess of all things purple, who entrusted me to continue her creative vision.
7) My darling husband. Who looks best in a green shirt.
8) Eight years of making pretty string. In all of the colors.
My life is good.
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Loopy Legends
A couple of months ago, Sheri from The Loopy Ewe contacted me about a special project. You see, over there at The Loopy Ewe, they have a select group of customers called Loopy Legends and Sheri asked us to dye up colors in their honor.
While we do custom colors for shops regularly. Most of the time the LYS owner has a pretty good idea of what they want for a custom color. We often start from their logo or shop colors. Sometimes we do team colors. Or they send in a photo for us to use as a starting point. Then we send them several samples and they pick the one they like.
This was a memorable request because we were basically let loose and told to go nuts! We were given very loose direction, “Here are the colors that go in this colorway – we’ll look forward to getting these in your interpretation of it.” They didn't want samples...we just got to play in the dyepots! I can't even begin to tell you how much fun it was.
There were twenty four colors in all. I'll give you a peek at three but you should really go take a look at them all for yourself on the Loopy Legends page.
This is MomSue's Yellowstone Sunset.
Linda's Antique Treasures
Amy's Double Play
I can't decide which one is my favorite. I'm leaning a bit towards Ronni's Jewel Box. Or maybe Debbie's Autumn Joy. There's always Wendy's Ferns and Toadstools....Help me pick! Which do you like best?
While we do custom colors for shops regularly. Most of the time the LYS owner has a pretty good idea of what they want for a custom color. We often start from their logo or shop colors. Sometimes we do team colors. Or they send in a photo for us to use as a starting point. Then we send them several samples and they pick the one they like.
This was a memorable request because we were basically let loose and told to go nuts! We were given very loose direction, “Here are the colors that go in this colorway – we’ll look forward to getting these in your interpretation of it.” They didn't want samples...we just got to play in the dyepots! I can't even begin to tell you how much fun it was.
There were twenty four colors in all. I'll give you a peek at three but you should really go take a look at them all for yourself on the Loopy Legends page.
This is MomSue's Yellowstone Sunset.
Linda's Antique Treasures
Amy's Double Play
I can't decide which one is my favorite. I'm leaning a bit towards Ronni's Jewel Box. Or maybe Debbie's Autumn Joy. There's always Wendy's Ferns and Toadstools....Help me pick! Which do you like best?
Monday, February 7, 2011
Winners!
We have our winners!
Our Packer winner is theindigomuse. She can expect to be hearing from both Yarns by Design and Signature Needle Arts to get her prizes.
The Steeler winner is kjgonn. We don't have any contact info for her/him but as soon as we hear, we'll get the prizes out.
Thnaks to everyone who played along with our silly game. It made my Super Bowl experience even more fun that it would have been anyway.
Our Packer winner is theindigomuse. She can expect to be hearing from both Yarns by Design and Signature Needle Arts to get her prizes.
The Steeler winner is kjgonn. We don't have any contact info for her/him but as soon as we hear, we'll get the prizes out.
Thnaks to everyone who played along with our silly game. It made my Super Bowl experience even more fun that it would have been anyway.
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Signature Needles Wants to Play Too!
I just got a call from the nice folks over at Signature Needle Arts. They want a piece of the Super Bowl action too!
They are generously upping the kitty in our little Packer/Steeler contest and have offered to give away one pair of straight needles to each of our lucky winners. In keeping with the theme, they have gold needles (sized 1 and 6) and green needles (3 and 8). Or you can pick another color if you'd like.
Click on the contest link and let us know who you are rooting for.
They are generously upping the kitty in our little Packer/Steeler contest and have offered to give away one pair of straight needles to each of our lucky winners. In keeping with the theme, they have gold needles (sized 1 and 6) and green needles (3 and 8). Or you can pick another color if you'd like.
Click on the contest link and let us know who you are rooting for.
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