Bookworm Vest Raveling

Seth asked me to knit a poncho for Alyssa for Christmas.  He paid for yarn and sent me buttons.  It took only half the yarn and less than half the buttons to make the poncho, so Seth said I could keep the extra.
It was perfect for the Bookworm Vest I've wanted to make from Folk Vests by Cheryl Oberle.
I'd been looking at the picture in the book rather than the stated measurements, so was rather surprised to be making such a roomy smock/tunic rather than a fitted vest.  Oh well, I like that too.  Some of the numbers are incorrect, so I spent a few hours researching errata, and reading Ravelry comments.
Now, with all that worked out, I've made a mistake of my very own.  I put the buttonhole band on the wrong side.  Which I might have been able to live with if it hadn't been for the fact that the neckband has an overlap that would end up lapping to the wrong side.  Guess I'd rather ravel.

But this is good, because it gives me a chance to change the size of the buttonhole from 4 sts to 2 sts to better accomodate the 1" buttons instead of going out and buying 1.5" buttons.  Also, now I can put in 5 buttonholes where there were only 4.  Happy accident!

Double Knitting

For some time now I've been admiring all Lucy Neatby's new double knit designs.  I did make her  Mirror, Mirror Scarf years ago, which is a good place to start, but now she has lots more double knitted patterns. So when I came across this online free pattern from Cascade Yarns for a Scandinavian Double Knit hat, I had to try it.  In my stash there are some yarns that I raveled from thrift store sweaters.... the darker one is an especially soft wool that I've been yearning to knit up...
It took me three tries, getting out Lucy's Mirror, Mirror pattern for more thorough instructions, re-charting for my own way of thinking, and restarting a couple of times, but now it's coming along!
Already I'm imagining some of my designs made into double knit hats and scarves.

Mermaids

Starstruck Mermaid

The Sunrise Mermaid hat is getting closer to being published.  I have to knit it one more time, to have one to photograph that matches all the changes I've made to the chart along the way.  This one is coming out a lot more loose in gauge than the first one did.  Some will fit larger heads than others - it's all in the gauge!

As I'm knitting this pretty, pastel-colored hat, I enjoy remembering the first mermaid hat I designed.  That one came to me as a result of buying a cookie at Starbucks.  We've been calling it the "Caffeinated Mermaid", but today I thought of the name that I really want it to have - the Starstruck Mermaid!  That's it!!  Okay, now that one can be published, too.

Wow!  Rejoicing!  Just a little advertising, and suddenly our Facebook activity is up 302,700%!!  That just makes me tremble a bit!

We have at least ten new designs working their way toward being published.  So many ideas brewing...

Prototype of the Trees

Also, I've added another "knitting social" to my regular calendar, so now I knit with friends in Brewer on Mondays, Hancock on Fridays and in Ellsworth every 1st and 2nd Saturday.  When I look back over this first year back in Maine, it's so much fun to see how many wonderful new friends I've collected.  Yes, I'm talking warm-fuzzies!!

Printer woes and wins

Rejoicing!
Well, first a disgruntled sigh....  our latest print job arrived... new patterns printed.  Should be exciting, right?  But not when they don't look right.  We weren't thrilled with how they came out, so I was trying to think what would need to be inserted with them in the kits to help.  But STAN (yay for STAN!!)  called the printer to ask what could be done;  they handed him over to the graphic artist.  Of course she first checks to see if the pdf's are good enough...  She found our pdf's and started to exclaim!  "Wow!  These designs are beeeautiful! What's your website?"  She said both the hat designs and the pattern designs were very well done, the pdf's are excellent, so they will re-print the patterns.
So there's a delay, but our patterns should be as beautiful as the hats deserve.

Rejoicing!! Fifth retail location for MKD!

We had a great weekend in Hartford at Stitches East.  Overall the market was slow this year, but it was still fun to be there in The Manning's Handweaving School and Supply Center booth, selling the Mrs Knitter Designs hat kits.  We did pretty well. Did I see you there?

Then, on the drive home, we decided to stop in to visit at a new local yarn shop I've been hearing about in Rockland Maine.  We really enjoyed meeting Mim and the other girls who work at Over the Rainbow Yarn.  It's a beautiful shop in a beautiful town.  We were happy to be able to stock them up on all our kits - now they just need to figure out where to display them!

Thank you Mim, looking forward to a great relationship with you and your sweet staff!

Rejoicing - another yarn shop is carrying Mrs Knitter Designs!

Yay!  It's fun to get a phone call like that.  Today Shirley called me because a customer of mine showed her one of our kits!  My dear friend and customer really sold Shirley on our designs.  We went to visit Shirley and her daughter at their store in Hancock, Maine, and they stocked up.  If you're in the area, stop in and see!

Shirley's Yarns and Crafts
Shirley's Facebook Page