Headed to TNNA! And yes, my ears are burning.

This weekend I’m headed to TNNA, the National NeedleArts Association trade show where retailers, wholesalers, indie dyers, designers, and other knit and crochet fashionistas all converge to check out the latest offerings in the yarn and fiber world and of course, buy buy buy. The trade show is held twice a year, and for this winter show, they’ve picked a brand new city for everyone to hang out in – Phoenix, Arizona! The weather is supposed to be around 72°F – as you can imagine, I’m thrilled just by the weather report. In the summer I attended the show in Columbus, Ohio and while that was fun, I’ve been to Columbus before (I can drive there, after all), and so I’m excited by the idea of headed out toward the other coast to visit a brand new state. I’m packing my favorite professional summer gear, tons of stitch marker to hand out to cool people I meet, my Ravelry button badge, and of course, my Mini Mania Scarf is coming along for the ride to keep me warm in the cold convention center and because it was such a hit the last time.

Speaking of that infamous linen stitch scarf, I woke up today to discover that my ears were burning – the girls over at KnittingYarn.com wrote up a nice piece about a certain fabulous stitch, and guess who (or more accurately, what) is being featured on their front page?  That’s right, the Mini Mania Scarf! Considering what a crazy week it has been over here (power outage, emergency all-day water shut-off, snowstorm) all while I’ve been trying to get ready for TNNA, this just made my day a whole bunch brighter.

Happy New Year (and other fun news)!

I hope everyone had as happy of a new year as I did! Well, I nearly always have a happy new year, since New Year’s Day is my birthday. It’s like there’s a built-in party for me the night before my birthday every year!  However, I must say that this New Year’s Eve and Day was especially nice, as I had friends helping me celebrate it in style with a huge party and dancing and eggs benedict and balloons and men in drag and cupcakes and even a toaster oven (I love my new toaster oven)!

It's everywhere!!!

So, there’s some fun new stuff on the horizon this year that I’m really excited about and wanted to share with you.  Or give you teasers about, since this post is just a short burst of information. First off, I discovered two awesome things – my last ever shipment of yarn from The Sanguine Gryphon arrived yesterday and it was nommy and delicious and tinged with bittersweet regret. I will be sharing pictures with you sometime the next week or so of the new yarns, I promise. Also, my Mini Mania Scarf pattern was both the featured pattern of the day on The Daily Knitter  and was a “best of 2011″ stashbusting idea at The Knitter’s blog!

If you haven’t stopped by the Mini Mania knitalong we have going on over on Ravelry, you’ll have to poke your head in sometime soon. I’m “knitting along” in the KAL with the other ladies (I don’t think any gents have joined us yet, so I’m safe saying lay-dees) and we’re all having fun looking at each other’s miniskeins and progress on our projects. I didn’t want to leave our cowls lovers out in the cold,  so I just started making a sweet cowl that will eventually become a companion pattern to the Mini Mania Scarf. Which reminds me, I need to take a photo of the minis I am using!

And that leads me to another exciting new year’s goodie. I got a brand new camera this Christmas, and I can’t wait to share all the uber-techy details with you (and loads of pretty pictures too, I swear)!  More on that will be in another blog post this month, but yippee! I’m excited about my new toy.

Last but not least, I bit the bullet and decided to get myself an official newsletter mailing list so that I keep keep all of you better informed of what’s going on in the Exchanging Fire circle. If you are interested in getting shop updates, pattern premieres, special deals and more supercool information like that from me, you can sign up here! I promise only to email you when something terribly important is going on and I’m having kittens* because I’m bursting from the news.

*No kittens were harmed or birthed in this metaphor, unless you count that weird dream I had three years ago about my best friend giving birth to kittens. That one really freaked. me. out.

Check out the Phat Fiber Holiday Studio Tour!

Artichoke Bake

A bunch of us Phat Fiber ladies got together this Christmas and decided to offer our customers a holiday studio tour, just like when you visit a cluster of mom and pop shops during the holidays. We figured that while we couldn’t serve you hot wassail and a lovely nutty cheeseball when you come in out of the cold to browse in our stores, we could offer you our favorite holiday (and sometimes family secret) recipes while you click away at the computer!

I decided to offer my mother’s famous artichoke bake, which is a family favorite. At Christmastime my family has a long-standing tradition – we don’t have one big Christmas dinner, but instead serve a late luncheon of hors d’oeuvres and finger food. We’ll fill up our plates with baked brie and water crackers, shrimp cocktail, mini ham and mint chutney sandwiches, veggies, and of course, the artichoke bake. After stuffing ourselves we take a leisurely afternoon of opening gifts, one by one, all while sneaking away for my food from the buffet. My mother’s artichoke bake is a hit all-season long, and I’m always happy to share it with others!

So get yourself a nice cup of tea, settle down in from of the computer, and take a whirl through our “studios.” Enjoy perusing our shops and browsing through the fun recipes we are offering you for free. This is just our “thank you” for all of your support this season.

The full list of participating Phatties can be found here on the Phat Fiber blog. You can also browse many of them (with pictures) in this Ravelry thread – stop by and check out their delicious recipes, some of which have already been tried out! If you’re short on time and just want to look at all the pretty pictures, one of our Phat Fiber members was kind enough to turn those Phatties who have Etsy shops into a Holiday Studio Tour Treasury. Extra listings that couldn’t find into the treasury are linked in the comments below.

Happy Holidays from Exchanging Fire! Thanks to all of my blog subscribers – it warms my heart to know that you care enough to read my blog on a regular basis. May you have a wonderful winter break and head into January feeling renewed and refreshed.

“I’ve got a brand new…”

“…pair of roller skates, you’ve got a brand new key…”

I’ve got a brand new group for Exchanging Fire on Ravelry!  I’ve kinda sorta been meaning to get one together for oh, the last year or so, but I’m weirdly shy about some things, namely “look at me!” kind of activities, like a group that revolves around myself. I would really suck at being a celebrity. I know, I know, it’s strange because I have no problem being Bossy-McBossyPants in person, but somehow a group like this is different. It’s why you don’t often see me blathering in this blog about random personal stuff. ‘Cause I’m weird like that. Anyways, enough about me and my idiosyncrasies, let talk about the group, which actually, when I get right down to it, has nothing to do with me. Face it – I come in second fiddle to The Mini Skeins. And the stitch markers, and the other fun stuff. (But it’s really about the mini skeins. I understand. I’ve accepted it.)

So, I was arm-twisted into starting the group after I got some requests for a knitalong featuring the Mini Mania Scarf, which I’m very pleased that people love just as much as I do. And, not only did I and some rabid eager Mini Mania lovers start a brand new group, we also started a brand new Mini Mania KAL!

Even better, you are invited!  If you are chomping at the bit to use up all of your minis and want to be part of a growing community of miniskein-crazed knitters, this is your chance. I can’t promise that we are sane, but we sure are having fun with our Mini Mania!

Haven’t joined the Mini Mania yet? Go round up some bits and bobbles of yarn (I prefer fingering, but if you’ve got another favorite weight go use that instead and just adjust your gauge accordingly) and then come join in with us! This KAL is indefinite and ever-revolving, so no time is a bad time to hop in and join the fun. Non-maniac mini-lovers are welcome to join us as well, since I’ll be posting updates pretty regularly in the group about the shop, letting you know about special sales and group deals.

Hope you see you casting on with us soon, if you haven’t already!

Belated November Stash Peek

Maybe we’ll just backdate this and then no one will notice that I left this hanging and forgot to publish it before December. Right? Right?!

shuffles feet

Soooo… I’ve neglected my stash for a while, and consequently haven’t flashed any of you since the summer. Wait, that sounds…I’m going with it. The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson has made me slap-happy. I think I hit a point at the end of August of being so stash-happy that nothing I bought or acquired retained my interest for long, and the few things I did get weren’t very exciting stash additions, like extra yarn for a sweater. Yes, like a child with too many toys, I hit Yarn Overload.

However, I’ve firmly exited my yarn coma, as shown by my ridiculous Black Friday purchases from Eat.Sleep.Knit. Let’s just say that when I fall off the wagon I fall hard. BUT – this post is not about the largess of my new stash acquisitions, but rather, a story about the unsung heroes of my stash. That’s right, I decided it wasn’t fair to exclude the semi-boring yarns from a Stash Peek just because they didn’t sparkle or shimmer or smell like unicorn farts when you squeeze them too much. I’ll save the smelly ones for December.

In August, I purchased a bunch of ONline Supersocke, mainly for the purposes of making miniskeins. But one skein just called my name, and I couldn’t bear the idea of chopping it up. I know it has the romantic name “Canadian Color” and the colorway is cleverly named  “1287″ like it’s your old high school locker, but the glorious colors in this self-striping bit of magical deliciousness totally make up for the German’s stunted writing creativity.

ONline Supersocke 100 Canadian Color in 1287

After all, it’s important to note that sometimes, yarns that are super-soft and magically delicious just tend to get holey faster (nope, still haven’t darned those). I’m so very impressed with the sturdiness and beauty of ONline’s line of sock yarns. This color is gorgeous, it looks great on my feet, the yarn is never too fat for my shoes and doesn’t knit up weird, and it is just a standard-bearer for a great pair of socks you aren’t afraid to run around the house in!  This is a star sock yarn that often doesn’t get enough lovin’, and I definitely invite you to do just that with them.

They couldn't have called it The Rainbow Connection or something like that?

I confess I’ve got a little obsession going on with cotton. It’s ridiculous, since we get great cotton weather for 1/4th of the year, but I love love high quality cotton yarns. My cotton bin is full up on silliness indeed. My favorite cotton yarn, above them all, is Araucania Nature Cotton and Araucania Patagonia Nature Cotton (the variegated version of the former). Since September, I’ve amassed a great collection of multiple colors of this yarn. I haven’t a clue what I’ll do with a ton of single skeins of colored cotton, but honestly, who cares! It’s amazing yarn, and cotton is getting more and more expensive so I’d better buy it while I can. I’ve used it to make fabulous housewarming gifts in the past, so I’m sure I’ll find a use for it again. Let me just show you the cotton and you’ll see why I love it:

Araucania Nature Cotton in 22, Bright Green

Araucania Patagonia Nature Cotton in 233, Coral Combo

Araucania Nature Cotton in 54, Dark Teal

I could make this post just an ode to cotton, but it’s very cold and it feels like winter and quite frankly I just need a good, hot shot of wool in my diet. Enter the king of them all, Cascade Yarns 220 Superwash. I have a funny story about Cascade. Early in my knitting days, when I was young and inexperienced and thought that a single skein of yarn for $8 was horribly expensive and precious, I touched Cascade and turned my nose up at it. Cascade was not nice to feel at all and I was not a fan of the Peruvian Highland wool. Then came Ravelry, and my self-exploration into the concept of fiber. I vividly remember standing in a secondhand shop and discovering, to my excitement, that I could discern what fiber something was made of just by feeling it with my fingers! Last year I stopped at a yarn store with my best friend and touched the wall of Cascade. I whipped my head around, eyes wide, and said, “It’s soft! I like it!” Much like the appreciation of a fine wine takes some time, so too does loving wool. You’ve come a long way, baby.

Cascade Yarns 220 Superwash in 823

Cascade 220 Superwash has come a long way too. It’s the same amazing 220 worsted but with machine washing capabilities! Something I’m discovering I need more, since I accumulated a lifetime’s supply of exotic yarn and then remembered that I really hate doing laundry. Oops. The little beauty I got this November is the first of what I hope are many skeins of Cascade 220 Superwash – I’m on a collect-them-all route, and sort of dream of a big, comfy superwash throw made out them.

Cascade Yarns 220 Superwash in 823

Ok, thanks for playing the Stash Peek game with me this month! I’ll give you a peek into my holiday shopping stash in a few weeks, so stay tuned for ridiculous and yummy yarns that have absolutely no purpose except as wall art or something pretty to fill your china cabinet with!

Exchanging Fire’s Black Friday Sale Spectacular is ON!

It’s that time of the year again! My Etsy shop, Exchanging Fire, is having a Black Friday Sale Spectacular. Use coupon code AfterTurkeyDay for 15% off your entire order! The sale starts at midnight on Black Friday and continues through the end of the work day on Cyber Monday. Enjoy the savings, and remember to shop early to make sure you get the goodies you want before they are sold out!

Exchanging Fire featured again in Knitting Naturally podcast

Knit Naturally, the knitting-related podcast by Dawn, featured Exchanging Fire again this year in her annual “My Favorite Things” podcast! In case you haven’t heard of Dawn before, she’s a fun-loving Texan who considers her podcasts to be sort of like sitting around on the front porch with your friends. The casts are full of her rapier wit and stories about her family and life, interlaced with knitting tips and tricks.

This year’s annual “My Favorite Things” podcast, which just came out today, featured Exchanging Fire’s Mini Mania Miniskein sets. How exciting! If you’d like to take a listen to the podcast, she talks about my shop right at the beginning, and links to all of the stores she mentions in the cast are listed in her Ravelry group.

I do have two new sets of mini skeins in my shop right now, True Blood Reds and Honeycomb, so this coincides nicely with these sets’ release.

True Blood Reds

Honeycomb

Phat Fiber’s Shearlock and Sonata stop by for a visit

Hey all, Phat Fiber’s Shearlock and Sonata have been hanging out here at the Exchanging Fire headquarters and they wanted to show everyone how much fun they have been having! They arrived the same day as my brand new extra large Stanwood Needlecraft umbrella swift did, and after I installed it (over the kitchen sink, gotta love those space-saving tricks) they took a ride on it while I wound 11 balls of yarn!

My new swift is a killer.

After we wound the yarn, we went to take photos in the afternoon sunlight and visited with my cat, Mittens, who, it should be known, hates having his photo taken. Shearlock found the cat very frightening and refused to get too close. Sonata was annoyed that he kept huddling up against her and keeping her from stomping the cat. I told her that while she might be in charge of Shearlock, he was not a herd, and the cat was not a fox out to eat him so she should keep her hooves safely tucked away. She wasn’t pleased by my decree (I think she’s a little bloodthirsty!). Read more about guard alpaca here.

That face says, "I am bored with you."

The photoshoot went very well, though Shearlock was rather surprised that “behind-the-curtains” in this situation was literally behind the curtains! I told him they were sheers, not curtains. Sonata just sniffed that behind-the-curtains was much messier then she had expected. I told her that utter neatness was the sign of a disturbed mind.

The pair of them did beg for one favor from me, however. They insisted on getting to hang out with this yarn that they had been hearing about, Wool-meece. After Sonata heard Shearlock pronounce it she got a little nervous. Said she wanted no part of it if there were mice involved, so it took a little convincing, but in the end they both got themselves photographed with some Wollmeise. Sonata thought it smelled heavenly, though Shearlock said it wasn’t wooly enough for his taste.

This yarn is going to be a future Mini Mania Scarf!

After dinner I typically wind yarn and make stitchmarkers, and both Shearlock and Sonata were thrilled to explore my stacks of beading supplies and piles of yarn ready to be miniskeined. Sonata loved how old frozen sushi trays have been repurposed for holding different selections of beads paired and waiting to become stitchmarkers. Shearlock just enjoyed bouncing in the piles of yarn. We watched some Jon Stewart, too.

"There is no sushi here! I am deceived!"

Mmm, Jon Stewart makes life more funny.

To be fair, it wasn’t all play for Shearlock and Sonata. They helped me on a super-secret quest to make up a set of the most perfect honey-toned miniskein colors for my Mini Mania sets. Sonata’s knowledge of color-matching was impressive (I imagine that’s from all of the great dyers she has visited) and Shearlock even helped sort the yarn! I’m very excited about those brand new Honeycomb sets. I couldn’t have done it without their help!

"Sonata, you could be helping, you know, instead of just sitting there like a lump." "I'm guarding the yarn, Shearlock!"

Shearlock and Sonata had so much fun taking photos with me that they insisted on getting their own professional portrait done as well. Shearlock especially wanted to show off his new bell that I made for him out of one of my beads. And both of them were tickled pink with the results:

Sonata and Shearlock, Partners in Yarn and Fiber

I will say that we did forget to take photos at church on Sunday – I took them so they could help out with Operation Christmas Child, but we forgot the camera in all of the excitement! They were thrilled to help dedicate the 107 boxes that we are sending all over the world this winter, though. and they were happy to have such a nice visit here at Exchanging Fire. They are winging their way back to the PhatFiberLady, whom they say that they have been missing. I think they need a cuddle.

Check me out in The Knitter!

I was stalking The Knitter, a UK knitting magazine, religiously this summer. The editor, Juliet Bernard, had asked if she could feature my pattern, the Mini Mania Scarf, in one of her stashbusting blog posts. I was thrilled, of course, and started watching like mad for it. Well wouldn’t you know it, right after I gave up the hunt she posted about my pattern! It was last month, but her stashbusting tips for all of the fabulous ways you can use up yarn are totally still relevant. Plus, hey look, there I am!

But there’s more! The Knitter (hard copy side) contacted me again because they are doing a larger spread about stashbusting in their next issue, and wanted to know if they could reprint my pattern photo there as well! I think that if the pattern is being featured (or, as the case may be, a teeny picture in the corner) it should be the most current issue, issue 36, which went on sale Sept. 5 in the UK. If any of my European readers have found it, I’d love to have a scan of the page or a copy of the magazine. Either way, keep your eyes peeled for me, please!

UPDATE: I wrote to one of the editors who initially contacted me to ask where my picture was featured, and she was so kind as to give me a digital copy of the page that my scarf was on. Yey! They had originally told me that the reason they were interested in featuring my scarf was because a reader wrote them a letter talking about it. So they actually wrote about my scarf in a response to the reader, whose letter they published in a section of the magazine called “In the Loop”. Very exciting!

In other news, I’ve joined Craftsy and I’m loving it – it’s a great complementary site to Ravelry because it offers me a chance to share my non-knitting related stuff (ok, that’s like, one sewing project, but still) and it offers great online classes and stuff like that. What fun!

 

Hexipuffs. Hexipuffs. What What the Hexipuffs.

I keep forgetting to post about the hexipuffs that I have finished knitting so far. I have had some of them done for a week or so but I haven’t gotten around to photographing and writing about it. I’m really thrilled with how little yarn these are using – I’ve been able to get exactly 4.5 hexipuffs out of two miniskeins of the same colorway. I had the same yarn in another colorway that blended enough to finish that 5th off without a discernible difference. The yarn I’ve used so far is Zwerger Opal Garn in Zirkus and Hundertwasser, and I really love the colors and striping effects going on.

Third Hexipuff in Opal Zirkus

I knit my puffs using both the s2k and the ssk directions in the pattern, and I’ve found that the s2k creates a much cleaner line. It’s slightly hard to grasp the instructions at first, but they are super easy (basically just k2tog backwards) and are worth learning because they make my hexipuffs look so much nicer. Also, I am not a crocheter, and try to avoid wielding the hook when I can, so I am using the kitchener bind-off – which I am in love with. It’s so pretty!

img. 1: S2K (left) & SSK (right) Methods; img. 2: Kitchener Bind-Off

I’m leaving the tails on at both the beginning and the end of the puffs because I’m going to weave the hexagrams together their corners, just like Stephanie did with her quilt ties.  That will make a nice floppy blanket that is still held together well, but without the obviousness of different yarn ties. All of my hexipuffs are coming in at a weight of 3 grams each, both stuffed and unstuffed. I have lightly stuffed mine, so there is probably less than a half-gram difference between the two weights. Oh, and they are about 2.75 inches across at their widest point, and 2.5 inches tall.

Hexipuffs!