That’s right, it’s that time of the year again! It’s time to shop like crazy at Exchanging Fire’s Black Friday sale!
Use coupon code AFTERTURKEYDAY to save 15% off anything in my shop until midnight on Black Friday! Customers who spend $100 or more receive a free goodie from me (deliciously good).
Often in the wee hours of the night when I’m shipping out a large group of orders for the morning mail run, I try to imagine who the people are that these goodies are going to. While I’ve gotten to know my repeat customers over the years, everyone starts out as a stranger. So I enjoy writing thank you notes and gathering context clues from nicknames and addresses – is Kathy from Menlo Park a fun grandmother knitting for a passel of family members or is Bea from Berlin a young, urban knitter adding to her stitch marker collection? Who knows!
But the truth is, while my products are winging their way around the world, I don’t always know where they are going or how they will be used. So it’s fun to occasionally find a blog, tweet or Ravelry post about my shop, and boy was I surprised to find Exchanging Fire featured in a whole video podcast last week! Check out this clip of Kristi reviewing my digital row counters and mini french macaron holders below at the 30 minute mark:
It was so much fun watching them getting just as excited about my stuff as I do. Hee. In a Sknit is a video podcast run by two women in Illinois who are really cute and manage to simultaneously run a podcast and knit at the same time. This is not the same thing as just running your mouth and knitting at the same time, which I still often fail at doing. So go back to the beginning of the video and watch the whole thing – Sarah and Kristi are super relaxing and fun to “hang” out with virtually.
After a long summer hiatus, the Phat Fiber box is back in business! October’s theme is Ex Libris, and for all of those book lovers out there, that means it’s a box totally dedicated to bibliophilia. As a fellow book lover, I decided to go kitsch this month, and immortalized my favorite “reading” tv show, A Reading Rainbow, in stitch marker form.
These Reading Rainbow stitch markers are inspired by the show’s theme song, and feature charms illustrating all of the wonderful places books can take you. It’s kind of funny, but still to this day two of my favorite kinds of books are about dragons and spaceships!
Don’t forget, if you purchase anything in my store from Sep. 20 – Nov. 13 you are eligible for the Phat Fiber Superbox Giveaway! To win this month’s Phat Incentive, which includes the contents of this month’s video (aka The Superbox), you need to join the Phat Fiber group on Ravelry and then post what you’ve purchased in the incentive thread.
“Butterfly in the sky / I can go twice as high / Take a look / It’s in a book / A Reading Rainbow…”
I’ve been shown several photos recently of Exchanging Fire stitch markers “in the wild.” I thought I’d share some of the images that have been “caught” recently so you can see them in action!
This cute Polaroid of the Red Riding Hood stitch markers was taken by Alena, aka buters on Ravelry, who made a pair of Straightforward Mitts:
Mizpah, also known as feywyrd on Ravelry, has acquired a brightly hued collection that she took for a jaunt into the woods. Pictured below are La Vie En Rose and A Moment of Honey:
Mizpah went knitting with fairy tales that day as well, and the The Frog Prince and Princess and the Pea stitch markers featured here are hanging from her aptly named Mizpah shawl:
Vicki, also known as nonaofsav on Ravelry, shows off a lovely little one-off stitch marker from the Wild Child sampler collection on her Lilla koftan baby sweater:
And these “wild” needle buddies have been tamed on bugnursebrenda‘s sets of DPNs!
I love seeing how people are enjoying their goodies, so thank you for sharing! If you’ve got more “in the wild” shots you’d like to share with me, I’d love to see them. You can share with me on Instagram and Twitter, or send me a photo on Ravelry or Etsy. Maybe I’ll share a bunch of images in a future blog post. Thanks again!
That’s right, it’s that time of the year again! It’s time to shop like crazy at Exchanging Fire‘s Black Friday sale!
Use coupon code AFTERTURKEYDAY to save 15% off anything in my shop until midnight on Black Friday! Customers who spend $100 or more receive a free goodie from me (and trust me, they are deliciously good).
And hey, tomorrow is Small Business Saturday so here’s a shout-out to all of those indie businesses out there. Help support your community (both online and in your neighborhood) by shopping small!
As soon as I heard about this month’s Phat Fiber Sampler Box theme, Rust and Roses, I immediately knew what I was going to do. I have so many ideas rattling around in my head, and it’s hard to find the time to raise these inspirations out of the dark. So thank you, Phat Fiber, for giving me the opportunity to bring another beauty into the light.
This design began by pairing together the colors of rust – copper – and a sweet, unusual color akin to copper and topaz blended with bittersweet melon:
Now, I’ve never really been a fan of the traditional red rose. It always bored me, quite frankly, and growing up I was usually attracted to the more unusual varieties of flowers, like hibiscus, orchids or calla lilies. As I have grown into adulthood, however, I’ve become more aware of the roses that exist beyond the grocery store florist – like the wild rose, with it’s gorgeous knock-out blooms, or unusual heirloom varieties with colors like smokey bronze, chocolate-red, rusty apple-orange or spiky green. Wow. I want a whole garden full of unusual roses!
So without further ado, here are my brand new La Vie En Rose stitch markers, gold-dusted pink topaz rosebud Czech beads paired with gorgeous copper accents to create a look so realistic it’s like you are knitting with miniature roses.
The name was inspired by the haunting cabaret melody of the same name, which was written by the famous French singer Edith Piaf in 1945. It’s a melancholy post-war tune that is as much a classic as Moon River, and very evocative of the time period. Here’s a modern rendition of it that I find absolutely gorgeous:
Don’t forget, if you purchase anything in my store from Nov. 19 – Dec. 20 you are eligible for the Phat Fiber Superbox Giveaway! To win this month’s Phat Incentive, which includes the contents of this month’s Video (aka The Superbox) AND a $100 Gift Certificate to one of the participating shops, you need to join the Phat Fiber group on Ravelry and then post what you’ve purchased in the Rust and Roses incentive thread.
Want to know how you can get one of these boxes? For a Phat Fiber community edited guide to snagging a box, visit this thread in the Ravelry group. The cost of the box is $36 including shipping. Good luck!
Enjoy the new design, which is up in the Exchanging Fire shop!
Well, my goodies arrived last week at the Phat Fiber headquarters, so here is the big reveal for the stitch markers I made to coincide with this month’s Egyptian theme. Flight of the Butterfly is a very limited edition design, primarily composed of vintage beads, so don’t hesitate to nab a set today!
Butterflies were very rare in Ancient Egypt because of the harsh climate, and not much is known about how the Egyptians perceived them. There are some tantalizing clues, however, found in the tombs and hieroglyphics of Ancient Egypt, so I had a wonderful time researching this connection. My inspiration comes from the inlaid silver bracelets that were found in the tomb of Queen Hetepheres I. Made of silver, turquoise, carnelian and lapis lazuli, some researchers and scholars believe they were designed to protect her and help her to fly into the afterlife.
Butterflies, with their ability to “rebirth” themselves after “entombing” themselves as caterpillars, may have been greatly honored by the Ancient Egyptians. Ancient Egyptians may have seen a parallel between the linen wrappings on their dead and the chrysalis of the butterfly. When butterflies were featured on wall reliefs, their images tended to be overly large and placed close to the heavens or other symbols of life everlasting. This indicates not only their importance but also shows that they may have reinforced the Ancient Egyptians’ concept of the afterlife.
Butterflies did not always stay in Egypt year-round, and often migrated from other more friendly climates, making a sighting of one a rare and beautiful thing indeed. The most common Egyptian butterfly, the Plain Tiger butterfly, is believed to be one of the first butterflies used in art in the world, making its way onto a 3,500-year-old wall design in Luxor, Egypt. Today, that fresco shows us a glimpse of the rich wildlife that was found in Egypt when the Pharaohs still ruled it.
I had great fun digging into this relatively unknown history about Ancient Egypt. If you are interested in finding out more about the beliefs that the Egyptians may have had toward butterflies, I highly recommend reading this master’s thesis by Dawn Haynes from Stellenbosch University in South Africa.
Don’t forget, if you purchase anything in my store from Oct. 18 – Nov. 15 you are eligible for the Phat Fiber Superbox Giveaway! To win this month’s Phat Incentive, which includes the contents of this month’s Video (aka The Superbox) AND two Gift Certificates to one of the participating shops, you need to join the Phat Fiber group on Ravelry and then post what you’ve purchased in the current incentive thread.
My stitch markers were featured at the 13:22 minute mark in the video:
Want to know how you can get one of these boxes? For a Phat Fiber community-edited guide to snagging a box, visit this thread in the Ravelry group. The cost of the box is $36 including shipping. Good luck!
Enjoy the new design, which is up in the Exchanging Fire shop!
I’ve been twice-blessed recently, because this week Interweave Crochet’s Summer 2014 issue hit stands, and featured inside it were a set of my stitch markers! The markers highlighted were Exchanging Fire’s Orange Blossom Special, a limited edition set of faceted brilliant orange cat’s eye paired with vintage leaf beads and adorable antiqued gold orange charms. These markers were customized with closed claw-style clasps, though I also have closed kidney-style and open-style hooks. Here is a sneak peek of the page they are featured on, in the magazine:
Did you know that most of the stitch markers at Exchanging Fire can be converted into crochet-friendly markers? All you have to do is ask! A simple message in the “Notes to Seller” area as you check out is all it takes.
The summer issue of Interweave Crochet is a beautiful garden tea party theme, with lots of faerie lace and even handcrafted crochet teacups. And the New and Notable accessories section features adorable felted gnomes alongside the Orange Blossom stitch markers that you should check out.
This month’s theme for the Phat Fiber Sampler Box was a little unexpected, and I really didn’t think I was going to participate until one night when I was laughing over posts in the Rubberneckers group on Ravelry.
Like a lightning bolt, I thought of the funny Internet expression, “teal deer,” which references a post where someone has pontificated themselves into oblivion. Respondents are forced to reply with “tl;dr” (too long; didn’t read) or run screaming from the computer. Or both.
“A teal deer, eh?” I thought to myself. “Well, that’s a horse of a different color, all right!” After all, the idiom “a horse of a different color’ usually isn’t talking about horses at all.
So without further ado, here are my brand new Teal Deer stitch markers, handpainted by moi in a gorgeous sparkly teal color so that you can chuckle over the inanities of life while knitting away on your newest project. Enjoy!
Don’t forget, if you purchase anything in my store from May 18 – June 20 you are eligible for the Phat Fiber Superbox Giveaway! To win this month’s Phat Incentive, which includes the contents of this month’s Video (aka The Superbox) AND A $150 Gift Certificate to one of the participating shops, you need to join the Phat Fiber group on Ravelry and then post what you’ve purchased in the incentive thread.
Want to know how you can get one of these boxes? For a Phat Fiber community edited guide to snagging a box, visit this thread in the Ravelry group. The cost of the box is $36 including shipping. Good luck!
Enjoy the new design, which is up in the Exchanging Fire shop!
It’s that time of the year again. There’s nothing like sitting down in front of your computer in your pjs, a big cup of cocoa in one hand and a delicious leftover turkey sandwich in other, catching the best deals with your…big toe? Maybe you should put the cocoa down first. Then head over to my shop, Exchanging Fire and shop your heart out this Friday!
Use coupon code AFTERTURKEYDAY to save 15% off anything in my shop from midnight on Thanksgiving night to midnight on Black Friday! Customers who spend $100 or more receive a free gift of one of my favorite things.
Also, you’re invited become an Exchanging Fire Insider, if you aren’t already one. Sign up now to receive your super secret code for even deeper discounts during the Black Friday blowout!
Exchanging Fire 