Where have I been...all over!

So I could have sworn I had written a post a couple months back, it must have been dreamed in the few hours I get to sleep at night.  Well I guess I didn't, I definitely get a slap on the wrist for writing a resolution blog and then not writing any update.  I am properly shamed now onto what I was going to write about, the many things that have happened in 5 months!

So lets start with updates:

Five days after I wrote my last post I had a baby boy, Reece, who is now 5 months. He is a porker.  The only wee ones pattern I made up was a hat because his head got big.   I haven't even had time to measure him for me to make patterns. But c'est la vie.

First time at the beach.  Don't worry he had his own little tent to hide in.

My husband joined in on the fun and is now the office side of the business, and a bit of the creative too.  He revamped the website in March, gave us new tag lines, business cards, and a new colorway for Sprout, April Showers.

The screen shot for Spring, check out the new one he created for Summer.

April Showers

As you can see the screen shot from March, I did come up with two new lace weight lines.  Seed Lace  is 100% Superfine Merino Wool in 32 colors. Silky Seed Lace is 50% Fine Merino Wool,  50% Silk in 34 colors.  You can check those out on the website as well.  We also have a store on the website that sells our straying hanks, pretty on their own and the only ones of their kind. So if you have a hankering for yarn that no one else will have ever, you can get it there.

We went on a road trip and have a whole bunch of new stores interested in carrying our yarn in the Fall.  Reece actually did really well, he travelled over 3500 miles! I also got to meet some designers that you might be seeing with new designs in our yarns in the future. ::wink, wink::

In the mean time though it is summer and I am working on a new line of yarn as well as laceweight patterns, more on all of that later.

But now for the big news:  We are going big time and we've decided we are showing at the big trade show-TNNA Winter Show, in Phoenix, in January 2015, no matter what!  Just tell your LYS owner to look for a man wearing a ridiculously smiley baby on his front.  We are designing the booth as we speak and boy it's going to be awesome.  We'll have 5 yarn lines, a slew of garments in each line, and one rockin' booth.  We have the spirit, but we need the funds, so we started a crowdfunding campaign on gofundme.  We have a whole bunch of cool gifts for each donation level, so check it out.  Anything helps, you're literally helping a small business to grow by giving us the opportunity to show thousands of people who we are and what we are about.  You can read about our campaign here.  If you can donate that would be great, if anything share the heck out of the link for us, what ever you can do will be greatly appreciated by us. Here is the URL if you want to use it.

http://www.gofundme.com/new-yarn

New Year's Resolutions!

Happy New Year to all my fiber fiends out there!  It has definitely been a busy year, hopefully yours has been as productive feeling as mine.  I'm still carrying a little munchkin in my belly but 2 weeks left and I'll have the insane pleasure of being a first time mom, cue the vomit in hair!

Well I went through what I wanted to accomplish last year and here is what I actually did accomplish.

For The Fiber Seed:
* I created more than 20 new colorways last year.
* Have my yarn in 5 yarn shops.
* Beef up my knitting and crochet accessories stock for my Etsy Store.

For Me personally:
* Complete two projects a month regardless of when I started them.


Great accomplishments right?  Well, I had a couple of lofty ones that I didn't quite finish, for one reason or another, so those get added to this years list along with some new goals.

This Year:

For The Fiber Seed:
* Create a new line of yarn.
* Create pattern support for my current line of yarn (Sprout) as well as the new line. (I've already gotten a jump on that one!)
* Get my yarn into 10 more yarn shops.
* Keep a running stock in my Etsy Store for knitting and crocheting accessories.
* Design more patterns, you might see wee ones sized patterns too...I will have a little model at my finger tips.
* Finish my class on writing knitting patterns for multiple sizes.
* Publish a book of patterns.

For Me personally:
* Finish all the projects that I started last year but didn't finish because I wouldn't be able to wear them because of the impending baby bump.
* Finish 2 projects a month regardless of when I started them.
* If I start a project it has to use some of my stash. (Even if it's using my stash as a provisional cast on. (::Mischievous smile::)


So here is my proof that I have already started on my resolutions:  I wrote a pattern, for Sprout, in the purple haze colorway!
The Crocheted Beaded Mitts were made for all you crocheters that said, Lindsay we want cute stuff too! You can find the pattern on Ravelry, Craftsy, or Etsy.  Here's the parting shot for you. This is going to be a good year!

Creating for Baby list...Nesting for a Knitter

Yes, I took a hiatus from blogging but I have been busy.  I've been busily dyeing yarn for orders and when I wasn't doing that I was making things for my impending little one.  I also have been working on items for my Etsy store and for a holiday market in December.  So I'll break it down for you.  This post is about nesting, well nesting in my knitting life.  I've completed the Deepwater cardigan (you can find it on Ravelry).  It's made out of a silk cotton blend that will cover me with my belly and all.  Keep in mind it isn't a maternity cardigan, I just made it one.

I figured that would be priority in my personal projects, I mean I need something to wear when it gets chilly and I don't want to look like a giant marshmallow in a ski jacket, that would fit but be too hot.  The great thing about this cardigan though is it is double breasted so I can use it after Reece is born to be discreet when the need arises to breastfeed while wearing said cardigan.  Spoiler alert I am going to use terms like breastfeed if the necessity arises.  If that bothers you cross your eyes for second when you come across the mention of it and skip to the next sentence.  If that doesn't work you will have to figure an effective way to cope.  On to the next project.

I was going to make Reece a blanket.  Everyone told me not to because I was going to get a bunch from everyone else, which I completely appreciate and will use every last one, but dang it I'm his Mom and he will have handmade things from me.  So I picked out a simple entrelac blanket I found on Ravelry from Nikki in Stitches and went to town.

Now I used a washable worsted wool, so it's a little bigger that what the pattern called for and I finished it with a welted edge but I think it turned out great.  Yes, these are the colors I picked out for Reece, well the Hubby and I picked them out together.  But it was a fun knit and weaving in the ends was kind of cathartic for me, and there were ALOT of ends.  **Tip:  When picking up stitches along an edge, especially one with alot of ends it is best not to weave the ends in before you pick up the stitches.  The stitches aren't distorted and easier to see.**

Okay last item on the Creating for Baby list: The Crocheted Owl Basket.  This is also found on Ravelry and is a real quick crochet project.  Somehow in looking through all the things that are baby Hubby and I decided if there is an animal theme added to the color scheme it would be woodland creatures, but mainly owls.  So what did I do? I made a giant owl basket for diaper storage, since we don't have a conventional changing table.

Yes, the owl is full of diapers and yes I have it sitting on the diaper pail box. Fitting don't you think?  I made it out of 4 strands held together of some Cascade Eco Wool that I had in my stash (that is 2 hanks by the way).  I crocheted it from start to finish in less than a day.  **Tip: Make sure your gauge is right or you will run out of yarn.  Read the directions carefully! Also crochet the eyes first before you do the body.  **

That is the end of my Creating for Baby list.  I don't plan on making anymore things for Reece pre-delivery.  Once he is here you bet your bottom I will have a ridiculous amount of baby pattern creations happening because I will have my own little munchkin model to help me with sizing. SSSHH don't tell the Hubby.

Oh on the Hubby, he did up this cute little number for $25 bucks. We had two dressers, they have been in the family for 60 years, both were red at one point but one had been sanded back to natural wood.  Hubby made a custom changing table top to fit perfectly onto the top of the shorter dresser.  He then sanded everything, painted it cream (we picked out this together, there are too many types of cream to choose from),  and then put these drawer pulls on it that we just happened to have a whole bunch of.  We tried going the cute epoxied button drawer pull route but that was a diy disaster.  We will use those for some other project for Reece just not the nursery furniture.  Here's a picture of the changing table dresser, the taller one still has to be outfitted with drawer pulls so it didn't make the shot.

If you stayed for the entire post, congratulations!  I will make sure I don't wait so long in between posts again, it will save you a minute amount of time staring at a computer screen.  Join me next week to see all the things I have been creating for fiber fiend enjoyment!

What to expect when you're expecting.....

So before I was pregnant I watched a movie that some of you might have heard of, What to Expect when you're Expecting. I thought to myself which of the two completely different characters would I be-the yoga, fitness exercise queen who wasn't expecting to get pregnant and has a perfect pregnancy and painless delivery, or the ultra prepared-for-motherhood woman who thinks pregnancy is this amazing trip but ends up going through all the junk things of pregnancy.  I'll elaborate on those. Disclaimer: I'm not complaining, this is just life and sometimes life isn't picture prefect.  You just have to laugh about it and move on.

Pregnancy prepares you for motherhood with a lack of sleep.  I read that you don't sleep comfortably in the last trimester,  well that's not what I'm experiencing.  I go to bed around 10, get up 3 to 4 times at night, then wake up at 7. All of this without alarms.   Oh a new development is getting up at 4:30 a.m. to eat my first breakfast.  This is definitely my husband's child.

Pregnancy prepares you for menopause.  You aren't prepared for the hot flashes or just being hot all the time.  I expected to be hot at the end, which didn't bother me because it would be the middle of winter.  But about a month ago I started getting really hot after a shower and thought the water must have been too warm. But now I can be doing anything and I'll feel like I'm sitting in a sauna. I don't get full sweats but I feel all 98 degrees of my body temperature.

So those two are definitely making me feel like pregnant woman number 2. But when I exercise I feel mentally like pregnant woman number 1. So if I exercise more it's supposed to take care of the sleeping problems,  so I'll let you know if that's true or not.
By the way it's a boy!

On to fiber related things I did start my cardigan. I'm almost down to joining for the body.

I also started an entrelac blanket in the nursery colors for my baby.  My hubby helped me pick out the colors, I have to say it was a sweet moment.

I've been making little booties, in boy and girl styles, for the Etsy shop.  Also with the addition of the knowledge that I'm having a boy you might see some pee pee teepees.

Pregnancy Fuels Innovation

I have learned certain things in this past month from being pregnant that I think I wouldn't have come to  yet in my life if I weren't pregnant.  Some of these aren't too graphic but its not puppy kisses and rainbows.

1)  Your attention span/thought process can go up in smoke like that and you won't realize it until you are trying to do an activity that requires extended brain power - pregnancy brain.

Results: Write down more things because you now know that you will forget them in 5 minutes and good luck trying to recall them tomorrow.

2)  You are aware of your body and how much goes into its function.  Even though I'm not showing much yet my body is frequently reminding me that I'm pregnant.  I have trouble bending over, my belly muscles feel like I'm going to pull them every time I sneeze, if I get up too quickly I have a slight out of body experience for a second.

Results:  I have to squat to pick things up, I have to do stretches every morning to make sure my muscles don't get tight, I also curl into a ball before sneezing, and I now have to sit up for a minute then get up slowly.

3)  You have to think up clever ways of doing things.  Since I'm not only fueling my body in daily operation but also another humans for which we share the same amount of energy that I had before that was just mine.  Having my own business where I stand most of the time wasn't working with the fact that I can't stand for long periods of time without feeling like I just ran a marathon.

Result:  I have streamlined the yarn dying process even more than I thought I could so I accomplish the same amount of work in a shorter time.

If I could remember anymore things I would but I didn't write them down. So ha, you and I will never know them.

Oh I just remembered one, there is hope for me yet!

4) You realize how much food costs, and how much of the weekly food goes into your mouth.  Good God how much food can one person eat in a day!  I mean jokes at work go something like this-"Everytime I come back here you are eating." or "It looks like Lindsay started lunch early, it's only 11am."  I have learned it doesn't matter when I think I should eat, I have that 'I am going to starve if I don't eat NOW almost all the time.' feeling.  My metal lunchbox needs an extension on it.  Also foods I know I should eat but as soon as I do they decide to make a return appearance.  The rationally irrational thought happens: "I just wasted money because I wasted food."   Once that happens the remaining food in question grosses me out every time I think about eating it and it goes bad, and then I have that thought again, "You didn't eat the food, you just threw your money away."

Results:  On those two points I  a) now carry food in my purse AND my lunch box, it still barely gets me back home in time to eat a snack while cooking dinner.  Also  b) I don't buy trigger foods until I can walk past them in the store and not think of gagging.



Okay on a fiber note I got to play with a mohair/merino blend and I love the heathered effect I get.  It's because the mohair absorbed the dye more, making it slightly more intense in hue than the merino.  IT WAS SO COOL!  If I could find a blend with some cashmere in it that would be great!  I am still working on the technical writing for the shawl pattern so all is quiet on the new project front.  I do have a double breasted cardigan in the queue that I will start before too long if I expect to wear it this winter. Maybe that will be what I start this week.


Here is a picture of my work in progress (lil Sprout looks like they are sitting crosslegged and practicing knitting):

Surprises

So I have to say I've been a bit busy with order and a little preoccupied with something else.  I made this cute little thing to annouce something.

So I'm pregnant.  I haven't wanted to do much of anything lately except sleep and keep my food down. But hopefully I won't have the latter problem in 3 weeks.
On another baby note I made this for one of my friends, who is also pregnant.

As for my summer tops I was working on, I think I might finish them in motivation to wear them next year.  In the mean time the knitting mama to be will be making baby things when not figuring out patterns for Sprout.

By the way June 22nd would be a good day to go to the Knit 'n Knibble in Tampa and get a skein of Mermaid, it will be the only day you can.

Sandhill Cranes and Shawlettes

The past couple weeks have been busy- birthdays, Mother's Day, stairs, and exploding stockpot bottles.    On my Mother's birthday we went to Texas Roadhouse and when we walked out the door to leave a Sandhill crane was staring back at me, just hanging out.

Tuesday I was helping a friend move some things and one of the elevators broke so I ended up walking 27 flights of stairs.  I'll be feeling that today.  Then I was dyeing yarn and in the midst of measuring out some yellow from the stock bottle there is a loud pop and next thing I know I have yellow dye all over my arms, the bottle had broken.

So onto better things.  I finished the Vintage Colors Shawlette.

I also had a chance to weave up some little squares of Sprout, the Embers and Caribbean blue are 9 epi, and the Purple Haze 18epi, which would be great for twill.

I've started a Ribby Shell from Chic Knits made out of Cotton Classic.  I'm also working on the shawl pattern for Sprout!  I can't wait to finish it, so you can see it!