30 December 2009

Introducing...

...my newest shawl pattern, Trieste! It's a super fun and simple knit with an easy-to-memorize lace repeat. The pattern includes both written and charted instructions for a plain garter stitch version:

and a beaded version.

Trieste is named for a little bistro called Cafe Trieste, a favorite haunt of mine in high school and then again in grad school, with a deck in the back overlooking a creek. The people watching was fabulous, and a warm but simple wrap to throw dramatically over one's shoulder would have been just the thing.

In designing Trieste, I strove for simple elegance, both in the knitting and the wearing. The shawl begins with one stitch at the bottom of the triangle, and increases one stitch at the beginning of each row. By the end of the second repeat, I had memorized the stitch pattern. I took the shawls with me to swim practices, where they served as both a lap blanket and employment for fidgety hands!

The two versions, one in garter stitch and one in beaded stockinette stitch serve two very different purposes in your wardrobe, but both are wonderfully simple to knit. I have included dimensions for one, two and three balls of yarn, and
since you are knitting from the bottom up, you can stop wherever you wish!

The samples shown use 3 balls of elann.com Silken Kydd in Raisin for the garter stitch wrap:


and three balls of Rowan Kidsilk Haze in Splendour (sadly, discontinued) for the beaded stockinette wrap.


The pattern is available both on my site and on Ravelry , for $6.50, as a pdf download.

Hope you like it!

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28 December 2009

Monday's Musing

"Much of the vitality in a friendship lies in the honouring of differences, not simply in the enjoyment of similarities.” - anon.

To continue the saga of the dead oven, we had a lovely Christmas paella. And a friend let us use their oven for the pumpkin chocolate chip muffins that somehow we eat every Christmas morning. I am very very thankful for wonderful friends. :) Thank you all for your comments and well wishes. I can't believe how many people have had exactly the same thing happen!

Have a wonderful week, everyone! The last week of 2009....

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25 December 2009

From my house to yours....

The happiest of holidays to you!

Now I have to go figure out what to do about food today. The oven died last night. Yes. You heard right. Dead. Oven. Christmas paella anyone?! :)

Cheers!

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21 December 2009

Monday's Musing

"To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children...to leave the world a better place...to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

And I had to add this video. I have a huge smile on my face after watching it!


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14 December 2009

Monday's Musing

"Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; but remember that what you now have was once among the things only hoped for." - Epicurus (via my husband)

I love this quote. Have a wonderful week!

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Bitterroot!

The Winter Knitty is up! And here's another of my secret projects: Bitterroot!

There are two sizes. Shawlette:




and shawl!


The shawlette uses four skeins of Royale Hare merino/silk sport in Arctic Sky, and the large version uses my hand spun lace weight from A Verb for Keeping Warm's gorgeous silk/camel in the Glenda colorway. Hope you all enjoy it!

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09 December 2009

Onward

Meg Swansen always signs her emails with "onward" and I've always loved that. btw, I finally get to meet Meg next year at Yarnover in Minnesota where we will both be teaching. I am beyond excited. Not to mention that Cookie A., Jared Flood, Franklin Habit, Cat Bordhi and others will be teaching as well. Squeeeee!

In other news, I will be at Knit-One-One in Berkeley this Saturday for the Craft Sale! So please drop by and see me if you're in the area! I love to meet you all, and this is probably the last one of these I'll be doing for awhile.

Onward. :) The winner of last week's give-away is ajdury who retweeted my special and won a Bluebird shawl pattern!

Don't forget about my Pins & Lace Club! It makes a great gift for someone you love (including yourself!), and there are a ton of options! The last day for sign-ups is fast approaching: December 15th.

And here's another special for you this week. Enter HEARTY at checkout on my site, and receive 15% off my copper heart penannular, el_42.

The special ends at midnight EST on December 17th. As always, retweet (mentioning this blog post and @RomiDesigns), blog about, comment on Facebook or Ravelry, or plurk about my special with appropriate link to my post here (and please let me know!), and be entered to win a pdf copy of my Bluebird shawl pattern! I will choose a winner next Tuesday, December 15th.

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07 December 2009

Monday's Musing

“You must do the thing you think you cannot do.” - Eleanor Roosevelt

What do you think you cannot do?

Happy Monday! And have a great week.

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04 December 2009

After the party's over

Meet Edwin, my new pet.

My wonderful husband gave him to me for my birthday.

I found him at the end of a treasure hunt complete with clues written up in verse. I had so much fun!!!

Edwin is a small tripod, and very very maneuverable. He's perfect for table top shooting, which is what I usually do. He helped me shoot this picture.

It's another little tease for the shawl pattern I'm about to release.

I had a wonderful birthday, with many thanks to all of you who sent me good wishes. The boys made me pancakes in the morning, and there was a carrot cake. Carrot cake is always Very Good. :)

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01 December 2009

December already?!

Well, that year certainly blew by!

Even though it's already December, fall is just coming to the little Japanese Maple in our front yard. I caught these the other day when the afternoon light was on it.



Today I chose the winner for last week's little give-away. Congratulations to ElizabethCarls who retweeted my special and won a Verdigris sock pattern!

Don't forget about my Pins & Lace Club! It makes a great gift for someone you love (including yourself!), and there are a ton of options! The last day for sign-ups is December 15th.

And here's another special for you this week. Since it's getting to be holiday time, enter HOLLY at checkout on my site, and receive 15% off my heavy gauge copper infinity pin, el_76. I think this one may be my very favorite pin.

The special ends at midnight EST on December 9th. As always, retweet (mentioning this blog post and @RomiDesigns), blog about, comment on Facebook or Ravelry, or plurk about my special with appropriate link to my post here (and please let me know!), and be entered to win a pdf copy of my Bluebird shawl pattern! I will choose a winner next Tuesday, December 8th.

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