this and that

We're rounding out the week with winner #6 from my give-away!

Mackenzie Snader! You are the sixth winner with this comment:

"Oh man, those look fabulous. I've been wondering what my next cast on should be!"

Please email me at romi(at)designsbyromi(dot)com! Congratulations!

(As I noted before...I will post the winners each day, and I will try to get in contact with each winner as best I can. If I cannot, and I don't hear anything within two weeks of my posting a winner's name, I will draw another name. As the list of winners progresses, it will be completely first come, first serve. In other words, if you are the third winner, but contact me first, you get first choice. :) As of right now: one eBook, the Penny Farthing Sock and Spark Lace are taken, but the other prizes are still there!) There are a couple of winners MIA at the moment, so if you know Nidhi or Judith, please let them know they won!

One of the fun things about this area is the number of antique stores. There's a very cool one in town, and it inhabits an old fashioned yellow house. I love going through there! Here's the latest treasure I've found.

It was marked as a picnic basket, but I don't think so! That fabric heart on top is cushioned underneath with foam and I'd say it's meant for sewing pins. And the whole inside of this old fruit basket is lined carefully with fabric.

On the top are leather hinges, and the heart handle looks hand finished.

I love it. :)

And on to my other great find! I bought these some months ago and have been using them ever since. Can you guess what they are?

No? Dryer balls made of locally raised wool! How cool is that??? I just happened to be at the lys at the exact right time when the lady who makes them brought them in. They are felted balls of wool from her sheep, and you can still feel a little lanolin in them. Apparently they fly out the door as soon as they come in and I can see why! No need for dryer sheets or fabric softener. There is no static and no harsh feeling to the fabric when your clothes come out of the dryer. These are the coolest thing ever!

Signing off now; please keep my poor iPhone in your thoughts. It's still packed in rice, and I'm not going to touch it until Monday (the first day of school!), at which time I may burn a few candles in offering to the iPhone gods. 

fiver

Are you ready for winner #5 from my give-away?!

pixiewear! You are the fifth winner!

Please email me at romi(at)designsbyromi(dot)com! Congratulations!

(As I noted before...I will post the winners each day, and I will try to get in contact with each winner as best I can. If I cannot, and I don't hear anything within two weeks of my posting a winner's name, I will draw another name. As the list of winners progresses, it will be completely first come, first serve. In other words, if you are the third winner, but contact me first, you get first choice. :) As of right now: one eBook, the Penny Farthing Sock and Spark Lace are taken, but the other prizes are still there!)

I had an amazing trip down memory lane today. I am in the process of updating some of my patterns, and I got to Merope. Remember her?

She was the first shawl from my first eBook subscription!

I went to update the written instructions to make them easier and shorter, and all I saw were pdfs. Yikes! And then I remembered. That was back when I was still using my grand old faithful beige G3 tower with System 9. Sigh. I always had such a soft spot for that machine that when I could no longer upgrade her, I bought a Mac mini to use the internet and went on using, and using, and using that old fabulous machine with the giant graphics monitor that weighs about 60 pounds. I switched over slowly, but until we moved and I just didn't unpack her, I used her every day.

So back to Merope. I knew where she was. And I can't believe it, but I got that old tower up and running again, and remembered how to connect to her from my current Macs. Any other Mac geeks know that when Apple upgraded to system 10.6 (I believe it was), they took away the ability to connect to "legacy" machines except as a server. So here I am...copying my old stuff onto my 2 TB disk and marveling at how much I've seen technology change. :)

f-f-f-four for fore

It's time for winner #4 from my give-away!

tktl on Ravelry! You are the fourth winner!

Please email me at romi(at)designsbyromi(dot)com! Congratulations!

(As I noted before...I will post the winners each day, and I will try to get in contact with each winner as best I can. If I cannot, and I don't hear anything within two weeks of my posting a winner's name, I will draw another name. As the list of winners progresses, it will be completely first come, first serve. In other words, if you are the third winner, but contact me first, you get first choice. :) As of right now, the Penny Farthing Sock and Spark Lace are taken, but the other prizes are still there!)

So...today I took a day off to go kayaking with my three men up at Lake Tahoe. It was a gorgeous day, but I don't have any pictures. The reason for this will soon become apparent. First, I have to tell you: I don't really like water; I like land. As a kid, I took swimming lessons like crazy. I even used to work out swimming laps when I was in college. I have been snorkeling and even enjoyed it. It was warm and lovely. Mr. Romi loves boating and the water. My Bear has loved water since he came into this world. #1 Son took after me, so we gave him swimming lessons every summer until he loved the water too. I, however, am stubborn. I love to look at it and I love to drink it, but really I can do without it and not even miss it. Especially cold water. And it turns out that the water feels the same way about me. Either that, or I am extremely kayak impaired. Or possibly both.

I learned three important things today.

1. Double bagging an iPhone doesn't actually keep water out of the bag or the iPhone when you are completely submerged in said water.

2. I can still swim pretty well.

3. I continue not to like water very much.

But...now that the water has thrown down the gauntlet, I cannot but take it up with the intention of sticking my future kayak prowess back in Lake Tahoe's face. I am SO going to win this one. Yeah!

three and a flower

It's time for winner #3 from my give-away!

Judith! You are the third winner with this comment:

"I have not knitted one of your patterns as yet but use KC all the time since I had foot surgery in the spring of last year and took the time to learn the program on my new I-Pad. I love KC and travel with my patterns all the time. And now can enjoy Romi Knits."

Please email me at romi(at)designsbyromi(dot)com! Congratulations!

As I noted before...I will post the winners each day, and I will try to get in contact with each winner as best I can. If I cannot, and I don't hear anything within two weeks of my posting a winner's name, I will draw another name. As the list of winners progresses, it will be completely first come, first serve. In other words, if you are the third winner, but contact me first, you get first choice. :) As of right now, the Penny Farthing Sock is taken, but the other prizes are still there!

In other news...I've made my Cactus Flower pattern all pretty and updated everything on Ravelry!

As some of you may remember, it was the very first mystery shawl knit that I have ever designed. It was so much fun, and I want to thank all of you who participated! I've left the old clue files available in case anyone wants to look back on them at all.

Didn't she turn out pretty?

And I love love love all the different versions and colors that everyone used. If you have a moment, you really must go by and take a look at the project page. You won't regret it! It's inspiring. :)

too

It's time for another winner from my give-away!

Yarnologist! You are the second winner! Please email me at romi(at)designsbyromi(dot)com! Congratulations!

A little note here. As I post the winners each day, I will try to get in contact with each winner as best I can. If I cannot and I don't hear anything within two weeks of my posting a winner's name, I will draw another name. As the list of winners progresses, it will be completely first come, first serve. In other words, if you are the third winner, but contact me first, you get first choice. :)

Since I'm a computer volunteer for our home swim meets, I am always in the air conditioning. It can get a little chilly! So...this past weekend, I was working on my Carson Throw.

It's getting to the point where it's nice and warm on my lap! Perfect movie knitting in the evening. And perfect for loads of AC.

I love working on projects when I'm out in public because I always meet at least one other knitter or crafter! This time, I met the new coach of one of the participating teams. She was working on a pair of socks, though she didn't get much done at the meet. I had way more "waiting" time!

So - I know you are wondering.... My little experiment of that unstructured throw KAL based on changes posted on my blog? It did not work. For you or for me! So I am diligently working away, and when I'm finished, I'll put it all together in a pattern. Because I can tell I'm going to love this when it's finished (if I can wrest it from the rest of my family)!

monday's musing

Happy Monday everyone! I spent my weekend volunteering at our home pool swim meet, so I'm playing catch-up today.

Remember that little give-away you all commented on last week? Well, I will be listing a winner every day this week at the top of my blog post, along with the prizes still available! You may remember the rules: the first winner gets to choose whichever prize they wish, and then so on down through to the last winner who will get the prize not yet chosen by any of the first 5 winners. Although we didn't quite get my Cowl for Jeanne into #5 on the "Hot Right Now" Ravelry list, it stayed so far up there for so long and you all left such kind comments that I'm adding in that extra eBook or app anyway! So the prizes are: 2 Y4 eBook subscriptions (your choice of pdf or app), or one of those 4 skeins of yarn I showed. That means 6 winners! I have gone over to random.org and randomly generated my list, and I'll start off with the first one right now! :drumroll:

Nidhi! You are the first winner! Please email me at romi(at)designsbyromi(dot)com with your choice and your mailing address! Congratulations!

And also? I came across such a great quote for Monday...talk about making the most out of something that an ordinary person might see as a fault or hindrance.

"Luck is everything... My good luck in life was to be a really frightened person. I'm fortunate to be a coward, to have a low threshold of fear, because a hero couldn't make a good suspense film." - Alfred Hitchcock

So. Cool. It completely changes my perception of the things I see as my faults! I'm going through the (long) list of them right now, but in a totally different way. ;)

See you tomorrow!

it's raining give-aways

Are you ready for the most awesome amazing and fantastic give-away ever to appear on my blog? To celebrate the release of my 7 Small Shawls Y4 eBook subscription, I'm giving away some very cool stuff, including an eBook subscription in your choice of iDevice app or PDF format, and - for those of you who have already indulged in the new subscription - 4 skeins of yarny goodness. I don't want anyone left out!

Y4 is titled "Friends"

and each pattern will be named after one of the knitters on my Ravelry forum. The first one is "A Cowl for Jeanne" and it's a little reversible bonus for fall.

This is the other side. Cool, eh?

It almost looks quilted and it is super snuggly warm for those cool fall and cold winter days. It comes in smaller and larger. :) Ready for the yarny goodness?

Give-away yarn #1 is a skein of Tactile Fiber Arts superwash merino Sock Yarn in Adobe colorway.

#2 is a skein of Little Red Bicycle Penny Farthing Sock (80% superwash merino, 10% cashmere, 10% nylon) in Columbine colorway.

#3 is a skein of Alisha Goes Around Panoply (of Peacocks) Fingering (80% superwash merino, 10% cashmere, 10% nylon) in a special (and especially gorgeous) aqua colorway.

#4 is a skein of Little Red Bicycle Spark Lace (75% superwash merino, 5% silk, 5% stellina) in Scarlet Sentinel colorway.

Here are the rules. Leave one comment here by midnight PDT, Friday night August 9, 2013. Each comment will be an entry. If you would like to enter more than once, tweet, or post on facebook, plurk, or Ravelry (or other social media!) about the give-away and then post another comment here telling me what you did. If you tweet and facebook, for instance, that's two extra comments for two extra entries! There's a possible little extra here, too. If you all get my pattern "A Cowl for Jeanne" trending in the Ravelry top 5 hot right now patterns by clicking, liking, and casting on, I'll give away another copy of the eBook. If it hits #1, I'll add another one on top of that! That's a total of 3 possible eBook give-aways and 4 skeins of yarn! Woot!

I will draw winners from the list of comments, using random.org's random number generator. The first one drawn gets their first choice, then the second goes, and onward down the list. Are you ready? Get set! Comment!!!

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.

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.

Happy Friday!

Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday! I'm back to work Friday, along with a ton of other people - especially retailers! :) But somehow, I just can't get into calling the Friday after Thanksgiving "Black Friday." It sounds so ominous! I do have a special today, though.

Enter TWIRLIES at checkout on my site and receive 15% off my copper twist pin, el_85!

The offer lasts until midnight EST on Wednesday, December 2nd.

And the contest? 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 Verdigris sock pattern! I will choose a winner next Tuesday, December 1st.

FTW

First of all, congratulations to theindigomuse for winning my little contest! She was chosen randomly from all the people who tweeted, plurked, posted and whatever-elsed about my special. (The special is still good, btw, until midnight EST tonight!) She wins a Dynamique sock pattern!

Around here, fall is lagging behind the east coast, but the leaves are finally turning. The Sycamore leaves in the neighborhood don't turn colors other than brown, but there are other interesting things about them! The tree on our corner has the most gigantic leaves I think I've ever seen on a tree. Here's Dr. Destructo (we didn't call him that for awhile, but it is, once more, very fitting :sigh:) holding a leaf bigger than his head.

Impressive, no?

Off to hammer a few pins and finish up my shawl. I am really looking forward to tomorrow. :)

Special

First, I wanted to thank everyone for your incredibly kind comments! They really mean a lot to me. I'm not able to respond to everyone because I don't have your email addresses, but please know that I love your comments and appreciate the heck out of you all!

And now...

Special! Special!

Enter COPPERSWIRL at checkout on my site and receive 15% off my copper swirl penannular, el_46!

The offer lasts until midnight EST on Wednesday, November 25th.

And the contest? 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 Dynamique sock pattern! I will choose a winner next Tuesday, November 24th.

Through the Glass

First, a big congratulations to jenipherreads, who won my little give away! She re-tweeted my special, and was chosen over at random.org to receive a Queen Wil sock pattern!

Today has been an exciting one here at Chez Romi. After saving for some time, last week I ordered a new camera, a digital body to go with all of my husband's lenses (that I have now appropriated), and it came today! In a previous life as a photographer, DH had amassed a nice collection of camera equipment, but he quit when digital began to take the place of film. Well, I have to tell you, the new camera and lenses make the old and mundane appear beautiful, shiny and new! I give you my swatch for Lacy Ribbons.

My spinning basket.

My spinning.

My little Thumbelina wheel.

Yarn on a niddy noddy.

My ball winder.

My handspun.

And another shot that I couldn't resist.

More handspun. This one is silk/camel. Mmmmmmmm.

The shawl pattern I'm currently working on.

Verdigris mitts.

Verdigris mitts redux.

Queen Wil, Verdigris and Dynamique socks.

Delta Queen.

And the only red leaves on our Japanese Maple.

I had a wonderful time today. :)

Happy Friday the 13th! + A Weekly Special

My husband, and some other people I know, swear that Friday the 13th is their lucky day. On the other hand, the fear of Friday the 13th is called paraskevidekatriaphobia. Quite a mouthful, eh? Here is some other info on Friday the 13th. It's interesting!

Well, I'm still working away on my yummy mohair and beads, but meanwhile, I have a special for you! Enter KILTISH at checkout on my site and receive 15% off my nickel swirl kilt pin, el_55n!

The offer lasts until midnight EST on Tuesday, November 17th!

And the contest? Retweet (mentioning this blog post and @RomiDesigns), blog about, comment on Facebook, 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 Queen Wil sock pattern! I will choose a winner next Tuesday, November 17th.

You may notice that my site is getting a bit of a long long needed face lift. I had been so busy that I hadn't gotten around to doing it, even though I had been working on others' sites and design projects. But I got to the point that I couldn't stand to look at it any longer! So I took the time to start. It was somewhat painful, but not as bad as I thought it would be! I only had one major screw up, and even that was fixed fairly quickly with the help of site wide global find and replace! :) It's still a work in progress, but thankfully, it doesn't make me squeamish to look at it any longer!

Have a great weekend, everyone! I'm off to a swim meet this weekend. Yes, an outdoor swim meet. Brrrrrrrr. At least I won't be wet like the poor kids!

And the winner is....

SbutterAMfly (Kristen TenDyke) wins a Bluebird pattern! Kristen was chosen by the random number generator at random.org after she retweeted my special and contest. Congratulations, Kristen!

btw, not only is Kristen an amazing designer, she tech edited my book. She's teh awesome. :)

Happy Friday!

First things first? Remember my give-away connected with the Pins & Lace Club? It's honeybee33 for the win! She was randomly chosen through the random.org website. She wins six lacy patterns from Designs by Romi: three socks, two scarves and one shawl. Many thanks to all of those who entered! There will be others, so stay tuned!

I have a little special for you all this week!

Through Wednesday, October 14th, take 15% off my copper swirl clip, item # el_75! Just enter CLIPPY at checkout.

It's been a crazy week, and I have a ton of pictures to share but I don't know when I'll get them uploaded. This weekend is a swim meet and both kids are swimming, so not much else gets done! We're still trying to get the local pool re-opened soon. It's been a real uphill battle. Here's the story according to the local newspaper. To understand more of the story, you need to read the comments as well. The whole thing was political and the City has been very resistant to offers of help from interested swimmers. But we're still fighting!

And here's a cool article to read about Vitamin D. I was diagnosed with a Vit D deficiency and have been taking mega doses for three months. I thought it was depression, because I could barely drag myself up the stairs or out of bed. It was horrible. But now I feel almost human again!

...and the winner is

CozyStitches! You win a Delta Queen pattern! Your comment was selected randomly. :) Please contact me and I will send it on to you. And thank you so much for playing, everyone. You all gave me some great smiles!!!

FTW!

It's Lahondaknitter who tweeted. Thank you all so much for playing! Ms. Lahondaknitter, I will contact you on Twitter! Congrats to you. :)

Make me smile!

Okay, everyone! Leave me a comment telling me some good news or something funny or just something that makes you smile and I'll enter you in a little random drawing to win a Delta Queen pattern. Leave your comments by midnight PST, Thursday September 17th! Thanks for playing! :)

Sneaky sneaky

Well, I know I am totally late getting up a weekly special and give-away for last week, but I hope you will forgive me! Instead, I am introducing a new pin and...a Designs by Romi Sneaky Sale lasting through next Monday!!!

I am SO loving this new pin.

It's loosely based on a penannular style, but locks into place a little differently. First you gather up material:

then the stick portion goes over the top of the pin portion:

and down around the swirl to lock into place.

Cool, eh?! :) It's available here in nickel, brushed nickel, copper and sterling silver!

And to celebrate, I'm having a Sneaky Sale over at Designs by Romi: 15% off a $15 or greater purchase (patterns excepted) through Monday, September 14th! Enter CELTIC at checkout!

And the give-away? Retweet (mentioning this blog post and @RomiDesigns), blog about or plurk about this sale with appropriate link to my post here, and be entered to win a nickel or copper pin as shown above! I will choose a winner on Tuesday, September 15th. However many times you mention this sale (and tell me about it), that is the number of entries you will have in the drawing! Receive double the entries for each pin you buy. (Does that make sense?) Buy a pin? Receive two entries! Buy two pins? Receive four entries! Good luck to you! :)