Hello Blog!

Hello Blog! 

I hope you are having a good spring.  Here in my little world, not so great.  I've been in a rut for about six months.  I can go for days without knitting.  I have gone for weeks without sewing.

And, (worst of all, if you're my blog) I go for months without blogging.  I feel like creativity has left the building.

Friends, this is making me a little crazy.  On one hand, I'm don't want to be too hard on myself, because it has been a really rough six months.  My MIL got sick right after Thanksgiving, she died after Christmas.  My husband got depressed, and, he is the executor of her estate, and, wow, that's a lot of work.  Which means that some of that work fell to me.  Which is ok. I'm capable.  It just meant that on top of our already super busy household with the kids, jobs, you-know-the-drill, that creativity fell to a supreme low on the importance scale.

So.  Not being too hard on myself--check. 

On the other hand, (the being-too-hard-on-myself hand) (which is my dominant hand) six months feels like a long time and I'm really needing to use the right side of my brain before it dries up and floats out my ear-holes and is gone forever.

Of course I've still been working on projects, (even completing some of those projects!) although it feels so sluggishly slow.  Nothing has really knocked my socks off, but then again, it's possible that everything I do right now is tainted with the gloom that I've been feeling. 

And, I hate to even write all this because I hate to listen to people whine and I feel like I'm whining and I vowed to never ever whine, or rant, or complain on this blog.  This blog is here to talk about projects and celebrate creativity and watch my kids grow up.

I'm just hopeing to spew it out and then be able to move on.

So how about we look at some progress on the Liberty crosses quilt?

Here's a photo of progress in March:

And progress in April:

And an artistic shot "Still Life of Progress with Accidental Foot":

And a late night progress shot with bad lighting:

Up next:  Sewing lots of little squares together.  Which doesn't take creativity.  It takes determination.  And that, Friends, I got.

Yarn Factory

Hello Peeps!

I had to put the quilting on pause in January while I went back to work at the yarn factory.  Here is a rare photo of the yarn factory--skeining wing.  (why do I feel like the dining room table is featured in every blog I write?!)  This is what I've been doing for the past few weeks, getting ready for spring yarn shows.

I'm hitting the road today, together with my mascot and trusty sidekick, for a girls weekend filled with yarn and knitting.  We're heading up to Delavan, Wisconsin for the Janesville Knitter's Guild Annual Knit In.


I'm adding new shows every year.  Here's the tentative line-up for 2013:


February 9 Janesville Knitter's Guild Annual Knit In, Delavan, WI

March 8-9 Madison Knitter's Guild Knit In, Madison WI

April 6-7 Yarn Con, Chicago, IL

April 10, Fox Valley Knitter's Guild meeting, St. Charles, IL

June 21-23, Midwest Fiber and Folk Art Fair, Grayslake, IL

August 8-11,  Stitches Midwest, Schaumburg, IL

October 19-20, NYS Sheep and Wool, Rhinebeck NY--TENTATIVE (cross your fingers and say a prayer because they only let in about 12 new vendors per year)

November 1-3,  Vogue Knitting Live, Chicago, IL

Please join me for some Yarny Fun! xoxo

Friends and Squares

Thank you for the comments on my last post.  My mother-in-law died on January 1st.  The funeral was the following weekend and when the kids went back to school on Monday, I was hoping that the return to routine would help get us start to get back to normal.

But in reality, things take much longer than my "let's get on with our lives" schedule, and January has been very gloomy.

I am grateful that I have some very good friends that are a bright spot in my life.

This week we had the Chicago School of Fusing annual holiday (belated) get-together at Frieda's house and shared good food and lively conversation.  For the first year in awhile, I had finished a big art quilt and I had something for show-and-tell.

Here are Laura and Jane and I holding the quilt, which I promise to reveal in it's entirety very soon.  Yes I will--no more teasers.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I have been doing what quilters do.  What quilters, throughout the ages, have always done when life is gloomy.  Making little squares.

Because, if you keep putting on foot in front of the other, then little piles of squares eventually turn into big piles of squares.

And bigger piles of squares will become a quilt.  One foot in front of the other.

Happy (Sad) New Year

Hello Peeps,

Just popping in to say I’m still here.  I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and relaxing week after all the hubbub.  We had a wonderful Christmas day, in spite of a dark cloud hanging over us.  Dave’s mom fell ill after Thanksgiving and has declined rapidly.  She has been in and out of two different hospitals plus a nursing home just in a few weeks.  She’s now back in the hospital, a few hours away, with a prognosis of just a few days to live.

It has been very hard month for Dave.  We have tried to shield the kids from the details but the time is coming when we will have to tell them.   She is a wonderful grandma to them and it is going to be hard.

The photo is a detail from a quilt I finished last fall and just entered in the Paducah quilt show.  I realize that I can now count on more than one hand the quilts I’ve finished and haven’t properly documented on the blog.  Well then.  I guess somebody just made a New Year's resolution.  

Lots of love,

Em

This is Where I Wanted to Show You Photos of an Adorable Baby with a Beautiful Quilt But Instead It's a Face Palm

So, merely hours after we last spoke, I finished the quilt top, and was contemplating the backing and binding colors.  It has a lot of pink, but other colors as well, and I thought that I might bring out one of the supporting colors in the binding.  I texted the mom, inquiring about the baby's favorite color. She texted back:  "Well, she's not really a pinky girl, her room has lots of colors, kinda vintage look with faded red, sage, yellow, and muted purple and blue.  She's probably partial to the purple.  

This is the moment of the face palm.

Yes, call me an idiot for not inquiring as to the color selection before making the quilt top.  I believe that is the usual order of things.  I just thought I knew this particular recipient well enough to charge ahead.  

So.  Scrap the previous quilt top (I believe it's going to be transformed into 11-year-old girl size and going to a very good home so no worries there!) and start over.  Just not in time for Thanksgiving.  Luckily I will see this family again at Christmas.  And luckier still, the Mom and Dad love me and are not concerned with deadlines.  

Baby quilt top--take two.  Remove pink (maybe leave just a teeeensy bit).  Change white background to cream.  Add more, red, sage green, purple.  Yes, it is still a bit bright.  But I am Emily, after all.  Backing and border to be purple.  Photos with cute baby to follow, eventually.

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In other news:  last etsy shop update of the year tomorrow night, Tuesday, December 4th at 8pm Central time.  There will be Magic Balls.  Yay!

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And finally, I recently did some blog housekeeping and found this post from last spring which for some reason, never got posted.  I thought it was appropriate since this week is big birthday boy week and I am about to have a TEENAGER in the house.  I'm so old.

Lost post entitled "It Is Fun to Have a Twelve Year Old Boy":

Photo taken at the Getty, November 2011 by Uncle Kenny

Conversation with a twelve year old boy:

Ethan:  "Mom, we have a 6th grade dance next Thursday and no siblings or parents are allowed."

Me:  "Yah, I know. I got an email. I signed up to be a chaperone. Parents are allowed if they sign up to chaperone."

Ethan : "Nooooooooo!"

Me:  "Yah, I can't wait to get out on the dance floor with my smooth moves" (insert cheesy disco moves here).

Ethan:  Buries face in pillows. "Noooooooooooooo!"

Me:  "Yah, I can't wait to ask you to dance!"

Ethan:  Dies a thousand deaths.

Me:  "And after I ask you to dance, I'm going to ask several of your friends!"

Ethan:  Finally realizes I'm kidding. Nevertheless, runs out of room screaming.

The Week Where Aunt Em Gets to Hug You and Say "Oh My! You're Getting So Big!"

Have I said this before?  Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.  All of the hanging out with the family playing cards and eating.  Without all the pressure of the decorating and the presents.  And lots and lots of cooking.  Love.  That.  Cooking.  

This year is Dave's family which means:  seeing the little cousins.  Can you believe it--my kids are the "big kids!"  We have 4 little cousins age 5 and under.  I am so excited.  I am working on something for the littlest niece who hasn't received her baby quilt yet.  I will not out myself and tell you how old she is now.

Her mom is an English Teacher so I believe she is a big reader.  This piece you are looking at is about 20" wide and 40" high, so you are looking at half the quilt.  There will be two "stacks".

In between sewing strips, I've stocked up on construction paper, tissue paper, crayons, pine cones and googley eyes.  Looking forward to a couple days of serious toddler art.

I hope you all have a wonderful holiday!   Stay safe and eat pie!

Vogue Knitting Live!

You guys know that I occasionally take my yarn on the road and vend at yarn shows.  But I don't often do the big review here on the blog because, honestly, I am so tired afterward that it takes me a week or so to get back to normal, and then it feels like the big excitement has passed and not worth it to document on the blog.

But I'd like to rewind a few weeks and share my experience at Vogue Knitting Live, Chicago.  It was VKL's first time coming to Chicago, and it was held downtown at the Palmer House Hilton. 

(If imagining the Palmer House does not make you swoon, just click take one quick second to look here.)  Now imagine that lobby filled--every nook and cranny--with people knitting.  

Doing shows is one part of the yarn dyeing business that I really, really love.  I love the theatrical quality of entering a big empty convention center in the morning, (in the case of VKL it was 6 am, but more on that later), and seeing it transformed by evening into a sparkly, glittery, fabulous marketplace floor filled with beautiful yarn and fiber.  Oh, the projects.  Oh, the possibilities.......

Okay, ready for pictures?

This is what the loading dock looks like at 6 a.m.  (Just stop to do the math--in order to be at the loading dock downtown Chicago at 6 a.m. means I had to leave my St. Charles home at 4:30 a.m. which means I had to get up at the ungodly hour of 4:25 a.m.)

Glamourous, huh?  That's the life of the traveling yarnie.  Sooooo glamourous. 

About fifteen minutes later I was upstairs at my booth.  This is what a blank booth looks like:

In past years, I would get to my space, and stare for a moment at the big emptiness of it, and maybe get paralyzed for a little bit about how to go about filling it up.  But, over the past year or so, I've really gotten accustomed to how I like to arrange things, and I've formed a Master Plan.   

Here we are, partially set up.  I start with the walls--backdrop, samples, banner, and signage.  That is (was) the hardest part.  And until I had my Master Plan about where all the samples were supposed to go--I kind of dreaded it.  Now that I have my Master Play Layout, I can just hang everything, without having to use brainpower (6 a.m. in the morning!) of making choices about where things go.  After this part is done, I set up the tables against the walls and build the cubes and fill them with yarn.  (Easy part.)

Now, if only I could wave my magic wand and tone down that carpet!

  

After knitting samples for two years, and recently enlisting the aid of some fabulous sample knitters: Ginger, Carla, Laura, Angi (waving to you guys!  blowing kisses!) I have all three walls filled to overflowing with examples of wonderful knitting projects--stuff that is not only fun to knit but also fun to wear. 

Something new I just added to my booth this fall are my three mannequins.  

I really love these ladies.  They are quiet and shy, but very helpful.  Here, they are modeling my three samples that promote the Color Trio kits.  Clockwise from top:  Eris, Color Affection, and Thinking of Waves.  These samples were really attention getting, judging from the rate that my MCN was flying off the shelf.  I think that showing a garment on a real (fake) body must make a big difference.  

The great thing about having a booth is feeling more "a part of" the whole show than I used to as an attendee.   I have a unique view of the show from the sliver of my 10 x 10 space.  I see all the beautiful, some not-so-beautiful, and (there's always one) just plain weird knitted garments that pass through.  I catch all the drama that happens in my aisle--when the lady down the way sets her yarn on fire, when the little dog from the diagonal booth pees on the aisle floor, when a neighboring booth has to pack up early to get home in front of an impending hurricane, and people chip in to help.  

Unfortunately I can't give a broader review of the entire show, teachers, classes, the rest of the marketplace, because I don't get to take classes or browse much of the rest of the show. 

But I do get a little of the "flavor" from chatting with the other vendors and the customers, and I did get a great feeling from the Vogue show-goers that it was a very exciting and fashion-forward event.  There were many reports of great classes, fashion shows, and rubbing elbows with the knitting glitterati.  I even had a few celebrity sightings myself.  

Speaking of chatting with the customers, that is my favorite part.  That is what really sets it apart from selling on the internet.  Sometimes, if I'm lucky, people ask for help with picking out the perfect something to go with the pattern / other yarn they brought / idea in the their head.

Sometimes, if I'm really lucky, people come to the show wearing a finished project done with my yarn!

Sometimes, if I'm super-duper lucky, a customer introduces him or herself, and it's someone that I've done business with over the internet, and know them by name, but not in person. (and sometimes they let me hug them!)

So that, friends, is my little report of working at a yarn show.  I hope you enjoyed it!  I'm working at getting all my samples into Ravelry this week.  So if you saw something in the photos above that you liked or had a question about, feel free to ask a question in the comments, or check out my Sophie's Toes Ravelry group, or friend me.