Tour de Fleece! Team Spindlers

Today is the end of day two of the Tour de Fleece! Today was my first day though because my Fourth of July was filled to the brim and I didn't want to rush my first few lengths of spinning. I'm Spinning with Team Spindlers and breaking in my fresh Turtlemade turkish spindle.
My goal is to spin the little over 4 ounces of fiber I purchased at the Long Island Fleece and Fiber Fair from Hampton Artistic Yarns. And then hopefully I will end up plying my singles!

I split each little braid of fiber, and combined them. I have no idea how they'll end up looking but I'm excited to see!

 And here's my the beginnings of my first singles. This spindle just keeps spinning its wonderful!

I will be back with more later, happy spinning all!

Its out!

I finally published my first pattern the other day :) The Pineapple Hat! My second obsession (behind knitting) is fruit so this hat is the best way to combine those. Also I'm wanting to make this hat in all white, so it looks like porcelain. Maybe in a wool/silk blend! :) I think a fruity KAL is in order for some point in the future. :)

Fruity knits

Hello my knittas,

A Playful Day Podcast is hosting a design-a-long contest on Ravelry, and the deadline is in a couple of days! The winner of the contest will receive tech support, advice from Kate and yarn support! The details can be found on Kate's website, along with some great resources for designers and people who are just starting out to design. Also head to the ravelry group to see all the great entries thus far and to chat with others.

I wanted to share my design, which I'm excited about because it merges my two favorite (non-person)  things...knitting and fruit! This is my pineapple hat:

The pineapple hat is knit with worsted weight yarn on size 8 needles and is the perfect blues buster for the winter. If i don't win the contest I will still be publishing this pattern here and on Ravelry, so look out!

I really like the idea of kitschy knits, and I some some more fun hat designs up my sleeve for the near future. Also I love looking at Gary Kennedy patterns as kitsch inspiration! I want to knit all of the fun pillows and toys!

Maybe I can round up some people for a KAL!

Go check out the contest, and also the Playful Day podcast!

Happy knitting everyone!

Yarn Bomb and New Years Reflection

 Yarn Bomb

It has taken me awhile to figure out how to exactly share this project with you. I had planned on sharing the essay I wrote for this, as this yarn bomb was my senior project to graduate from Purchase College. I think ill keep it simple though, because my reason for wanting to do this project is fairly simple. I LOVE to knit, and I love to share knitting with others. I also really wanted to work with the statues that are around my town in someway, and yarn bombing is the perfect way to do that because it does not damage whatever you are putting it on.
So I yarn bombed all of these statues in my hometown on Long Island with my hand knit hats and anyone walking past could take one in the hopes that they would pay it forward in anyway they could.
I love yarn bombs, but my only gripe is that they are not useful in a utilitarian way, (everything must be useful to me, its just the way my brain is wired!) so that is where hats were the perfect thing to make for these statues.
I bought the book "Yarn Bombing" by Mandy Moore of the blog Yarnageddon and Leanne Prain of her self-titled blog at leanneprain.com to use as fuel for my fire to keep-knitting-hats. The book features interviews with yarn bombers such as Masquerade, and Knitted Landscape

Yarn Bombing is basically a handbook to do just that, while also giving you the history and the context with which to place yourself in the yarn bombing world. Not to mention all of the pictures, patterns and tutorials. Its a great book to add to your yarn library if you're someone who has always wanted to yarn bomb or even if you're no spring chicken to the game.
It's very liberating (admittedly a little nerve wracking too!) to send your yarn creations out into the unknown.