Friday, December 22, 2006

by design

Well, I've been keeping myself busy designing away on various patterns that I hope to submit for various publications. Unfortunately, if I want to be considered, all the publications have a clause that no part of your pattern can be previously published, even on your own blog. So...I'll just have to be patient. In the meantime, I've also been busy setting up and posting on my etsy shop, Sugar Apple Creations. My latest product are these "Flirty" reversible headbands.While making these headbands, I heard some rustling in my craft room. I assumed it was a cat, but I couldn't find where the cat was hiding. Then when I tried to get more fabric, I found this:


The glowing eyes are a little scary aren't they? Anyway, Whitey Coyote decided to lounge in my fabric box on top of all the silk!





I finally also posted a few of the lacy lace-up gauntlet kits. I still have many other colors that I haven't gotten around to posting. The class that I will be teaching based on the kit is scheduled for Feb 11 and 18, 2007 (2 part class). Then, on Jan. 14, I am scheduled to do a demonstration of the gauntlets and my handpainted yarns at the Piecemakers store.

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Aaaaand...........

Now my Google-Fu has discovered that the same article is now on ABC7Chicago's web site here.
Sweet!

Friday, December 15, 2006

Thank you, Windy City!

As you may know if you've visited Twirl Girl Fibers lately I offer a yarn of the month club. I listed them a few weeks ago in hopes of generating holiday shopping traffic. I sold 2 yesterday wich made me happy and thought nothing of the fact that both were from the Chicago area. I got a reply today from one of the customers and at the end of her email it said "I'm so glad Chicago Time Out Magazine directed me to you." Huh?? What's Chicago Time Out Magazine? So I Google it and find the publication online then search "Etsy" in their own search engine. Here's what I found! It's an article about 'of the month clubs' to give as holiday gifts and has a pic of yarn at the top of the article (not my yarn but still) and my yarn is the only yarn mentioned in the article. Yay! I'm famous and didn't even know it!

Friday, December 08, 2006

Aubrey and Anne on Knitty Gritty


KNITTY GRITTY, Season 8, episode #12, "I Do Knits"
Yesterday, Aubrey and I spent the day at the studio of Screen Door Entertainment for the taping of the wedding-themed Knitty Gritty episode. The guest of the day was Suss Cousins of Suss Design, who demonstrated how to knit a lace wedding veil with a crocheted border. Both Vickie Howell and Suss were really nice and very energetic. The producer of the show was Sonia, who also happened to be the associate producer of our "Shapeshifting Sweater" episode of Uncommon Threads. The associate producer was Joy, who was super nice too and really took care of us.

Part of the fun in doing these shows is that it not only removes you from the monotony of everyday life, it also allows you to meet lots of really creative and fun people. We met and got to know Brenda, the 3rd knister on the episode. Brenda is a newlywed and she got to show off a shawl she knitted for her wedding last December. She also currently organizes the Los Angeles chapter of The Church of Craft. While we were sitting and waiting (which happened quite a bit), we met another cool crafter, Cecily. Cecily is also an Uncommon Threads alumni -- she and her friends demonstrated various crochet projects for 3 episodes of the first season of Uncommon Threads.

Click on photos to enlarge.

left: Aubrey knitting and lookin' sexy . right: Vickie knitting a scarf on set.


left: Me and Brenda in between taping. right: The 3 knitsters!


above: Some behind-the-scenes shots.


left:
Aubrey's self-portrait right: Me and Aubrey posing with Vickie and Suss.




Wednesday, November 29, 2006

A totally drool worthy and inspiring flick pool worth checking out if you are a dyer, spinner or knitter.
http://www.flickr.com/groups/handspunhanddyedhandknit/

Tuesday, November 28, 2006


Here's a Panta (pattern here) that i whipped up a while ago and found the pics in my camera while cleaning out old pics.

Handspun swapy goodness


swap to Bloo closeup
Originally uploaded by Saint_Ann.
Just a closeup pic of some handspun i dyed and spun up for a swap on craftster between spinners and crafters. Anne and Aubrey you should get in on the next round (i'll let you know when sign ups are). It's a fun way to get some cool gifties in the mail.

Friday, November 17, 2006

colors

I hate the colors on this blog. I changed it to make it better, but it takes soooo long to do since I'm not good at it. Right now it sucks and I don't what came out, but I don't have time to change it. I don't want to sit through hours trying to get a good combo again yet, so I guess I will have to wait. If I got back to a standard blogger template, I will lose all the customized sidebar stuff, albeit there isn't much. ugh.

The good thing about colors is that we will be swimming in colorful yarns this weekend at our Wine, Dye and Knit party, hosted by yours truly. Zona, Aubrey and I will be splitting a space at the Piecemaker's craft fair and we need to build up our inventory! We'll make sure to take pictures and post.

Thursday, November 16, 2006

Crafting Divas' Vitae

So, I think we've done enought things to have our own curriculum vitae. Here's a list of where you can find us!!!

  • I Can't Believe I'm Knitting, In Motion -- A knitting DVD featuring Melissa Leapman. Aubrey, Anne and Rachel are in there for about 10 seconds each in the extra feature section "Knitter on the Street" The videos are available at stores like Michaels and JoAnn. In March 2006, I blogged the experience.
  • Shapeshifting Sweaters, Uncommon Threads, episode #241, Season 2, Feb. 2007 -- Anne, Zona, Aubrey and Rachel demonstrate a wonderful project using recycled sweaters on this crafty show on the DIY Network. It hasn't aired yet, nor has the airing schedule been released, but I'll update this as soon as I know! :) Our experience is blogged here.
  • Meowzers, Uncommon Threads, episode #265, Season 2, Feb. 2007-- Anne, Aubrey and Zona demonstrate a bed for your beloved kitty and show off some other kitty toys on this episode. It hasn't aired yet, nor has the airing schedule been released, but I'll update this as soon as I know! :) Our experience is blogged here.
  • Knit-torious, SqueezeOC, Nov. 9, 2006 -- An article on knitting for which Aubrey and Anne knitted the bikini. Aubrey and Anne were featured in the bio. Blogged here with links.
  • "Fu", MagKnits, Issue # __?_ -- Anne's pattern just got accepted for publication in MagKnits. It's still undecided whether the pattern will be in the February or March 2007 issue.
  • I Do Knits, Knitty Gritty, episode #_?__, Season 4(?) -- Aubrey and Anne will be knitsters on this wedding-themed episode. This still has not happened yet, but we are scheduled to tape on December 4, 2006.

Sexy Bikini on SqueezeOC



Look! We are another mini-step closer as crafty supahstahs! Sorry if you saw this on my blog. But isn't it exciting!!?? Aubrey and I collaboratively designed and knitted the bikini below, which was featured in last week's SqueezeOC, a weekly local entertainment pub. The also have and online version of the article, but after seeing the print version, I like the print version much better! Here's the article. Here's a bio on Aubrey and me. The photos above are from Squeeze OC. Yay us!!

Sunday, November 05, 2006

Creative Yarn

I meant to post this a while back, but I kept forgetting. Aubrey and I decided to take some salacious yarn photos along with some other creative posings with yarn. They didn't turn out super great, but I really like them. Thanks to Zona, who took all the photos.

Have you ever knitted with goats?

Um, yeah, it was a really cold day here in SoCal. We decided to start a fire and roast some yarnmallows.

We got hungry and decided to cook. Below Aubrey is enjoying her bowl of yellow egg noodles.

One of my favorite pictures. I am in a knitting Zen moment. Well, actually, I'm acrophobic and was afraid to jump on this super bouncy large trampoline. Yeah, I'm a chicken.

Ah, last but not least, for the fetishists. Salacious photos of us bathing together.

Monday, October 30, 2006

Psudo-sod = knit grass for art's sake.

Yesterday was spent sitting and knitting at the Huntington Beach Art Center with my new friend, Amy who has an exibit at the canter currently on display. She is part of an exhibit called "MANufactured", exploring models of painting and sculpture through the use of such manufactured materials as plastic, fabric, and fiber; including Cathy Breslaw, Amy Caterina, Maureen Shields, and Tomoko Suzuki.
Amy is on a mission to knit an entire Psudo-sod car cover and calling on all knitters to participate by knitting a swatch for her. I sat and chatted, laughed, knit sod and even sold some yarn while i was there.
Psudo-sod is one strand of brown worsted weight yarn held together with one strand of grass colored eyelash yarn, knit on large needles, all in garter stitch. Sounds yucky from a yarn standpoint but actually resembles grass when worked up. Stupid Blogger isn't latteing me post pics so go over to my personal blog to see the pics i snapped of her progress as of yesterday.
The car cover project isn't the only thing on display. She has Forest Fire Friends which are large knit animals and some other pieces using Psudo-sod at the Huntington Beach Art Center.

Saturday, October 28, 2006

Yummy Yarns


I posted this on my blog, but I just love the colors I also had to post here. This is my current inventory for both Etsy and also the Dec. 1 craft fair. This is from the dye party at Aubrey's and the Saturday night of Zona's crafty adventure at Piecemakers.

I haven't put anything on Esty yet, but I did put up my store banner.

Monday, October 09, 2006

"You like me....You really like me!"


This weekend was my first foray into selling my yarn to the general public face to face. And it went well.....really well!
I had a booth at the local Piecemakers Harvest Craft Fair and sat there for 2 days spinning and chatting with all kinds of people. There were people that walked up to my table and "Ooooo" while touching and squeezing the twisty colorful hanks but then they'd look up and say "what is this?". They didn't realize that it was yarn. I guess when you aren't familiar with handspun and all you see are factory spun balls and hanks at your local Michaels you wouldn't know yarn comes in other forms. Anyways.... there were only a few of those people. For the most part it was people that were facinated by the whole dying and spinning process and coudn't decide which loveley hand to take home. Lots of children would stop thier parents and come stand by me as i spun away and explained how the "fluff" came from the sheep and what i did to it. I think that was my favorite part of the weekend......explaining the process to thecurious and wide eyed kids.
By the end of Saturday my inventory was severly depleted. I had sold more than half of what i brought with me! My dress form was naked of her scarves and accessories - all sold!

Anne, Aubrey and several people from our Weds night knitting group came down to visit with me throughout the day and i met several people that might come by some Weds night to knit with us.
On Saturday night when i got home i scoured the house for more knit accessories to adorn the dress form, worked up a quick scarf and dug out a few hats to bring along for Sunday. Sunday moring i ditched the baskets the yarn had been in the previous day and spread out my remaining inventory on the sheep printed tablecloth. Everything filled in nicely and it didn't look as sparce as when i worried it might.
Sunday was a slower day as far as attendace but there was a slow steady pace of purchases and it was a good day afterall. Rachel came by and sat with me for a while and knit while helping out with customers. She also brought yummy apple cupcakse to snak on. Yum!
Anne came by and put up some of her beautiful handdyed yarn and people were ooo'ing and aaahhh'ing over those as well. It was nice to see her selling some stuff as well. She even did a little drop spindle demo for a fellow spinner!
Overall the weekend was a success! I made way more than i would have anticipated and i will be doing it again in December. Anne is going to share the booth and i think we are going to make a killing!

Friday, September 29, 2006

Best Cards Ever!

Because we had so much fun, we wanted to thank our producers from our Uncommon Threads shows. The girls and I decided to put our creative juice together again and custom-make Alana and Steve thank-you cards that are reminiscent of the projects we worked on.
Aren't they cute?!

Alana's Card:


Steve's Card:

As a joke, we decided that Aubrey should make this a dead cat, and I don't know if you can see the tag, but this dead cat's name is "StepOut."

Monday, September 25, 2006

champagne might be the devil...

I'm not quite positive on that yet but i'm pretty sure. Yesterday my day was spend recovering from trying to keep up with Jeff's boss' wife on Sat night.
They took us out to dinner and before we even left there house we had polished off 2 bottles of Moet. Dinner was at Oceanfront 21 (i think that was the name of the place....memories are still a little foggy) in Newport and it was awesome but then.....oh lord. The grossest 2 dive bars in the world - The Beach Ball and The Class of 47 (where i am sad to say that Jeff and I used to regulars and i'm sure glad those days are over) where many vodka containing drinks were consumed. Leslie (the boss' wife) is a mad woman but she's so much fun.
Jeff and Rick just watched us wild women in action and made sure we didn't get into trouble.
Yesterday we had to go do the HB rounds of family visits. Since we live in tha bario we go to them, they don't come to us. Plus James & Lisa (bro-in-law & his wife) were down from Ventura so it was nice to see them.
By the time we finally got home last night i planted myself on the couch and tried to finish the one skeins worth of knitting that i have to do before i can sew together the remainder of my Jess coat and i couldn't even follow the stitch pattern. I knit a few rows, realized the were wrong, ripped them out, tried again, failed misserably and gave up. My brain just wasn't functioning AT ALL.
What a loooong, too-much-fun filled weekend it's been! I feel tons better today and have a busy week ahead of me!

Friday, September 22, 2006

Wine Makes Everything Better!

Posing with the lovely Allison Whitlock:
Episode #265: Meowzers!
Day 2 of our taping occurred on Sept. 6. We showed up bare-faced (dark circles and all) in regular (and rather untidy) street clothes. You see, we were instructed to showed up "camera-ready" and fully made-up for both taping days, by Sonya, the associate producer that works with Alana, producer for the Shelly project. We were good little girls and came fully primped that first day, we knew better for Day 2. On Day 1, we had to change out to street clothes so we didn't get our dress clothes dirty with all the rehearsals.

This 2nd day was so much more relaxed and fun. In part, this was because we already knew what to expect, and our producer, Steve, was really cool and funny. Alana was also really cool and super nice, but it was a little challenging to rehearse without her for most of the Day 1 morning. Alana had a taping, so she had Sonya, who is also nice, rehearse us by herself. We didn't know what to expect, and because Alana wasn't readily available for us to consult with, some parts were made more challenging than it should have been. Anyway, back to Day 2...

Day 2 was so laid back that Aubrey, Zona and I even had time to knit while awaiting our turn to tape! (Rachel was only able to do the previous day.) On Day 1, the entire show was dedicated to one project, whereas, on Day 2, we did our project, then Allison Whitlock (host) demonstrated her project and then we did a show & tell of other stuff we had made.

The step-out table with all the stuff and materials we needed for our project:

We struck a few poses on set while waiting for taping to start.

A few behind-the-scene moments:


Last, but certainly not least, I must tell you about our awesome producer (and it's not just because he gave us alcohol, well... he did score some extra brownie points!). Not only did Steve make us laugh throughout the day, he surprised us with a gift after taping in our 80's rock-ish decorated dressing room with poufy black leather sofas. He had set up a bucket of beer, a bottle of KJ Chardonnay (one of my faves at the moment - he must be a mindreader too!), and a lovely thank-you note. Earlier, Steve had told us that since we were the last episode and last taping of the season, we'd have the opportunity to celebrate with the crew with some beers. Well, their schedules got switched and they still had to tape some filler and tidbit stuff after taping our episode, so we didn't get to celebrate with them, but of course, its totally understandable. I mean, it would've been the icing on the cake, but we weren't disappointed or anything -- we already had tons of fun on both days. Anyway, Steve wanted to keep his promise, so he surprised us!!

The funny thing is that no one had a corkscrew, and we really wanted to toast and drink the wine.

Handy Tip of the Day: So, what do you do when you need to open a bottle of wine and don't have a corkscrew? Use a drill and a screw! This tip was brought to you by the über-crafty art department of Uncommon Threads!


We were all very huggy. Hope we didn't scare Steve! Thanks to all the Screen Door Entertainment/Uncommon Threads crew! Everyone was super duper nice. :)

Monday, September 18, 2006

Argh!

I was all ready to post the about the second taping, and I even downloaded some of the pics, but alas, blogger was having problems...and I lost my post. ARGHHH.

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

"Intern! Where's my latte!"


Ah yes, it's true we are officially Supah Stahs now! Here are a few of the pics i snapped while in Burbank last week.


Here we see a few camera guys and jason, the prop guy on the set.


Here is Shelly and all his/her pieces in a pile of recycled sweater hell!

Rachel, Anne & Aubrey slaving away making extra step out pieces for Shelly. Look Aubrey, It's your secret enemy in the yellow shirt, Barry! Watch out he's sneaking up on you!

Patiently waiting in the green room (which wasn't even green) Aubrey is ready for her close up!

Uncommon Threads does little segments on unusual needle arts projects and this was one they were getting ready to film while we were leaving on Tues night. It was a full length coat made from stuffed animal pelts!

Steve (super producer extrordinair) and Ann going over the cat bed for the next days shoot.

3 out of 4 Supah Stahs on the way home. Rachel left the night before.