Category Archives: The Designing Day

The Designing Day

Join Patternfish and HeartStrings in Supporting WomenHeart

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So many exciting things are happening and I am bubbling over to tell you. Please share my excitement about 3 wonderful things going on with Patternfish.

Firstly, I am honored and excited to be the Designer of the Month at Patternfish for January. Doing the interview was a real treat. The folks at Patternfish are great to work with. Thanks especially to Gayle, the Patternfish newsletter editor and esteemed Ambassador, for the great intro to the Jackie Erickson-Schweitzer Designer of the Month article in the Patternfish newsletter.

Here is an outline of the questions I answer in my designer interview (just to give you a tease so that you’ll be enticed to read the full article, lol):

  • What is your design process?
  • What inspires you? What are you passionate about?
  • Which is your favourite design?
  • Which is your customers’ favourite design?
  • When did you start knitting and who taught you?
  • When did you start designing and what was the first design that you created? Which is the first that you sold?
  • Where have your designs appeared?
  • Where do you think you and your business will be in 10 years?
  • How do you feel about the “business” side of being a successful designer?
  • In what ways do you spend your time that would surprise people?
  • How did you come to list your patterns with Patternfish?

Of course, I knew about the interview because we had pre-planned that. Then on the day the newsletter was sent out, Gayle totally surprised me by having picked my Technique Teddy Bear pattern as one of her two Editor’s Choices for this month. Who can’t resist a little teddy? But I think her write-up really brings this little pattern into the limelight.

Technique Teddy Bears
Technique Teddy Bears

And that is not all! Patternfish also launched a monthly charitable support initiative starting this month where the Designer of the Month picks a favorite charity and to which Patternfish will make a contribution. And I am the first to help kick off this initiative by choosing WomenHeart, the lifeblood organization devoted to improving the quality of life and the healthcare of women living with heart disease.

Patternfish will be donating $1.00 for each Thinking of You Scarf pattern sold during January to WomenHeart and I will match that dollar for dollar.

Thinking of You Scarf
Thinking of You Scarf
WomenHeart is devoted to improving the quality of life and healthcare for women living with heart disease. Through their coalition of national organizations and community-based support networks, they offer comprehensive services to women with heart disease and empower all women to take charge of their heart health. Through their advocacy efforts, all women receive early detection, accurate diagnosis and proper treatment of their heart disease.

KNIT RED, the HeartScarves Project, is one of the program initiatives under the WomenHeart organization. I think HeartScarves will be of particular interest to knitters and crocheters. HeartScarves delivers handmade, red scarves to women undergoing cardiac procedures. Symbolizing the lifelines of caring and support that exists among us, each red scarf is meant to offer comfort, support, and encouragement for a woman with heart disease and become a part of her healing journey. Recipients of the scarves feel the love and attention that go into the production of hand-made items.

I first learned about WomenHeart through the KNIT RED HeartScarves program created in 2005 by women heart disease survivors. Having lost my own mother too early in her life to heart disease, I gladly became involved in contributing handknit red scarves, and also accepted their request to design a special scarf to help bring awareness to the initiative. That is how the HeartStrings Thinking of You Scarf pattern came about.

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The Designing Day

Dropping the ball to bring in the New Year

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I promised myself that I would get this little Beaded Stress Ball pattern completed by the end of 2011. Well, here we are at the 11th hour! I should have my head examined for creating more stress for myself – ha! ha! I too often forget my own advice to take time to smell the roses. Well, that is what a new year is for, right? New resolutions and a new beginning.

 

Anyway, I’ve been having fun working up this pattern. And hope you will enjoy reading about it, too. If anything, I hope it brings a smile to your face. And you might even try it out yourself for some well-deserved relaxation in the new year.

The premise is that you can squish and roll this beaded ball around in your hands to provide relaxation and quick relief for stress, aching or stiff finger joints. Tiny pressure points of beads have a meditative quality. My idea for this was inspired by a small flexible bead-woven bowl I bought from a talented friend of mine, Brenda Harms. Not only was it a beautiful little container, but it fit in my hand and felt so good as a massage. That gave me the idea to come up with something bead-knitted that was both beautiful and fun that would function in a similar way for hand therapy.

When designing this beaded ball, I was really dredging up the old brain matter in trying to remember my solid geometry. It’s amazing how you can learn all those formulas in school, and then they just sort of want to vanish when you need them. I wanted the design to be symmetrical, uniformly beaded all over, and of course to look like a ball when completed. And here is the proof!

 

For those who are wondering what the heck the title for this blog article is about, it is a tradition to “drop” or lower the ball in New York’s Times Square on New Year’s Eve. This is my toast to that. 🙂

Have a happy and prosperous new year! (and don’t forget to Take Time to Smell the Roses)

p.s. Remember that stressed spelled backwards is desserts.

 

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The Designing Day

How small can you go?

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Am I crazy or what? Such tiny needles, tiny beads and skinny thread. But the results are worth it. Something special for ME this holiday season. 🙂

Bitty Christmas Tree Earrings
Bitty Christmas Tree Earrings

These are Bitty Christmas Tree Earrings, an even tinier version of the HeartStrings #H80 BITTY BEADY CHRISTMAS TREE pattern design I published just a few days ago. The published design specifies fingering weight yarn and size 8/0 beads knitted on US 2 /2.75mm needles to produce a 1/12th scale miniature version of a 5′ traditional Christmas Tree. At this size (approx 5″ high by 4.25″ wide), they’re great as ornaments, package decorations and the like.

Bitty Beady Christmas Tree gift bag decoration
Bitty Beady Christmas Tree gift bag decoration

You can make a bunch of these trees in hardly any time — very satisfying to make quick, small gifts!

Bitty Beady Christmas Trees
Bitty Beady Christmas Trees

Just for my own personal fun, I wanted to try some on both thicker and thinner yarn/threads, too. I had fun making some larger, using sport weight yarn (on US 3/3.25 mm  needles) and worsted weight (on US 4/3.5 mm needles). While on a roll, I also made a smaller one using size 10 crochet thread (on US 0/2mm needles).

Bitty Beady Christmas Trees in 3 sizes

 

This smaller one (at just 3.25″ high by 3″ wide), I turned into a brooch using a coiless safety pin.

Christmas Tree brooch

Then the real craziness started. I couldn’t help myself but imagine some even smaller trees to wear as earrings. Darn it — my eyesight used to be better. I think this is going to be as small as I’ll be going. As it was, I had to wear my jeweler’s magnifier while knitting these, just to see what I was doing! After blocking, they are just 2″ high x 2″ wide (excluding earring wires).

The earrings compared to size of a U.S. quarter
The earrings compared to size of a U.S. quarter

If you want to share my craziness, here is what you will need for a pair of earrings like these:

10 yds (9.1 m) 10/2 Textura Trading Tencel thread in color Seafoam (near substitutes are size 20 crochet cotton or size 8 pearl cotton)
size 4/0 (1.25 mm needles)
148 (approx 1.4 g) multi-color mix of Miyuki size 11/0 (2mm diameter) seed beads (size 10/0 beads should work just fine, too)
2 earring wires
HeartStrings #H80 Bitty Beady Christmas Tree pattern (available  through Ravelry and other places selling HeartStrings patterns)

Close-up of an earring

How small can YOU go? I’d love to see the ones you make, too!

p.s. The knitting as background in the photos of the earrings is the original Lacie Blankie made in handspun Cotswold wool for the “Save the Sheep” competition sponsored by Interweave Press.

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The Designing Day

10,000th Design Competition finalist Dragonfly Dreams – please vote

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I am thrilled that my new beaded lace scarf design Dragonfly Dreams is a finalist in the Patternfish 10,000th Design Competition announced in the November 2011 Patternfish Newsletter that just went out today. The winner will be chosen by popular vote. I’d love for you to vote for my design if you like it. 🙂

Dragonfly Dreams
Dragonfly Dreams

I knit the scarf in Buffalo Gold Lux color Malachite. For beads, I used Miyuki colors #18 Silver-lined Light Blue (dragonfly wings and scarf border) and #234 Metallic Gold-lined Crystal (dragonfly bodies).

Dragonfly Dreams beaded lace scarf

 This has been one of my more challenging designs to render. I am pleased with the vision finally coming together. I had actually started playing around with possibilities early this year. Then I’d hit a design block or just wasn’t quite happy yet with what I had. When Patternfish announced their 10,000’th Design Competition, this gave me the motivation (and deadline date!) to tackle this design again.

detail close-up of Dragonfly Dreams
detail close-up of Dragonfly Dreams

I am so pleased to be selected as one of the finalists. I’d love it if you’d take a moment to vote for Dragonfly Dreams to be the winner. Voting closes Nov. 18, 2011 EST. Let me know if you have any questions.

p.s. Please feel free to share this with anyone else you can think might be interested in helping me out. The more votes the better. 🙂 Thanks again!

 

 

 

 

 

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The Designing Day

love these Hiya Hiya interchangeable knitting needles

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I’m trying out the Hiya Hiya interchangeable knitting needles (and a few other cute goodies). Want to see?

Hiya Hiya interchangeable needles and notions

These here are the steel needles with 5″ tips, but they also come with 4″ tips or in bamboo). They are WONDERFUL. To start with, I love the elegant silk brocade case. You can’t help but feel these are really special needles. The case is very functional with well-designed pockets for the multiple-sized cables and tips. Most of all, I love the design of the tips, the secure join of needle tips to cables, and the smoothness of both the needles and the joins. The cable is so flexible; it doesn’t fight me at all.

Hiya Hiya interchangeable knitting needles with 5" tips

Using a silk yarn is the ultimate test in smoothness of circular needle cables and these Hiya Hiya’s have a perfect score as far as I am concerned. Oh, and aren’t these little yarn-ball markers just the cutest thing?  They came in a little red squeeze-opening “dumpling” case I photographed lying here beside my in-progress knitting.

Silk Lace Cross in progress in Hiya Hiya knitting needles

p.s. The project in progress shown on the needles is the  ornate scalloped edge #A98 Lace Cross pattern design, now available from HeartStrings. The yarn shown is Tilli Tomas Demi Plié silk color Atmosphere.

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