yippy!! my first sale!!

happy thursday everyone ^^/

it's been exactly one week since i opened my new Etsy shop, http://www.ginger1990.etsy.com/, and i'm super excited to announce that i've just made my very first sale evar!!




la petite vache is doing a happy cow dance today in celebration ^.^

if you've been follow my blog since the beginning (or if you taken to the time to read through all my posts) you'll know that this little Etsy venture has been a dream of mine for the last 9 months or so, and i'm just thrilled and encouraged by the support i've been getting from my blog followers and all my friends on Ravelry. i honestly thought that it would take much longer for me to pass this first sale milestone, expecially considering i haven't really done much advertising for it yet. so when i woke up this morning and saw the email in my inbox about this sale it was such a splendid surprise.

i just wanted to take this time to thank all my followers and friends, and especially my friend Sarah from The Student Knitter. without your advice and encouragement i may never have had the courage to embark on this adventure, so thank you from the bottom of my heart for believing in me, even when i didn't believe in myself.

on another note, i've got a brand new, revolutionary design that i'm going to be submitting to the KnitPicks independant designer program very soon, and i'll be doing a sneak preview of this design sometime in the next week. so make sure to check back with the blog for that and to see if you've won one of the sets of detanglers that i'm giving away as part of my grand opening promotion :)

peace & love to all,

~Carla

we have a winner! (and another free giveaway!)

hello again everyone ^^/




it's been a busy week for me and i've got some really exciting news, but i'll talk more about that in a sec. first i'm happy to announce that Cary from Serenity Farms has won my first ever free pattern giveaway!!




i've sent her a free copy of the pattern for my newest design knock off just for following my blog and leaving me a comment. it's just that easy ^^ i've decided to do a free pattern giveaway everytime i release a new pattern, and there could be more giveaways of a different kind in the future because....


::drumroll::


i'm planning on opening up my very own Etsy shop soon to sell my patterns and handknit items! right now i'm in the process of finishing up a few designs and building up a good stock of items knit from my patterns and sometime very soon they will be on Etsy for purchase. soon you'll be able to own your very own lucky stars just like the one below:










it's only in the planning stages at this point, but i may also be collaborating with a very good friend of mine who paints and makes lovely jewelry. be sure to check back with the blog in the following weeks to find out more details on the shop, and to watch out for possible random free giveaways...hehe


you may have also noticed some changes to my blog layout recently. my darling husband helped me out a lot with my new header (i'm not very tech savvy, but i'm slowly catching up with the times :p) some other new things you might see are:

• a labels section to make my blog more easily searchable
• a country counter so everyone can see how many ppl from each country around the world visits
• a link to my Ravelry designer page

basically i've been having a great time pimping out my blog xD


and last but not least, i'd like to direct everyone over to Jenny's blog on knitting where you can win a FREE skein of this luscious yarn seen below:

this lovely Swedish yarn is 75% superwash wool and 25% nylon and comes in a 100 gram skein with a generous 440 meters ( thats 481 yards for us americans :p)

i don't know Jenny personally, but she's a good friend of my friend Sarah over at The Student Knitter, and any friend of Sarah's is a friend of mine, hehe. why not head over to Jenny's blog and show some support for her 100th post by entering her giveaway :)

and on that note it's time for this little vache to go and finish the planning of the new Etsy shop. have a great weekend everyone

~teh vache

sew...

yeah i know, not the most inventive title, but at least its relevant to my newfound love of sewing ^-^

the story goes:
my mom gave me a sewing machine for christmas last year in hopes that i would finally learn how to use one. until now i've been sewing everything by hand which translated into me not doing a whole lot of sewing. but my mom is pretty handy with a sewing machine, she used to sew all our halloween costumes by hand; and these were highly extravagant costumes. one year my brother was the Energizer Bunny, and she sewed a brother-sized bunny suit, without following a pattern mind you, out of this really really thick, furry pink fabric.

so a few weeks ago i finally asked her to show me the ins and outs of machine sewing and as my first project sewed this poorly constructed little practice purse:

my main reason for finally wanting to learn machine sewing was because i had this grand idea to make a handmade project bag and circular needle holder for my swap partner Sarah for our 10$ Swap on Ravelry. it was a perilous journey, complete with many stops, starts, ripped seams and re-sews. but in the end perseverence prevailed and i did manage to complete both patterns i found in the original Stitch n' Bitch book by Debbie Stoller.

the bag (yes that;s my hubby's arm holding it ^^):

the needle holder:

they both involved the use of iron on transfer paper for the patch on the bag and the numbers on the needle holder, which complicated things a bit more. when trying to sew the patch onto the bag the presser foot on my machine caught on the stickiness of the iron on patch and kinda ripped up a little peice of the design, and while trying to iron on the velcro for the needle holder i damn near transfered the numbers to my ironing board >.<

but all in all i'm glad i finally learned, and managed to make myself this cute little cover for my knitting journal below:

i'm not completely thrilled with the finished project, i'm thinking about ripping up the pocket and making one out of solid black fabric to have a little contrast and make it easier to see. also, it almost didn't fit on my journal so i may rip out the flap seams so i can add a bit more of an allowance. but all in all i'm still mighty proud of my accomplishments to date. considering i haven't sewed anything by machine since i was in Jr. High home ec, i think my projects so far are not too shabby.

and speaking of swapping, my swap package arrived last monday!!!!!

the theme of the swap was "all one color" and as you can see my favoritest color is GREEN!!!

i got a wonderful green (in more ways than one) tote, some cute froggy paper clips, honey-ginseng green tea, assorted green apple candies, green tea lotion, a green graph paper notebook that i'll probably need since i'm taking math this semester (yuck!) this really delicious looking home-made chip dip, and some beautiful stitchmarkers and hand-dyed yarn that Sarah dyed herself! color me spoiled xD

thanks again to Sarah from The Student Knitter for sending me such a lovely swap package. i've already used the stitch markers and marveled at their loveliness :)

oh yeah and on a last note, i am STILL working on my submission to Knitcircus Magazine, which was origianally due the 15th, but the deadline was pushed back to September 1st. since i had some extra time i decided to test knit the pattern and boy am i glad i did because i found a few really big problems with it that i've been able to correct. but it's got to be done before tuesday so be on the lookout for a new post with details on the finished pattern.

nighty-night knitters

~tehvache

Knitcircus here i come!!

so it's official....

i'm going to be submitting my first pattern to a magazine, Knitcircus, for publication!! i'm really excited about it, even if my pattern doesn't get picked getting my first rejection letter/email will be like my formal entry into the world of designing. i really think i have a decent chance though, since i'm utilizing a technique for this pattern that i've not seen used anywhere before. i can't say too much about it though, i don't wanna give away all my secrets! but i'm sure the observant knitters eye might be able to guess at it ;)

the design is called ladylike and it's a pair of delicate eyelet gloves pictured below:

it's funny because the inspiration for these came to me one night a few months ago just as i was lying down to go to sleep. i've seen a lot of bulky fingerless gloves (and knit quite a few pairs) so i wanted to design something that would be dainty, well fitted, virtually cuffless and cute enough to be part of an ensemble, not just something to keep your hands warm. i was also inspired quite a bit by vintage design, i love that women used to wear gloves frequently, not just for warmth, but for fashion as well. i think we need to bring gloves back in style and i'm doing my part to help them make a comeback ^^

owing to the fact that i live in southern california and it doesn't get very cold here i also wanted to design something that i could wear comfortably in virtually all seasons, thus ladylike was born. knit in Crystal Palace Yarns PandaSilk (52% bamboo, 43% machine washable merino wool, 5% combed silk,) they are designed to stretch a bit to accomodate multiple hand sizes so the pattern is only writen in one size. also, so that they would be perfectly fitted at the bottom without the use of boring old ribbing i knit a slit into the bottom of the glove to which i attached a simple button and crocheted loop closure pictured below:

open

and closed



i'm a big fan of fingerless gloves, i think it's the one individual item i've knit the most of. i'm i've actually got a pair of them on the needles that i'm knitting for my husband that have been pushed to the back burner while i finish up ladylike. the deadline is fast approaching for submissions, i only have 3 more days yikes! if anyone has any comments on my gloves, whether or not they think they are Knitting Magazine-worthy, please don't hesitate to leave a comment on this post. any feedback from the knitting community would be greatly appreciated :)

but in the midst of all the designing work i'm excited to be joining my first swap evar the "10 $ swap" !!!! my swapartner and i have so much in common i think it's going to make for a really cool swapping experience. AND she dies her own yarn so i'm hoping she just might send me some of her handdyed as part of my swap package ::crosses fingers::
i've never had the pleasure of knitting with handdyed yarn so it would be a real treat.

she blogs about her dyeing exploits on her blog here so go check out her lovely collection :)

well i've gotta go get knitting for this swap, i'm making her something special in one of her favorite colors, i hope she likes it ^^ (i can't say what it is here because she's currently stalking my blog to get ideas for HER swap package, so you'll just have to come back to my blog once the swap is done to find out what it is >:) ::devious smirk:: )

adieu

~tehvache