Three Bags Full

Dear Mom,
With your help, the yarn stash went through an Epic Purge a couple of weeks ago.
All those partial skeins of yarn that I thought could some day be….. something…… and all those yarns for projects I started and did not like, supplies for project ideas that IwillNeverInMyLifetimeIfILiveToBe103HaveTimeToDo- all of that- went in to Three- yes. THREE! Contractor- sized garbage bags, into the back of my car, and donated to Goodwill.
EDITING is my new mindset. Edit out those projects that I do not Love. Life is too short and free time is too precious to do anything but the Really Good Stuff. And just because I Have An Idea, doesn't mean I have to act on it. (Until I find a way to stop the clock, or function on 45 minutes of sleep.)
I have to say that some parts of the purge were painful, but not many, and mostly it was liberating to rid myself of the burden of those "this could be ….. something…." projects and to have all that under-the-bed and closet space cleared out.

However.
Some of those projects and yarns were just too good to donate to the Goodwill, even though they are things I don't want to knit anymore, or yarns I can't decide what they should be, and I've decided to offer them here for any blog readers who are interested. Free. I'll even cover the shipping ( US, please). Such is my desire to see this stuff in good homes and not in the bottom of a craft bin at the Goodwill.

First thing up for grabs:

 A Spillyjane Cupcakes Mitten pattern and the KnitPicks Pallette yarn to knit them.

Next:

Spillyjane's Heather's Mittens pattern and KnitPicks Pallette yarn to knit them- FYI- I swapped out white for the brown thinking  I would make a Shamrock Mitten for St Patrick's day.

And then there's:

Spillyjane's Carrots and Beets Mitten pattern (why, yes, I did lose my mind one day and went Spillyjane crazy) and the KnitPicks Pallette yarn for knitting them.

And there's this too:

6 skeins of Blue Sky Alpaca's Alpaca Silk. (50 grams, 146 yards per skein) 2 skeins of Blueberry,  color #140; 2 skeins of Slate, color #100; 1 skein of Iron, color #134 and one skein of a light lime green color, tag missing.

And finally:

2 skeins of Misti Alpaca Handpainted Baby Suri Silk  (80% baby Suri Alpaca 20% silk Color #21/ 100 g, 218 yards per skein) AND this handy Circular Solution Port-a-Pocket.

IF anyone out there is interested in any of these. please leave a comment and tell me which thing you want. IF there are more than one interested knitter, I'll draw a name out of one of the Young Lady's North Porch hats. Is a week long enough for any/every one to get their dibs in? Let's see how things look next Thursday. Tell your friends -unless they might want what you want and then we'll just keep it a secret, okay?

Love,
Kim

Knit Picks

Dear Mom,
Two of my designs went "live" yesterday on the Knit Picks website.
Over the past 6-8 weeks, I've been designing, pattern writing, knitting and photographing 2 children's items for Knit Picks Independent Designer Program. It was for these patterns that I learned to chart with Excel and draw a schematic on Word. It was also for the Knit Picks website that Bonnie so thoughtfully photographed me for my "bio" page. You can see the bio and chosen photo here.

You can go here and here for a closer look at the patterns.

I had tremendous help from Mary Lee, who test knit the boys sweater for me. I think you can click on this and see a picture of the sweater she knit for a grandson. I love the color combination she chose. Mary Lee helped me to look at my words through someone else's eyes and gave me the priceless reassurance that someone else could knit what I had written. If  it weren't for Mary Lee, the sleeves would probably be too long. On top of all that, she kept her sense of humor intact despite my too many "change row 3 from this to this" and "here is another correction" emails. But we did it and I thank her tremendously, for both doing it and for doing it at lightening speed. Sharing the process with Mary Lee made it all the more fun. Way more fun.

Love,
Kim