um...

Whoopsie-doodles, I forgot to let you all know that the Lifeline mitties are up for grabs now. Check it out:



$4.00 is a small price to pay for toasty paws. Just sayin.

The rest of my life has been taken over by Top Secret photoshoots, so I don't have much to show for myself over here. Except my adorable friend Sorren's adorable striped socks and boots. I seriously want to elope with those boots.



I may get to sojourn at the beach for a wee bit for a mental health/design like a madwoman break, so hopefully some pictures will come out of that soon, if nothing else. In the meantime, happy springtime! And don't even pretend like that means that you have to stop knitting. I assure you, I will still be here, fighting the good fight.

Until next time!

put a bird on it!

Portland has been making the news lately, nay, it's been making it to the silver screen (and, well, the plasma screen more often). An increasing number of producers and movie houses have been choosing Portland locations for their movies, and now we have our very own show. Or a show about us, as seen through the eyes of outsiders. Just for being our own selves, which I think is kinda cool, and it's the mark of the Portlander that those things that make us most absurd (like taking locally sourced food to the extreme, as well as our cycling rights) also make us the most proud. Including our love of all things that have birds. Flocks of birds are even better.



I may have mentioned before that I do the windows at Twisted, and my bosses said birds so I gave us some birds! In migration



because after all, it is



So I say to the cynics out there, watching us through the lens of Portlandia and perhaps sneering at our somewhat twee sense of kitsch: don't hate, and put a bird on it!

lifeline

I started these mitties on our trip to Madrona, knit and reknit and revised about a dozen times, and finished them up for a wee cold spell we had a couple weeks back. I don't ordinarily have the urge to work with my own handspun yarn, but this one called to me. The roving was a superwash merino hand dyed by Melanie of Black Trillium and it was love at first sight. And then, even more impressively, at second and third and fourth as well...



I had just seen a picture of this new (to me) thumb gusset and was intrigued by its unusual shape and wanted to give it a try. I love how it curves across the palm like a secondary lifeline, and it makes a very snug and comforting fit.



These are pretty uneventful mittens since I think that handspun is at its best in the simplest stitches, but there is a bracelet of garter eyelets for a smidgeon of la-ti-da.



I got to drag my friend Lorelei to the park in the rain for another exciting photo shoot for a few other designers (secrets! I will share at length, I promise!) and as photographer's prerogative I snuck these in too. I will make a pattern soon, and am planning on also offering it as a freebie with any skein of handspun yarn, as a ready answer to the ubiquitous, "what can you make out of one special skein?"



Pssst, you can get the pattern to make some of your own right here:


Thanks so much friends, as always, and until next time!