Knit For Brains:a knitting blog

So much for my weekly post pledge, right? Well I do have an excuse or two… the first is that I’ve been bustin’ hump trying to get 112 kilos of super-amazing organic cotton yarn out of Peru and onto my doorstep. Sounds so illicit, doesn’t it? In a few weeks it’ll be here, bearing labels. It’s called Now i Know! Organic Cotton and I’ve got 12 colors in two weights–Chunky and Worsted. It’s pretty exciting and scary too, because I’ll be up to my ears in yarn that I (gulp) have to sell.

In other news, I’m loving being a lunch lady at a catholic school. It’s totally independent, and the kids are pretty awesome. I have just enough interaction with them to admire their cleverness and cuteness, but not have to deal with the struggles of, yknow, getting frustrated and annoyed and having to discipline them and be patient. One kid this week (kind of a chronic complainer) came up to the window on Chicken-soup-and-cheesy cornbread day moaning and groaning about how he hated cheese on his cornbread. I said, “Listen, I just happen to have some cheeseless cornbread that I made just for you!” So I give him his lunch, glad to make a customer happy. He picks it up, stares at it and frowns, “ugh. it has corn in it!” You can’t win with these kids. Like, seriously, who doesn’t like corn?

Anyway, I just finished my machine knitting class and the fabulous teacher, Sarah Etchison told me she’d give me one of her old standard machines (metal) for “next to nothing”. Wonder what that is? I tried knitting with Banana Silk at my last class session…it was nightmarish because of the yarn’s fuzzy texture. Sarah said it might be better on a bulky machine.

And lastly, the vegans have spoken loudly and frequently enough that I’ve removed the Craft Organic Cotton and Milk fiber yar from the KFB catalog. I like knitting with it and think it’s fabulous, but it really hasn’t sold well and I’ve gotten a lot of complaints about the milk content. Maybe I will closeout my remaining stock on Ebay or something.

Hi there, herein lies my pledge! I am thinking many others have pledged similar things to this: to write a post like, once a week. Will I do it? Who the F knows, but I would like to. All the time I spend dorking around on Facebook could be used to write about stuff that may be of interest to folks with similar interests to mine. These interests include, but are not limited to:

Serving waffle sticks and popcorn chicken to preschoolers through 8th graders at a Catholic school for a living.
Running a meager online business and trying to become an importer?!? of yarns, fabulous yarns.
Parenting two small and delightfully troublesome kidlets.

Listening to rock music.
Newly, bowling.

Well, you heard it here first…Actually, if you know me you have heard probably more than you care to. About my Frequently Fluctuating Life Plan, and the latest news is I’m throwing in the oven mitts. No more culinary school. The reasons are many and few, but mostly the cost-benefit just isn’t there. And—can I achieve all my goals by building a business around KNITTING?

I’m certainly going to try. At least until I start examining the FFLP again. So the question is, should I or shouldn’t I open a brick-and-mortar yarn shop? I have heard that Seattle has the most Yarn shops in the country or something–But none of them are close enough to me, and none are like the yarn shop I would have. I’m thinking between Capitol Hill and the Central District, with a serious DIY feel that doesn’t make grubby moms or indie crafters feel underdressed or unable to afford the goods. My idea is to also offer customers the opportunity to sell back yarn from their stash for store credit. I spoke to a financial advisor who said a storefront is not the way to go, but I can’t get the idea out of my head. Advice, anyone?

In  Knit for Brains land, I have been working on the website when I can, not with very impressive results. I need to just pay someone to do it. It took me hours, for example, to figure out how to get the Authorize.net logo on my main page. Then I got the idea I want to  have RSS feeds from other knitter’s blogs on my site. That gave me the fabulous opportunity to try writing my own php script. What?! Yeah, right…I really just copied a script from my OS commerce for total tech losers book. Probably why it didn’t work. Now I’ve got it in my crazy noggin to take a PHP coding class. PHP, in case you didn’t know, is a programming language that works with HTML to put junk into a database or something. For some funny reason I can’t remember, my buddy Collin calls it “Poo-Hand Protocol”.

EXCITING STUFF: Smart Monkey and I are working out a deal, and I’m going to be selling her yarn online. She stocks up on old sweaters from thrift stores, washes and unravels them, then rewinds the yarn. I might carry her wool as well as her cotton, as I want to have innovative products on my site that are not unneccesarily depleting resources or harming animals. I am already learning that marketing to the vegan community invites a lot of debate. More on that later, when it’s not 11:30!

Tomorrow I’ll be sitting behind a table at the University Place Festival, and Saturday too; then next Saturday I’m at the Fox Island Fair. I hope to meet lots of knitters and see how my new kit-packs go over.

Knit for Brains is chock full of yarn, new corn yarn and new colors of both Oasis Soysilk® (gotta put the reg mark in there) and Banana Silk. If only I could knit as fast as I could buy yarn…but we all feel that way, don’t we???

Recent projects: Knitty’s calorimetry with a ball of yarn from my stash, I abso-frickin’ lutely loved knitting it, and love how it looks and functions. I would love to make it again, with a ball of Knit One Crochet Too’s Second Time Cotton. Working on a doll pattern from Knitted Icons…I won’t say which one lest its intended recipient (it’s a bday prez) happens upon this post .

In other news, I got all excited to spend the day at the Fremont Market last sunday, but lo and behold, vendor space was sold out. What what what what? The waiting list was 20 people deep by the time I arrived, meanwhile Nathan and the kiddos were picking up a canopy for me at Fred Meyer. Drat…we spent the day shopping at the market instead. I got some cool patches that I would like to sew on baby hats. They’re mostly name tag patches made for work uniforms. I picked names like “Spud” and “Larry”.

With luck I will get a space for my wares July 13th.

Today it was sunny at least—But despite ordering some freaking Corn yarn today and shipping a bunch of orders, I’m feeling a little low. School’s out for summer (right Alice Cooper?) so I have plenty of time to knit and develop the site. I have one million thousand ideas and not nearly enough time to accomplish them all!

That said, there is lots to be excited about–I got the new Persnickity knitting clutches, and they are frigging awesome. I got a sample LuLu, the small one that has been with me nonstop since I got it. Even though it’s the little one, I have three projects in it right now and my basic implements: yarn needles, little tape measure, scissors and markers. Check out the shot of the inside:

I think it’s a brilliant bag. I am ever-in-search of the perfect needle case though. And the fabric-rolley ones are lame in my opinion. I have a cool zippered one that looks like it’s from the 50s, I would like to recreate it but I don’t know how to sew at all! I’m thinking maybe the folks at Persnickity can work on it with me since they are only about an hour north of me.

It makes me really happy to hear positive feedback from folks placing orders: today a woman ordered some yarn and said she was allergic to animal fibers and therefore was thankful to find non-animal yarn. But I have heard a few negative things from vegans pointing out that I carry a yarn with milk protein on my site.

Argh. I totally understand the vegan perspective, and part of hosting this site is so that I can make natural animal-free fibers available to folks nationwide! Not just in urban areas. But there are also lots of sustainable yarns that work for folks who don’t use wool that I’d like to carry. Then there are the other grey areas, like Smart Monkey! Smart Monkey has a table at the Fremont Sunday Market: they take sweaters from thrift stores, wash and unravel them, then ball them up and sell them in bags. I love the idea. I haven’t had a chance to talk to them, but i would love to carry their stuff on my site. That might incite some trouble, if it’s wool especially.

Wow, this is shaping up to be a novel. In other news of the extremely irritating, I’m about up to here with Blue Sky Alpacas. So they have this gorgeous organic cotton and despite my attempts at contact, I can’t get my hands on any. At first they told me they don’t sell to web-only stores. But…now their product is available at a bunch of web stores. Kusikuy has unfortunately discontinued its Organic Cotton. Beautiful stuff, but now I’m looking for another Organic Cotton.

By the way, right now I’m watching some creepy stuff on A&E. Paranormal State, anyone? Can I just say that the production is deliberately Woo-Woo? I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, it’s not like it’s more real than anything else masquerading as a “reality” show.

In closing, I’ll be experimenting with corn yarn! when it arrives. And more banana silk, my favorite and a top seller. My BS tangerine coffee cozy has captured many hearts…

Technorati Profile

Hello fellow knitters–I have finished my first quarter at Seattle Culinary Academy and now have at least a few moments of peace before Spring Quarter begins. I think the kids call that Spring Break. In my time between classes and exams, I daydream about knitting, but haven’t had much time to pick up the sticks, if you know what I mean.

Yesterday I went over to the home of a C-school pal and taught her how to knit! My first foray into knitting-teaching. When you look at the actual dynamics of knitting through new eyes, it looks pretty confusing and awkward. Who ever came up with such a skill? But Autumn picked it up pretty quickly (she’s a sharp one) and got the bug. By the end of the visit she was all jazzed up to visit a nearby yarn shop and load up on goodies. Elaine (another classmate) was there too, though just to visit, not to knit. She was flipping through the books I’d brought and by the end….she was considering it. She spied a pattern in Two Balls or Less for a knitted storage cube with a sewn-in denim lining and her eyebrows rose. So maybe we will have another convert.

One of the things I have managed to finish in the last few months…I will get a picture of baby Nova in it, because it is sooooper cute on a baby’s head. The pattern included a pom-pom on top, but i like it better without.

In February I went to the Stitches West Expo in Santa Clara, left the kids, the husb, and the dog at home. It also happened to be my birthday weekend. A friggin awesome time was had by me. I stayed with my dear friends Adam and the Beegs. When I wasn’t at Stitches, we were eating or chatting or drinking wine. Oh yeah, and there was that very lucrative trip to H&M…

At Stitches I saw lots of the stuff I have seen in many a yarn store–wool, wool, wool mostly. But SWTC had a huge presence there, people even got to meet Vickie Howell. Not me, but other people. What I did not expect to see there, however, were lots and lots of GORGEOUS vintage buttons. I’ve had a hard time finding buttons I like to fasten knitted cardigans, etc. You don’t want to knit something lovely and then ruin it with crappy buttons, do you? Anyway, there were two tables just LOADED with old, beautiful buttons. Here are a few I picked up:

While many were leaving the Stitches Marketplace with bags and bags of yarn, I hauled out bags of buttons. It was oddly prophetic that on the way in I had overheard a woman saying “I just spent $120 on buttons!”. And I thought to myself, how lame is that? Now I know exactly how lame it is. That said, I have many vintage buttons available at Knit for Brains now.

In other news, I am using Spring Break week to get as many patterns on the site as possible, because everyone needs a new project. I’ve added a bunch of SWTC patterns for Vickie Howell’s Craft, and Oasis patterns are soon to come. They are free-with purchase of yarn. But if you asked pretty please I’d probably just give them to you because they’re cool. And you have to read this blog to get that deal! I’m in bed sick today, watching tv on my laptop, otherwise I’d be scanning more vintage patterns from my old knitting books to offer. That’s coming next.

Planning to go to Fremont Sunday Market this week…so if you are in the area, stop by and touch the banana silk!

Hi! Almost happy new year…I’m happy to have finally entered the world of Etsy by posting some stuff for sale. One thing is the coffee cozy I made for the swap-bot cozy swap, I kind of took a basic design and crocheted a ruffled edge on it. With the soysilk yarn.I think I posted about this, any way here are the pics.

AND, the Kusikuy Organic Cotton, ahhhhh………….. Here are some pictures of it. My first project with it will be a stroller blanket from the book Soft and Simple Knits for Little Ones by Heidi Boyd. It’s 2sts=1″ on size 15 needles, so it should knit up pretty quickly. My friend who works at a major online book retailer (no naming names!) keeps giving me her comp knitting books, yah! Tomorrow I will be getting the Knitted Icon books that is full of knitted celebrity doll patterns.

Think I’ve got approval from my husband to go to Stitches West this year. I may only be able to afford the marketplace, but it’ll be a good opportunity to visit me peeps in the Bay Area. Two nights with the kids might just drive the ol’ hubby up the wall. Maybe i will finally finish his sweater while i’m gone and that will appease him!

a

And here it is: for the coffee cozy swap. I made one simple stockinette out of SWTC Oasis in PARROT! it has a crocheted ruffle edge.

The other one is made with leftover Cotton Stria from the mothers-in-law Christmas mittens. I crocheted 2 granny squares (my first) and sewed them together. This makes a better-fitting coffee cozy than any of my knitted ones, or even the felt one I made with the velco closure. The swap deadline was extended, so my butt is saved. I didn’t want to flake out and be late on my first newbie swap!
Also I just designed some biz cards. Tell me what you think. Yay, pdfs.

kfb_biz_card0108.pdf

ALSO…BE ON THE LOOKOUT! I got a lot of super-bulky, super fluffy Kusikuy Organic Cotton handspun and hand dyed. It’s so soft, and dyed in very gentle colors. I’m not sure what to knit with it. I want the pattern for that meathead hat. I think this yarn would rock it.

And it’s gorgeous. I made a little girl’s skirt from it in two short evenings. Picture TK. I have already sold out of one color–it debuted this weekend at the Fremont Flea Market. I set up a table and became an official vendor, which was lots of fun despite the chilly conditions. The Flea market folk welcomed me, I thought they might be a little chilly to a newbie. One woman who had an indoor space even invited me to share her table. She crochets with beads and carpet yarn from recycled samples she gets from a carpet company. I’ll put  a link to her up soon, but I’m about to run out to the pet store. I was one of the few outdoor peeps without rain protection, so it was pretty obvious how green I was.
A shipment of bulky organic cotton is also on its way to me, from Kusikuy…handspun and fair trade certified.

Hope all your holiday knitting is going well…check out the store for some fun gifts!

$2.00 shipping for all of December! I can’t figure out how to get the site to say that yet, though.