Life is Good
I must say life is good. BUSY! but good. I just moved and I have (drumroll please) my very own craft room!
It’s a space to call my own, it’s amazing. I haven’t quite finished it yet but I promise pictures very soon. I have a little bookcase that is dedicated just to crafting books and magazines, how great is that! Everything in one room with a desk, my sewing machine, and shelves of crafting supplies. It’s a little bit like heaven I imagine…..I look forward to being able to leave my crafts that aren’t finished out and about, instead of constantly packing them away and taking them back out. It’s a wonderful thing. There’s a small closet in the room but I have to save some space for hundreds of copies of ’9 Months of Knitting’. Our initial small run has sold out so we are excitedly expanding.
I’m also doing a truckload of Christmas knitting, doing some pattern re-formatting, and awaiting a couple of yarn shipments. Life is very good indeed and I will keep you posted!
A Sad Goodbye
Friday my little family moved out of our little 2 bedroo
m apartment and it was a rather sad goodbye. Gary and I lived there for 6 years and I was somewhat surprised to find I was really going to miss that place! We are moving into bigger and better digs but I thought I would share a few memories
- Burnaby Mountain
- Crazy Weather!
- Lots of Yarn and Crafting
- Baking
- Pregnancy
- Hunter’s First Bath
- Hunter’s First Steps
- Beautiful Fall
Fabulous Dinner Parties
- Getting Ready for Our Wedding
Goodbye!
Baby Shower Goodness
I recently attended a baby shower for my cousin and I went a little overboard with the knitting….
It’s so nice to knit up baby things and it is especially great in the teeny tiny sizes, Hunter is getting too big! I was even more enthusiastic to knit teeny tiny things to a fellow crafter (Mummy to be is a sewer/sewist). First I finished the Puerperium Cardigan, possibly the most tiny adorable thing I’ve ever knit. I dubbed this one Peanut Butter Cup for obvious reasons.
Then I thought, let’s get nuts! A while ago Ann sent me this link to an adorable grampa cardigan knit up in Madelinetosh Merino DK colourway Plaid Blanket. I had a copycat moment in which I had to knit it!
It seemed that the 2 cardigans were not quite a complete package though so I added some booties (pattern forthcoming in our next books!) and a Hunter Hat (Hutner insisted I put it in).
All four knits went over quite well at gift opening time and I can’t wait to see them on the new one in January!
There’s more…..
Well, as if you can’t get enough of me with the Knit Social event tonight and the Urban Yarns Launch party tomorrow night, you can come see me Saturday too!
I’m proud to announce that I will not only be selling my yarn and the new book at Bird on a Wire on main, but I will be their featured Artist in the Window this weekend. That means you can come and chat (I’ll probably be working on my Maile cardigan, in Gourmet Sock Berry Picking) but I’ll sign your book too!
Bird on a Wire is a shop containing arts and crafts made entirely by talented local individuals. There is something new and beautiful every time I go in! I can be found there this Saturday between 11 and 4 so come on by and check it out!
Reminder: The Back to School Sale ends on Saturday so take advantage of some free shipping!
Indie Dyer
Things are pretty crazy here at Gourmet Crafter Headquarters (aka my house) because we have 2 events coming up this week. I’ve been printing, writing, dying, winding, and tagging like a mad woman! The window at Urban Yarns is filled with TinCanKnits in anticipation of the launch on Friday (reminder: 7pm at Urban Yarns!). My living room/crafting zone is also full of Gourmet Crafter yarn. My yarn will soon be featured at Bird on a Wire and of course, there is still free shipping on all Etsy orders until the 30th. I’ve also been getting ready for my second event: the Knit Social Yarn Swap!
I’m so excited to have a table at the latest Knit Social event! I’ll be there with patterns and yarn for sale as well as lots of other great local people, including my personal dying hero: SweetGeorgia.
The Details:
Join us for an exclusive evening featuring locally hand-made yarn and fibre, and meet your favourite dyers, spinners and designers.
Indie Night: a Yarn Sale & Swap
featuring vendor tables from local dyers, spinners and designers
Thursday September 29 from 6-11pm
at the Vancouver Alpen Club - 4875 Victoria Dr.
Admission $5 – includes $2 off a beer at the Alpen Club
Launching!
It has been a wild ride but the book is finally ready to go and launching on September 30th!!! Urban Yarns is having a party at 7pm so I hope to see you there! If you’re not in town you will be able to find the PDF version of the book as well as individual patterns for sale here on the Gourmet Crafter blog, at http://www.tincanknits.com, and of course on Ravelry. You will also be able to get the physical copy of the book at our etsy shop, I’ll have all the details the second they are ready.
I’d also like to introduce a free pattern from our book, just to whet your appetite. This hat is part of an adorable little set, you can find the sweater pattern in the book, or as an individual pattern on the 30th. You can download the i-heart-rainbow-hat here and if you wanna check out the details on Ravelry you can go here.
Let me take you all through a little of my journey to this fantastic outcome….
A little over a year ago (OK like a year and a half) Emily and I got to talking and we said to ourselves, let’s write a book! We were both already designing knitwear and we were both interested in designing some baby knits so a plan was hatched. We brainstormed and sketched and came up with a tentative game plan. We were well on our way, even with Emily living on the island and me living in Burnaby. No problem, we have email, it’s not too hard to walk on the ferry, and if all else fails there are always long distance phone calls right? No problem.
Then I was pregnant with Hunter and COULDN’T KNIT FOR 4 MONTHS! It was a rough time and knitting made me feel dizzy and ill. So that gave us a bit of a setback. Over on the island Emily was working hard as an architect and our design work hit the back burner for a bit. Once I was back to knitting I headed to the island and after a weekend of more brainstorming and ironing out details things were back on track! Then Hunter was born and Emily moved to the UK, another couple of minor setbacks to the book. We weren’t going to let anything stop up this time though, we kept at it. There was lots more work to do than we originally anticipated and we had to figure out (with the help of Ann) how to publish our book ourselves. There was photographing, re-photographing, knitting, re-knitting, testing, layouts, writing, websites, and much much more. It was overwhelming but Emily kept her head at least.
So that’s our book story and we are finally ready to say: here is our new knitting book, Nine Months of Knitting. It’s full of cute and quirky baby knits and a few knits for the whole family. We hope you enjoy!
Back to School Sale!
It’s just that time of year again. I grow somewhat sad watching excited students pass my door on their way to scholarly adventures. I love school and I always miss it when I’m not attending! So to keep life fresh I’ve decided to have my very first sale: Free shipping on all yarn orders throughout September! Head to my etsy shop (here) and enter the coupon code BACKTOSCHOOL2011 to receive free shipping.
In addition to free shipping I’ve got 5 new colourways: Lake Louise, Cape Breton Sunflower, Berry Picking, Lost Lake, and Urban Outdoors. These five are available in both Cashmere and Sock at Urban Yarns and the sock is available on etsy. If you are looking for worsted weight or cashmere via etsy, just drop me a line and I can dye some up alexaudeman@gmail.com. I believe introductions are in order:
Berry picking is an all time favorite summer activity. First strawberries and raspberries, then blueberries! A freezer full of berries and a cupboard full of jam to last the winter!
Urban Outdoors: Granville Island is a place with a very interesting pallette. From the industrial greys to the spunky primary colours. My favorite spot is the meeting of metal and fun at this bright yellow door.
While Honeymooning in the east my new hubby and I came across the most beautiful field of sunflowers at sunset one day. The golden yellow of this yarn is flecked with brown to represent the sunflower seeds.
Lost Lake is a happening place in the heat of the Whistler summer. Ski bums trade in their snowsuits for swimsuits and take a dip in the lake!
The magestic Lake Louise is nestled in the rocky mountains. It’s glacier fed waters are a unique shade of grey-blue-green, a destination must!
What’s Happening!?
This summer is flying by for me! I’ve been madly working on the book (we are sooooo very close, everything is done but the arrival of our prototype I will keep everyone updated). I’m trying to enjoy mummyhood day by day but it moves fast and suddenly family is in town, we are trying to get out and about as a family on the weekends, and *POOF* there goes summer! Fast fun and furious and it’s gone. I’m one of those weird people who doesn’t really care for summer, it’s always too hot for me (even in BC and even during kind of a cool summer) so It’s not really so bad that it’s going fast but I haven’t even been swimming in the lake yet!
It’s late at night as I write this so I don’t have any great pics to pass on but I thought I would let everyone know there will be a Gourmet Crafter Yarn update shortly and some lovely FO’s! I’m working my way through a blocking queue right now so things feel like they are getting done really quickly even though they have been sitting and waiting for me to get out some blocking boards and pins! What a procrastinator!
Something New
Some of you might know (and some of you might not) that my dear friend Emily and I are working very hard to finish up our very first book! We have been madly designing, knitting, writing, and photographing our designs for Nine Months of Knitting.
Emily and I first met while we were both working at Urban Yarns and bonded over our love/obsession with knitting. Emily is a master lace designer and I’ve knit her very popular designs, the Photosynthesis Shawl and the Sunflower Shawl, both were easy to follow and the finished projects were beautiful. Emily and I have joined knitterly forces in Tin Can Knits. Because we are living in different cities most of the time we communicate via phone and email so we were inspired by the idea of little children and their string connected tin cans.
Nine Months is a book of 9 patterns to knit while you are expecting, or for some little wonder you know. Some of the patterns are designed so you can knit them up for the whole family. That’s all I can say for now, but stay tuned!
Knitting Neon
When I first ordered the yarn for the Stripe Study Shawl I thought the yellow was a little more mellow. When it arrived in it’s neon glory I wasn’t quite sure it would be all that I had hoped for. I was originally planning to pair the yellow with a grey but after a considerable amount of thought I decided to go with a dark teally blue (Norway Spruce). I figured if I was going to go for it, why not really make the neon pop? So I’m working away on my Stripe Study shawl and now all I have left is that big neon border and I have to say: I love knitting in neon.
It’s super crazy, reminds me of my elementary school years in the 90′s (I’m 27, no need to do any math) and it’s a real conversation starter. People are quite intrigued by the eye popping colour and always want to know exactly what I’m making. I think they either love it or hate it but no one has said they hate it. I can just tell.
The problem with this neon thing is that I suddenly want to knit everything in neon. My favorite outfit for Hunter lately is her shirt with a bright green trim and her neon pink booties. Wouldn’t an electric yellow sweater go well with that?! I’m losing it. Possibly I burned out my retina’s knitting the Stripe Study Shawl and I no longer understand colour…..
