New Favorite Designer ANKESTRICK and Giveaway!

ANKESTRICK which goes by the  username fallmasche is my new favorite designer on Ravelry. I stumbled upon her while I was surfing patterns on Ravelry and had to stop by and tell her how much I enjoy her creations. Here are some of my favorites....

Mrs. Garter

Revival

Theory

Versio

Walnuss

What

Her designs are elegant but wearable. I love her natural colors and flattering designs. 

Anke was nice enough to answer some of my questions.

Who is Fallmasche?

Hello, my name is  Anke. I wanted to knit something after several years of not knitting and was looking for a shawl pattern on the internet. There was a nice one: "clapotis" on ravelry. Because clapotis was made out of dropped sts "Fallmaschen" in german, I took this name as my username. I was hooked on this pattern and made 5 or 6 of them.

How did you learn how to knit?

I learned it from the women in my family and in school. I always like to craft and from time to time knitting was my favorite for some months, maybe years.

When did you decide to start designing and why?

During my knitting times, I always made my own designs, but I hate sewing and could not get the shape I wanted when sewing. When I learned the top-down seamless knitting from all the talented ravelry designers I knew immediately, that I would be able to make the garments I like to wear. I love to see how it grows and being able to test the fit at every stage of the process. (especially the neckline, my favorite part of a garment)

What is your favorite pattern and why?

My own or in general? My own favorite is always the next one I have in my mind. My first and all-time favorite on ravelry (after clapotis :) is Snowbird by Heidi Kirrmaier and than  Holl by Kirsten Johnstone. Some day I'll knit them …

Who is your favorite designer and why?

I love the cool plain style of Kirsten Johnstone (assemblage)  design.

I could feel the joy playing around with knitting possibilities itself in the pieces of Heidi Kirrmaier and I love how she modeled them.

I admire the output and nonchalant style of Isabell (lilalu)

I admire too the simple but still charming pieces from Veera Välimäki.

And I like to put Nicole (chirimoya) on the list. Even if she didn't publish here own designs, she always interprets a pattern with her own sophisticated style.

Where do you find inspiration?

Sometimes from the enthusiasm of trying to tape the full potential of seamless knitting itself. Sometimes from designs I saw on the street or in shops.  Sometimes it is just enough to touch a nice yarn and the garment appears on my inner eye.

What are your favorite colors and fiber to work with?

My favorite thing is to knit with two threads of different yarns and colors to make the garment more lively maybe a little mysterious. I prefer to use natural based fibers.

You designing something at the moment and when do you believe it will be ready for the public?

I am planing to release my "Birdsong" ebook with several patterns. They all will use my new favorite neckline in different shapes. Very easy to knit and made for the warmer period of the year. I finished two (Tschilp and Zalp) of maybe 4 patterns, so it will take a little time until I will be able to publish it.

I have to say I am pretty excited to see what these new designs will look like! 

Anke has been so generous to offer one of my readers a pick of her patterns. You get to go look at all her patterns and decide which one you would like. My personal favorite is the Walnuss since it is so versatile and usable. 

This giveaway will be open til Monday, May 20th 2013. 

Entry-Form

Sad day......

Found out today that Owl is actually a boy. A boy that crows.

Yep. Owl was posted on Craigslist today. I live only 2 minutes from down town Tulsa so keeping a rooster is very unneighborly. Owl doesn't crow loud but I'm sure with time he will really find his voice. He is kind to the girls and my kids. The photo above has Owl in the front and Mathilda and Dinner behind him (still hard to say him when talking about Owl because I thought he was a she). I still believe that Dinner is a boy too so I will not have any Easter Egger chickens which makes me sad but I guess I will then just get a Isbar chicken for a nice green egg.

This is Buff. She is a Buff Orpington and the sweetest of our flock. I have handled her the most too. Odinn picked her as his bird but has little patients to sit still so that he can catch her. She is usually the first to come running as soon as I step off of the porch wanting a treat or just food in general.

 The black bird is Mathilda our australorp. She is a BIG lady and very curious. She is not as trusting as Buff though and gets very verbal when I catch her.

The other bird in the photo is Dinner and I'm pretty sure Dinner is a He. I haven't caught him crowing yet so he gets to hang out a little longer.

 This is the chicken tractor my husband made me even though he wasn't all that excited about getting chickens. Yes I am a lucky lady for having such a great husband. I can fence them in if I want to but mostly they roam my  backyard and eat grass and bugs all day long.

 Remember the baby chicks that were in my kitchen. Well here they are at a month old. They have hit the punk rock stage of just looking all tattered. They are loosing their baby fluff and getting feathers. They have been booted out of my kitchen into the PlayYard (my temporary chicken coop) until they are big enough to join the big girls in the tractor. The one in the back is Chipmunk, a Cream Legbar. The one in the front is Sassy, a Black Copper Maran that I have a feeling is a boy. This makes me sad. That means that as soon as they are big enough to join the big birds then I will have to find him a new home too. Boo.

 I love how proud Chipmunk is when she runs around though. She is not a friendly bird. She is quite flighty even though she was handled quite a bit in my kitchen. But she is pretty and will lay the most beautiful blue eggs.

 Nala, the stray that I saved from starvation in my back yard. Her mother gave birth to her in my back yard and then left her there to starve when she was bout 8 weeks old. The vet thought that she was not going to survive since she was just a walking skeleton. But I took care of her and now she is a happy tubby girl.

 The boys having a lazy morning with the iPad. They love accessing Netflix and watching the old cartoons.

 Alex is a force to be recond with now. He army crawls and if he is in the walker then he RUNS to where he wants to go and has started getting into anything and everything.

 This is my loveseat or what the boys call "mamma's couch". At the moment it represents my brain. The 3 projects of knitting, further education on Personality Disorders and the new DSM 5, Mother Earth News (my fav magazine), Menu planing board and grocery list pad, and The Mindfulness and Acceptance book that I'm looking at to learn techniques for when I go back to work.  This is why I make To Do lists because this is what my brain tries to do if I don't have a list to follow.

As I have my cup full of coffee and a list to finish, I wish you a  beautiful day full of wonder and love.

What is on your To Do list?

Have a problem with organization like I do? This looks very promising.

Mom's Ultimate Family Organizer: A One-Stop Planner for Busy Moms  

New Sponsor- Rain City Knits

I am so happy to introduce you to Rain City Knits Yarn. Krista, the owner, was nice enough to answer some of my questions.

This is Krista. Isn't she beautiful?

Tell me a little about RainyCityKnits and how it got started.

RCK is a very small hand-dyed yarn company based in the heart of Vancouver , in a vibrant neighborhood called Gastown. RainCityKnits was born out of a love of bright colours - an antidote to the the endless grey season on the West Coast.

Prior to launching RainCityKnits, I worked internationally on issues of sustainability and social justice. My passion and commitment to these issues help guide my business decisions. For example, I only use food-grade dyes to colour my fibres in an effort to minimize my impact on the environment. I also source my Uruguayan Merino Wool from a worker’s collective, where workers are paid a fair price for their yarn.



How and where do you get your inspiration?

As mentioned, I really adore bright colours in juxtaposition to the cool colours that characterize Vancouver’s landscape.

I’m really inspired by current trends in colour and I think that my time living in London, UK has a lot to do with this. Londoners, on average, are very fashion-forward and know how to combine colours without appearing garish, which is a possible risk when working with a super bright palette.

Locally, Gastown is a real hub of creativity with fashion boutiques, furniture shops and lifestyle stores lining the streets and that too inspires me.

Who are your favorite designers and why?

I’m guessing this question refers to knitting designers. I opt for clean lines in designs and am really attracted to Nordic and Japanese designs.
A few of my favorite designers are Julie Hoover (USA), Ririko (Japan), Jane Richmond (Canada), Rena Varsakis of The Red Fox and Gown (Canada) and Isabell Kraemer (Germany).


What does a normal day in your life look like?

Cliche as it sounds, every day is different. That’s one of the things I really love about running RainCityKnits. On a given day, I will be dyeing yarn (of course), skeining, packing orders, writing for my blog, Tweeting and taking photos of things that inspire me.

My husband and I are also raising a BC Guide Dog (for the Blind). She’s 8 months old. A part of my day is dedicated to her training too.


What is your favorite knit item at the moment?

Relax by Ririko. I’ve never knit myself a sweater - though I’ve made several for others - and I’m really looking forward to the end result.

If you could have dinner with anybody dead or alive, who would it be and why?

A bit of a heavy choice, but I’d love to sit down with Malala Yousafzai, the young girl who was shot in the head by the Taliban. I’d love to hear how she finds the courage to continue lobbying for the rights of girls in the face of such an oppressive and frightening regime. She is truly an amazing young woman.

What is your dream in the future for RainyCityKnits?

My dream for RainCityKnits is to continue to be able to make a living while making things I love. It’s a simple dream but one that can be a real challenge to achieve. Hopefully RCK will continue to grow and bring happiness to those who encounter our products.

I have to say, with this as the view from our studio, I have a pretty great reminder of the importance of treading lightly.

Thank you Krista for answering all of those questions and what a view! I´m super jealous. I miss the mountains and the ocean!


I was lucky enough to get to play with 2 skeins of her DK weight in natural and Fried Egg color and this is what I came up with. 

This is preblocking.

Working with this yarn was divine! I REALLY loved the yellow fried egg color. It really does look like a fried egg from a nice organic chicken and I wish the camera could catch the color so that you could she the high and low lights in it. The yarn is soft and fluffy and very nice up against the skin. I would love to make a whole chevron blanket out of it to cover my bed.

 Alright beauties, Krista has so generously offered a skein of her amazing DK yarn in a color of your choice (I know it will be hard to choose).  I will also be offering 3 of you my design for free. It comes in 3 different sizes, the one in the photo being the largest.

Here is a sample of the awesome colors she has!

To enter leave your email address and a name in the box below and then start going through the many different ways you can enter to win. You can do just one or them all! It is up to you! Now off you go to enter the giveaway! Good luck!

If you want to head over to Rain City Knits and make a purchase then Krista is offering a 10% discount to everyone if you enter OLOF10 at checkout. 

Entry-Form

Knitting Update- Blankets and Spinning

As you can see on my to do list today is write a blog post and I realized that for being a blog with knitting in the title I have had very few posts about knitting lately. I have been busy the last 2 months designing things and making very large changes to my home and family for the better. But as I finished my last design project (having a giveaway tomorrow), I started revisiting some of my unfinished projects.

I have been spinning the fiber I got from The Wacky Windmill and finally plied it yesterday to make my first ball of plied yarn! Then I started spinning some more on my Turkish drop spindle. I have plenty of roving left to make more. Can't wait to knit something with it.

I then had a ball wound up of odds and ends and in the spirit of not wasting yarn I crotchet it on to my odds and ends blanket. For this blanket I don't care about the weight of the yarn. All I do is tie the ends together and then with a large crotchet hook, I just single crotchet it on. I love watching this blanket come together because each strand reminds me of one project or another.

Finished another block of the Miter Cross Blanket and started another. I have now finished 7 blocks and only have 3 more left to make before putting it together. The colored blocks are all made from leftover yarn from when I knit the Princess and the Pea while I was knitting through the Itty-Bitty Toys book by Susan B Anderson. It's Lambs Pride worsted and the outside is Cascade Ecological wool.  I'm trying not to have to purchase anything to finish this blanket but I might need to unravel a vest that doesn't fit well to use the yarn to finish this blanket. Have any of you ever done that? I've been thinking about that a bit lately. Unraveling and re-purposing yarn from projects I no longer love.

What do you have on your needles these days?

Mini Farm update

After I posted on Monday I started feeling icky and on Wednesday morning I got the stomach bug that the boys had had. It wasn't pretty. My husband took the day off and took care of my children only bringing Alex up to nurse (yeah I was loosing liquids but still had to feed my giant baby). I spent the day in bed. Ached all over. Not doing well at all but for some reason not able to sleep. When I gave up on laying with my eyes closed feeling like poo I would turn the TV on for a few episodes of Vikings and Warehouse 13 and then turn them off for a while and just lay there trying to sleep even though sleep did not come. But after all of this I woke up yesterday feeling renewed. I felt grateful and happy and ready to take on my day. Here are some of the images from my beautiful day yesterday.

Alex turned 7 months old yesterday. Weighing in at 29lbs and 30inches!

Magni enjoying a snack of veggie straws on the back porch.

Odinn playing with the baby chicks Sassy and Chipmunk while they had their first day outside.

Sassy the Black Copper Maran 2 and a half week old chick.

Chipmunk the 2 and a half week old Cream Legbar chick

My Peach tree that didn't make it through the winter.

Tomatoes, Kale, Lettuce, Broccoli, and Collard Greens.

My first harvest of the season. 1.7 oz of asparagus that I added to the veggie soup I made last night.

I spent the day just catching up on chores and enjoying my boys' time. Making mental notes of the things that need to be done around the mini farm in the back yard like digging up the dead peach tree. I don't know what killed it but it only gave us one crop of fruit and that was last year and the animals ate them all before we could get to it so we never even enjoyed it. Sad to wait so many years for a tree to mature only to have not enjoyed it much at all.

The baby chickens have hit the punk rock stage of loosing their fluff and getting in feathers. It will be an interesting experience to introduce them to the big girls since I have never done such a thing but my sister in law gave me some good advice and we will see how it goes.

Now I sit at home and my poor husband has the stomach bug. I feel for him but I hope he feels as renewed as I did after it is over.

I plan on weighing everything I get in from the garden this year so far I'm at 1.7 oz. from the Asparagus and I plan on harvesting it into the early summer. That is the joy of permaculture. I was hoping the peach tree would be another easy harvest but alas no. I planted a grape plant and hope that in the summers to come we will get some grapes from it and we have the cherry bushes that have just finished their bloom.

If you are interested in learning more about permaculture (the art of keeping plants that come again and again to feed you) then you might be interested in this book.

Gaia's Garden, Second Edition: A Guide To Home-Scale Permaculture

My Abundance and Gratitude List

Good morning dear readers. I woke up this morning after a rough night with a teething child and my home looks like a tornado went through it. Odinn caught a stomach bug and got sick all over our couch which is covered in fabric and since he got it all over himself and his baby brother the priority at the time was to clean up the kids and then get back to the couch. This gave the mess time to sink in. Yes Eeeeeeewwww. This was just the beginning and Alex joined him in his returning ventures. Now my kitchen, which is my laundry room too, smells like baby chicks, dirty dishes and sick. Yeah. I'm functioning on less than 4 hours of sleep a night for over a week because Alex is teething and woke up to a pity party for myself since my house looks like a war zone. Once I sat down and had my coffee I started thinking and remembered the Newsletter Laura sent me from The Nurished Home about having an Abundance and Gratitude List visible in your home at all times. This lists all the things we have and love and are grateful for having. A great tool for when we are having rough days. To read over and be reminded by the good things so the right now hard things may seem less hard. So I sat down and wrote my list and here it is.

 

My Abundance and Gratitude List

My Husband- My Children- My Family- My Home- My health- Healthy Husband- Love- Healthy Children- Parents that are such a help- In-laws that love my children- siblings that are there no matter what-My education- My blog- My Readers-Ability to inform myself- A husband that is so supportive of my whims- My able body- the YMCA- Yoga- Money cushion in case of emergency- books- Entertaining chickens- Coffee!- clean drinking water- Electricity- Internet- Educational cartoons- Simplicity Parenting- Nature- Farmers Market- Friends that take me out of my comfort zone- Modern medicine- Living in a peaceful place- Being a mother- Helpful Appliances- Public School- Amazon Prime- Organic products- My fenced in backyard- My Veggie garden- Nap time

You may remember that I took Laura's Hectic to Harmonious Home Cleans that got me kick started to living a more congruent life to my personal values and then I started my journey into Simplicity Parenting. Hope those of you that are having a hard morning with me can use this tool to bring some inner peace and then be able to choose to look at life in a more joyful manner.

 What is your list?

Interested in living a happier life through gratitude? Check out this book

Choosing Gratitude: Your Journey to Joy