Introducing – The Zippy Loom Master Set!!!

The hard-working folks at KB Looms have done it again!  Another exciting addition to the Zippy Loom product line has just been released!  The Zippy Loom Master Set is now available for purchase from www.knittingboard.com.  Check out this fun video that the Authentic Knitting Board Company created to showcase the Zippy Loom Master Set:

The Zippy Loom Master Set includes:

4 Zippys
4 Corners
4 “L” connectors
2 Straight connectors
4 Regular connectors
4 patterns
and instructions.

A fantastic set at a fantastic price!

The set comes in a nice, sturdy box.  I really like the crisp and attractive design.

And how exciting is it that you now have 3 options with the Zippy Loom Master Set?

 

You can create Zippy projects in the round, as a flat panel, and now – double knits!!!

 

C’est magnifique!  To help commemorate this exciting addition to the Zippy loom product line, I have created another free pattern to share with you.  You can try out your new Zippy Loom Master Set while you knit this beautiful double knit scarf!

Champs-Élysées

 

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Exciting Zippy News! (And a free pattern too!)

Hello loom knitting friends!  I am reviving this poor, neglected blog to bring you some exciting news!  For many months, the folks at KB Looms have been hard at work, creating a new addition to the Zippy Loom product line.  This exciting little addition will make your Zippy Looms even more versatile.

See this smiley little guy?

He’s so happy because we can finally share this fantastic news with you 🙂

So, without further ado…

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I present to you…

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Zippy Loom Corners!!!

  

Yes!  You read that right.  No, your eyes are not deceiving you!   Zippy Loom Corners are out there, just waiting for you to snap them up.

Your Zippy knitting experience just soared up to a whole new level of fun.

Thanks to this little guy (and 3 of his friends):

You can now turn these:

into this:

That’s right – now you can take all of those wonderful, smooshy, bulky and super bulky yarns and knit in the round with them.

Of course, you can still knit flat panels as well, and with the corners, your Zippy Loom configuration will be so much easier to carry from knitting spot to knitting spot.

Isn’t that fantastic!  To help celebrate this awesome addition to the Zippy loom product line, I have created a free pattern set to share with each of you.  You can try out your new Zippy Loom Corners while you knit this lovely matching handbag and hat.

Cobblestone Set 

Happy Zippy Loom Knitting!

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Loom along, loom along – would you like to loom along?

Hi there!  Things got pretty busy and I forgot to post the loom along events in June.  I’m popping in now to post the loom alongs happening in July.

In the Loom Along group,  we’re having a loom along on the pretty Tulip Shawl by Isela Phelps:

http://www.ravelry.com/discuss/loom-a-long/2168839/1-25#1

This loom along runs to the end of July.

Also in the Loom Along group, we just started working on the lovely Wavy Feather Lace Stole by Helen Jacobs-Grant:

http://www.ravelry.com/discuss/loom-a-long/2202356/1-25#1

This loom along will run through July and August.

And, in the Loom Knitter’s Circle group, I’ve started up a new loom along on the darling Ruffled Scarf by Renee Van Hoy:

http://www.ravelry.com/discuss/loom-knitters-circle-magaz…

This loom along will run through the month of July.

 

Alright, pick a loom along, or come play along in all of them!  Have fun!

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A little dishcloth fun

I thought it would be fun to show you how to make a pretty dishcloth double as a little gift bag.  I make these with crochet dishcloths, but you could just as easily do this with cloths you purchase from the store.

You will need:

A finished dishcloth (or cloths)

A 25″ length of string, ribbon, or yarn for each dishcloth

A small gift to tuck inside the cloth

(I’ve used candy, pretty soaps, lotions, etc)

A gift tag, if desired

A tapestry needle

 

To begin, thread the needle with the length of string, ribbon, or yarn.  With the front of the cloth facing you, weave the needle in and out of the cloth, about 1″ in from the outer edge.  (This is through the 2nd to last round crocheted for the cloth used in the example.)  Leave the needle threaded, for now.

Turn the cloth over so that the back is facing up. This will become the inside of the little bag. Place a small gift in the center of the cloth. (In the example, I am using Hugs and Kisses.)

Locate both ends of the string and pull them to gather the cloth up around the gift.  Tie once.  Do not knot the string.

Take the string end that is threaded on the needle and use it to add the gift tag, if you are using one.  If your needle tip is too blunt to pierce the tag, you can pierce it with a sharper needle or use a hole punch before threading the tag on the string.  Thread the string through the back of the tag and pull it through to the front.

Pull the tag up close to the gift bundle and remove the needle from the string.  Take both ends of string and tie them in a cute little bow.  Don’t double knot the bow.  Clip any excess length from the strings and then find someone special to gift it to.

By the way, this works just as well with a square cloth.

You get just a bit more bulk at the top, above the gather, but it’s still looks sweet all bundled up and sporting a little bow.

And that’s all there is to it.  Happy gifting!

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Upcoming Book Preview – Loom Knitting for Little People

Hi there!  In case you haven’t already heard, there is a new loom knitting pattern book in the works.  Bethany Dailey from Gettin’ It Pegged! has been busily preparing to publish this awesome book:

I’ve been lucky enough to get a peek at the pages that will be in the book and they are cute, cute, cute!  The book is full of wonderful projects that will delight all of the little ones in your life.

In addition to getting a peek-a-roo at the book, I was given the chance to make one of the projects from the book.  The pattern I worked with is called Koby, the Striped Cat.  Koby is an adorable little kitty and I just knew my little girlie would love having one of her very own to squeeze  and love.  I followed a very similar color scheme as in the original Koby, but with a bit more of a girlish flair.  I’ve decided we’ve made Koby’s cousin – Kiki:

As I’ve been working on this project, my kids have oohed and aah-ed over the little kitty.  Before she even had her legs and feet, my little gal was carrying the kitty around and asking her brother “Isn’t it SO cute!”

The sweet details that make this kitty so lovable and personable are exactly what you will get with each and every pattern in Loom Knitting for Little People.   And get ready for big smiles from cute little faces too!

If you haven’t already pre-ordered your copy of Loom Knitting for Little People, hop on over and do it.  You won’t be sorry.   =)

Have fun!

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A Copper Petal

Remember that envelope full of goodies from Rings & Things?  Well, those fun strawberry beads weren’t lonely little things.  They had some lovely, shiny findings to keep them company.  Inside the envelope, there was also a pair of black & copper french hook ear wires, an antique copper plated clasp and toggle set, and a beautiful copper plated button in the shape of an apple blossom, plus some wood charms and connectors.  I wasn’t quite sure what I was going to do with everything, but I knew I wanted to use the ear wires, the clasp and toggle, and the apple blossom as a set.  They just seemed like they belonged together.

Time was short when the R&T goodies showed up in my mailbox.  We were having end of year testing, then wrapping up the school year.  So, I sorted through everything and set it all aside, mulling over potential projects when I had a little spare time crop up.  One day, I pulled this out and wore it:

It’s a choker length necklace that I’ve taken to wearing wrapped around my wrist twice.  Makes for a pretty nice bracelet, even if that’s not quite what I originally had in mind when I made it.  Anyway, I started thinking how nice these beads would look with the copper plated findings.  And I just so happened to still have some of the same beads.  I mixed them up with other beads from my collection/stash/what-have-you because I wanted to be sure I had plenty of beads to make a multi-stranded necklace.

Here is a look at what is left of the mixed beads, after I finished stringing the necklace.  The necklace is made with triple strands of tiger tail wire, beaded, then very slightly braided to give the finished necklace a pretty twist.  One of the beaded strands is all bronze elements.  I wish pictures could accurately show the glitter that comes off of this necklace.  It’s so pretty!  You’ll have to do your best to imagine it 😉

Didn’t it turn out fabulous?  Want to be draped in copper, too?  Head on over to Rings & Things and get your shine on 😉

Have a great day!

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Dream in Lilies Versailles Scarf

On April 11, I pulled a pretty yarn cake out of the stash basket and started working on a Versailles Scarf.

The yarn came from My Heart Exposed Yarns and Spinning Fibre.  It’s been in my fiber collection for almost a year…  I finally found some time to liberate it from it’s hidey hole and turn it into something fabulous.

The scarf is constructed in two halves.  Just as I finished the first half…

I snapped my plastic crochet hook right in two!  No more plastic hooks for me 😉

On May 11th, this is all that was left of the Dream in Lilies yarn:

Just a little, bitty ball, maybe the size of a large green grape.  All the rest of that lovely string became this airy, dreamy fabric:

Crochet is awesome!  🙂

Happy Crafting!

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25th Street Stole

If you loom knit, you’ve probably already seen this design, but I have been so excited to talk about this project.  Sometime back, I received 2 balls of Noro Chirimen in a swap on Ravelry.  The colors in the yarn were unusual and not entirely ‘my style’.  I tend to gravitate toward blues and greens, or pastels.  So, if I had been out yarn shopping, I may not have picked this particular colorway.  And that would have been too bad, because I loved the vibrancy and how vivid this yarn was when it was knitted.  I think swaps are good for a person because of this.  They break you out of your tendency to redundancy.  Still, I didn’t know quite what I was going to do with this yarn so in a basket it went.  And stayed there for awhile too.

I’d stop, look, and think of possible projects for these interesting balls of yarn.  And then I’d pass onto a new project.  And so it went for many months.  Picking up the Noro.  Feeling it’s interesting texture.  Dreaming up possibilities.  And dropping it back into the basket.  In my mind, it became a number of things.  A purse.  A place mat.  A hat.  And more.  But I only had the 2 skeins.  100 grams.  Just over 270 yards.  I wanted to make the most of it.  I decided to try to create a lace project.

This was sometime in June.  At the time, we were working on a rental house that belongs to hubby’s mom, getting it ready for a new renter.  This project traveled back and forth with me to the rental.  It occupied my time while we drove to and from the rental house.  And it was something to do when I needed to sit and rest a bit.

I initially started this project on the red round Knifty Knitter loom, but wanted a wider piece.  Something you could drape around your shoulders.  So, off the red loom it came and I switched to the green round Knifty Knitter loom.  Much better!  For an even wider piece, the yellow round loom would be a great choice but I stuck with the green round loom because I knew a wider piece would also mean less length.  It needed to be a good balance  between width and length.  I worked those two skeins of Noro right up to the last 10 inches or so.  I had just enough yarn left after weaving in the ends to crochet a little 5 petal flower.  Used up every last bit!

This wrap was so different from the whimsical projects that I usually create to entertain my little ones and I wanted really great pictures to showcase it.  So, in August, I asked a talented gal that lives nearby if she’d be willing to take the pictures for me.  I’d been seeing some great photography work that she was posting on facebook.  I was particularly enamored of the pictures she’d taken on 25th Street.  She very sweetly agreed to help me out.  Super big thank you to M.J. Butler of iMaJin iMaJes for the fantastic pictures!  And a special thanks to her beautiful friend, ShawNee Creamer, who modeled the wrap in the photos.  Thank you, thank you, ladies! 

After I submitted the pattern for the 25th Street Stole to Loom Knitter’s Circle, I decided I’d like to see how the design looked when worked up with a fingering weight yarn.

I cast on my Decor Accents Evenknit loom with Scout’s Swag fingering yarn in the Spring-ish colorway.  I am going to work it up into a short scarf.  It looks like it will be about 7.5 – 8 inches wide.  Length?  I can only estimate at the moment.  I have a little more than 6 inches of knitting on the loom right now and think I’ve used about 1/4 of the yarn.  So, best guess on length would be about 24 – 30 inches.  In case you want to make this in a fingering weight yarn and use an EFG loom, I cast on 48 pegs and modified the pattern to 10 rows of garter, followed by 10 rows of the netted lace.

It looks rather pretty in a finer yarn, doesn’t it?  Love it!

The plan is to work on this pattern together as a group in the Loom Along group on Ravelry in March.  So, if you haven’t already made this by then, or if you have but would like to make another 😉 we’d love to have you join in on the fun.  Work it up in the DK weight or work it up in a pretty sock yarn.  Whatever strikes your fancy.  I’ll be on hand to answer questions and I’d love to see your finished knits.  In the meantime:

May your New Year’s Eve be rockin’ and may 2011 hold many great things for you all.

All my best,

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Weird Science

Okay, not really a case of weird science.  Just a little humorous story from our studies yesterday.  I just couldn’t resist using the phrase as a title.

I know I’ve already said it – School has been keeping us busy lately.  And a lot of the learning has been very fun!  In science, my 5th grader is learning about salinity, oceans and ocean life.  Yesterday, we were doing an experiment related to salinity.  My 2 oldest boys were sitting at the table as I gathered up the needed materials for the assignment.  We were going to add salt and food color to water and see what happened if we mixed water with different levels of salt in them.

I had set a glass of water, that I had been drinking, on the table while I got out the salt and food color.  I hear the boys chanting “Science is cool!  Science is cool!” and turn to see them stirring my drinking water with their plastic eye droppers…

Silly boys, lol.  But how neat to have them excited to do something educational.  Love that!  What’s not to love about mixing colorful waters together?  And the added bonus of playing in someone’s drink has to count for something, doesn’t it?   😉

Have a great day!

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Happy Birthday, Little Beauty!

School is back in full swing and at times it seems to swallow up entire days in a greedy gulp.  Blink, blink.  Sleepy eyes awake.  Then whoosh and blink, blink.  Sleepy eyes can hardly stay awake any longer.  Busy, busy school days.

So, it was wonderful to step out of the bustle just a little bit last week and celebrate a sweet little someone who joined our family 4 years ago 🙂  Time just flies, doesn’t it?  I still remember her baby smell and how she felt in my arms those first few months.  (sniffle)

And now she is almost past even the toddler stage.  The other day, I pulled out a brown skirt from her dresser and a tropical blue shirt for her to wear.  She danced around in the little brown skirt, but refused to put on the blue shirt.  She said she wanted the owl shirt because it “matches”.  Matching?!?  I don’t think I even thought about what I was wearing at her age.  She is such a funny character.  Happy go lucky when she gets her way.  Demi-diva when she doesn’t, lol.  (In case you were wondering, she did wear the owl shirt and she was right – It matched very well ;D)

As a family, we celebrated her birthday during the school week.  She got to pick her dinner.  It’s tradition here.  If it’s your birthday, you get to pick dinner.  Hubby asked her what she would like to eat for her birthday and her answer was “Cake.”  Like, what else would we eat?  So funny 🙂  Asked a few different ways, the answer was still “cake”, lol.  When asked what she would like to eat besides cake, the answer was noodle soup.  Well, we didn’t have noodle soup for dinner – hubby got her to approve an acceptable alternative – and she most certainly did get a cake for her birthday.  I baked one after school and whipped up a batch of frosting in her favorite color – pink, of course.

On the weekend, we had her grandparents over for soup, bread, and crackers.  Her grandma and grandpa brought a bakery cake:

My camera is kind of acting up, so the picture could be better, but still – what a sweet cake, right?  And girlie loved it!

The princesses have been washed and now sit on her dresser.  The cake also had an led light set into a plastic base that can be placed under the princess to light up the dress like a lantern.  There was only one light to share between the 3 princesses but I had hubby pick up some tea lights on the way home from work tonight.  (Great idea, mommy ❤ )Now, all the princesses can glow at the same time 🙂  My little princess is thrilled.

On her birthday, and during her party on the weekend, the older boys surprised me, and touched my heart, by going into their rooms and each finding a gift to pass on to their sister.  These were little trinkets they had earned at school in previous years and they chose to give them to their sister for her birthday.  I was so proud of them for their generosity and thoughtfulness.  I’ve got a few pics of them getting thank you hugs from their little sis.  So sweet!  Oh, and they both took a fair amount of time decorating paper lunch sacks to put her gifts in.  Little things mean so much, don’t they?  🙂

Hope you all had a great week!

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