All Koigu Minis, all the time
And I'm not kidding. It's already time to make more minis!
I realize I was late last month, but it feels like I just finished making that last batch! Thankfully they're really really cute so I don't mind petting tiny Koigu skeins for a couple of hours ;o)
If you've been thinking of joining in on the fun, there's still time to sign up! The August shipment will go out this weekend, so if you sign up by the end of the day Friday you'll be in this round.
Click here to find out all about the club and sign up!
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PS -- how the heck is it August already???
Buried in Koigu
Actually "buried in Koigu" doesn't sound half-bad, does it? Ha!
This month's Koigu Mini Skeins Club shipment was delayed due to all the stuff that you guys know has been overwhelming me over the last month or so, but I'm happy to say that as of Monday this week, the July shipment is out the door! What a huge relief!
To make sure I never fall this far behind again, I've hired someone to help me and will also be farming out most of my future knitting work as well. It just takes way too long to knit my own samples! This fact should have been obvious to me a long time ago, but it was only driven home about a week ago. I kept trying to power through the colorwork sample for the magazine pattern I can't tell you anything about and it is taking forever. I love the way it looks but I have other things I need to be doing with all those hours, you know?
And at the moment those "other things" include getting ready for work (I have an on-site programming gig today), so I'll post more later. I have an interesting knitting/quilting mashup to show you . . .
Koigu Mini Skeins Club May Shipment
Today I picked out the six colors for the June shipment of the Koigu Mini-Skeins Club (hint: there's purple in there!) so I figured it was about time that I showed you what last month's shipment looked like!
Meet the first-ever Koigu Mini-Skeins package, the May shipment:
What's that? You want to see the yarn, not the packaging? Ok here you go:
Pretty darn cute, no?
I have to tell you that the Koigu minis just about kill me with their cuteness. As I was going through each colorway making minis on my niddy noddy, I kept lining them up in different arrangements, piling them up, petting them . . . and I kinda didn't want to send them away!
Once they were all made up and I was literally surrounded by adorable minis, I started putting them into their packaging . . . and kept going "awww!" the whole time as I lined them up all neatly next to eachother! They are just too cute!
I wanted to make something out of the minis and have been wanting to try a wooleater square, so I mashed the two up and quickly whipped out two wooleaters with these colors:
I used about half of 5 of the 6 minis to make these squares, which ended up about 4.5" square. I basically stopped at this point because I got bored ;o)
Then I thought, what am I going to do with two little crazy-colored squares? They did seem like the perfect size to turn into a notions bag . . .
And so I did!
A quick little free pattern for this Mini Pouch is coming your way tomorrow or Friday . . . stay tuned!
Minis are in the mail!
Yet again, it's been a crazy week. Last week was a highly-injurious (is that a word?) one, too, complete with a pretty bad burn on my hand, cracking my head against a table, and literally slicing a piece of my index finger off with a rotary cutter . . . here's hoping this week will bring fewer ouchies.
In any case, all the club packages went out in the mail yesterday and I'm so excited to hear what you all think when your shipments arrive! I cannot tell you how adorable all those Koigu minis were to have around the living room as I was working on making them and packaging them up . . . I almost didn't want to send them away!
Those of you in the US should be receiving your packages by the end of the week, and international members will hopefully have yours next week. I'm working on a small project using this month's minis (hint: it's crochet! and it involves sewing!) and will have it as a free pattern for you guys soon, but will wait to reveal it until after the packages have mostly arrived to preserve the surprise of what colors are in this shipment.
As for everything else I was behind on last week, well, I'm still behind. I asked for and was granted an extension on my pattern for the magazine, so was able to meet the club deadline, but now it's back to cranking on that project non-stop until I can pop it in the mail to them. I've also been working on Quiltfolio and will be starting a Kickstarter to raise money for it (so that I can hire someone to help me get it launched faster!), and have made and delivered a ton of new kits to Knitty City . . . basically, it's non-stop over here. All the time.
Oh and I think I mentioned that all my yarn inventory now lives in a storage space? I thought you guys would get a kick out of seeing what it looks like when you open the door to the 9-square-foot unit:
It's pretty much all yarn, plus some quilting fabric and batting . . . when I ship out an order, I go to the storage space, pull out the stuff for the order, then sit in the aisle packing it up to drop in the mail! So far this system is working out pretty well, and it means the apartment is way less crowded than the old one was. I do miss having all that wonderful color around me all the time, though . . .
SWAMPED
It's amazing how losing a week to moving has made me fall so behind on everything. As of Monday I'm done moving things back and forth and now have a storage space literally full of yarn and fabric to visit every few days (will take a picture to show you later today). I miss my stash but it's also really nice to be able to have some visual space at home! My old apartment pretty much looked like a hoarder's . . .
Right now I have a few pressing deadlines I have to meet and it's stressing me out. The first one I absolutely cannot blow is for a design that got accepted into a major knit publication (can't tell you which one yet) and is due in about a week. I need to get it done and in the mail ASAP, so absolutely all "free" time will be devoted to this project and the sewing machine will stay put away so I don't have that distraction. But I know I can't knit for that many hours without injuring my hands, so I'm also working on the club.
There are so many steps to plan and coordinate to do a club!
Today I am starting to make the Koigu Minis, once I nail down the colorway that is. I'm pretty sure I know what direction I'm going to go in after a chat with some coworkers yesterday at the quilt store (did you know that most quilters also knit? It's awesome!), but when I get to the storage space and actually pull out the skeins I might change my mind. I have to really look at the colors together in daylight to be sure they're what I want them to be!
As I was working out the logistics of the club I got to wishing that I didn't have to waste so much material to ship to each person . . . and then I remembered the biodegradable shipping envelopes that Spoonflower uses and which I'd been so impressed by on my first order:
A package of these EcoEnclosure envelopes is on its way to me (well, to the storage unit) as we speak! Knowing that the envelope will completely biodegrade even if not thrown out properly makes me feel way better about putting that many shipments in the mail.
In addition to all the above, Knitty City just told me they need more Koigu kits so I need to make a trip up there to drop some off this week . . .
But just in case I find a few free minutes, I got the new issue of Quilt Sampler to flip through:
I kind of want to make that cover quilt. BAD. If only Quiltfolio were finished already and I could add it to my to-do list, sometimes just doing that satisfies the need to start a new project! I know you all know what I mean by that ;o)
Off to crank out some secret knitting! Hope you're feeling less frazzled than I am on this Wednesday morning!
