jeshknits: the blog!

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23

Sep 142011

Another year, come and gone. (And can you believe that I’ve had this blog since I was 18? No, I can’t either. How strange.)

It’s Oolong’s birthday too, and I can’t imagine how this happened but she is three years old. Didn’t I just host her adoption fund drive like, yesterday? I could’ve sworn.

As usual, I celebrated last weekend by vending at the Garden State Sheep Breeders festival, where I sold a whole bunch of these:

(Though there’s still a handful left in the shop if you weren’t able to pick one up in person.) And I bought things and hung around with my friends and fellow vendors, and of course took absolutely zero pictures of them.

I did make a new friend!

Sadly I wasn’t allowed to bring him home, though I really tried. Oh well.

And with that I’m off to spend my day lounging around, eating bon-bons and playing with my Rhinebeck sweater instead of doing actual work knitting.

Oh, but a parting gift for you: as is fast becoming tradition, all patterns in my Ravelry store are 23% off today.

Revenge of Caturday

caturday, spindles 1 Response »

Aug 142011

In case you’ve missed my endless chatter about it elsewhere, Swhorls are now available in the shop. I’ll also have them at the GSSB festival (Barn 3) and of course Rhinebeck (booth 26D) if you’d like to try them in person!

Actual knitting content coming shortly.

Good Intentions

knitting, spindles, spinning No Responses »

Jul 212011

Right after I came in here and talked about how I was going to post more, dammit, really, I mean it this time… my camera up and died. And given my frequent lack of eloquence with words, I feel like any blog post from me is rather lacking without pictures.

Luckily for me (and you, I suppose), this happened at about the same time that I opened up membership for a tiny little secret spindle club, the funds from which I was able to use to buy a very shiny new to me camera.

These are some mittens that I’ve been meaning to knit for years and years; I actually think I put together a kit for them before I even started this blog four (!!) years ago. I needed something quick and fun before starting my next work project and these definitely fit the bill. Plus, even though it’s 100 degrees now, I will be very grateful that they’re ready to wear by the time winter rolls around.

These socks actually belong to my dear Sandi, who not only knit my pattern, she also let me graft her toes when I saw her this weekend. I may have fan-girled a bit.

This is Sandi’s Sidekick, which is really a fantastic wheel that I may have considered grabbing and running off with. I’m pretty sure she could’ve taken me down, though, plus it was her birthday party so that seemed kind of mean.

This is my Tour de Fleece spinning; for the first time EVER I think I will actually reach my TdF goal. Which may be helped by the fact that my goal was to spin one single skein. Of sock yarn. On the wheel. I can’t fail with standards this low!

And this is one of the new spindles from the 3d printed line (which will have a name eventually, I swear). This particular one is already sold, but there will be plenty more where it came from in the next week or two when I launch the full shop. (Note to self: come up with a name for the spindle line before launching the full shop.)

That’s all I’ve got for the moment, though rest assured that now that I’ve got a new camera, I am taking pictures of pretty much everything, and there’s all sorts of exciting stuff going on, so I really will be back with more. Seriously. I mean it. Don’t look at me like that.

In Absentia

life 1 Response »

Jun 272011

Poor little blog. Between some upheavals in my personal life, re-vamping the spindle business, and working on a bunch of secret knitting projects, I have paid you absolutely no attention. And of course the longer I ignore you, the harder it is to come back. What do I say? How can I catch up on everything?

I really don’t think I can catch up, so I’m not even going to try. But there’s some exciting things coming along that I really hope to be able to share with you shortly. Actually, I can share one of them right now—a new pattern!

Badminton House was released last week as part of Sanguine Gryphon’s summer line. This is what a good deal of my secret knitting time was spent on, not only doing the actual knitting (and ripping, and re-knitting) of the garment, but calculating 130 total size options and writing up a whole mess of instructions that SG’s tech editor kindly tidied up into a clear, concise pattern.

I’ve got another pattern that will hopefully be ready to go this week, which won’t be revealed until it’s live, and I’m also hoping to have the new spindle-making process in full production by mid-July. That you can get a peek of:

And before everything’s fully ready some samples may appear here and there in my Etsy shop, which is also hosting a batch of batts at the moment.

I’ll be back with more sooner than three months from now, I promise!

Leadlight

FO, design, knitting 1 Response »

Mar 302011

I’m just going to let the pictures speak for themselves!

Leadlight is now available here on Ravelry (no account required for purchase), and tomorrow (3/31) is the last day I’ll be donating 50% of all of my profits to charity. So far your purchases have raised $89.50, which is awesome. I’d love it if we could hit the $100 mark!

Giving

knitting, life 1 Response »

Mar 112011

So I’m sitting here, and it’s about 5:30 in the morning, and I’ve been up all night swearing at my knitting. (Those of you who know me are aware that this is not unusual.) And I was going to come here and talk about my knitting, and the problems I’m having with it, and the week’s worth of work that I’m going to rip out, and then the news started to come in about the earthquake in Japan and I just couldn’t. Natural disasters in the Pacific Rim and elsewhere, civil unrest in more than a dozen middle Eastern and north African countries, even turmoil right here in the US, and I’m complaining that I can’t make the sticks and string give me a pretty sweater.

That’s not why I knit. That’s not why I do this job, which I love. I do it to give something back.

So this morning, I’m sitting here, and it’s about 6am now because I’ve been typing and ripping out and typing and ripping for a half an hour, and feeling a little useless amidst all the turmoil, wondering what the heck I’m supposed to do, with my sticks and string and my silly little knitting blog.

Except, wait, knitters can do a lot. I can do a lot. And to that end, 50% of all of my pattern sales for the remainder of the month will be donated, divided evenly between Doctors Without Borders and disaster relief¹. Also, the remaining stock of physical items in my shop will have the same percentage donated until all of it is gone.

Please note that I’m not asking for purchases in lieu of any of your usual or planned donations; if you have been meaning to give elsewhere, please do. However, if you were already considering buying something from me, or have a pattern in your queue that you’d like to get to soon, now would be an awesome time to do it.

¹: In the interest of full disclosure, I have not yet picked a particular organization for this portion. I will do my best to see that it goes where it can help, though.

Not So Fast

fiber!, knitting, spindles No Responses »

Mar 092011

So I was totally hoping to do the thing wherein I disappear for a week and come back and oh, look, I have something new and shiny and finished to show you!

But I don’t. My knit mojo, she is gone. Instead I only have a half-finished sweater, which really had better be full-finished by next week, because at that point I’ll have to put it aside for some super secret work stuff, regardless of what state it’s in.

In the meantime, if you find your life lacking in Jesh related things, I can help you fill the void! Because there’s a sale on in the shop, so I can clear out some stock and get new stuff made for festival season. Prices are already marked down, so no math required!

Spindles are 30% off:

Handspun and kits are 25% off:

And the few remaining batts are 10% off:

FO

FO, design, knitting 7 Responses »

Mar 022011

Finally.

Not much to say, other than I’m quite pleased with it, but reminded of why I don’t usually do raglans—they just don’t do much for my shape. Still, it works well in the context of this sweater, and as a sample I won’t be wearing it much anyway.

Pattern coming as soon as I get it all written and ready, hopefully soon. In the meantime I’m going to do something totally wild and crazy and knit something for myself!

Not Even Close

design, knitting No Responses »

Feb 232011

I had planned to have a completely finished, just-needs-blocking-and-a-clasp sweater to show you in this post… and then I decided that I was going to do a tubular bind off on the band. Which means grafting about 400 stitches.