Our next show

First, I want to thank all of you who stopped by to visit us at Braham Pie Day last week.  It was HOT and HUMID, but the pie was yummy!  We had a great time chatting with everyone.  Even in the heat, people were fun and friendly.  We look forward to going there again next year. 

Next up, the St. Michael Daze and Knights festival.  The craft fair is on Saturday, Aug 13, from 10 AM – 4 PM.  We will be there with all our alpaca products!   We hope you will come for the parade, or the midway, or food.  Whatever your reason, please stop by and see us in craft fair area.   We look forward to meeting you and making new friends.

Advertisement

Works in Progress

Nearly done:

Nine pair of wrist warmers

The cream and green pairs are complete.  The mustard yellow just need the frilly edge and seams sewn.  They will be listed soon!

In the middle:

Ten cat toys

These will be cat toys.  The felted outside just needs to dry a little longer.  Then I will stuff with cat nip and a jingle bell and sew up the hole. 

On the horizon:

22 skeins of yarn

This will become wrist warmers some day soon.

This Friday, Aug 5 is Pie Day in Braham.  We will be there!  Please come and check out our booth. 

Next Saturday, Aug 13 is the St Michael Daze and Knights festival.  We’ll be there too!

I’m starting to sign up for fall craft shows, so keep an eye on the Events page  of my website so you don’t miss out.

Oh no! Not again!

How does this happen?  The Braham Knit Wits met again yesterday.  When all the knitters had arrived, the hostess (my Mom!) brought 2 big tote bins into the middle of the room.  We all ‘oooh’ed and ‘aahhh’ed over the yarn and discussed how it had come into the group’s possession.  And then this came home with me.

A tote bin of yarn

I’m the only knitter in the group with a knitting machine, so the fine yarn on cones usually gets sent my way.   I guess that is a logical way to do it, but I can’t keep up!   Someday, I may attempt to organize my charity stash and show it to you, but for now it is a rather large heap in a closet.   If I push hard, I can still shut the door.   And truth be told, I think every member has a stash that will probably out-live them!  We are an ambitious group and do accomplish a lot.  Next month the meeting is at my house.   Maybe I can send part of my stash home with someone else.

Charity challenge

If you were reading this blog a year ago, you may remember that I challenged myself to knit mittens for charity.  My knitting group – the Knit Wits of Braham – knits lots of things for charity: chemo hats and lap blankets, mittens and hats for school kids and the local food shelf, baby blankets for a couple different family crisis organizations. 

A few weeks ago, a member of our group challenged us to knit scarves as she had seen something on TV about people in need of scarves.   My goal is to knit one scarf per week.

Scarf #1

This is my scarf for this week.  It is purple (which is so hard to photograph accurately) and white.  Knit in a 1 x 1 rib on my knitting machine.

First scarf of the challenge

It is over 5 feet long, plus the fringe.  It is made from acrylic yarn, as is most of my charity knitting.  It is really heavy and will keep someone warm, but  I think I will ease up on the tension on the next one for a fluffier feel. 

Here is a sneak peak at a Christmas gift – we are celebrating tomorrow.  100% alpaca wrist warmers.

Wee wrist warmers

I don’t think the recipients will see them here!  I hope to get pictures of these on their new owners.  They are way cuter than they look in this picture. 

Happy New Year!

Wrist warmers to go

The craft shows have been coming and going, fast and furious.  And I’ve been trying to keep up with replacing inventory as it sells.  I recently added 15 pair of wrist warmers – 3 pair in each of 5 colors.  This is what I have left.

10 pair of wristwarmers

I have a craft show this Saturday in St. Michael, and my last on Dec 4 in Maple Grove. 

My knitting group, the Knit Wits of Braham, has been busy!  This is the hats, scarves and mittens we made over the summer.  After we took this photo, we sorted the items for delivery to the local elementary school, the food / clothing shelf and the cancer room and preemie unit of a local hospital. 

Pile o' hats

The temperatures are dropping and all these hand-knit items will help keep lots of folks warm over the winter.

Felted mittens

Remember when I dyed the yarn with Kool-aid a while back?  I knit the green and red yarn into mittens (really BIG mittens) and then felted them.

Felted mittens

They are finally dry (took several day!) and ready for sale.  They will fit most women’s hands.  They are heavy and will keep you warm! 

Also, thanks to all who came to Pie Day.  It was a good day – and we ate pie besides!  Yum.

Another for the ‘done’ column!

A while back I got this:

Bags of fiber

That is 19 fleeces from Kinney Valley Alpacas.  All have low micron counts (that measures the diameter of each fiber) which makes nearly all of them fall into the ‘baby alpaca’ category of fineness.   Only a few were just outside the range considered baby alpaca.  Slowly that became this:

Going down, down, down

And finally, this:

All gone from here

Meanwhile, on the other side of the shop in the barn, this was appearing:

Two full bags

And then became this:

Six bags of cleaned fiber

Another angle – yes, I’m very proud!

These bags are big

Each of those bags average over 6 pounds of cleaned, very soft fiber.   Five bags will be sport-weight yarn, one bag will be lace weight.  All to be dyed and for sale!   This was left behind:

Under the skirting table

Tomorrow I’m making a run toRach-Al-Paca fiber processing mill.  I will be bringing these six bags as well as some from our animals – Vagabond‘s, Jose‘s, and Pelasia‘s.  I’ll get some roving and some yarn from each of these.  It will be a while before I get this back, but I do have roving from Toro waiting to be picked up.  I’m also picking up a big yarn order for Twisted Suri Alpacas.  They have asked me to dye some of their white yarn.  Can you guess what is on my schedule for next week?

Speaking of next week – we’ll be at Pie Day in Braham on Friday – Aug 6.  Come see us and have a piece of pie!  YUM!

Why do I knit mittens?

Yes, I have knit 2 more pair of mittens, another skein of acrylic yarn used up.

Maroon mittens

I may have told this before, but I thought you might like to know the reason behind my charity mittens.   Some time in the mid-90’s, a group from my home town of Braham decided to start a knitting group.  We called ourselves the Knit Wits.   One of the founding members said she had a stash of yarn from a friend who had recently passed away.  That friend’s wish was to have her stash used for making something for children in need.  So that stash of yarn was our starting point for knitting for others.  Since then, we’ve been given yarn by many others and have made hats, mittens, scarves, blankets, lap robes, chemo hats, premie hats and more.   It seems our stash has been blessed as it never seems to run out!   So, I keep knitting mittens!

Craft Fair – Successful first year

I felt Braham did I very good job on the first Annual Braham Craft Fair.  While the attendance was poor in the afternoon due to the local football team progressing to a regional game, the morning was busy and sales were better than I expected for a first-time show.  I was a little nervous seeing snow flakes flying as a I was driving there, but all turned out well with the weather and we even glimpsed a peak or two of sunshine through the windows. 

My felted soap sold like hotcakes!   I have to make more this week!  Only 6 days until the craft fair in Elk River.  I hope to see some of my farmer’s market regulars there.   Anyone else in the area – stop by and check out the crafts.   This show has been going on for years.  It should be fun!

Week 4 – what I learned

Here’s how this short week went.  

another batch felted

I felted 15 bars of soap – citrus spice.  I smells really good.  I’ve had the batch here for the final week of its curing time and it has filled the house with a yummy smell.   (If you counted – the 15th bar is in my shower!)

baby socks

I have 4 new pair of socks completed.  Along with the pink pair on the shelf, I have a pair for each blanket set.   Another pair of each color only needs to be sewn up.

baby hats

I have 9 (yeah, 9!) baby hats completed.  I have another on the needles to work on during the show, should there be time.   The brown one in front is for a customer order from my Etsy shop.   I’m nearly out of enough yarn of any color to make another hat.   I’ll probably try to make a few more with stripes like the lavender / mauve one on the right. 

felted mittens

And lastly, I have these 2 pair of felted teen / small adult mittens. 

What has this experiment taught me?  

   1) it really helps to have a schedule set over a long period of time, that kept me from becoming discouraged when one day didn’t go as planned

   2) it helped to share my schedule with people (in-person and on-line), that kept me accountable

   3) I was glad I scheduled in previous commitments.  I looked forward to my fiber meetings as mini vacations

   4) Discipline is not always fun – even when I like what I’m doing. 

   5) I had to adjust and cut myself some slack.  I didn’t hit all my goals to completion, but I’m happy with the accomplishments.

   6)  it helped having the schedule on paper on my desk.   I checked it many times each day – can I move this? do that? 

Will I try this again?   What changes will I make?   So far, I’ve started putting some goals on my calendar on my laptop for next week, next month, January.  I’m not convinced that is a good idea, as I don’t use my laptop daily.  But I really shouldn’t have such a crunch as this again.   I think I have enough inventory to get me through Christmas, then I have until farmer’s market / summer before things start moving.  

Today was the day for packing for the craft fair in Braham tomorrow.   I hope to see you there.