* elletrain knits *

new patterns

2011-11-29T19:04:00.000-08:00

Well, I know I switched addresses on you and told you we are now at redribbonfox.blogspot.com, but I thought I'd update you here with a couple of new patterns and also remind you to follow me at the new address. I hope you'll join me there, but in the meantime, check out the new cowl and fingerless gloves patterns :) xoxox

New Northwest Red Matching Mitts pattern available now on Ravelry and Etsy. Yay! This is a very easy, quick pattern. You can make BOTH pairs in one day, easily! What a great way to knock out a couple of gifts on your list at once. They are so fun and fast...I hope you'll check them out :) Happy Knitting!

Here's the newest Red Ribbon Fox Knits design: The Sienna Cowl. It is knit from less than 1 skein of Malabrigo Worsted yarn (color shown is Ronoake).

It's available for purchase on Etsy and Ravelry:

http://www.etsy.com/listing/86298592/sienna-cowl-knitting-pattern-pdf

http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/sienna-cowl

This pattern is a quick, interesting knit that results in a cute cowl that can be worn pinned, as shown above, unpinned, or as a cute head scarf to keep your ears warm, as seen below.

ALSO, if you are new to knitting charts and want to learn to read them, this is a great pattern for you! The chevron seed stitch border is presented in a simple, easy-to-follow chart. Trust me, you can do it! It will expand your knitting horizons to be able to knit from charts. Seriously!

I hope you'll try this pattern. Isn't Malabrigo just the best??!!

New blog location: redribbonfoxknits.blogspot.com

2011-11-18T09:02:00.001-08:00

Don't forget to join me over at our new location! New posts and knitting lovelies. Please check it out here:

http://redribbonfoxknits.blogspot.com

xoxoxo

We're all turning into foxes...

2011-10-24T17:10:00.001-07:00

SO...after much, well, some, ok ALOT of deliberation, I've decided to unite my design and knitting world under the same, sweet red fox. So the address of this blog is moving! Please visit:

http://redribbonfoxknits.blogspot.com

Yay! It will look VERY similar :) I just thought it would be nice and clear and uniform to have things with a similar brand. I'm very excited about the change and so is Mr. Fox. Here is his new look for all things knitting!

So, pretty please update your blog subscriptions and I'm very sorry for any inconvenience, but now we will have even more fun with Mr. Fox as our guide!! xoxoxo

New purling method for continental style knitting

2011-10-12T22:05:00.000-07:00

So, I have wanted for a LONG time to start knitting continental style, 'picking,' rather than the English style, 'throwing,' that I learned a long time ago. Because I've done some stranded colorwork and have learned to hold one color in each hand, I have become comfortable knitting continental style. BUT, purling has always been a pain for me to do...too slow and cumbersome and not worth giving up the speed I have with English style.

A friend at a knit shop tonight showed me how she purls. I also learned this evening that it is the Norwegian method of purling and that it is used because in Norway they do lots of colorwork knitting in the round. This method allows you to keep your yarn at the back the whole time, so you're not moving your yarn in between your stitches, from the front to the back. It seems like a lot of movement when you break it down slowly, but when you try it out a few times you will definitely pick up speed. If you've ever done a rib cast-on then you may feel that this method seems familiar.

Seriously, why have I never seen this before! Anyway, I'm working on a LARGE cowl neck for the sweater I'm making right now and it's all 2x2 ribbing. This new method may just safe my life and save my elbow! See what you think about it and let me know. Here is a link to knittinghelp.com's video:
Norwegian purling method

oh, hi again :)

2011-10-04T08:45:00.000-07:00

I found a lovely for you this morning. Beautiful cast silver real knitting and crochet stitches. Isn't this lovely? I am in awe.

Cast Silver Knitting and Crochet article

Today is my first day of a silversmithing class here in Portland. I am so excited! Multnomah Arts Center offers many cool classes and I have ALWAYS wanted to learn metal smithing. I will let you know how it goes. Super excited. Are you learning anything new this fall? So far I've learned Tunisian crochet and natural dyeing. I think I wish I was really going back to school :)

Flock Together Mitts - new pattern

2011-09-27T13:46:00.000-07:00

So, I've gotten the designing bug. Here is my latest pattern, Flock Together Mitts, for sale on Ravelry and Etsy. They are super quick to make and would be a great gift :) Feathery goodness for your fall season...

http://www.etsy.com/listing/82679705/flock-together-fingerless-mitts-pattern

http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/flock-together-mitts

Tea Latte Cowl pattern!

2011-09-18T15:39:00.000-07:00

Well it's about time I had a new pattern. Here is the Tea Latte Cowl...a cozy, chunky cowl knit in a herringbone stitch on large needles. This is lovely and warm in a wool roving yarn by Patons, but it could work with a variety of chunky yarns. I've always admired the herringbone stitch. The stitch has such a classic look, but the chunky yarn adds a modern feel. I hope you'll try it out! Available for sale on Ravelry.

inspired

2011-09-17T13:29:00.000-07:00

My last post inspired me to get started. Here is what I came up with today:

to do

2011-09-17T10:46:00.000-07:00

I've been in the mood to do more painting lately. I want to start painting more patterns and small simple drawings, etc. I have been doing a tiny bit of it, for some of my wedding invitation designs:

aqua diamonds invite

hand-painted flowers invite

chevron stripes invite

I'd love to do more though. For some reason I have always been drawn (no pun intended!) to illustrations of food and recipes. Here is some inspiration I've gathered on Pinterest lately, mostly found in Etsy and Pinterest.

Asian recipe poster

Claudia Pearson

And some fashion from Samantha Hahn - adore it

What inspires you right now? Do you have anything you're dying to get into this fall? A new hobby or something you've not done for a long time? It seems I have a need to learn a lot of new things right now. I'm taking a dyeing workshop next Sunday at the Oregon Flock & Fiber Festival. I'm starting a 10 week metal-smithing class at Multnomah Arts Center in October and I'm taking a Tunisian Crochet class this Wednesday at Twisted yarn shop. Whew! Now that I've listed it all out I can really tell my need to learn! I guess that comes with this season :) Happy Weekend! I'm off to do some creating...

another photoshop tutorial

2011-09-15T13:32:00.000-07:00

I just tried this and it is super fun. I also learned a few new things about Photoshop in general, which is always handy. Here is my original photo:

Here is one I created using a block of text, following the tutorial:

And here is one using painted text. This was fun! It takes a little practice for sure, to get it exactly like you want it. Also, next time I will use a larger image with more detail, but what a fun idea to do for someone's birthday card or as a gift or something. Love it!

Here is the link to the tutorial. I hope you'll try it out and share your creations!!

http://layersmagazine.com/photoshop-cs4-a-picture-worth-a-thousand-words.html

weekly update

2011-09-14T16:04:00.000-07:00

Hello! Today I am busy cooking in the kitchen, so I thought I'd share what I'm making because it smells amazing, I have to say. First of all, in order to eat more veggies, I think I need to just keep some dishes prepared in the fridge, cooked or chopped up or however. So today I roasted some root vegetables, as pictured here: carrots, parsnips, and yellow beets.

Just chop them into chunks that are all roughly the same size, toss in olive oil, salt, and pepper, and cook them for about 35 min. on 425 degrees. Check them to make sure they're not dried out, but that the veggies are tender and easy to cut. Mmm. They reheat well or you can just add them to a salad, with goat cheese. YUM! Dang, I forgot goat cheese at the store...

Also today, since I have knitting group kinda early (6pm) and I'm always starving by the time I get home around 8:30 or 9, I decided to make dinner early and eat before I go. I found this on Pinterest and thought I'd try it out. It smells amazing. I believe the only difference in my ingredients is that I didn't have chipotle chili powder, so I used regular chili powder, but I DID have smoked paprika, so I used that instead of regular paprika. We'll see! BBQ Pulled Pork Recipe

Lastly, no photos, but thanks to my friend Shayla I made some Pumpkin Spice Creamer today. Mmmm! It's only a slight pumpkiny flavor, but definitely adds some fall flair to your coffee. You could experiment with the amount of pumpkin and spice. I might add a bit more cinnamon or something. I'm not sure where the recipe came from, so if you know, feel free to post a link.

Pumpkin Pie Coffee Creamer

1/2 - 3/4 cup canned pumpkin

1 3/4 cup half and half

1 tsp vanilla

1/4 tsp pumpkin pie spice

Blend this all in the blender and store in the fridge in an air tight container. It's yummy!

You probably want to add some sugar to your coffee to bring out the flavor. I usually just have coffee with cream, but this was better a little sweet. You could probably add it to your creamer if you wanted.

Enjoy these yummy fall-ish dishes. It's getting gloomier here and cooler now, but this time of year I kind of welcome that type of weather. Lots of knitting to be done!!!

xoxo

today's goodwill finds

2011-09-07T17:21:00.000-07:00

So, after seeing this cute idea on Design*Sponge this morning, I was inspired to stop by the closest Goodwill on my way home earlier today. Look at all of the great things I found! All for $20 :) Gotta love it.

Vintage pillowcases for my cocktail napkin project (see above)

A cool wall hanging handmade in Peru!

Awesome green glass dishes... set of 4 for $12 :)

A lovely painting of a giraffe. He is so handsome!

A great Ball mason jar with a glass lid

Thank goodness for thrifting. It's so inspiring. I didn't find what I was looking for, an enamel pot for my yarn dyeing, but I sure found really cool stuff for 20 bucks. Amazing. Now I need to go search out the other places. I think there are some good ones down the street...and one really interesting place that's only open on Saturdays. I need to be sure to TAKE some loads to the thrift stores, too :) I found this great coat and this awesome skirt a couple of years ago at a thrift store in Nashville. What are your favorite thrifting finds?

on the needles and off of the needles

2011-09-05T18:15:00.000-07:00

Happy Labor Day! I hope everyone has had a fun weekend with friends and family. We just returned from a 3 day camping trip/family reunion with my husband's mother's family. This Labor Day tradition has been going on for 58 years! What a great thing to have in your family. We had a great time doing a little fishing, a little pot-lucking and a lot of hanging out. I LOVE camping in the Pac. NW. Hot during the day, but still in the 50's at night :)

So, I realized I hadn't posted about knitting in a while. I wanted to share some photos of finished projects as well as what is now (or about to be) on my needles. Here goes:

Westknits Earth & Sky Mystery Shawl: This was my first mystery project and it was fun! I am happy with how my colors worked together. It was fun to work on a small project that you didn't know what the finished piece would look like. I used Malabrigo Sock (gold), Koigu KPM (pale pink), and Shibui Sock (gray).

Stripe Study Shawl from Veera Välimäki. This was a GREAT knitting group project. I used 2 colors of Sanguine Gryphon Sock on this project.

Bias Wrap Scarf. This was a pattern I picked up free with purchase at my new LYS, Close Knit. It is called the Firefly Scarf on their pattern, using Classic Elite's Firefly yarn. I used Baby Llama Glow from Plymouth Yarn Co. I modified the end of the scarf to have 3 button holes and a garter ridge so I could button it instead of just ending it in a point like the other end. I LOVE this yarn. It has a tiny bit of sparkle and is SO soft.

Chili Bean's Dress. The final finished project of late is a little crocheted dress I made for my sister-in-law and her baby girl that is due anytime now. It's the Mina Dress from Alicia Paulson and what an adorable pattern it is. It took me only part of a day to make and I can't wait to see it on our new niece. My sister-in-law has 3 boys already, so having a little girl will be so fun!

I'm working on these 3 projects right now:

Berrocco Ristretto. This one in a soft grey green color of the same yarn the pattern calls for.

Berroco Farrah. I'm doing this in the mustard yellow color of the yarn, Glint.

From Norway with Love. I LOVE this hat. I'm doing it out of a pale gray with the hearts in the Baby Llama Glow of my previously mentioned scarf. It's turning out fun so far!

Whew. So glad I posted some knitting stuff on my knitting blog ;) I've been back in the swing of things lately in the knitting world, so I had a fair amount to catch up on with you all! Fall is slowly approaching here in Portland. It's still nice in the evenings, but we finally have a summer during the day now. I'm still excited about these fall evenings that are inevitable soon. Preparing the closet with freshly knitted jumpers is always a knitter's favorite thing about fall! xoxo

Tuesday Tutorial ♥

2011-08-30T13:21:00.000-07:00

Here it is, again! I am loving this week's tutorial. So I know this is kind of a knitting blog, but being overall crafty and designery myself, I thought I'd share something, again, that's not about knitting. I've been designing a LOT this week as I got my Etsy store up and running (yay!), so I'm quite in design-mode these days. Here is a really great tutorial for creating your own repeating patterns in Photoshop. Will be using this one a TON. Enjoy! I promise to post some knitting related items soon. Maybe even later today I'll show you the things I've finished recently and what's on my needles now. Yes, I think it's time for another of those posts. In the meantime, have fun creating some great patterns.

Foxy shoes

2011-08-30T10:08:00.001-07:00

Foxy shoes, a photo by elletrain on Flickr.

So, Tuesday Tutorial to come later, but I had to share my new foxy shoes :) Yay!!

(from urban outfitters)

aMAZing site "Closet Visit" - so inspiring!

2011-08-24T16:17:00.000-07:00

SO, here's my new favorite fashion site. I don't look at a ton of fashion sites, but lately I've gotten into Polyvore.com and THIS ONE: http://cargocollective.com/closetvisit. Oh my it's beautiful and such a great idea. I may do a little closet visit of my own and photograph some of my favorite items :)

Tuesday Tutorial ♥

2011-08-23T12:16:00.000-07:00

Hello!! Happy Tuesday. I am sitting here with a bum ankle...I must have strained it while doing my run yesterday :( ... But being less mobile makes A) more time for knitting! B) less of a guilty feeling for not finishing up the laundry and C) for a great time to catch up on all of my many unread blog posts in my Bloglovin account. So now that I'm caught up on those and had a little time to peruse my Pinterest pins, I'm here to share a fun tutorial that I'm about to go round up the supplies to make for myself, after this post! Of course I'll have to wait until night time to test it out, but I have plenty of fairy lights/Christmas lights around at home to practice on :)

Check out these lovely images first:

I found these and a link to a tutorial for making a 'bokeh' here, on one of my favorite blogs, Le Fru Fru. It's in Italian (which I'm learning, but not good at ALL yet because I keep knitting instead of doing the Rosetta Stone lessons), but your browser will most likely translate it if needed. The tutorial on Green Laundry is in English though, so that will be helpful :)

A 'bokeh' is "the blur, or the aesthetic quality of the blur, in out-of-focus areas of an image, or "the way the lens renders out-of-focus points of light.(from Wikipedia) In this particular instance, we can create the heart-shaped 'bokeh' through making a lens cover, like this (image from Green Laundry's blog):

I hope you'll go try this out! Again, the link to the tutorial is here. I'm excited to try this and experiment with more night time photography. Have fun and share pictures if you try this out!!

work it out

2011-08-19T11:11:00.001-07:00

Lovely, a photo by elletrain on Flickr.

So, I just realized I missed the Tuesday Tutorial this week. I'll admit I was enjoying myself out in Oregon wine country with my husband and parents. What an amazingly beautiful area. WOW! And so close to our new home. I have a feeling we will be taking many trips out there. Here is a shot from the Willamette Valley.

My reason for posting today though is to let you know what I've been up to for 3 weeks now, workout-wise. I'm doing the Couch to 5K training program that I found online. The running club where we used to live offers this training 2x a year and I had heard about it before. I have to say I wasn't excited about starting to run again. It's been a long time since I chose that as my main form of exercise. I fell in love with Zumba and hula hooping over the past few years because they were much more interesting and held my attention. BUT...I am loving this training so far! I'm not necessarily training to run IN a 5k, but knowing I will be able to run 3 miles, 3x a week at the end of this is pretty cool.

If you'd like to check it out, I've created a better document of the training program here: Couch to 5K
I, of course, did not come up with this. I'm not sure who did, but when I found it online it was hard to follow, so I did a nicer layout that I think will be easier to read for you :) I posted mine above my desk! Be sure to workout only every other day to give time for your body to rest and heal in between runs.

As for a workout playlist, I thought I'd share a few fun songs I'm running to right now. If you have additional suggestions though I'm always looking for new music with a good beat. Enjoy!

-"Born this Way" - Lady Gaga
- pretty much anything from Foster the People - Houdini, Pumped Up Kicks, Call It What You Want
- Michael Jackson songs, FOR SURE - If You Wanna Be Startin' Somethin' is my favorite
- "She Wolf" - Shakira
- "Mo Money Mo Problems" - Notorious B.I.G. - a classic :)
- "Canned Heat" - Jamiroquai
- "Boom Boom Pow" - Black Eyed Peas
- "My Chick Bad" - Ludacris

Tips for Photographing Your Knits

2011-08-13T16:41:00.000-07:00

On this gray Saturday afternoon, while waiting to go to dinner with my parents who just arrived to town, I was perusing Ravelry, spying on various lovely hand knits (& crochets!) There is one thing that saddens me as I look through many lovely projects on Ravelry...so many talented knitters do not know how to photograph their projects! Trust me, I understand the desire to just get a photo up on Ravelry so you don't have the awful blank white square staring at you from your projects list. I am guilty of having some not so great photos of my knits up there and will show you some examples of my wrong-doing, but I'd also like to offer a few tips and examples of how to make your hard work really shine through on your project pages. I am a graphic designer, but I am NOT a photographer. You don't have to be to take better quality photos if you consider a few things. Here are some things to consider and you DON'T have to have a fancy camera. My husband has one that I occasionally use, but I mostly use my regular digital camera or my iPhone.

1. NATURAL LIGHT
Regardless of what else you consider when photographing your knits, natural light will always show off the colors and stitch definition best. It's REALLY tough to wait until daylight when you finish that great sweater you've been working on feverishly, but if you'll look at photos that you love and that are really spectacular, you'll notice they are generally photographed outside or by a window. (Sometimes you can't tell they are by a window, but if you start looking, you'll see the difference between a photo taken with a camera flash vs. one that wasn't).

2. BACKGROUND
When I photograph my knits I try to consider an interesting background that won't compete with the knitting. Sometimes I like to have a pattern or piece of artwork that is near me, sometimes I like to have a very simple background, like a solid wall in my home. It just depends on the piece, how much detail it has, and what I think will compliment it. Please just consider something that you would want people to see versus some dirty dish lying on your coffee table or a cat hair/dog hair ridden chair. You have worked hard on this piece! Show it some respect and hide the messiness of your house from the photo. I'm not telling you to become a neat freak, just pretend for this one photo that you are one :)

3. DISPLAY
Remember that most knits are 3D shapes and look droopy or floppy when not filled with a similar shape as the body part it's made for. A dress form is of course nicest when photographing shawls, sweaters, etc. I don't have one either, so don't worry. Consider using some tissue paper or small towels, etc. to stuff your knit (ie. for a hat or baby items) before your photograph it. Or, lay it out nicely, fold it nicely and again, consider what will be in the background of your knit. Sometimes I make my dog wear things. While fun, this is probably not the most professional look you can get, but hey, if they'll sit still long enough to give the item some shape, at least you're 'considering' the shot.

If you do have a sweater or other clothing item to photograph and you want to put it on in which to do so (makes sense, especially if it's for you!), think about your outfit and the styling of it as you go to put on your new product. Will anything else show in the photos? Would it compliment the sweater or cardigan to wear a leather belt to show off the shape? Would wearing shoes really accentuate the style of the knee socks? You can always take some photos with your other clothing props and some without, so people can see details that might be hidden by the accessories. But we all know what a toe of a sock looks like, right? Mix it up a little and have fun with styling yourself and your new item of clothing.

4. COMPOSITION
This is a basic design fundamental and it has some to do with the background tip stated earlier, but it mostly has to do with how you position the item being photographed within the frame of the picture. Think about interesting angles and filling up the photo as much as possible with your knit. Don't be too far away from it so people have to search for what you want them to focus on. The great thing about digital cameras is that you can take as many photos as you want, choose the best, and delete the rest. So don't be afraid to try a bunch of angles, getting closer in and farther away, etc. You can't go wrong, but you can have fun finding your favorite angle for that piece. You can also easily crop your photos once you get them onto the computer if you need to. Again, consider these tips for composition as you crop. You will be amazed at the difference it makes!

**Please let's have a minute to focus on socks here. If at all possible, find someone to photograph them for you if you want to wear them in the shot. A shot of your feet from your perspective A) is not flattering and B) doesn't usually show off the loveliness of the design or pattern you've worked so hard to create. Let's have well-shot socks!!

In conclusion, I will be the first to tell you that not all of my photos on Ravelry are great, professional looking shots. Those early ones are somewhat atrocious! I have been learning as I go over the last 8 years of knitting and 4 years of being on Ravelry. What I am saying is that you might as well consider some good practices when taking pictures of your hard work. You want to really make it shine and stand out among the rest, right? You're proud of the time and effort you put into making your piece and that should show through your photograph. Again, you don't need spectacular equipment, just some forethought to get really great pictures. I hope you'll consider these and have fun with it!

Today's project inspired by Ikea

2011-08-11T14:41:00.001-07:00

Today's project inspired by Ikea, a photo by elletrain on Flickr.

As we're getting settled into the house, we've made MANY trips to Ikea to get various small furniture items. I have become somewhat of a master at putting these things together. It's actually been pretty fun. Yesterday I bought a small comfy chair for the craft room that turns into a twin size futon bed. Amazing.

So, you get all of your instructions and hardware for each project and there's ALWAYS one of those little allen wrenches. I knew I had collected a few of these in the last few weeks and wanted to find a way to use them all (besides in the obvious manner, to screw in bolts). I got some lovely suggestions on Facebook from my friends for mobiles, Christmas ornaments, etc. I thought about making a cool necklace, but then I remembered our wind chime we had in Nashville broke and I knew exactly what I'd make with these lovely metal pieces. I held them on some wire and they sounded beautiful when they clinked together!

So, I gathered up some jewelry making supplies and part of a mason jar lid and got to work. I'm so happy with how it turned out! It took a bit of working to get everything right, but now I have a use for these allen wrenches that we will enjoy on the patio. Hooray for not throwing something away! :)

my new addiction

2011-08-09T20:56:00.000-07:00

Well, it seems tonight I'm full of ideas I want to share with you. I'd like to let you in on my newest favorite treat. I have rediscovered my love for hot tea and recently got two amazingly scrumptious black teas. The first one I got was from a local tea shop I found called Townshend's Tea Company. Luckily, they are just up the street from me! AND they are super close to a lovely yarn shop and a cute fabric store. I am a lucky girl. From them I purchased Creme de la Earl Gray. OMG it is delightful. In fact my brewing timer just went off and a cup of it is ready! I add a tiny bit of sugar and some milk.

The second kind I'm loving is called Moon Over Madagascar that I ordered from Tea Source. It has Bourbon vanilla from Madagascar in the blend! Mmmmm. I drink it the same way, a bit of sugar and some milk. Both of these smell amazing in addition to their taste. If you love a cup of tea at a time, I would highly recommend getting one of these amazing Gravity Teapots. I have loved mine so much! No more fumbling with a fussy tea strainer or tea ball. This is so nice and easy and fits right over most cups. (It won't fit over giant coffee mugs though, I have found out. But it easily fits over the cute teacups I've gotten from places like Anthropologie :)

If you like rich, black teas you'll love these two. I should probably not drink it before bedtime, but I can't get enough! Morning and night for me right now. It's kind of a nice dessert or accompaniment to one. And just like chocolate, tea always makes everything better, right?

Keep Calm & Carry On...
xo
Laura

Tuesday tutorial. hey, look, I remembered!

2011-08-09T20:13:00.000-07:00

Sooooo, I just happened to remember I promised a Tuesday Tutorial each week. Whew. It's still Tuesday :) I have been finding many wonderful tutorials on crafty, home, knitting, and sewing projects on Pinterest. Let me share a lovely one with you tonight! I haven't done this yet, but I'm dying to, once I get the craft room a little more in order.

Feather stamping. Isn't it beautiful?! So clever and simple. And you only need a few supplies you probably have already. Gorgeous. I can't wait to try it.

Click here for the full tutorial. Enjoy! Let me know if you try it out as I would love to hear and see pictures of what you make!

first foray into reupholstering

2011-08-06T18:21:00.000-07:00

So, instead of unpacking the remaining boxes in our house, I decided to give myself a new project. :) My grandmother gave me this beautiful chair years ago, along with a tapestry type fabric and a staple gun to someday recover it. Well, I never got around to it and the tapestry fabric is not quite my style anymore. I'm trying to setup our living room in the new place and am transitioning away from a few of the colors we used in the previous house and am adding new patterns and natural elements to the decor. To give you an idea, here is my inspiration board for the room:

Most of the items are things we already had...the couch, the artwork, etc. We bought the rug at Ikea and then I made this in order to pick out some fabric for the chair and pillows. I originally thought I'd use a yellow and white chevron print fabric to cover the chair. But once I ordered that and put it in the room it seemed too summery. I might still do something with it in there, but I'm not sure. The yellow is brighter than that on the pillow with rosettes. I think that's why it didn't work.

But thankfully I also ordered the lovely ivory and brown Ikat fabric pictured. I have yet to order the more damask Ikat print in gray. We'll see if I find a use for that, but I will need to tie in the gray rug in some way. I put the brown and ivory fabric on the barrel chair and it looked great! So I began my first try at recovering a chair. Her is the chair before:

Here is the chair after I (slowly and painstakingly) removed the staples and carefully removed the old fabric and padding:

This chair was kind of tough for a first foray into reupholstering, but after using the old fabric as sort of a template, pulling, prodding and stapling, here is the new, improved chair!

I really like how it turned out. I am going to add some trim around the front and back legs (they were super tough!). I really love this fabric. I think it will last a long time and through many colors and styles. Here is a closeup of the fabric:

And here is a shot of our little setup in the living room by the window. It always takes a lot of time and effort to get your old stuff situated in a new place. The setup of every room is this house is already very different from our old place. I'm enjoying it, but it does take a lot of time.

I have started discovering more of my style through this process though. I really love to focus on cool artwork, many natural colors with just a few accessories & the artwork bringing in brighter colors. I love mixing new artwork with older furniture and vintage finds. The only thing I'm still working on is how to bring in some Aztec/southwest patterns into our current style. That may take a bit of reworking at some point, but I'm loving where the decor is going. Even though our sofa is sort of newish I now wish I had gotten more of a neutral linen fabric instead of the olive-y green chenille. Oh well! That always happens and you can't just go around buying a new sofa all the time!

I hope you'll try recovering a piece of furniture. My thinking throughout the process was, well this is for myself and I'm not selling it or doing this for a client. That got me over the frustration and fear a little bit of taking on this task. You'll be happy updating a piece to fit your current decor and you can generally find pieces with great structure for really cheap at garage sales. Just search online for tips and instructions and enjoy a 'new' piece of furniture for less!! Tomorrow it's repainting the living room for me. I just can't live with the lavender walls that are in there anymore!! Happy Weekend!

amazing Asian dressing recipe

2011-08-02T21:50:00.000-07:00

Oh my goodness. I just made some dressing for our salad tonight based on this Bobby Flay recipe. I WILL be making the full recipe sometime because this dressing is to DIE for. I die. It's seriously taking lots of will power not to go eat it all before our grilled pork chops are done. Here is how I slightly changed it to be a salad dressing instead of the chicken salad sauce.

Ingredients

1/4 cup rice wine vinegar
2 tablespoons smooth peanut butter
1 tablespoon chopped fresh ginger
1 teaspoon Sriracha - I subbed Sriracha b/c we didn't have the chipotle puree and put only 1 tsp.
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon honey
2 teaspoons toasted sesame oil
1/8 cup safflower oil - I used a lot less oil because we didn't need much dressing & to cut on fat
Salt and freshly ground pepper

This is literally one of the best dressings I've had. I'm serving it over a salad of lettuce, raw broccoli and some chopped peanuts. Mmmmmm!!

Tuesday tutorial!

2011-08-02T14:20:00.000-07:00

Well, I am going to do my best at presenting a lovely tutorial every Tuesday. I find so many great craft and design project tutorials online that I might as well share them with you! I'll do my best to actually create the items in the tutorial, but mostly it's going to be used to share all of these projects that are built up in my Pinterest account.

So, while I try to claim to be a great graphic designer, I don't claim to be a great photo retoucher. It takes a different set of skills and while I use Photoshop a lot I focus mainly on design and less on editing photos besides general cutting out, a bit of light and skin softening, etc. So I'm always on the lookout for great tutorials on giving nice soft touches to photos. I'm sometimes a step-by-step girl when it comes to things I don't know how to do and I love this tutorial I found today on adding a lovely yellow softness and contrast to a photo. I thought I would share!

Before photo: (you might recognize this from my previous dress revitalized post!)

And the after photo. Much more interesting, don't you think? I am definitely addicted to the Instagram app for iPhone. I LOVE it and you can add pretty filters at the touch of a button, but being designery I sure like knowing how to recreate them myself since I have the right tools.

For the Photo tutorial click here

Enjoy!! Happy Tuesday tutorial :)

favorite video ever ♥

2011-07-30T22:02:00.000-07:00

we're on Facebook!

2011-07-26T23:44:00.000-07:00

So I finally realized I needed to create an *elletrain knits* Facebook page! Hello. So here it is!! Please 'like' *elletrain knits* for me...pretty please?? ♥♥♥
http://www.facebook.com/pages/elletrain-knits/212498192130623

favorite spot

2011-07-15T08:57:00.000-07:00

Well, as you know we just moved into our house here and there are boxes everywhere and we're far from settled. I just read this lovely post from Aesthetic Outburst though, talking about favorite spots in your home or someone else's. It encouraged me to photograph my one favorite spot. It's hard to get a great picture of it right now, what with all of the boxes in the way, but I just LOVE my 'new' vintage flag and the turquoise vases next to it. As well as the lovely built-in that our rental house came with. I've lovingly arranged all of our stemware and beer glasses in it and I couldn't be happier with this little corner of our crazy world.

getting settled

2011-07-12T10:48:00.000-07:00

So we have been in Portland for over a week now. We are really enjoying it here, exploring our neighborhood, attending many street festivals, discovering great eating spots and breweries. I'm also enjoying (mostly) getting the house together. And even though we still don't have 1/3 of our stuff (ugh, moving companies) our kitchen is becoming one of my favorite spots already.

We bought a simple kitchen table at Ikea last week as there was a perfect spot under the window for a little breakfast nook. We have been eating most of our meals here family style, which we never used to do, and it has become really special and fun. No more eating in front of the TV for now at least. I love it :) We've also been taking daily walks after dinner, which is another habit I'm glad we're getting into.

Pictured above is my breakfast from this morning. I had most of these pieces already from Anthropologie, Pier 1 and elsewhere. I recently bought the table cloth and the egg cup on Etsy. I'm loving that I have a proper, separate kitchen here so I can decorate it like a kitchen. I LOVE Dutch and Northern European pottery and patterns. They're so bright and cheery for a kitchen but are still interesting and artistic. My favorite new purchase besides the egg cup is the egg topper! SO great if you enjoy soft-boiled eggs as I do. I recently discovered them and you MUST have an egg cup to enjoy one properly and the egg topper makes it loads easier to remove the top. Ah the simple pleasures of a great breakfast. What are your favorite dishes/routines for breakfast?

we are here

2011-07-01T21:05:00.000-07:00

We made it! Across what felt like the entire country! It was a beautiful trip that I will soon share with you, but in the meantime if you want to see some photos, you can visit my tumblr page.

We are in our house. Spent the first night here last night and the movers came with (most of) our stuff today. Due to poor planning on their part, they had to put our stuff into 2 different trucks coming across the country at 2 different times. We have most of what we need, but will miss our grill for the next week or so! Especially with the 4th of July here. I bought a watermelon though, so we will still celebrate in true Southern style :)

Here are a couple of pictures of our place in Portland. The favorite spot (where I'll hopefully be knitting a lot!) is the front porch. Yay!

We are loving it here so far because THERE IS NO HUMIDITY. Oh, and haven't seen any mosquitoes yet either. SCORE. For those two reasons alone I think I will totally love it here. Miss you though Nashville, already.

More later! I must rest now on my REAL bed and not a deflating air mattress, like last night! Mwah!!

Nashville ♥

2011-06-22T05:41:00.000-07:00

I was searching for a photo to accompany today's post, my last day in Nashville. I wanted a nice photo of the city or some event we attended here or some fancy shot of something very Nashvillian. And as much as I will miss this lovely Music City, this is the photo that seemed most appropriate for today's post.

Stay classy Nashvegas. I will miss you.

wedding video ♥

2011-06-02T11:17:00.000-07:00

I just realized I never posted our lovely wedding videos. For some reason today I though of them and wanted to share them :) Maybe because my hubby is traveling right now and I miss him!

Here is one set to one of our favorite songs, made by our videographer:

And here is the lovely one of still photos made by our photographers, Souder Photography. The song is a Willie Nelson song, sung by our friends, The Wrights.

♥

Great new music finds

2011-05-26T10:00:00.000-07:00

I find I go through stages of wanting and finding new music and periods where I'm overloaded with too much. Well, lately I've been excited about finding some great stuff. Here is what I'm listening to now. The Civil Wars album is on sale for $3.99 digital download on Amazon today. Buy it!

Danger Mouse & Daniele Luppi - Rome

The Civil Wars - Barton Hollow

Eddie Vedder - Ukulele Songs

Foo Fighters - Wasting Light

I got to see them last weekend at the Hangout Music Festival in Gulf Shores, AL. It was an amazing show!!! I love Dave Grohl. We even had a fish named after him :) Here's a pic of Pinky and I from the festival, right before the show.

I'm also excited about the new My Morning Jacket album. Getting it today. We saw them as well at the festival and as usual they were incredible.

It was SO packed there this year compared to last year, their first year holding the festival. I so enjoyed the music this year, but the crowds were just too much. 5000 last year, 35,000 this year in the SAME amount of space. Too much Hangout Fest people. You gotta figure that out for next year because a festival on the beach is an amazing idea, but it needs to be more well-organized. We had a blast though regardless and are making a trip there an annual thing. Whether we go to the festival again is TBD, but we have such fun with our great friends down there hanging on the beach and eating TONS of fresh seafood. I can't even count the number of raw oysters I had. YUMMMMMMM.

Well, I'm off to pack some more. It's getting REALLY close to move day. We think it will be June 22nd but are waiting to hear a confirmation from the moving company. Btw, I have a lot of STUFF. I can't seem to pair it down as much as I want. I tell myself it's because I'm an artist/creative person...I need all of this stuff for inspiration, right? ♥♥♥♥♥

Porcelaine Paint Markers & the Hangout Fest

2011-05-13T11:05:00.000-07:00

I recently discovered this lovely blog, AestheticOutburst. She hipped me to Pebeo Porcelaine Paint markers for writing and drawing on ceramic, porcelain, glass, and metal. I LOVE her teapot.

You can buy the markers from dickblick.com. So fun! I really want to try these.

But maybe after the move.

We are getting closer and closer to the big day. We are hoping and hoping that the rental house we have an application on goes through today. It is a seriously trying process to find a good home rental in Portland when you live far away. Rental companies have not been the easiest to work with and are not good at responding to calls or emails. Frustrating! Isn't that their main job?? Anyhoo, this rental company finally responded, we were the first to get our application and deposit in and we LOVE the house. I will post pictures as soon as we know it's final. Just waiting for them to approve our application and do the credit/background checks. I hope all the paper work goes through without a hitch. This would be the relief I need! Finding a place will make it so much easier to picture ourselves out there. I have been a ball of stress lately over it all! That's why I've left the hunting up to my lovely and capable husband.

We're getting excited though to start on our new adventure. It's only just now starting to feel real. We were fortunate to find renters for our house this week as well. Thank goodness! Now it comes down to all the details. I'm much better at the details than I am at the big stressful parts :) I've numbered all of my boxes I've packed and made a list on the computer of what is in each one. SUPER helpful and I thank Real Simple magazine for the idea.

More on the big move later. We're off to Hangout Music Festival tomorrow! It starts next weekend, but we get a nice week at the beach before it starts. Thanks to our friends the Sloane's and their generosity! (They have a house down there where we get to crash!) I am hoping to hear about the house soon so I can really relax on the beach with a cold drink. Yay! More to come soon about all this craziness, but now I'm off to pack my swimsuits :) xoxo

Healthy, yummy Dijon dressing

2011-05-09T11:30:00.001-07:00

Dijon dressing for blog, a photo by elletrain on Flickr.

I've recently been interested in making more of my own condiments and dressings at home. I had just never thought of it before, but it's likely you have most of the ingredients you need for many of the recipes. I made BBQ sauce a few weeks ago and have been making various salad dressings for a while now. It's great to know what is going in your sauces...you can actually pronounce all of the ingredients!

My newest favorite is one we had for lunch today. It's a simple Dijon dressing that is a healthy choice for a lovely salad. I found this recipe online somewhere, but I've change it slightly:

Dijon Dressing

3 tbsp of Dijon mustard (any kind)
1 tbsp olive oil
1/4 c water
2 tsp lemon juice (i wish I had fresh lemons, but today we were out)
2 dashes of garlic powder
salt & pepper to taste

Mix ingredients in a leftover jar or lidded cup and just shake shake shake! You can adjust the salt or acid after tasting if you'd like.

Today my husband made a lovely salad with greens, mushrooms, tomatoes and rotisserie chicken. I wish I had taken a photo of that too, but I ate it too fast. :)

This dressing was great on it! It is much healthier than some other options because it has very little oil, no cheese, and no milk or cream. You get a nice 'bite' from the Dijon and even my friend who doesn't care for mustard likes this dressing! It's a nice break from the oil and vinegar I usually put on my salads, and it's a little more interesting! I hope you'll try it!

My next project

2011-05-06T12:40:00.000-07:00

Happy Friday! Today included a trip to my LYS, Bliss Yarns, for their monthly double-stamp day. It's the first Friday of every month and you get 2 stamps for every $20 spent, instead of 1! Fun!

So, we're heading to the beach next weekend (yay!!) and I needed a good project to work on. I decided upon this lovely for our new home (wherever it may be!! Still searching for rentals in Portland).

Isn't it great! I am making it in the same color as they've used here (of course, it's my favorite!) I have quite a few vases and accessories that will tie this color in to the rest of whatever room I put it in. The pattern is from Classic Elite Yarns Spring 2011 book called "Home Sweet Home." The pattern is Lacy Valance and calls for 3 skeins of their Firefly linen blend yarn. I'm excited to do this because I've always wanted to make a knitted or crocheted curtain for my home. With the yarn being a blend of linen it will be a good beach knitting project. Lightweight and not too heavy or too large of an item.

What are you knitting this spring? I'd love to know!

exactly that.

2011-05-02T09:35:00.000-07:00

I'm adopting this quote for the summer ahead:

"what is the feeling when you’re driving away from people, and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? -it’s the too huge world vaulting us, and it’s good-bye. but we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies.”

- jack kerouac

2011-04-27T08:04:00.000-07:00

My new favorite site!

I have come across a wonderful tool for creativity in the past week. It's a new site called Pinterest. It works like having a bunch of online cork boards to 'pin' photos/inspiration to. You setup different cork boards (like Ideas for the Home, Inspiration, Knitting/Crochet Ideas) and you 'pin' any images on the web to these various cork boards. You can view them all together, separately, follow other people and view their boards and what they've pinned. It's very easily a time suck, but a lovely one!!! Please check it out if you haven't yet. It is lovely and there are quite a few boards that deal with knitting and crochet.

Tribute to Nashville

2011-04-21T12:40:00.000-07:00

This is my tribute to Nashville. I designed it and stitched it. I will always love my Nashville, TN. ♥

new Ravelry group - Pretty Granny Chic

2011-04-19T12:32:00.000-07:00

I was searching Ravelry today for a granny chic group and to my surprise there wasn't one! SO, I created it! Please come visit us there and join the group if you love the revitalized granny chic/vintage look. This includes anything like crochet in solid colors, pretty vintage-style fabric pieces with crocheted or knitted edging, doilies, Japanese crochet projects, etc. It's a fun pretty group that I think you'll enjoy!

Click here for the Ravelry link (you must have a Ravelry account to join, but Ravelry accounts are free!)

posh pillows!! ♥

2011-04-18T12:30:00.000-07:00

Here is a GREAT crafty project that will make your house even more lovely and will give you tons of crafty satisfaction! My goal this week was to buy pillowcases and make these, but lo and behold, I found CUTE fabric the other day and actually made my own!

This is from a wonderful tutorial I found online a while ago. I rediscovered it last week and just HAD to make some for myself. I'm very proud of myself for sewing these nifty pillowcases. They are quite posh because not only are they made of cute fabric with a cute crocheted edging, but they have a little pocket inside to hide the side of the pillow! See:

That is a nifty pillow. I made 2 of them and need to crochet the edge on the second one, but I couldn't be happier with how they look on the bed. We needed some more color and now they give me a great color scheme to work from for the bedroom.

Some tips when making these:

1) take your time cutting the fabric and use a rotary cutter if you have one. I don't have a large self-healing mat to cut on, but even so, the rotary cutter gave me such a better cut than the first piece I cut by hand. Seriously. I cannot cut a straight line, as crafty as I am. Ugh.

2) I might suggest using a yarn for the edging that has a bit of nylon, silk, bamboo or something a bit sturdier than just 100% cotton. It turned out just fine, but after having to pull the cotton yarn through a bunch of times to do the blanket stitch foundation for the crochet, the yarn got a little bit worn looking at the end. Not a huge deal, but something with an additional fiber in it will probably hold up better. Be sure to use something machine washable though to make your life easier. You don't want to have to hand wash pillow cases.

3) Iron, iron your seams, etc. It really does help as you're sewing. If you're a pro, you know this. I'm not a pro, but I realized how much it helps.

4) The original post says to give yourself some chocolates while you work to reward yourself. I think that's a good idea, but I did not because with my luck, I'd get the chocolate all over my lovely new fabric.

I hope you'll make some of these! Here is the tutorial here. Have fun and let me know if you make some! I'd love to see your pictures ♥

dress revitalized

2011-04-13T13:00:00.000-07:00

I love when inspiration hits, don't you? I was out shopping today and purchased this dress from Free People.

I LOVE it. It's the perfect summer dress. Maxi dresses are everywhere this year and being short, sometimes I feel like they overwhelm me. That was what was so wonderful about this dress. Being shorter in the front, not only do you not trip over your own dress, but it's much more flattering for those of us who aren't model height.

I'm about 5'4" and I LOVE long dresses. I could live in them, but many times mine just sit in the closet because I feel like they are too much for me to wear. I realized on the way home that I could repurpose some of those dresses in my closet by simply shortening the front. Yay!

Trust me, I'm not a seamstress, but if you can sew a simple hem, you can do this. I went by my Free People dress as an example and marked where the front of the dress hit on the front of another dress. (If you don't have an example dress, just try on the dress you're re-doing and mark where you want it to hit in the front.) Then I ever so carefully (not really) cut from one bottom side of the dress, up to that center mark I made and sloping down to the other side hem. I pinned a folded hem (probably approx. 1/2" hem - I'm not good at tiny hems). I ironed the hem after pinning (do this!). Then I sewed it up. This particular dress has a lining, so after doing the top layer, I essentially did the same to the lining, but made sure it turned out shorter than the top. Iron the hems again after stitching and voila!

I think I bought this dress last spring and never wore it. It touched the ground and it just looked too heavy for my frame. While the skirt is still full, now I show a little leg so it's much more flattering! This would of course work well with long skirts also. I hope you'll try something like this if you've encountered the same dilemmas as I have. Have fun revitalizing your wardrobe!! And thanks for excusing my pale whiteness in the photos :)

I'm off to shorten more dresses! Yay!

new tattoos!!! ♥

2011-04-08T13:44:00.001-07:00

My flock of birds, a photo by elletrain on Flickr.

Got my new tattoos today. A flock of birds on my wrist and a ♥ for my Pinky, on my pinky :)

Foxy foxy & a new tattoo

2011-04-05T17:11:00.000-07:00

I just bought the pattern for this cutie yesterday. I can't wait to stitch his portrait! I have a print done by the same artist of the same Mr. Fox. Love love him. You can buy him and other lovelies on Sublime Stitching's website.

In other exciting news, I'm getting my second tattoo (and third!) on Friday. Yay! I have pondered it for years, since getting my first. I saw my inspiration on another blog, but I'm not sure of the original source. It's a flock of birds and I'm getting it on my left wrist. It's to honor my time in Nashville and the amazing things I've done, learned, and experienced here. I'm migrating to another place, but this is where I found my wings. :) Just to get a little sappy fer ya.

The third tattoo is to show a little (and I mean a tiny bit) of love to my husband. Don't worry. Not getting the name Pinky tattooed on my bicep or anything :) Ha! Just a bit of something in honor of my sweetie. Photos to come as soon as they are ready to show off!

Spring faves

2011-04-01T11:40:00.001-07:00

Spring faves, a photo by elletrain on Flickr.

So, I'm addicted to nail polish. I may have mentioned this before. Here are a few of my favorites for this Spring. The nice thing is, they are cheap brands, too! And unlike OPI lately for me (which I still love) they seem to stay on really well. I have had to cut out manicures from my budget lately since we're moving, but I've been greatly impressed with the staying power of these inexpensive polish brands. My next goal is to find a great shelf in which to display all of my nail polish in my bathroom. Or in which to display SOME of my nail polish. I have a lot. Maybe a cool vintage spice rack? I hope I find something cute.

Here is a photo of the orange I'm wearing today, with a cute new eagle ring I scored at an amazing new shop in East Nashville called Old Made Good. It's vintage AND handmade AND super cool. Plus, they gave me a margarita when I walked in today! I think it's their grand opening. PLEASE visit if you are in Nashville. You will love it. Happy Weekend!! xoxo

Red Fox

2011-03-29T07:34:00.001-07:00

How amazingly beautiful is he!! I LOVE him. I must have him. I don't have the $ right now, but someday he will come to live with me, I hope.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/laferrera?page=1

Blanket Square Pattern to benefit Japan

2011-03-22T21:05:00.000-07:00

I had to share this lovely pattern I just bought. It's from Kay Gardiner of Mason-Dixon Knitting fame. It's SUCH a beautiful design, don't you think?! Gorgeous. And all proceeds from pattern sales go to benefit Japan this year. After that, all proceeds will benefit Mercy Corps' relief work. I think you must go out and buy this pattern. Thanks Kay!

Bohemian Satchel Knitting Pattern

2011-03-10T07:42:00.000-08:00

Yay! It's finished! I stitched up the last bit yesterday afternoon. I'm very happy with how the bag design came out. When you have an idea in your head and it actually comes to fruition, it's very rewarding.

The bag is created in four pieces: a front color work piece, a back solid oatmeal color piece, a bottom piece that is knit in the round and a handle, also knit in the round. The handle creates the sides of the bag as well. These two final pieces knit in the round give the bag nice stability and keeps it from stretching out too much. It's finished off with a toggle button and crocheted loop closure.

I have always love the bohemian style and the bits of ethnic pieces that you see accompanying it. I was inspired by the Wayuu mochila bags from Peru that I totally adore. They have very geometric designs and shapes decorating them.

I hope you'll try out the pattern for yourself! It's available for purchase on Etsy and Ravelry. It's perfect for taking to an outdoor music festival or for carrying your knitting in anytime! ♥

Teaser

2011-03-08T06:59:00.000-08:00

Good morning! It's another gloomy day here in Nashville and I'm having a time trying to wake up. So, I'm still sitting here staring at my computer, willing myself to get up and work out. Hmmm. In the meantime I will give you a bit of a teaser as to my next knitting pattern coming out. I'm feverishly working to finish it soon! I tried to give you a bit of an idea in the photo without giving it away. I'm really excited for how it's turning out! Stay tuned to see what the finished project looks like. Happy Fat Tuesday!!

Blurb - turn your blog into a book

2011-02-25T07:07:00.000-08:00

So, I had to let you know about a great site I just used to get a book made from my blog. I'm sure there are others out there, but Blurb was great to use. It imports your blog entries from the dates you choose and puts them into book format. I had to go through and upload higher-res pictures for many of the entries, but you would want to go through and tweak the book anyway. So it wasn't totally a seamless import, but it allowed me to make some edits and get the book looking exactly like I wanted. I made one for 2010 and I might go back and make one for 2009. Now each year I can have a physical copy of my online 'journal.' It's pretty great. And if you click here to check it out and order a book, you get 15% off :) They also offer other photo books and printing services, too. Hope you enjoy!

Happy ♥ Day!

2011-02-14T12:20:00.000-08:00

Here's what I've been up to today, celebrating some l-o-v-e...

I made whoopie pies this afternoon for me and my sweetie. They are my new favorite food.

You can find the recipe on my friend Taylor's blog. Taylor Made

Here is the Valentine I made for Pinky :) I hope he likes it.

I've always handmade his cards and Valentines since we've been together. I plan to continue! It's so fun. Here's the one from last year.

And our 6 month anniversary card made it into our engagement photo shoot ♥

Happy ♥ Day everyone! Make something for someone you love.

Bloglovin

2011-02-14T09:48:00.001-08:00

Follow my blog with bloglovin

Double-knitting and what I've learned

2011-02-13T09:39:00.000-08:00

So, somehow I was on the ball yesterday and after recently posting about double-knitting, I went ahead and tackled the new-to-me technique. Here are a few things I learned about it and about the process.

1. It's a bit tricky, but really cool to see how the fabric is created on both sides!

2. It's a slow going process.

3. I did not find the way she holds her yarn in the tutorial helpful (even though it is explained very well! It's just not what works for me).

4. I can learn to purl the continental way AND learn double knitting all at once!

I've always wanted to master continental knitting because so many of my friends knit that way. I hear it's faster and I do appreciate the economy of motion versus the English or 'throwing' style of knitting. Because I've done some fair isle knitting and other color work, I am pretty comfortable with the knit stitch in the continental style. BUT, purling has always slowed me down and kept me from becoming a continental knitter.

Yesterday as I was going through the tutorial on double knitting, I realized that I could just hold the 'back' color in my left hand, using the continental style of purling to work those stitches. It's great! I'm learning two new skills at once and I'm starting to really get this style of purling down. I know after I make this scarf for my husband I will have had enough practice with it to feel confident about starting a new project knit all in the continental style.

So, the method I'm using for my double knitting is this. Hold the FRONT color (meaning for that row, the first color of the row) in your RIGHT hand, and knit those stitches as usual, wrapping the yarn around the stitch in the English knitting style. Hold the BACK color (the second stitch of the row will be in this color) in your LEFT hand (you will probably want to wrap it around your pinky finger for some tension). When you go to knit the second or back color, bring BOTH yarns to the front (as described in the previous tutorial). Purl this stitch with the color in your left hand in the continental style. Then move both yarns between the needles, back to the back of your knitting and continue to the next knit stitch. This is the rhythm you will work in for the rest of your row.

Here is a photo of me knitting the FRONT stitch.

And here is a photo of me purling the BACK stitch. Notice, both yarns are in front.

I hope this helps if you are going to try out the double knitting technique along with me. It isn't the fastest technique around, but I think this scarf will be really wonderful and double sided and lovely for my husband. It's always fun to learn something new and that's what I love about knitting. I've been knitting for 9 years now and there's still so much to learn! Good luck and let me know if you try out this technique. I'd love to hear about it!

Leaving Mexico and a fun new knitting technique

2011-02-11T05:58:00.000-08:00

Well, in 2 hours we leave this beautiful place for the airport. What a wonderful winter vacation it has been. I am so fortunate to have family who LOVES Mexico. What an incredibly gorgeous place with delicious food and kind people. I am always sad to go! I sure am excited to see my Mattie-girl though and to get back to get some stuff done. Lace*Paper*Flowers has a bridal show coming up in March, so I've got to get back and get to work! I need to make a book for my sample invitations/paper goods and we need to gather items for our table displays. It'll be a fun exciting show, I hope! It's at the Factory in Franklin, TN which is a really cool, interesting location. (Not a random, nasty-carpeted convention center, yay!) I'm looking forward to seeing what happens from the show and whether we get some additional brides to work with.

In knitting news, I just found a tutorial through Ravelry that teaches the double knitting technique. I've always been curious about this and sort of had an idea of how it worked, but I've never seen it explained this clearly. It really makes me want to try it! Heidi Bears does a lovely job of explaining it on her blog.

I've looked up a couple of patterns that use the double knitting technique. Here is a really interesting folk style blanket and below, a cute elephant pot holder. Double knitting makes a great scarf as well that is double sided, always a plus for a scarf.

I hope you'll try the technique, too! I think it looks like the tricky part is just holding onto both yarns and getting a good rhythm of going back and forth between knitting and purling. A simple two color scarf or potholder would be good to start with to get the feel for it before trying the color work, but it would be easy to jump into these lovely designs after that. Good luck and Happy Friday!!

Update on Red Ribbon Fox Design site

2011-02-01T13:53:00.000-08:00

Hi all! I wanted to share the updates I made today on my business site, www.redribbonfox.com. I added some invitations, thank you notes, programs, and save the date cards that I have designed. I'm ramping up the wedding business, so if you know of anyone needing wedding design, send them my way! I do custom designs and can do anything that needs to be printed on paper for your wedding.

This is a wedding program I designed for Hunter & Terrah. We used real frames to display their silhouettes. It added a really neat touch!

I also work with some spectacular gals who do wedding decor/coordination (Jessica at Love Bird Style) and amazing floral design (Jasmin at Artisan Flowers). We have collaborated to create Lace*Paper*Flowers, a wedding cooperative where we come together to ensure a consistent theme throughout your wedding. We did a lovely photo shoot in November themed "Apple of My Eye." We worked with Souder Photography to create a really nice display of all of our work. Our shoot has been featured on both Style Me Pretty and The Ebury Collection wedding blogs. Here are a few examples from that shoot.

It's fun working with other spectacularly creative people to get amazing results! I hope our business continues to grow so we can do more and more fun stuff like this :)

Cabled!

2011-01-30T08:09:00.001-08:00

So, I'm realizing my addiction to cables right now. These items are in my Ravelry queue (all Ravelry links on the photos).

Aidez by Cirilia Rose

Owls by Kate Davies

Cabled Hot Water Bottle Cozy by Alexis Layton

(I don't even own a hot water bottle)

Lauren by Ann Weaver

And I'm working on these and this right now. I'm cable crazy! I've always liked the look of cables, but they do slow your knitting down quite a bit. Even lace is faster to me than cabling, but how beautiful are these twists and turns? VERY, I say. They are classic and polished and keep your knitting from stretching and growing. They might just be the perfect knitting design element, in my opinion. Besides ribbing, which I also adore. Wow, a non-knitter would really not identify with what I'm talking about right now. :)

what's on my needles (or soon to be) update

2011-01-21T08:54:00.001-08:00

Hi! I haven't given a knitting update in a while. I thought I would do that today. This lovely first gem is about to be on my needles. It's called Beatnik by Norah Gaughan. What a beautiful pattern! I'm very excited to start when the yarn gets here. I ordered the yarn it calls for, Berroco Remix, in a color called Patina, a brownish grey. I wouldn't normally order a yarn with much Nylon in it, but the reviews are great so I'm gonna try it out. It has cotton and silk as well, so it should be a nice weight to wear most of the year.

This second lovely photo is of the Oatmeal Pullover by Jane Richmond (Ravelry link). It's a simple top-down raglan sweater. I'm currently done with the body and just have to knit the sleeves and I'll be done! I made it in a deep grey yarn called "Puffin" by Quince & Co. It's been a nice quick knit. I started it last weekend. I made it longer than the pattern so I could wear it with leggings, but tried to keep it short enough that it wouldn't stretch out over the bum and be unflattering :) I'm hoping it will turn out to be that go-to warm sweater that I love to wear.

This last photo is of the first sock I finished of a pair from a pattern called "Tyrolean Stockings" by Ann Budd. (Ravelry link) It's a really lovely knee sock pattern that I worked on over the holidays. I'm on the second sock and haven't gotten too terribly far, but it's so cold I wouldn't want to wear knee socks with a skirt right now anyway! It's a nice travel project to have while I'm working on these bigger sweater projects at home. I wound up using the Green Mountain Spinnery "Cotton Comfort" yarn instead of the "Vermont Organic" the pattern calls for. I also went down to a size 2 needle on the foot of the sock to make it fit tighter. It does fit quite tight, but I like knowing it won't stretch out when I wear it. I needed to stay on the size 3 for the leg because of all of the cables. It would've just been too tight to knit on the smaller needle and though it's not completely skin tight on my leg, the cables are dense enough that they keep the sock up and it doesn't fall as you walk. Nice.

That's it for now. I took a break from designing patterns so I could give the old brain a break and a chance to re-energize. I hope to start designing more in the next few months. I'd also like to write up the pattern for a sweater I designed a few years ago, the "Everything Gold Cardi." (Ravelry link) Hopefully I'll get around to that! I think it might sell ok.

Hope everyone is having a great 2011 so far. I'm enjoying MORE snow here in Nashville. It's crazy how much we've had this year. It's beautiful though and working from home is nice, especially when the weather is bad. Stay warm and keep knitting!

New Music...Friday?

2011-01-14T08:53:00.000-08:00

I know most people usually post this on Mondays or Tuesdays or something, but here I am on Friday finding some new music. Yay! It's about time. Thanks to my brother and friend Zach I have some great stuff to choose from. Here is who I am enjoying most so far, as I work through both of their 'Best of 2010' Lists.

The Morning Benders - Big Echo

Surfer Blood - Astro Coast

Sufjan Stevens - The Age of Adz (especially 'I Walked' and 'Futile Devices')

Beach House - Teen Dream (LOVING 'Zebra')

That's all for now. I'm on new music overload. But that will get you started!!

Happy Holidays

2010-12-23T12:37:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from *elletrain knits*! I hope you all have a lovely holiday season filled with joy and...knitting!! And hopefully some snow in there, too :)

What a wonderful year this has been! I got a new name and a new wonderful husband to go along with it. We got to do some traveling: we got engaged in Mexico and got to honeymoon in Scotland, Ireland, and London. We were fortunate to see our families more often this year because of the wedding. Pinky started his own new business and things are booming. I started to put together a new wedding business, Lace*Paper*Flowers, with my friend Jessica. (more to come on that in the new year!). Our home has become more of a home through not only decorating, but filling the house with 'us' and what's important to us. We lost some dear friends this year that we will truly truly miss (JP and Kodi), but both gained amazingly wonderful families. We are truly blessed.

Happy Happy Holidays to you and yours. I love you all!!

Snowflakes That Fall

2010-12-09T09:37:00.000-08:00

Hi all! Happy Almost Christmas. Here is yet another new pattern from Elletrain Knits. It's called Snowflakes That Fall. It's a simple hat pattern and the snowflakes are created through duplicate stitching. I think it's really enjoyable and is like combining knitting with embroidery or cross-stitch. Plus, unlike stranded colorwork, you don't have to worry about your hat not fitting because your colorwork was knitted too tightly. I hope you enjoy the pattern!

Buy it on Ravelry.com

Buy it on Etsy.com

My Knitting and Crochet Portfolio

2010-12-06T07:37:00.001-08:00

Good morning! I thought I'd share a link to the knitting and crochet portfolio slideshow I just put together on Flickr. I think it will help when advertising my knitting and crochet lessons, like tomorrow at a friend's benefit for Cystic Fibrosis. Check out the photos and maybe they will inspire you to knit or crochet today!

Click here for the slideshow

Happy Crafting!

Laura

P.S. This is a new pattern I made last week, Cloudscape Capelet. Here is a link to buy on Ravelry and here's one for Etsy. It's a super quick knit and can also be worn as a scarf/cowl.

Waiting on Snowfall

2010-11-30T22:05:00.000-08:00

*Here is my latest hat design! It's called "Waiting on Snowfall." I LOVE the snow, probably because I live in the South and we don't get much of it each winter. Waiting for snow to fall is exciting and hopefully putting on this hat will act as somewhat of a 'snow dance' and will bring on the snowflakes!! *

Click here to purchase the pattern on Ravelry

Click here to purchase the pattern on Etsy

secret kitten

2010-11-18T14:41:00.000-08:00

I've already shared this on Facebook today, but I had to post this to the blog. Oh my dear, I can't stop watching it!!! You're welcome.

Hello Mrs. Jansen

2010-11-12T15:53:00.000-08:00

Hi hi!! Well, I'm married off now and all official and loving getting used to a new name. I had an amazing wedding and an amazing honeymoon. That is why I have been so absent from my blog! Here are a few photos from the wedding. All photos by the amazing Souders of Souder Photography:

My honey and I honeymooned in Ireland and Scotland for 2 weeks. We could not have had a more amazing time. Scotland is literally a magical place, I think. And Ireland could not have been more fun, beautiful, and filled with friendly people and laughter...and of course lots of Guinness. Our wedding proved to be an amazing event where both of our families really came together and had a blast. I think our friends and other guests also had fun, especially according to the Crazy Booth photos :)

If I were to ever give any advice to a bride, it would simply be this. Make your wedding about your loved ones having fun together and you can't go wrong!!! We had a picnic on the Saturday after the wedding to hang out further with our families. I'm so glad we did this! We could all unwind after the big event and share a bit more time together.

I hope everyone is having a great fall. Mine, I couldn't ask for more during this, my favorite season of the year.

xoxo

Mrs. Jansen

New French knitting project & honeymoon sweater done

2010-09-20T08:50:00.000-07:00

I cannot wait to make this! The kit is coming in the mail, from France (ooh, la la!). It should be here any day. I finished my honeymoon sweater recently and am excited to start on something a little bit more involved. Yay!!!

Here are some honeymoon sweater pictures for you :) It should keep me toasty in Ireland and Scotland!

Our Wedding Invitations

2010-08-20T12:37:00.000-07:00

So, I have finally sent the invitations out. I didn't want to spoil the fun by posting photos of them before our guests received them in the mail, but now I can show them to you all! I have to say I'm very happy with how they turned out.

Being a web designer, most of the time, I rarely get to have my work printed on actual paper. The paper I chose was a super duper soft, beautiful paper (Somerset Soft White 300 gm Velvet for you other paper nerds out there!). It feels like soft cotton sheets. Yum!! I wanted to keep our design classic and simple. I really am happy with it and it was the first design I came up with! I love when that happens :)

Cool zipper bracelets

2010-08-20T11:07:00.000-07:00

I just got these adorable zipper bracelets from "The Hippy Chick Sews" shop on etsy.com. They are so cute worn in groupings. I ordered two brown zippers and one navy. I love brown and navy together, but she offers a lot of colors. They came in the mail to me super quickly, too! Such a fun thing for a Friday afternoon :) Now I will look quite hip for the busy weekend we have planned.

Enjoy!!

Better-for-you hummus

2010-07-15T12:10:00.001-07:00

Better-for-you hummus
Originally uploaded by elletrain

I'm not THAT much of a cook. My mom will probably hate hearing that. I do love to cook, but because I hate grocery shopping so much, I rarely do it. Today I was at Trader Joe's though and had just seen an old Rachel Ray episode where she made a version of hummus that seemed really easy. I picked up some ingredients at TJ's and got to work as soon as I got home. I was amazed at how easy to make and how yummy this 'hummus' was! It's a bit less fattening than regular hummus because it doesn't have the tahini in it (sesame paste that contains quite a bit of fat).

So, here's the 'recipe.' You can kinda memorize it like I did. I watched the Rachel Ray episode while getting a mani and pedi at the nail salon...ha!

Lemon & Thyme Chick Pea Dip
2 15oz. cans of chick peas (garbanzo beans)
zest AND juice of one lemon
4-5 sprigs of fresh thyme
salt to taste
cayenne to taste
EVOO (extra virgin olive oil)

Combine the chick peas, lemon zest and juice, 1/8 tsp salt, a dash of cayenne, and thyme leaves (just pull them backwards off of the stem, no need to chop) in the food processor.

Blend a bit until most of the peas are processed.

Then, add the olive oil to the mixture as you continue to process it. Watch for the consistency to be much like store-bought hummus. I'm guessing I used around 1/4 cup of olive oil, but you just have to watch the texture.

Taste the mix. Add more salt and/or cayenne to your liking. Yummy, huh??

Serve with crackers, pita chips, sliced veggies or use in your favorite wrap recipe. Enjoy a less expensive, less fattening chick pea dip! I love love the lemony-thyme-y taste. I hope you do, too!

Crochet Summer Fashion Trends

2010-07-08T09:36:00.000-07:00

Since most of us reading this are probably into knitting and crochet or at least have an appreciation for it, I thought I'd show you some beautiful fashion trends this summer that include crochet elements. I love the bracelet above and crocheted clutches are always lovely and summery. I've often thought of making a crocheted tank like the one below and the open-work shoes are so cute. Check out Refinery 29 for more crocheted fashion!

Elijah the Elephant

2010-06-30T14:21:00.001-07:00

Elijah the Elephant
Originally uploaded by elletrain

Here is my latest finished project...Elijah the Elephant. He was knit for Clancy Dabbs, my cousin's new little boy. This was a really cute end-product, but a little tedious to make for my taste. It's not difficult though and is such a cute gift. The pattern is by Ysolda Teague, http://ysolda.com/. She has a lot of adorable patterns. Because I did the stripes with left over yarn from the crocheted baby blanket it only took one skein of the green/grey Debbie Bliss Cashsoft DK. He was my first toy to knit and I'm so glad he turned out well. It was a big effort to pick up all those stitches for the ears and limbs. I hope little Clancy enjoys him for a long time :)

Apparently I've been busy

2010-06-25T09:59:00.000-07:00

I just realized how long it's been since I made a post! As you can see, I've been more involved with tweaking the design of the blog than with blogging itself. Here is a recap of what I've been up to:Pinky and I with my dad, Christy, Jon, Elliot and Cassie at our Engagement Brunch hosted by Dad and C. It was such a lovely brunch! Here is a picture of Pinky and I at one of the lovely tables decorated with Christy's beautiful hydrangeas.

This week on Tuesday I decided to paint an accent wall in our living room. I love Color Splash with David Bromstad on HGTV and he definitely inspired me to do this. At first I chose a muted blue/teal to go on the wall, but it wasn't quite right. Then I tried out "Painted Turtle" by Behr and it was perfect. It almost looks like the color the shadows are on the lighter green of the living room. I couldn't be happier with the result. Sorry for the blurry-ish iPhone photo, but at least you can see the color contrast.

Today we're getting the house picked up and ready for my brother to visit on his way helping a friend move back to Arkansas. We're so excited to have company!! I'm off to get ready and buy some fresh flowers to have in the house. I've been buying them weekly now, but I especially need some when we have guests coming! Happy weekend everyone! If you're around East Nashville, there's a small craft show going on tomorrow near 5 points. Check it out!

Mattie gets a haircut and I get new fun things

2010-06-08T06:25:00.000-07:00

So, it gets super super hot in Nashville in the summer and I have a very poofy border collie. I usually get her Summer Smoothie haircut at the groomer's, because I have attempted to perform this act myself before and I know the outcome. But this year Pinky insisted we do it on our own. He ordered some clippers and was intent on 'saving' us the money. After 3 hours, a mishap with the shop vac (it blew Mattie's clippings all over the hall upstairs), an aching back for me, and a scene where it looked like Mattie literally exploded all over the backyard, we ended up with this...

It's a little rough around the edges and I would definitely not show you a close-up, but I found there's a tiny adorable dog under all that fur!!! I mean, I think she's adorable to start with, but how cute is she with a tiny body and a giant head! Here she is quite skeptical of me and is letting me know she was not happy having to sit still for 3 hours. Her reward was getting to play in the sprinkler for 1/2 an hour though, so I know she thinks it was worth it :)

In other fun news, I recently got my first hoola hoop! I'm taking a class at my neighbor's hooping studio, Hooprama, where I've been taking Zumba for almost a year now. I have to tell you...it is SO fun!! And a great workout for the abs. Here is my lovely hoop she made for me!

The part of town we live in, East Nashville, is a superb community with really interesting people. The listserve is well-used by our area and I recently found someone through it that was asking for new sewers. I've sewn a few napkins and the odd straight line here and there, so I emailed her. Look what she sent! A beautiful sewing kit with ALL THE PIECES ALREADY CUT OUT! Wow. Now this is the sewing I can get into. I loathe cutting out fabric. But I really do enjoy sewing. She needed people to test out her kits and give her feedback. I happily agreed and got this great package in the mail last week. I'm hoping to put my skirt together today. I'll let you know the result and eventually where to get these awesome kits!

Finally, yesterday I received beautiful yarn in the mail to make a new project. The sweater is called "Thulstone" and is from Louisa Harding's book Little Cake. I've had this book for a while and am excited to start a project out of it now.

It's a gorgeous striped cardigan with pretty edging. I'm making it out of Knit One, Crochet, Too's "Second Time Cotton." It is a nice weight, slightly textured cotton yarn made from recycled mill-ends. The lighter color I bought is actually more grey than the photo shows, and the edging will be in the muted teal color. I'm very excited to start it this afternoon!

Well, I'm off to trim Mattie's cut up a bit and then take the fur to my hair salon. They are sending their hair clippings from their cuts to help clean up the oil spill and have agreed to send Mattie's bag o' hair clippings along with their next shipment. I'm excited that all that work not only created an adorable summer version of my dog, but that it is also going to be put to good use. Check with your local salon and get them to send in their clippings as well. Go get a trim and help out the clean up! ♥

Calligraphy Kit

2010-06-05T11:49:00.000-07:00

Look at what I got in the mail yesterday!! It's a beautiful calligraphy kit from Emilie Friday. It's so lovely!! I'm going to attempt to hand-address all of our envelopes using a newly learned more formal handwriting. We'll see how it goes, but kudos to Emilie for such a gorgeous package of goodies!!

Happy weekend everyone! We are about to give my Mattie-girl her summer haircut...at the groomer's they call it a Summer Smoothie. Here is a picture of us from last summer when she had her cut. She looks so cute in it!

Glass sculptures and baby birds

2010-05-31T07:30:00.000-07:00

We've had a great weekend with my mom and stepdad in town. Some amazing dinners out at our favorite restaurants and a very productive weekend as far as wedding planning is concerned. Here is a list of the restaurants we visited, if you're ever in Nashville looking for somewhere excellent to dine:

-City House (amazing food using many local ingredients - a twist on classic and Southern food)

-1808 Grille (a new restaurant in the Hutton Hotel where our wedding guests will be staying)

-Marche Artisan Foods - (great brunch and the location of our rehearsal dinner)

-Rumours East (our very favorite wine bar and neighborhood restaurant - try the mussels!)

-Shalimar (best Indian food in Nashville! - now open on Sundays...yay!)

In addition to eating, we also stretched our legs a bit yesterday and visited Cheekwood Botanical Gardens. They have an amazing exhibit going on right now with artwork by glass artist Chihuly. He designed the sculptures for the space and they're brilliantly hidden among the beautiful landscape at the gardens and in the mansion. The exhibit runs through October 31st of this year, so we're excited to suggest this to our wedding guests as something to do during their visit. Visit chihulyinnashville.com for more information. Here are some of the beautiful pieces:

Lastly, we've been watching our little birdie friends this weekend. They are in a tree right outside our kitchen window and are at eye-level in their nest. It's been so fun to see them grow so quickly!! This little birdie left the nest yesterday. He was protecting his brothers and sisters from the crazy lady with the camera, before he ventured out into the world on his own. He's so adorable!!

Here he is peering out from the leaves after he attempted to fly. Good luck little guy!

Happy Memorial Day everyone. We have a relaxing, uneventful day planned. Lunch with a good friend who is visiting in town. And that's about it! We will probably grill something for dinner and just enjoy the day. Enjoy yours, too!! xoxo

Oops...

2010-05-27T15:36:00.001-07:00

Apparently I haven't blogged about my finished crocheted baby blanket yet! I thought I had. Again, I've already posted pictures on flickr and Facebook, but I would love to have them here on my blog as well. Sally already received the blanket and I think she was very excited and happy :) I'm so pleased with the finished product and it really was so much fun to work on. Thanks again to Lucy of Attic24 for creating the original, the inspiration for this one. Her blog is SO lovely...please check it out if you haven't already. Currently, she has me really really wanting a caravan of my own to decorate and take on weekend camping trips. I'm a bit obsessed. I think Pinky is tired of hearing about it. Think I can add a caravan to our wedding registry?? ;)

You've Got Mail project and finished shawl

2010-05-27T15:11:00.001-07:00

I ran across a very interesting project today on Facebook...it's called You've Got Mail. A guy named Carl, in Austin, TX, has started a project promoting the art of correspondence. He's encouraging people to send him real snail mail, hand-written notes, cards or letters or even random objects. He once received a coconut in the mail! He's compiling this into a project and I believe will present it as an art piece at the end. I wanted to send him something that spoke to my interests and as I was looking through my knitting stuff I realized I had one sock that I knit a while ago on vacation. I didn't love the yarn color and I probably will never get around to making it's mate.

SO, I tacked a handmade postcard to the sock, put some stamps on, wrote Carl a little note and put the sock in the mailbox to go out tomorrow. I believe our mail carrier will have one of three reactions: 1. not take it (I obviously hope this doesn't happen- I put almost $1 worth of postage on it! and yes, I'm still using Christmas stamps in May); 2. be annoyed that people try to send random stuff through the mail, put the sock in the mail bag, but only after running over it with his/her mail truck; 3. (this is the one I hope for) that it will be hilarious and make his/her day or at least give them a bit of a laugh. We'll see! I think Carl responds to you with a written note when he receives a piece of mail. I'll let you know. I hope to hear from him! Check out his Facebook page here if you're interested in participating. Let me know if you do!

Now, onto other knitting related items. I finished my striped shawl. I have posted photos online, but haven't blogged about it yet, so here it is! I love the color combo and how the overall product turned out. The crocheted edge was fun to do and I am making a point now to do more stripes in my knitting.

I hope everyone has a lovely Memorial Day weekend. My mom and stepdad are coming to visit. Yay! Sorry family, but it's about freaking time someone came to see me! It's been almost 2 years since ANY of my family came to Nashville. Family fail. Let's see if we can make the next two years a little better, shall we?? xoxo

what I'm working on...at the beach!

2010-05-13T10:53:00.000-07:00

So...tomorrow at the CRACK of early morning (I'm talking 4am!) we're driving down with some friends to Gulf Shores, AL. There's a music festival there this weekend called the Hangout Music Fest. We're SO excited to head down for the festival AND for almost a week a the beach! We are very lucky to have friends whose parents have a house on the beach in Gulf Shores. Score! Thanks Sloane and Jess!!

Anyway, since I will have a lot of car time and a lot of beach time in the next few days, I wanted to have a great knitting project to work on. I searched through my Ravelry queue and found this lovely piece of work to make:
Isn't it so beautiful?! I love her color choices. The pattern is "Sedna's Shawl" (Ravelry link) by Mary Lena Lynx. Trying to be a good girl, I went through my yarn stash to find yarn for the project, instead of heading to the yarn shop liked I wanted to. I found 2 colors of one of my favorite yarns, Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool. I LOVE the brown and cream stripes together! I'm not sure what I'll do for the edging, but I'm thinking maybe a mustard yellow or a teal. We'll see! Here is my progress so far:

I'll try to post some entries from the lovely shores of the Gulf. I hope the oil spill will not hurt the trip, but the good news is that the proceeds from the music festival are going towards helping the clean up of the spill. I will not be emotionally prepared to see any oil covered animals while I'm there. I hope it doesn't come to that...leaving one disaster to possibly head to another is not exactly putting me in 100% vacation mode, but maybe our beer money spent at the festival will help save some wildlife in the gulf. I sure hope so.

In other news, we will be helping Nashville's continuing efforts to conserve water by being out of town! We're still staggering showering and trying not to do lots of dishes or laundry. The second water system is still not up and running in Nashville. Please continue to help out if you can. So many people are still in such need. I helped out at the Disaster Center at East Park Community Center yesterday and many people that came in truly lost everything. We had them fill out questionnaires so we could help them get supplies and some of them were at a loss for what to ask for...they needed everything. Please donate time and/or money if you can. I'm hoping we'll get our Nashville Flood t-shirts in soon. You can order yours here: www.nashvillefloodtees.com

Our beautiful city is under water

2010-05-04T07:08:00.000-07:00

Over the weekend, Nashville got caught under a super storm that dropped 13 inches of rain over the course of a few hours. Much of our downtown, Shelby Park, Opryland, Bellevue, Franklin, and many other areas are completely underwater. So many had to be evacuated from their homes over the past few days and many more had to be evacuated from Opryland area hotels. The Grand Ole Opry has water up to the stage. Many many friends of ours have had 5 ft or more of water in their basements. We are fortunate to have been on a hill on our little street in East Nashville and have not suffered any losses. So many have.

Link to more photos:

http://tinyurl.com/29ujatt

Please visit the following websites if you'd like to help send money for groceries, clothing, necessities if you live outside of Nashville. I went to sign up with a local group this morning to help hand out food and all of the shifts had already been filled. Our city will definitely beat this thing...we are a strong, wonderful community of people. But, we sure could use outside help as well.

http://www.nashvilleredcross.org
http://www.hon.org
http://www.salarmy-nashville.org

Thank you so much for any support you can provide.

purchases from Stitches South

2010-04-29T14:30:00.001-07:00

So I think I mentioned that some friends and I headed to Atlanta last weekend for a little girl's trip. We went to check out Stitches South, a knitting conference and yarn shopping paradise. XRX (a knitting publisher) has been putting these conferences on for years in other locations throughout the country. They finally added a southern conference last year. We had a blast shopping all day for lovely yarns. They offer classes as well, but we stuck to just shopping. There really were some beautiful fibers and interesting gadgets to see. Moriah wound up buying a really cool drop spindle so she could learn to spin yarn. I can't wait to see what she creates.

I thought I would share a few pictures of what I bought and my ideas for what to make with them.
The picture above is a gorgeous baby alpaca and silk yarn from Lisa Souza. I have ordered her lace yarn before and she just dyes some of the most beautiful colors. It's hard to see in this photograph, but there are slight purples in this lovely gray/brown color. I think I'm going to make this shawl out of the yarn.

The pattern is called Laminaria by Elizabeth Freeman from Knitty Spring 2008 (www.knitty.com). This version is by Nasseknits on Ravelry. I love it! The yarn I bought is bigger than the lace weight the pattern calls for, but I will just do fewer repeats of some of the sections of lace.

The next thing I bought is this lovely, super-soft merino. This was from a company that sells lots of qiviut yarn (yarn made from the muskox!). Qiviut is so incredibly soft! They must have learned how to make their merino even softer because this that I bought is amazing. I couldn't afford the qiviut, but maybe next time :) I purchased this pattern they had to make a lace wrap. I think it will be a great sweater to slip on with a nice dress, tank, etc.

The last yarn that I purchased was this silver merino from Louet Gems. It is very Koigu-esque in it's texture. It was on super sale at one of the booths and I bought two bags (5 skeins per bag) to make the cardigan below. The cardigan pattern is Pas de Valse by Marnie McLean from Twist Collective Fall 2009 (www.twistcollective.com). I love the fluttered edging and the softness of the cardigan.

We had a great time at Stitches South. I encourage you to go next year if you're at all within traveling distance of Atlanta. It might be fun to stay for a class or two as well. We wanted time to hit up Crate & Barrell and Ikea, of course :)

Off to crochet more on the baby blanket. Photos soon!!!

xoxo

Craft Room Tour

2010-04-28T13:23:00.001-07:00

Yay! I promised a post with the new Ikea shelf and here it is! I assembled it earlier today. It was really quite a quick and easy process. Honestly, it took as long to put 3 of the plastic drawers together as it did to put the whole shelf together! Well, ok, maybe not quite as long, but close. I LOVE how it looks in the craft room. Now I have a real piece of furniture to put the t.v. on, instead of the tower of red plastic bins you see next to it. Here are a few pictures from around the room:

It's finally starting to come together. I still have to work on the window seat area and organize the bookshelf a bit more. I'm really enjoying organizing my life over the past few days...thanks to Ikea!!

baby blanket progress & trip to ATL

2010-04-27T17:49:00.001-07:00

Here's the updated on the baby blanket. It's actually been really fun to make. I just finished sewing the center squares together. Next I will add a couple of rows of single crochet between the rows of squares. It's really coming together!In a Stitches South report, we had a lovely time in Atlanta last weekend. Stitches was fun and we all found some really beautiful yarn.I got some LIsa Souza alpaca and silk yarn to make a shawl and some great fingering weight Louet Gems merino in a silver color to make this cardigan: http://twistcollective.com/collection/index.php/component/content/article/75-fall-2009-patterns/407-pas-de-valse-by-marnie-maclean

We also hit up Ikea this weekend (of course!) and I've now organized our media cabinet. Yay! They have awesome boxes to organize DVD's, etc. Next up is to put together the shelf I bought there to store my yarn in. We got it upstairs, but I have yet to assemble it. Pictures of that soon! Hooray for organizing!

new sandals

2010-04-18T11:02:00.001-07:00

new sandals made in Africa - ssekodesigns.com
Originally uploaded by elletrain

I just ordered some sandals the other day and they came in the mail yesterday. They are my new faves!! They are from Sseko Designs, a company that employees women in Uganda. The women attend a leadership academy that enables them to learn a variety of skill sets to help build their careers.

The sandals themselves are so great! They have a slightly cushioned heel and are much more comfortable than a lot of flat sandals I've worn. The funnest part is that you can interchange the straps. I started with the black straps and also ordered red ones and blue and white striped. If you were really feeling spry, you could wear one color on one shoe and another on the other :)

If you're looking for some summer sandals to show off your latest pedicure, please consider ordering these. It's such a great program that you get to support by buying shoes! What more could you ask for.

Check out their lovely website to order a pair (or two! This would make a great Mother's Day gift!): Sseko Designs

Loveliness from England

2010-04-16T17:00:00.001-07:00

Well...this is what I received in the mail today! My lovely shipment of nicely priced Debbie Bliss yarn for the baby blanket I'm making. That bottom color looks quite red in the photo, but it's another hot pink. That's the only trouble with ordering online. I think I may go pick up a red to use instead. I'm so excited to make this blanket! I cannot tell you who it's for yet, because they occasionally peruse Facebook and my blogs feeds to FB.

It's such a lovely pattern from Attic24 though and I'm super excited to get going. Here are a few pictures of the tiny crocheted blocks I've done so far.

I can't wait to start putting it together! The pattern for the blocks I'm using is from 200 Crochet Blocks by Jan Eaton. It's called the Target Square. I just did the first two rounds of that pattern to make the itty blocks. I'll be sure to post pictures as it progresses. Enjoy your lovely weekend!! xoxo

a mini-house tour and dogs who hate having their picture taken

2010-04-10T09:15:00.001-07:00

sunflowers
Originally uploaded by elletrain

This week marked an exciting change in our household...I repainted the dining room! I think everyone is probably tired of hearing about it, but being the fan of color that I am and being fairly picky about the colors that surround me, this was a big deal. Our dining room was previously vampire red (don't get me wrong, I love vampires, but I didn't want our house to resemble a crypt). Last week consisted of two coats of priming to kill the vampire...this week I went over the remains with a lovely slate blue. The Gliddon people call it "French Grey." I really am happy with how it turned out, especially against the pale green of our living room.

Not sure what our plans are for the dining room now that it's gotten a fresh coat of paint and the pool table is gone. We have a "breakfast nook" that fits a full dining room table quite nicely, so we don't need it to be an actual dining room. It will probably consist of some bookshelves, a low lounging couch, and a small desk by the end of it all. We'd like to leave the middle of the room open for yoga or exercising (now that the demonic wall color is gone).

Also gracing this blog post are a few pictures from around the kitchen. I love my little deer and cardinals who sit on the kitchen window sill....and my new little mini-garden of succulents. They are super cute.I also had to include some hilarious pictures of Kodi avoiding the camera. She went a little crazy yesterday when I got the camera out and started darting around the house and backyard. It was awesome because she's an old girl and rarely gets a wild hair like this anymore.

We just walked down to the local bakery a block from here to buy the best breakfast sandwiches in existence...a slice of egg casserole with green chiles on a soft, delicious cheese scone. A.Mazing. Sweeth 16th is the best bakery around. Seriously. And it's scary how close is it to our house.

It couldn't be a lovelier day today! I hope you enjoy your weekend as much as we have already!

xoxo

Blanket... still in progress

2010-04-07T19:12:00.001-07:00

Blanket still in progress
Originally uploaded by elletrain

Well, I used to be one of those knitters that said "I'm never making an afghan. I can't imagine working on something for that long!" I'm all about handmade crafts, but it just seemed like a silly project that would not keep my interest.

Here it is a few months shy of a year later since I started the Barn Raising Quilt, knit on SIZE 2 needles in Koigu SOCK yarn. Yeah, guess I didn't heed my initial take on afghan knitting. I decided to do one on tiny yarn and tiny needles!

But...I have to admit. This project has been a joy to work on!!! It has taken quite a while, but I love having something to pick up in between other projects or when I don't want to concentrate. Pinky loves picking out yarn when we travel and is super excited about the day I finish this blanket. It really has been such an amazing thing to work on...collecting the beautiful hand-painted yarn...

I've only got 10 squares left to knit. Then I think I'll do some kind of crocheted border, though the pattern doesn't call for it. We'll see. All of this is to say I have enjoyed slowing down a bit, taking time to make something lovely that hopefully will be a family heirloom. It's worth the wait!

New Music Tuesday

2010-03-30T07:47:00.000-07:00

Well, I usually don't participate in Tunesdays, but today I found this Australian band on the Free People Clothing blog, Angus and Julia Stone.

The music is hauntingly lovely and soft and pretty. Check them out!

This may ruin the surprise later, but...

2010-03-28T11:29:00.000-07:00

I just designed Pinky and I's thank you notes today for our wedding. I'm so excited about how they turned out that I definitely can't wait until we send thank you notes out 8 months from now to show you!!! I saw some cute designs online that were in a similar style, but that were painted. I love using Illustrator so I thought I'd try my hand at making us in cartoon/"little people" style for the notes. It was so fun! Curly hair was hard to do, but Pinky suggested the "lightning bolt" method and it worked great :) Not sure if I'll print them on bright white or an ivory, but I think they turned out pretty fun!

In other news, we're repainting the dining room!! Yay!! I've wanted to do that for over a year. We sold the pool table that was taking up that room on Friday and went and got our NO VOC paint, FreshAire brand, yesterday. I'm painting the room a slate gray/blue color, pretty dark. As I said on my FB & Twitter status earlier, I'm 'slaying' the vampire red color that was in there, so I'm calling myself the Buffy of painting for the next few days. I am of course very proud to carry that title for a little while :) I'm about to start the 7th and final season of Buffy in the next few days and I'm super sad to see this show end for me! I've been loving it. To death.

Paperless Post

2010-03-25T10:55:00.000-07:00

This is a VERY lovely new online invitation site I found this morning. I am very excited about it! It really makes sending online invitations very special, instead of the typical thrown-together look we've all seen on evite.com and other sites. Instead of looking like a web-page invitation, this site allows you to customize an interactive, paper-invitation sized invite. It even comes in an envelop addressed to your invitee! It's really one of the most exciting sites I've seen in a while. Enjoy!!!

You can sign up for a free membership by clicking the link below:
http://www.paperlesspost.com/invite/lauraholder1

Yay for engagement photos!

2010-03-22T08:35:00.000-07:00

We got engagement photos taken about a week or so ago in downtown Franklin, TN with the lovely duo from souderphotography.com. They are so great to work with and are truly gifted at capturing lovely photos. We love Josh and Meg!

Here is a link to the pics they posted on their blog. We'll get a CD of more images this week sometime. Yay!! http://souderphotography.blogspot.com/

fontself.com

2010-03-21T11:31:00.001-07:00

Typekit.com

2010-03-16T09:45:00.000-07:00

Attention any and all web & graphic designers. This is SO fun and it's about time, actually. Check out typekit.com. You can now have your website display in a variety of fonts, instead of having to use the boring, short list of HTML fonts. Typekit is legal, standards compliant, and awesome! I'm using it on my blog right now. There are quite a few fonts available for use with a free trial account. But, the really pretty ones, of course, are available for just $24.99/year. Not bad actually, considering how much individual fonts are. With the free trial you can use up to 2 fonts per site. You simply put some javascript in your 'head' tag and then tie each font to various id tags in your CSS. It's so easy!!! Please try it out. You'll love it! <3

Our sweet friend...

2010-03-15T08:10:00.000-07:00

We will miss you so, dear friend. I can hear your lovely laughter from beyond and know you are smiling down on us. <3

Pinky and the perfect purse

2010-03-07T11:37:00.001-08:00

Wedding stamps
Originally uploaded by elletrain

SO, this last week I really scored. I got our lovely custom made stamps for our wedding in the mail. Aren't they so lovely and adorable!!?? I ordered them from Sugarletter on etsy.com. Here is the link to this stamp set: http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=42139936

It's great because we have a Save the Date stamp, one for the invitations with just my name, and then one with both our names for after we're married (for thank you notes, etc.). It's the perfect set! Plus, it's nice that last names aren't on the final stamp due to our unique circumstance with Pinky's names :) I guess we can put Pinky Gonzales and Laura Jansen on stuff. Ha! I may make him hyphenate his last name!! Gonzales-Jansen. Sweet.

In other good news, I found the perfect purse! As you know that can be a life long adventure, almost as difficult as finding the right man :) Almost. I'm not THAT shallow. Anyhoo, here is a pic of it and I'm loving this guy!! 2010 is promising to be a great one folks. Can I get an amen?? xoxo

posting as the soon-to-be-Mrs. Pinky :)

2010-03-01T11:39:00.000-08:00

SO, I haven't posted in a few weeks and it's already March! Many people that read this will already know the info I'm about to tell you, but I thought I should post it separately here anyway.

I'm engaged!!! My lovely Pinky asked me to marry him on my birthday, February 9th, while we were on vacation in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. It was so exciting and I was SO surprised! We got to celebrate after our special birthday drinks on the beach with my family at dinner. They were so surprised and happy, too!!

Our wedding will be October 22, 2010 here in Nashville, at Riverwood Mansion. It's a lovely historic home with a garden, where we'll have the small ceremony, and with a lovely pavilion in the back where we'll have our larger reception. I'm so excited!!!!! The planning has been fun and I've gotten a lot done, because that's how I roll. I hate waiting until the last minute! I have the MOH's dress, I'm buying my dress this week, I have the location squared away, the photographers lined-up, decoration ideas, I think I know where we'll get our cupcakes, and I'm registering a bit online today. Whew!

It's an exciting time and I was lucky enough to get to visit Arkansas this last weekend to share in the excitement with the rest of my family. We had lovely family time, as usual. I was so glad to see my brothers and my awesome sister-in-law! We got to have a nice brunch with my dad and stepmom and meet their adorable newest family member, Rudy, the schnoodle! I love saying that!

Here are a few pics from the engagement and from the family weekend. I'll keep posting more wedding planning stuff as I get it done! xoxox

The snow is melting and the green cardi is finished!

2010-02-02T14:54:00.001-08:00

Originally uploaded by elletrain

So, we had a lovely weekend of being snowed in and besides making fun pallets on the floor (everyone now loves that word pallet!), it also gave me a chance to get some knitting DONE. I thought this cardigan pattern would be nice and quick, but due to the tediousness and s.l.o.w. speed of the double moss stitch it took a bit longer than I expected.

It's now finished though and I made my deadline of finishing before we left for vacation in Mexico. Yay! I sewed the buttons on today and am quite happy with the finished result. I have a feeling it will be the go-to cardigan to wear around the house as well as a quick jacket to throw on when it's not too terribly cold out.

The pattern is from the book Autumn by Kim Hargreaves and is called "Beth." I used 13 skeins of Rowan Little Big Wool and made a size large in the pattern so it would turn out to be a size small in real life. The yarn is smaller than the Big Wool the pattern calls for. I was super lucky and it fits just right! I did do a tiny bit of math to make sure it wouldn't turn out super small or super large, but mostly I just guessed, because that's how I roll.......

So, today the snow is melting and I was able to get out and buy more buttons and run other errands. It's really fun being stuck at home for a few days, but it's also fun to have your freedom back!

I'm really excited about our craft night tonight. We're doing cross stitch and I found an adorable deer head that I made a pattern out of. PLUS, it's the premiere of the final season of LOST and we're having a watch party right after craft night :) Maybe we'll cross stitch the hatch numbers...bahahahaha. New post soon at Craft Nashy!!

xoxoxo

Snow Dogs

2010-01-31T13:52:00.000-08:00

Pretending like we had to

2010-01-31T07:37:00.001-08:00

Pretending like we had to
Originally uploaded by elletrain

The other night when I wasn't sure if we were going to get snow or ice or whether either might make the power go out, I was thankful for the option we'd have of sleeping by our gas fireplace. So, we got inches and inches of snow (ok, not a foot or anything, but more than a dusting of snow means A LOT here in the South!). Fortunately, the power has not gone out, but I suggested we make a pallet and sleep in front of the fireplace last night anyways.

SO fun! We got the air mattress placed in front of the warminess of the fire and fell asleep watching SNL. So, not totally the same scenario as if the electricity were out, but still, a nice break from the norm. The dogs sure loved us sleeping "on the floor" and Mattie fell asleep on the air mattress with us for a while. It was so cozy and fun to be snowed in all weekend! I'm sure we'll be going stir-crazy by the end of the day, but for now, we're really enjoying it :)

Those are Pinky's toes up there. He doesn't like his picture taken, so he wasn't cooperating, but it's still cute...and see Mattie over in the corner? She's loving this. <3

* * * snow!!! * * *

2010-01-29T08:55:00.001-08:00

Snow!!!
Originally uploaded by elletrain

So, it's actually snowing here in Nashville, a real snow that's coming down beautifully. The roads are still clear, but the ground is covering quite quickly. We are so excited around here when it snows because it seems we never quite get to enjoy that side of winter. It's quite hilarious to see everyone get so enthralled over something that happens daily in other parts of the country this time of year.

Our plans for the weekend: get Pinky home before the roads get bad (check! He just walked in!), fire in the fireplace (check! we are lucky to have an easy gas fireplace), indulge in a few adult beverages (we've been taking January off, so we're ready!), watch some movies (Pinky's never seen The Godfather and we just got it from Netflix!), and probably bake something (I'm craving peanut butter cookies!!!).

I will also be playing with my new iPhone app, Tiltshift Generator (simulates a DSLR camera). These photos were all adjusted with the app and I think they turned out quite lovely!

Bundle up out there and enjoy the snow if you have some where you are. I LOVE ♥ LOVE ♥ LOVE it!! ♥

A pocket, a locket...

2010-01-22T12:08:00.001-08:00

Finally, pics for my locket
Originally uploaded by elletrain

Well I managed to check something great off of my to do list today...put pictures of me and the Pinkster in my locket! Let's see, how long have I had this locket and how long has it taken me to put our mugs in it...well, we won't get into that and make me feel like a slacker.

Here are some ideas for how to get your photo to fit in a locket. It's easy if you know Photoshop (oooooh, Photoshop?!).

-Measure your locket face as closely as you can and remember that measurement.

-Open your photo in Photoshop or another application that allows you to crop with a circle tool.

-Use the circle marquee tool on your favorite photo of you and your favorite of your honey (be sure to hold down the shift key while you draw the circle so it will stay an even circle).

-When you have the circle the size you want, crop the photo. Then, go to image size and size it to the approximate measurement of your locket face.

Here's the kicker for making sure you don't have to print a million times...
-Copy the cropped tiny circle onto a new document the size of your photo paper.

-Make a bunch of "copies" of your photo and scale them up and down slightly from the original. I wound up having to use a lot smaller photo than what I had measured. Making lots of options before you print your photo on the printer makes it much less annoying when you're trying to get one to fit! You'll have lots of sizes to choose from.

-Cut out the photo(s) that looks like it will fit best, try it in the locket, trim it a little, and voila!

I hope you'll finally get some lovelies in your locket now, too! Or go buy a locket if you don't have one. They are very special ad pretty. Gee, I kinda have a lot of freckles, huh??

My latest sweater, finished!

2010-01-16T14:47:00.001-08:00

My latest sweater finished!
Originally uploaded by elletrain

I just finished putting together my latest knitting project. It's a bulky cardigan from Vogue Knitting Winter 2010 issue. It was a pretty quick knit and has a lovely cable and garter stitch checkered pattern on it.

I did the sleeves in stockinette so they wouldn't be quite so chunky and I'm happy with that change. The ribbing at the bottom of the sleeves is still kinda bulky, but looks ok with a slim fitting top underneath. I also only did one layer of the ribbed edge at the neck, as I thought the top layer would flop over. I really liked the Elsebeth Lavold Twice Tweed yarn I used. It's a recycled yarn made up of wool and cotton.

Now, on to my next projects...knee socks and a bulky, seed stitch coat/cardigan! ♥