Stitch Mountain is here!

So last year around this time, I was hard at work on four designs for a book. That book was Stitch Mountain. Stitch Mountain: 30 Warm Knits for Conquering the Cold actually came out in November, but with the Winter Games going on right now, we thought it would be the perfect time to talk up the book too. Especially since so many of the athletes are competing right now in Sochi!

For those of you who don't know what the book is about, we asked 30 winter sports athletes to tell us what their favorite or dream knitted item would be. We then took those ideas and asked a collection hand-picked knitwear designers to create items based on these athletes descriptions. The result is a book that is both designer vision and athletic inspiration--the perfect hybrid of knitting and winter sports!

I have two designs inspired by athletes competing in Sochi. Julia Mancuso, a downhill skier who has already won a bronze medal at this year's Winter Games in Ladies Slalom and Lindsey Jacobellis who is a Snowboarder who will actually compete later today in ladies Snowboard Cross. Both have medaled at previous olympic games as well. What an honor to design for such accomplished women!

I am an ex-snowboarder myself. Not at the competitive level of course, but it was a sport I really enjoyed for about 10 years until I injured my knee and chose to quit to avoid surgery. I miss it, but I have tons of great memories on the mountain. That's why being a part of this book was so important to me, and such a huge honor!

Ok, so onto the designs. First we've got the Personalized Headband inspired by Julia Mancuso and her home mountain, Squaw Valley. Squaw also happens to be in my neck of the woods (Reno/Tahoe area) so I was really excited to knit this piece. It's inspired by the original Squaw Ski Team headbands and I wanted to make this one reversible and easily customizable. The pattern includes an entire alphabet chart so that you can create a headband that is personal to you. Perhaps in the colors of your alma mater or your favorite sports team? On the inside, a simple stripe pattern is knit to create a completely reversible piece. Julia's version is knit in Rowan Pure Wool 4ply which was a dream to knit with. Such amazing stitch definition and it blocks out so well. I will definitely be knitting with it again.

Next up we have the Sparkle Slouchy Hat inspired by Lindsey Jacobellis. Being a snowboarder, Lindsey's style is super hip so I wanted to create a hat that I know she would love to wear. I chose a fun sparkly yarn by Red Heart called Boutique Midnight in some tonal self-striping colors. The hat features a wide brim that can be worn folded or unfolded depending on the look you are going for. The body is a simple mock rib that is easy, even for a beginner. The hat is super comfy to wear. I actually have 2 different versions of this hat at home and I wear them more often than any of the other hats in my collection.

So these are two of my designs from Stitch Mountain. I'll be back soon to talk about the other two, but I hope you are all enjoying watching the Winter Games in Sochi! Be sure to cheer on these two gals when you see them on the screen and hopefully you'll be knitting along on something cozy while you do! Remember, both of these designs are featured in Stitch Mountain, so if you don't have your copy yet, be sure to snag one from Jimmy Beans Wool (all copies are signed by the author!)

Happy knitting everyone!

Kristen

Holiday Knitting & Crafting...Have YOU Started Yet?

**Dear Close Family & Friends. If you are here on my blog, thank you. I am honored that you know me so well AND still want to read what I have to say here. Maybe I am not as crazy as I think I am most of the time. This post includes some spoilers about your holiday gifts. Please don't read this unless you want to have to pretend to be surprised on Christmas morning. If you do choose to read this, you'd better be good actors!**

I've been thinking a lot about holiday knitting lately and I'm beginning to worry that I'm not going to finish all of what I want to do in time. It's a little stressful, and it shouldn't be. I think it's because I feel like this year has flown by seemingly faster than years past and I can remember last Christmas like it was yesterday. From what I'm told, it gets worse as you get older. Oh good.

This week I released a new pattern at Jimmy Beans. It's a lovely wintery star holiday garland called the Luxury Holiday Garland. It uses our Luxury Fiber Sampler that my team has been working on creating for the past month. The sampler includes 12 mini-balls of our most high-end luxury yarns.

I used those mini balls to create the stars shown in the garland, and then a cotton-linen blend yarn for the garland strand which is also included in the kit. We thought it would be a neat way to give people a chance to try out some high-end yarns they might not otherwise think to buy for themselves and actually make something with those mini skeins.

I am pretty proud of this design. I think it's stunning and I can't wait to decorate my home with more of these little stars this holiday season. I am thinking about making star ornaments for everyone in our family with the year on it. Maybe I'll do a new color/yarn every year and in 12 years, they will have a garland! Maybe...

To that end, I've decided I really want to go all-handmade this year. We have a really big family that just seems to get bigger every year. It is becoming increasingly tough to hand-choose individual gifts for everyone, especially when I'm never quite sure what they really want or will use. Usually it's a shot in the dark. 

This year, I've decided to make handmade soap and lip balm for everyone. I've bought all of my supplies and plan to start the process this weekend. I have a couple recipes I am excited to try this Lip Chap Recipe from Wellness Mama and I even got some cute little tins to make them in. I am thinking about having special little labels made too.

The soap process I am going to attempt is a cold process that is supposedly the way to go for really good soap. I am so excited. If all goes well, I plan to make all of my own soap and lip balm from now on.

I am also toying with the idea of Body Lotion Bars, also from the Wellness Mama Blog (my new favorite, thanks Lizard!) I've already made them and they are awesome! I may make more and put a little less beeswax in to make them slightly softer, but so far I am loving them and they are only three ingredients! Uber natural!

Along with all of these little items, Nick and I (yes, the hubby knits too, sometimes) are going to tag team some hand knit items for everyone as well. It's been a while since everyone has had new hats and my MIL has been dropping hints that she would like some fingerless mitts, so I figure a few smaller hand knit items are doable. It's also a great opportunity to use of some of my enormous yarn stash. Yet, the shear number of people to make things for is freaking me out a little as I mentioned above. The next two months are going to look like Santa's Workshop around here. Now to go put some needles and yarn in Nick's hands and get him knitting! Like this picture from our wedding day. He was finishing up his last groomsman's beanie. :)

Happy holiday crafting everyone, if that's what you are doing! If you are going the shopping route this year, godspeed. I will wish and hope for your survival.

Kristen

PS. If you are on Ravelry and would like to favorite or queue up the Holiday Garland, please do!

My Mountain

Later this year, I have four designs that will be in a book called Stitch Mountain. Stitch Mountain is Jimmy Beans Wool's campaign to support the US Freeski and US Snowboarding teams. We also sponsor athlete Lindsey Jacobellis. I had the pleasure of designing a hat for her earlier this year (that she apparently wears a ton and loves, I might add.) :) It will be one of the 4 designs coming out in this book. I also got to design a blanket for Tommy Moe (I know, right!?!?!), a cowl for Ingird Backstrom, and a headband for Julia Mancuso. I am so excited to be a part of this book, and really proud of these designs. Recently, one of the companies we worked with on this book--Westminster Fibers, which is the US distributor for Rowan, Regia, and Schachenmayr yarns decided to start their own campaign called My Mountain. My Mountain is a campaign geared towards active people who want to make their own knit and crocheted items to wear while snowboarding, skiing, hiking, biking, surfing, you name it! A similar campaign spread like wildfire across Europe and now Schachenmayr is bringing it to the US.

In order to generate some excitement, they are hosting a hat design contest which I decided I just had to enter. Here are my two entries:

First we have the Sugarbowl Hat knit in SMC Lova yarn. It doubles as a neck gaiter which is super handy on the slopes as well!

My second design is called the Alpine Meadows Hat knit in two colors of SMC Boston yarn. I love Boston! This was my 5th time working with it (as I recently used it for a collection of patterns for the upcoming Stitch Mountain website debut) and it's fantastic. Durable, light, and easy to care for, this yarn is fantastic for garments that need to be hard wearing and stylish. Plus, who can resist those neon colors!?!?

Both of these hats are named for my two favorite ski resorts in the Reno/Tahoe area.

**Thanks to my awesome model Amanda for making these hats look good. :)

So those are my entries into the contest! So see more of the entries, be sure to check out the My Mountain Facebook Page and Pinterest Board!

Wish me luck!

Kristen

Truckee Shawlette and a Holiday Party

Good morning everyone! It's been such a fun week! We had our yearly Holiday Party for Jimmy Beans Wool last night and as usual is was loads of fun! Doug and Laura took us to the Charlie Palmer Steakhouse at the Grand Sierra resort which was delicious. They have the best French Onion Soup I've ever had. Hands down. Two things that were particularly amazing about last night:

1) Our party was in the same place two years ago and we were in this little back room and there were just under 50 of us. That's all 25 employees and a guest. This year, they opened that room up and doubled the size and there were about 100 of us. Crazy! It was so cool to see how much we've grown!

2) Last time our party was at Charlie Palmer, Allie, who is one of the resident spinners at JBW and has worked there for a number of years in some capacity or another, gifted me two skeins of her handspun yarn in our yearly gift exchange. It's a gorgeous camel and silk blend and simply stunning. I was so thrilled and touched to be given the gift of hand spun. Such a special gift. This year, I drew Allie and I sewed her a new gardening apron and gave her some seeds saved from my garden as well as some gardeners soap and hand salve from Lusa Organics. She got all teary eyed and gave me the biggest hug. It felt so good to be able to reciprocate her lovely gift.

Overall it was a good evening spent with good people. And today, I am so excited to be able to tell you all about my latest pattern release--The Truckee Shawlette!

The Truckee Shawlette is now available from Jimmy Beans Wool as a Free Download. It uses the new Malabrigo Lace Superwash and I am really happy with how it turned out! I think you'll like the simplicity of the construction and the way the colors blend. Such gorgeous yarn! You can find the Truckee Shawette on the Jimmy Beans Wool Free Patterns page!

Happy knitting!

Kristen

So much to say, let's start with Aloha.

Wow. It's been a whirlwind few months. Since my last post, I took my hubby on a surprise vacation to Hawaii. It was awesome. I also went to Hartford, CT for STITCHES East and then to Chicago for VK Live. I've also published two new designs with Jimmy Beans Wool and been published in a magazine. I'm thinking to really catch you up on all of this, it's going to take a few posts. Let's start with Hawaii.

Nick and I never took a honeymoon when we got married two years ago. We went away for a long weekend just after the wedding and planned to take a real trip when we had more time and money the following year. Then I went and broke my wrist last year and needed surgery. So that pretty much fouled up our plans for a trip because I had to use all of my accrued vacation time for my recovery since I couldn't really work for two weeks (my job is 90% computer work). We talked about doing a trip this summer, but we had so many weddings to go to and it just didn't work out. Also, Nick had just finished school and was trying to get hired by the school district as a teacher. We had no idea if he'd get hired in time for school to start and we were waiting and waiting for them to call him in to interview.

So, August rolled around and I was getting restless. We had no vacation on the horizon and every time I tried talking to Nick about it, he was non-commital about it. It's not that he didn't want to go, he just didn't want to plan anything until we knew more about his job situation, and really I think he just didn't have an opinion about where to go or what to do. Planning kind of stresses him out. And then the stress gives him migraines. So he tries not to do things that stress him out. Like plan, or think about babies, or 401Ks. So you know...it's a fun learning curve for me. :) I'm probably being a bit dramatic but it's at least half-true. :)

Anyway, so I just decided to do it. I planned the whole shebang. A bunch of things sort of fell into place around this time too. Alaskan Airlines was having a fare sale and flights to Hawaii were dirt cheap. My parents were able to trade a week at their timeshare in Mexico for a week in Hawaii for us (their wedding gift to us that we finally used!) I had a ton of vacation time to use so that was all good. Plus, our two-year wedding anniversary was coming up at the end of September. Done. Perfect. We were all set.

And then I decided it would be even more fun for me if I didn't tell him. Yup, I managed to plan an entire 10 day vacation without my husband finding out. I even managed to get his boss involved. She gave him the time off and then played along by putting him on the schedule so that he'd actually think he was working. Everything fell perfectly into place. Everyone knew except for him. Muahhhhhahhah! (Evil laugh, rubs hands together.)

So, the night before we were supposed to leave, I decided to finally tell him. I handed him a box with a new sun hat, a Hawaii guide book, and a packing list and told him to open it. He barely knew what to think when he opened the package. He was so stunned. He just kept looking at me like, "How the hell did you pull this off? Wait, we are really leaving tomorrow?" It was a priceless moment. I wish I'd thought to take a picture.

So that was it. We left the next morning and spent 10 fabulous days on the Big Island of Hawaii. We swam in the ocean, snorkeled (Nick saw sea turtles for the first time!), swam with manta rays, saw an active volcano and hiked across a volcano crater, hiked into (and out of) one of the most beautiful valleys ever (Waipi'o Valley- probably the toughest two miles of my life!), ate amazing food, especially sushi, swam in a volcanic heated warm pond, saw some amazing waterfalls, hiked to the top of the 8th tallest mountain in the US and the tallest mountain formation in the world from sea floor to peak, and in general had an amazing time! Here are some of my favorite moments from our trip:

So, that's pretty much it for our trip. Well, I won't bore you with every photo in the album, but it was a much needed vacation and a trip of memories for sure. It also inspired my October design for Jimmy Beans Wool called the Ohana Shawl. You can read more about it on the JBW website. 

Hope you all are having a great weekend!

Aloha,

Kristen