Showing posts with label stitch mountain. Show all posts
Showing posts with label stitch mountain. Show all posts

Kitten Mittens from Stitch Mountain - Designed by Jeanne Giles!

by : KristenJBW
When I was asked to participate in the Stitch Mountain book I was so excited!! I have lived here in Reno my whole life and skied in the beautiful Sierra Nevada mountains for most of those years. Of course I love to knit and design with an emphasis on fun and unusual projects, so Brita Sigourney's vision for the Kitten Mittens was right up my alley.

Brita is a huge advocate for pet adoption and fosters pets whenever she can. Here's her comment when approached about the project, “I recently adopted a kitty, Cory. She is such a joy, so obviously when I saw these mittens I had to have them!”

I am a huge animal lover myself with many rescue pets throughout my life. My pets have made my world so happy over the years and I currently am graced with a 12 year old Queensland Healer mix, Sierra, and an inherited 15 year old Rag Doll cat named Tasha.

As I read about Brita and her commitment to her sport, as well as her passion for rescue animals, I knew I could come up with a project that would compliment her idea for the fun and whimsy she had envisioned, as well as the warmth that she needs when on the slopes.

I just can't imagine the dedication it takes for this amazing athlete to ski the halfpipe and I loved learning about her ability in the water as well as on the slopes, but in the end it was the snow that won her heart.

She has won the World Junior Championships in New Zealand, as well as earning a spot on the U.S. Ski Team. Growing up in Carmel California she was only a mere 5 hours away from Alpine Meadows in Lake Tahoe where she spent every winter weekend honing her skills on the snow.

Ever since 2010 she has focused on the halfpipe, winning the X Games silver and bronze medals. She is the first woman to land a 1080 degree spin in competition!! Honestly I just can't even imagine doing something like that, but really love to watch someone else do it!

She is currently working on her college degree and trains in ever spare moment she has. Brita is a true inspiration to women of all ages.
 
I loved working on this project for the book and am truly proud to be part of such a great project! I have worked at Jimmy Beans Wool for over 7 years now and can't imagine being anywhere else! Knitting is my passion and I love creating fun things.

I wish you all happiness in whatever you pursue and hope that you enjoy my mittens, as well as all the other great projects in Stitch Mountain.


Happy Knitting and skiing!!

Jeanne

Kitten Mittens designed by Jeanne Giles from Stitch Mountain: 30 Warm Knits for Conquering the Cold by Laura Zander, published by Sixth&Spring Books, sixthandspringbooks.com. Photography by Brad Swonetz and pattern instructions copyright © 2013 by Sixth&Spring Books/Soho Publishing, LLC. All rights reserved. Used by permission.


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Team USA Hat Drive Wrap-up!

by : KristenJBW
Hi everyone!

So, I am sure many of you have been dying to know the final outcome of the Team USA Hat drive! We received our last few hats shortly after the new year and set about to sorting and counting them. All in all we received about 285 hats from generous knitter's across the country.

As we received hats, we posted photos throughout the process on Facebook. In case you missed some of those, check out the album we created there. It shows of many of the beautiful hats we received!

Here are some of those awesome hats, up close! We received so many, we began collecting them in large boxes until we could sort them all and prepare them for shipping. So many extremely creative hats were sent! We loved seen them all!



Some of them arrived with cute tags attached and special messages to the athletes! We loved reading each of these as they arrived!



Some of us couldn't resist trying on some of the hats...you know, just so we knew they would fit. :)




Some hats were knit and crocheted by our local retail customers and were hand delivered. When we could, we asked them to proudly pose with their hats. :)



Erika, who handles all of our returns as well as opens the mail each day, often was the first to see the hats as they came in. She loved getting to be the first one to see and feel them!


Once we had received all of the hats and tallied them up, we decided to take a few group photos in the yarn hot tub just before we shipped them off to the USSA! We all had a great time posing with the fantastic hats you all made!



Once we receive some photos back from the USSA of all of these lovely hats on some athletes, we'll be sure to post more photos. In the meantime, thank you so much for all of your hard work. We know the athletes are going to love receiving the hats you made. We also hope you've enjoyed seeing your hats on the blog!

Happy knitting and crocheting!
Kristen 
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Go Team USA!!!

by : KristenJBW
Some of you may have already heard about our hat drive in our latest newsletter, but I thought I would cover all of the basis and post about it on the blog too. Plus we have some really fun photos to share. :)




The 2014 Winter Olympics will be here before we know it - and we are getting a head start on keeping our athletes warm (pun intended!). What are we up to this time, you ask? Well, we've set a goal of gifting every single Sochi-bound athlete (and their families) with a cozy and patriotic handmade hat, compliments of the yarn industry (after all, what goes better with winter sports than hand-knitted hats?). As you can see from the photo, we've finished one... just a few hundred to go! Want to join us in our hat drive? Here's the skinny:


1. Each hat must be made in red, white, and blue. (The hats are going to the U.S. Teams)

2. Crafters choice: hats can be knit or crocheted. Any size needle, any type of fiber. 

3. JBW will be the collection point for the hats. (I.e., mail your finished hat to us at 1312 Capital Blvd #103, Reno, NV 89502.)

 4. All hats must be delivered to JBW by January 1st.

 5. JBW will deliver all of the collected hats to the various U.S. Teams!

 6. Our goal is to deliver thousands of hats, so as to keep all of the athletes - and their families - warm!
Americana colorway
For those of you that don't already have red, white, and blue yarn at home
- and/or don't know what pattern to use - we've created this Team USA Hat Kit which includes three balls of Schachenmayr Original Boston yarn in the quintessential patriotic trio of Red, White and Blue. There is the bright option, shown here which ships on 10/28, and also an "Americana" option that we added this week because the bright option was so popular and we wanted another color option to offer you. The kit also comes with an exclusive hat design straight from our latest book, Stitch Mountain, which is debuting this December (we modified the pattern slightly by doing it in stripes instead of a solid color... as modeled here by future Olympic athlete, Huck. Aren't these photos ridiculously cute, and silly too?!?!?)







For crocheters, we are recommending you check out any of the awesome FREE hat patterns from Schachenmayr's My Mountain Campaign that use the original Boston yarn in the Team USA Hat Kit. (By no means do you have to use the knit pattern we provide, it's just a little extra freebie we've included.) There are several really great unisex designs from My Mountain, like the Feldberg, Sunshine Peak, or Mount Tyree hats, that are simple and easy to crochet. 

Remember, you don't have to use our pattern, yarn, or our kit --we will happily forward on anyone's awesome handmade hat (as long as it's red, white, and blue)! Go Team USA!

Happy knitting and crocheting!
Kristen

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The My Mountain Campaign and Design Contest!

by : KristenJBW
Have you heard of the My Mountain Campaign from Schachenmayr yarns yet?!?! It's so much fun, we couldn't wait to tell you about it!

Richard and John from Westminster Fibers created the
My Mountain campaign. We couldn't help but snag this
photo of them modeling the reflective Lumio yarn
when they visited us last month!
Not to be confused with our own Stitch Mountain campaign, which we created to support the US Freeskiing and US Snowboarding teams, My Mountain has a slightly different purpose. Geared towards active knitters and crocheters, the My Mountain campaign seeks to get you excited about creating gear for your active pursuits whatever they may be. Schachenmayr is hoping to do just that with My Mountain by combining awesome yarn with fabulous design to inspire active people everywhere!

Side Note: In case you were wondering, Stitch Mountain is also the name of our upcoming book of gorgeous designs inspired by our favorite winter sports athletes. We can't wait until we can share all of these designs with you in November, but we can tell you that they are awesome! More on this later, but if you are interested, you can pre-order Stitch Mountain and we'll ship it as soon as it arrives to our shop.

To get people excited about the My Mountain Campaign, Schachenmayr is hosting a hat design contest and asked each entrant to share what their mountain is whether it be a metaphor for something personal, or an actual mountain. I (Kristen) was one of the lucky 18 designers to be selected as a semi-finalist! I am so honored to have had my design selected along with designers like Susan B. Anderson, Alasdair Post-Quinn, Kersti Landra (from Koigu yarns), and Rohn Strong. All 18 of these designs will be featured soon on the My Mountain website as free patterns so stay tuned for that!

My design for the contest is called the Sugar Bowl hat (modeled here by the lovely Amanda who is one of our purchasers here at JBW.) It's actually a hat that opens up at the top and can be worn as a cowl too! How's that for multi-tasking?!?! I love items that serve dual purpose so I tried to think back on my days as a snowboarder at what kind of an item I would have liked to have with me on the slopes. This definitely fits all of those needs for me. Even though I would always wear a helmet when I rode, a neck gaiter was a must for me but when it was time to hit the lodge, a hat was definitely a must which is why the Sugar Bowl Hat/Cowl is the perfect blend of accessories for me!

I chose the SMC Lova yarn because of it's fun blend of neutrals with pops of bright color, easy care blend of wool and acrylic, and light and lofty chainette construction. It was a really nice yarn to work with, and I'm already planning a second version of the Sugar Bowl Hat/Cowl for myself to wear this coming winter!

Sugar Bowl is inspired by one of our local ski resorts here in the Reno/Tahoe area and it's one of my all-time favorite mountains! The resort itself has tons of great back-country and a laid-back attitude is what made it one of my favorite places to ride each winter. I don't ride much anymore due to a knee injury, but I still love getting out my snowshoes each winter and enjoying the mountains in a different way.

Now that the semi-finalists have been announced, the winning designs are up to you! Between now and September 23rd, you can vote for your favorites on Facebook, once per day. The system is actually set up so that you can vote for multiple designs too, which is nice because you don't have to choose just one. Although I would love if you voted for my Sugar Bowl Hat/Cowl design, I encourage you to go look at all of them and vote for your favorites. There are some truly awesome ones to choose from. :)

If you are on a computer, use this link: https://www.facebook.com/mymountain.us/app_45168495484838

However, if you are on a mobile device (phone, Kindle, iPad, etc), you'll need to use this link to vote: http://woobox.com/jt3ju3

In order to vote, you will need to "like" the My Mountain page, but that just takes a quick second! You can also vote once per day so be sure to vote often for your favorites!

Also, if you'd like to check out the yarns featured in the My Mountain campaign, you can see them all on our website. Here are the links to each of them.

Boston: http://www.jimmybeanswool.com/knitting/yarn/SMC/Boston.asp
Boston Style: http://www.jimmybeanswool.com/knitting/yarn/SMC/BostonStyle.asp
Lova: http://www.jimmybeanswool.com/knitting/yarn/SMC/Lova.asp
Lumio: http://www.jimmybeanswool.com/knitting/yarn/SMC/Lumio.asp
Bravo Big: http://www.jimmybeanswool.com/knitting/yarn/SMC/BravoBig.asp
Bravo Big Color: http://www.jimmybeanswool.com/knitting/yarn/SMC/BravoBigColor.asp

I will say, these yarns are awesome! We really love the Lumio with it's reflective thread which is great for nighttime activities. Also, the Boston comes in fabulous colors, including lots of neon brights! I think the best part of all of these yarns is that they are super easy to care for, all of them are machine washable, which makes them really great for the active people in your life or for gift giving season.

We hope you'll get as excited about My Mountain as we have!

Happy knitting and crocheting!
Kristen

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Stitch Red is a hit at TNNA!!!

by : Freaky Knitter
 I am one lucky little bean! I got to tag along to TNNA and help spread the word about Stitch Red!! I can't tell you how exciting it was to be at the event and then to have such a wonderful, enthusiastic response to the project. Well, just knock me over with a feather!

Graphic Tunic
 by Daniela Johannsenova
I was, unfortunately, star-struck and didn't think to start taking pictures until late into Saturday. Sorry! I met Iris Schreier (Artyarns) and her husband Elliot! Super, super neat people! I met Sharon the owner of Lantern Moon and had a real blast! I also hung out with Nadine, the owner of Be Sweet, and all of these ladies are AMAZING!!


I did a get a shot of Iris's sweater designed by Daniela Johannsenova from the Knit Red book in the fashion show and I have to say that I can't wait to work it up with those fantastic yarns of hers!


What a doll Ysolda is!!



I met Ysolda who is also in the book and she is just as sweet as she is cute! I am so privileged to say that she signed a copy of her about-to-be-released Whimsical Little Knits 3 book for Sandy and me...YIPPPEEE!!! Thanks Ysolda!!! You will want this fantastic little treasure for your library for sure!







Don't kill me, Diane. It was
Jimmy who took the pic :)

I ran into Diane Soucy and Renie of Knitting Pure and Simple. They were having a blast!! I touched base with them at the Bryson booth and we had a good little chat! 


If you haven't knit one of Diane's patterns you are missing a great experience!!!





Norah is super sweet!
I met Norah Gaughn and she is super sweet and humble about her talent. She is also featured in the Knit Red book. Norah is Berroco's head designer and they had the samples from her newest publication, Vol 10.

It was so neat to see them worked up and I will have a hard time not casting on soon...sigh. I have some finishing to do first.





I have to say it was a really successful trip and I can't wait to see what all of the wonderful folks come up with as their products to add to the Stitch Red campaign.  Here is a shot of Leanne just being, well, Leanne! She was so much fun to travel with and room with. That's why we call her LeAwesome around here!


As always, happy knitting, crocheting and sewing!

Jeanne

PS Jimmy Beans Wool is the official yarn, knitting and crochet supplier to U.S. Snowboarding and U.S. Freeskiing!  To encourage people to be creative on and off the slopes, we have partnered with Red Heart® yarns to create “Stitch Mountain." Check out the free Stitch Mountain patterns at www.jimmybeanswool.com/StitchMountain and like our Facebook Fan Page!


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Jeanne's fav's for 2011

by : Freaky Knitter

Here we are well into 2012...okay maybe only 16 days in, but there are already so many new yarns and projects to consider that my head is spinning for 2012. However, I think you might agree with me that there are always a few favorites which we turn to as much as we can and I thought I would share some of mine from 2011.

Tosh Vintage "Crumble"
1. Madelinetosh (any weight and almost ALL the colors) and I just can't say enough about the quality of this yarn. I would remind everyone that this wonderful line of yarns does NOT have dye lots and that is because each hank is dyed on it's own. Now that doesn't mean that you can't work up an entire garment out of one color (Please call us. We will look at them for you), it just means that you should enter this special world of unique colors with limited expectations and I guarantee that you will be pleasantly surprised. I did say any weight and that is true, but I do have a favorite and that has to be the Vintage, due to the amazing quality of the base. The ply is firm and creates lovely stitch definition for any kind of a project that needs a worsted weight yarn. I also said most of the colors and that too is true, but of course I have a couple of favorites in each base. I am afraid there isn't enough room here to mention them all, so here are just a few:

-Tosh Vintage in "Crumble"
-Tosh Merino Light in "Black Velvet" 
Vail
-Tosh Prairie in "Terrarium"



2. Has to be the Classic Elite Vail, and of course it is a fingering weight (which might deter some), but it has a fabulous hand and works up beautifully! The blend of Alpaca and Bamboo lends this yarn to anything that you want to have a fluid drape...yummy!



3. This one is a real work horse in the yarn world and I love to work with it and it is Cascade's Eco Wool! This is by no means a new yarn, but I have used it (am using it) on several projects this year and have fallen in love all over again! Here you can see my Umaro by Jared Flood and I have added another repeat and a half to this...which is for my daughter and her new husband...shhhhh!

If you are interested in the project details check those out here.


DeAire
4. I love working with super bulky yarns and I have to say that I am excited about the Plymouth DeAire!! It has a lovely lofty woven ply and calls for a US 15 needle, so what's not to love here? It has a lovely feel in the hank and works up with great stitch definition and FAST!! I am particularly fond of color 705 Portland, but any of you who know me are aware of my lust for anything green.


Wild Onion


5. Last but not least is The Fibre Company Acadia...ooohhhh so yummy and super soft and luscious to the touch. The fiber content is amazing, 60% Merino Wool, 20% Baby Alpaca and 20% Silk and with it's lovely 'slubby' texture this yarn has real personality! I know I mentioned my green fetish, but my favorite (at least for now LOL) is the Wild Onion in this line. It is so pretty and I know this onion won't make me cry.


Okay I have only mentioned 5 of my fav's in this post and I have to say that I am constantly touching something as I cruise through the shop and oohhing and awwwing, but these are foremost in my mind at the time of this writing...who knows what it will be tomorrow ha ha! Be sure you check out the pattern support for all of these lovelies and for now I need to go knit, so I can calm down!  Also, feel free to leave a comment and let us know what your favorite yarn was this last year!

As always happy knitting, crocheting and of course now sewing! (for those of you following the quilting saga don't worry there is more coming soon on our adventure)

Jeanne

Check it out:

Jimmy Beans Wool is the official yarn, knitting and crochet supplier to U.S. Snowboarding and U.S. Freeskiing! To encourage people to be creative on and off the slopes, we have partnered with Red Heart® yarns to create “Stitch Mountain." Check out the free Stitch Mountain patterns at www.jimmybeanswool.com/StitchMountain and like our Facebook Fan Page!





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