some things about julia

althoughFFC-8030_medium2

i had seen her work

here, there and everywhere,

i had never met julia until this year

when our paths crossed

as we both were working on

our new books

in collaboration with classic elite yarns.

you know those people who

always have

an interesting story to tell?

that’s julia.

and you know the ones whose infectious laughs

can fill a room with something that just wasn’t there

before they arrived? that’s her, too.

she’s also

a fabulous designer.

she has this way of throwing in a twist

that makes a pattern oh so much more than it would have been without her.

do you know what i mean?

i love patterns that teach me something new.

especially the ones where that ‘new’ is so cleverly done

that i’ve learned something before i even have time to be

concerned that maybe i won’t be able to master the technique.FFC-7676_medium2like how in the lanesville pullover she takes stripes,

then nonchalantly adds slipped stitches and i-cord,

so before you have time to trip over the idea of something new,

you’ve already done it and it looks great.

that’s clever.

julia’s mind works like that

because she’s clever in the very best kind of way.

from folly cove‘ is available in hardcopy form on-line at webs

and at local yarn stores just about everywhere.

use the code FFC10

on ravelry to get 10% off the individual pdfs

between now and this friday, the 6th of february.

leave a comment below for the chance to win a free copy of

FFC-8078_medium2the lanesville pullover pattern

before thursday the 5th,

and be sure to

check out

the other stops

on this blog tour

especially kristin nicolas’ blog

tomorrow afternoon.

pics courtesy of classic elite yarns.

‘paths’ taken from 3:17 of proverbs.

cey & i: blog tour, day eight

check out the moth heaven blog

for today’s tour stop.

funny,

i hadn’t told julia

the inspiration behind

the front detail of forte, she figured it out on her own

and she was spot on.

fact is, that all the patterns in ‘artistic differences’

are named after musical terms or

sound related words.

‘forte’ is the only full word that i used, the others are all shortened.

this way the reference is in there, but the origin doesn’t hit you over the head.AD-6754_medium2

i like things that you have to think about a little.

can you tell just by looking,

what the other patterns

names are shortened forms of:

terva, trume, chroma, silve (this one is a bit of a stretch, i admit),

setto, imp, cade, osci (having to do with sound waves)

and last, but not least, tensity?

have fun guessing

and have a good day. we’ll talk tomorrow.

‘stretch’ taken from 9:8 of job.

photo courtesy of classic elite yarns.

cey & i: worth mentioning

this sort of thing is simply not done.

large yarn companies do not put their weight and resources

behind indie designers while simultaneously

giving those indies the freedom to express themselves through ‘doing their own thing’.

1101540778ArtisticDifferences-cover-dbi should say ‘it hadn’t been done’, but it has now.

classic elite yarns did just that,

took the path not taken,

in collaboration with both julia farwell-clay and myself.

now, you can call it what you want,

but588940896FromFollyCove-cover-db

in a day and age when ‘branding’ is king,

for a well established company

to go that far outside

their own comfort zone stylistically

is brave, and groundbreaking,

and maybe even a little bit fierce

(i mean ‘fierce’ here in the best possible sense).

so when you see ‘artistic differences‘ and ‘from folly cove

some afternoon (at tnna, vklive ny, or your lys)

let your mind consider for just a minute that it took

two designers and

a whole lot effort from a supportive yarn company

(run by a team of powerfully creative women)

to take these ideas from possibility to becoming real.

if that doesn’t make you smile,

a big old unexpected in the middle of an average day kind of smile,

in the midst of the dog eat dog kind of world that business tends to be,

i don’t know what will.

‘path’ taken from22:37 of 2nd samuel.