Author Archives: Talitha

cey & i: blog tour, day five

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imagine with me for a moment.

it’s 2am.

you had dinner

before sound check began,

which means you haven’t eaten for at least 8 hours,

but it’s 2am.

did i mention that it’s cold out?  yup, it is.

it’s making the cold backstage

before the show seem7365bt

like a better place

to be.

so,

the best

nearby spot

for good food

is chinese.

thing is,

you have to

stand outside to eat.

nothing personal,

it’s a takeout window

and everyone

enjoying the dumplings and crab rangoon at 2am is

standing outside in the cold with you.

6674btnow,

you have to eat.

you will never sleep well,

as hungry as you are,

without food

in your belly

and nothing

sounds

nearly as good

as piping hot

chinese food

in this very moment.

i didn’t have a sweater

like setto at the time.

if i had, i would have brought it to every cold weather gig.

the squishy cables would have stretched over whatever else i had worn onstage

and the cozy neck would have made my neck feel, well, cozy.

the cables stretch and hug

fitting your particular curves to a ‘t’,

both before, and after, all that chinese food…yum.

head on over to mari chiba’s blog today.  be sure to leave a comment

because you could win your own copy of the pattern for setto

from my book ‘artistic differences’.

tomorrow is another day,

with another tour stop.  you know i’ll have all the info

right over here

just waiting for you.

‘food’ taken from 17:4 of first kings.

both photos courtesy of classic elite yarns.

cey & i: blog tour, day 4

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it is a given, that the area ‘backstage’

pretty much any backstage

at nearly every venue anywhere is

going to feel somewhere between cold and not at all warm.

‘on stage’, however,

at the exact same club,

is going to be “wow, it’s getting really hot and the temp is rising”.

you’ve got lights (lots of ’em), the warm generated

by multiple pieces of electric amplifying equipment,

and the body heat of the crowd.

for me, the silve mitts

are at least a partial answer to this phenomenon.7347btthese fingerless gloves are fitted.

i like things to fit snug on my wrists

and guitar playing would be impossible with any positive ease.

the yarn is classic elite’s mountain top vail,

which is a sweet, luxurious mixture of

the ‘ooh so soft’ of baby alpaca

and the sheen of bamboo.

this makes them

just right for warding off the backstage (or early morning) chill,

while fine enough to fit in your back pocket (or jacket pocket)

when things start to warm up.7365bt

for today only,

buy the pattern

through ravelry,

and you’ll automatically

get 10% off in your cart

(no code required).

be sure to check back

tomorrow

and i’ll direct you

to the next stop

on this blog tour

for ‘artistic differences‘.

while it is still called today, hop on over and read the knitter’s pride blog tour post.

at this very moment in time i am so very

ready to start packing for vklive next weekend in nyc.

‘warm’ taken from 2:16 of james.

photos courtesy of classic elite yarns.

cey & i: blog tour day 3

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when i design,

i live with the pieces.

they spend time with me on the couch,

at the kitchen island, shrouding the to-do list on my desk.

since i was being really particular about the fit of chroma,

it spend a lot of time

in pieces

on the dress form, which i moved room to room.

the kids are so used to this kind of behavior from me

that they hardly notice anymore,IMG_6567 3but it struck me as i took this quick shot one summer afternoon

(as my son and his friend from down the street were building)

that my working form,

clothed in a bias cut dress and the dark teal rocker shrug,

does not do a good job of blending into the background

of the front hallway.

c’est la vie.

today for day 3 of the tour,

check out tabetha hedrick’s blog as she features this shrug

(and just so you know for in the future

tabetha’s always got gorgeous photos of knit things up

for ooh-ing and ahh-ing over).

‘summer’ taken from 26:1-2 of proverbs.

cey & i: blog tour, day 2

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today is boot sock day.

appropriate since it’s 15* outside.

these were designed to go from comfy boots to stage shoes

and back again without a hitch.

trume socks side by sidethey’re as pretty as they are practical.

the angora and nylon in the mix make them super snuggly,

while the rich colors and tweediness keep things interesting.

the rocker style (lighter in these photos) is straight ahead ribbing.

the boho version is wide eyelet lace

to sweeten things up a bit.

either way, they’re cushy and warm.

check out the slate falls press blog today for a chance to win the pattern,

and a discount on it if you don’t want to wait.

joanna also asks me

music related things like ‘if you could be an instrument, what would you be?’.

betcha can’t my guess my answer before you look…

‘straight’ taken from 15:21 in proverbs.

cey & i: counting by tens

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ten patterns, ten days,

ten…oops, i mean eleven, ‘artistic differences‘ pattern giveaways,

and a free pattern to boot.

i can hardly stand all this excitement

this early on a tuesday morning.  wink.

for starters, today is the kick-offIMG_8018bt

on the string theory yarn company blog

of the book’s tour (ten days long)

for my new collection.

there are ten patterns

and each day of the tour

one of those patterns will be given away free.

as to the eleventh giveaway,

IMG_8029btbe sure to continue on,

the day after the tour ends,

for a wrap up on the classic elite blog

where one winner will receive

a copy of ‘artistic differences’

and yarn to make the pattern

of their choice within.

as if that’s not enough,

‘tring‘ was released this morning.

this little project bag (think socks or a hat)

is reversible so you get two personalities in one

(see how i tied it into the rocker vs boho theme of the book there?).

i’m too excited today to sit still, so let’s head on over

to janet’s string theory yarn company blog

and get this party

started.

‘released’ taken from 105:20 of the psalms.

cey & i: worth mentioning

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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.

cey & i: variations

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we are all different.

that’s the way it’s supposed to be.

a world of clones would be boring at best and dysfunctional at worst.

knitters are a good example of this.

no matter how much

i like a designer’s version of a pattern,

it’s inevitable that someone will make modifications

(lovingly called mods)

and the piece will take on a whole new personality;

a fresh life of its own.

in ‘artistic differences‘ i wanted to expand on that.

setting aside a knitter’s skills (which can be many),

how does a person’s personality affect their choices in knitting?

7272cropand does the end result ‘look’

more like them than

the designer’s

version

did ?

when an existing song

gets dolled up a bit

by a new band,

we label it ‘a cover’.

when the original artist

reworks the tune

it’s labeled ‘a remix’.

you seldom see remixes

by knitwear designers.

instead,

we decide what a thing will be

and then do our best to present it in that light.

maybe it’s my musical background showing, but i’ve always loved

the contrast of the textural similarities and differences

between song remixes and the originals.

the group of patterns in

artistic differences is my version of ‘knitting remixes’.

 i took two parts of who i am,

a little bit boho and another little bit rock & roll,

and allowed each pattern in the book to reflect those two sensibilities

(just for extra fun, there’s a third mod written in for each pattern as well).

here’s a band i love doing a musical thing that’s similar

with their song ‘gang of rhythm’

(be sure to check out their ‘powerful’ version

which starts in all its rock and roll vibe-ness at the 7:22 mark).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=p3MeWfYG-UI

now that you’ve heard it done musically,

check out the book to see me doing it knit-wise.

then the question becomes this:

what is it that makes you different?

and how in the world are you gonna knit that?

needles at the ready and

thinking caps on…

‘fresh’ taken from 92:14 in the psalms.