the first

I don't think I ever got over here to the blog to say this, but I know I mentioned it on Ravelry! (Please forgive me; I swear that the smoke from the Rim Fire is making my brain a little addled! It feels like I have a bad head cold.) I decided that I like giving things away. It's really quite fun on this end and I think on your end too!

So! On the last day of each month, I will choose a person randomly from the Ravelry finished projects listings on a pattern of mine. You won’t know which pattern ahead of time. (I had to put some mystery in, you know?) The person whose pattern is chosen will get a free single Romi pattern pdf of their choice (among the ones listed for sale on Ravelry), gifted to them in their Ravelry library!
Fine print:

• you need to have pictures of the finished object that are good enough so that I can tell it’s finished, 
• the pattern needs to be marked as a finished object and linked to the Ravelry pattern page, and 
• you need to have rated the pattern.

I just got to go choose a pattern and do a random winner! So fun. :) I chose RosaFlora as the first pattern (I have a soft spot for that pattern),

and :drumroll: MarieClare is the first winner! Congratulations to you!

monday's musing

“Excellence is not a singular act, but a habit. You are what you repeatedly do.” - Shaquille O'Neal

Love love love this quote! And excellent is what my leafy sweater will be when it is reborn. Thank you all for your kind comments!

Have a great week!

inattention: discuss(t)

I always have a project going that involves lots of mindless knitting. This is the one I take in cars, the one I sit with while watching a movie. This is the one that makes me less fidgety. But sometimes this "mindless" sort of project backfires. And sometimes it backfires in a very big way. Following is a tale of woe. It may be a little too much for you, and you should be advised that this is not for the faint hearted: those who shrink from the sight of yarny entrails stretched across a floor.

It all started so well. I was loving the drape of the tml and the color. The lace stitch pattern is one of my very very favorites.

I was enjoying it so much that it was flying off the needles. I knit on it while working on my Craftsy class and the last patterns from my Y3 eBook. It was my calm knitting when I was uptight, and I loved the way it was draping on my dress mannequin. I was so excited to look forward to a nice light lacy and simple sweater just for me me ME!

When I got back from shooting my Craftsy class in Denver, I pulled my leafy sweater out and finished off one of the sleeves. It was super relaxing after a full week.

I was particularly loving the underarms and the way the raglan sleeves joined into the body.

I picked up the stitches on the other armhole and somehow it seemed tighter than the first sleeve. I knit a little further until I couldn't convince myself any longer that my gauge had changed that much.

It was starting to be a little less relaxing. But I still was deeply in love with the sweater.

I counted stitches on the sleeve. Then I counted them again and again; I had one less motif on the second sleeve. Gah! I thought, disbelievingly. This could not be happening to me!

I still thought I could salvage part of the sweater, and maybe even make it a bonus learning experience like my lace surgery posts here and here. I ripped up to the armholes, because sometimes you have to do that.

That's when it really hit me. It wasn't that I had cast on the wrong number of stitches below the armholes. There were four motifs at the top of the first shoulder.

And three motifs at the top of the second shoulder.

Need I say what ensued? I took a deep breath.

I ripped.

I tried to tell myself I was happy that I didn't have to cast on again.

But I wasn't really that happy.

It went into hibernation.

Sometimes it just doesn't work out, and no amount of chocolate or surgery will help.

I've pulled it out again and I'm looking at it sideways. It hurt me once, you know, but I've gotten over a lot of it.

Knitting gods willing, I will have a nice sweater for Stitches West. I will be lighting a candle. Perhaps several.

And if you've made it this far? You deserve a gratuitous shot of Petunia with her new haircut.

Isn't she cute?

monday's musing

"Don't count on luck. If it doesn't come - it won't disappoint you. If it comes - it may supriese you." - Boleslaw Prus

Love this quote. I was raised by a very hopeful woman and I saw her disappointed over and over because she had "bad luck." I've tried very hard in my adult life to put wishing and hoping for luck aside, and I've tried to teach my kids that lesson, as well. When luck comes, it feels so good - even a little tiny bit of luck. It never disappoints. :)

this and that

We're rounding out the week with winner #6 from my give-away!

Mackenzie Snader! You are the sixth winner with this comment:

"Oh man, those look fabulous. I've been wondering what my next cast on should be!"

Please email me at romi(at)designsbyromi(dot)com! Congratulations!

(As I noted before...I will post the winners each day, and I will try to get in contact with each winner as best I can. If I cannot, and I don't hear anything within two weeks of my posting a winner's name, I will draw another name. As the list of winners progresses, it will be completely first come, first serve. In other words, if you are the third winner, but contact me first, you get first choice. :) As of right now: one eBook, the Penny Farthing Sock and Spark Lace are taken, but the other prizes are still there!) There are a couple of winners MIA at the moment, so if you know Nidhi or Judith, please let them know they won!

One of the fun things about this area is the number of antique stores. There's a very cool one in town, and it inhabits an old fashioned yellow house. I love going through there! Here's the latest treasure I've found.

It was marked as a picnic basket, but I don't think so! That fabric heart on top is cushioned underneath with foam and I'd say it's meant for sewing pins. And the whole inside of this old fruit basket is lined carefully with fabric.

On the top are leather hinges, and the heart handle looks hand finished.

I love it. :)

And on to my other great find! I bought these some months ago and have been using them ever since. Can you guess what they are?

No? Dryer balls made of locally raised wool! How cool is that??? I just happened to be at the lys at the exact right time when the lady who makes them brought them in. They are felted balls of wool from her sheep, and you can still feel a little lanolin in them. Apparently they fly out the door as soon as they come in and I can see why! No need for dryer sheets or fabric softener. There is no static and no harsh feeling to the fabric when your clothes come out of the dryer. These are the coolest thing ever!

Signing off now; please keep my poor iPhone in your thoughts. It's still packed in rice, and I'm not going to touch it until Monday (the first day of school!), at which time I may burn a few candles in offering to the iPhone gods. 

fiver

Are you ready for winner #5 from my give-away?!

pixiewear! You are the fifth winner!

Please email me at romi(at)designsbyromi(dot)com! Congratulations!

(As I noted before...I will post the winners each day, and I will try to get in contact with each winner as best I can. If I cannot, and I don't hear anything within two weeks of my posting a winner's name, I will draw another name. As the list of winners progresses, it will be completely first come, first serve. In other words, if you are the third winner, but contact me first, you get first choice. :) As of right now: one eBook, the Penny Farthing Sock and Spark Lace are taken, but the other prizes are still there!)

I had an amazing trip down memory lane today. I am in the process of updating some of my patterns, and I got to Merope. Remember her?

She was the first shawl from my first eBook subscription!

I went to update the written instructions to make them easier and shorter, and all I saw were pdfs. Yikes! And then I remembered. That was back when I was still using my grand old faithful beige G3 tower with System 9. Sigh. I always had such a soft spot for that machine that when I could no longer upgrade her, I bought a Mac mini to use the internet and went on using, and using, and using that old fabulous machine with the giant graphics monitor that weighs about 60 pounds. I switched over slowly, but until we moved and I just didn't unpack her, I used her every day.

So back to Merope. I knew where she was. And I can't believe it, but I got that old tower up and running again, and remembered how to connect to her from my current Macs. Any other Mac geeks know that when Apple upgraded to system 10.6 (I believe it was), they took away the ability to connect to "legacy" machines except as a server. So here I am...copying my old stuff onto my 2 TB disk and marveling at how much I've seen technology change. :)

f-f-f-four for fore

It's time for winner #4 from my give-away!

tktl on Ravelry! You are the fourth winner!

Please email me at romi(at)designsbyromi(dot)com! Congratulations!

(As I noted before...I will post the winners each day, and I will try to get in contact with each winner as best I can. If I cannot, and I don't hear anything within two weeks of my posting a winner's name, I will draw another name. As the list of winners progresses, it will be completely first come, first serve. In other words, if you are the third winner, but contact me first, you get first choice. :) As of right now, the Penny Farthing Sock and Spark Lace are taken, but the other prizes are still there!)

So...today I took a day off to go kayaking with my three men up at Lake Tahoe. It was a gorgeous day, but I don't have any pictures. The reason for this will soon become apparent. First, I have to tell you: I don't really like water; I like land. As a kid, I took swimming lessons like crazy. I even used to work out swimming laps when I was in college. I have been snorkeling and even enjoyed it. It was warm and lovely. Mr. Romi loves boating and the water. My Bear has loved water since he came into this world. #1 Son took after me, so we gave him swimming lessons every summer until he loved the water too. I, however, am stubborn. I love to look at it and I love to drink it, but really I can do without it and not even miss it. Especially cold water. And it turns out that the water feels the same way about me. Either that, or I am extremely kayak impaired. Or possibly both.

I learned three important things today.

1. Double bagging an iPhone doesn't actually keep water out of the bag or the iPhone when you are completely submerged in said water.

2. I can still swim pretty well.

3. I continue not to like water very much.

But...now that the water has thrown down the gauntlet, I cannot but take it up with the intention of sticking my future kayak prowess back in Lake Tahoe's face. I am SO going to win this one. Yeah!

three and a flower

It's time for winner #3 from my give-away!

Judith! You are the third winner with this comment:

"I have not knitted one of your patterns as yet but use KC all the time since I had foot surgery in the spring of last year and took the time to learn the program on my new I-Pad. I love KC and travel with my patterns all the time. And now can enjoy Romi Knits."

Please email me at romi(at)designsbyromi(dot)com! Congratulations!

As I noted before...I will post the winners each day, and I will try to get in contact with each winner as best I can. If I cannot, and I don't hear anything within two weeks of my posting a winner's name, I will draw another name. As the list of winners progresses, it will be completely first come, first serve. In other words, if you are the third winner, but contact me first, you get first choice. :) As of right now, the Penny Farthing Sock is taken, but the other prizes are still there!

In other news...I've made my Cactus Flower pattern all pretty and updated everything on Ravelry!

As some of you may remember, it was the very first mystery shawl knit that I have ever designed. It was so much fun, and I want to thank all of you who participated! I've left the old clue files available in case anyone wants to look back on them at all.

Didn't she turn out pretty?

And I love love love all the different versions and colors that everyone used. If you have a moment, you really must go by and take a look at the project page. You won't regret it! It's inspiring. :)

too

It's time for another winner from my give-away!

Yarnologist! You are the second winner! Please email me at romi(at)designsbyromi(dot)com! Congratulations!

A little note here. As I post the winners each day, I will try to get in contact with each winner as best I can. If I cannot and I don't hear anything within two weeks of my posting a winner's name, I will draw another name. As the list of winners progresses, it will be completely first come, first serve. In other words, if you are the third winner, but contact me first, you get first choice. :)

Since I'm a computer volunteer for our home swim meets, I am always in the air conditioning. It can get a little chilly! So...this past weekend, I was working on my Carson Throw.

It's getting to the point where it's nice and warm on my lap! Perfect movie knitting in the evening. And perfect for loads of AC.

I love working on projects when I'm out in public because I always meet at least one other knitter or crafter! This time, I met the new coach of one of the participating teams. She was working on a pair of socks, though she didn't get much done at the meet. I had way more "waiting" time!

So - I know you are wondering.... My little experiment of that unstructured throw KAL based on changes posted on my blog? It did not work. For you or for me! So I am diligently working away, and when I'm finished, I'll put it all together in a pattern. Because I can tell I'm going to love this when it's finished (if I can wrest it from the rest of my family)!

monday's musing

Happy Monday everyone! I spent my weekend volunteering at our home pool swim meet, so I'm playing catch-up today.

Remember that little give-away you all commented on last week? Well, I will be listing a winner every day this week at the top of my blog post, along with the prizes still available! You may remember the rules: the first winner gets to choose whichever prize they wish, and then so on down through to the last winner who will get the prize not yet chosen by any of the first 5 winners. Although we didn't quite get my Cowl for Jeanne into #5 on the "Hot Right Now" Ravelry list, it stayed so far up there for so long and you all left such kind comments that I'm adding in that extra eBook or app anyway! So the prizes are: 2 Y4 eBook subscriptions (your choice of pdf or app), or one of those 4 skeins of yarn I showed. That means 6 winners! I have gone over to random.org and randomly generated my list, and I'll start off with the first one right now! :drumroll:

Nidhi! You are the first winner! Please email me at romi(at)designsbyromi(dot)com with your choice and your mailing address! Congratulations!

And also? I came across such a great quote for Monday...talk about making the most out of something that an ordinary person might see as a fault or hindrance.

"Luck is everything... My good luck in life was to be a really frightened person. I'm fortunate to be a coward, to have a low threshold of fear, because a hero couldn't make a good suspense film." - Alfred Hitchcock

So. Cool. It completely changes my perception of the things I see as my faults! I'm going through the (long) list of them right now, but in a totally different way. ;)

See you tomorrow!

it's raining give-aways

Are you ready for the most awesome amazing and fantastic give-away ever to appear on my blog? To celebrate the release of my 7 Small Shawls Y4 eBook subscription, I'm giving away some very cool stuff, including an eBook subscription in your choice of iDevice app or PDF format, and - for those of you who have already indulged in the new subscription - 4 skeins of yarny goodness. I don't want anyone left out!

Y4 is titled "Friends"

and each pattern will be named after one of the knitters on my Ravelry forum. The first one is "A Cowl for Jeanne" and it's a little reversible bonus for fall.

This is the other side. Cool, eh?

It almost looks quilted and it is super snuggly warm for those cool fall and cold winter days. It comes in smaller and larger. :) Ready for the yarny goodness?

Give-away yarn #1 is a skein of Tactile Fiber Arts superwash merino Sock Yarn in Adobe colorway.

#2 is a skein of Little Red Bicycle Penny Farthing Sock (80% superwash merino, 10% cashmere, 10% nylon) in Columbine colorway.

#3 is a skein of Alisha Goes Around Panoply (of Peacocks) Fingering (80% superwash merino, 10% cashmere, 10% nylon) in a special (and especially gorgeous) aqua colorway.

#4 is a skein of Little Red Bicycle Spark Lace (75% superwash merino, 5% silk, 5% stellina) in Scarlet Sentinel colorway.

Here are the rules. Leave one comment here by midnight PDT, Friday night August 9, 2013. Each comment will be an entry. If you would like to enter more than once, tweet, or post on facebook, plurk, or Ravelry (or other social media!) about the give-away and then post another comment here telling me what you did. If you tweet and facebook, for instance, that's two extra comments for two extra entries! There's a possible little extra here, too. If you all get my pattern "A Cowl for Jeanne" trending in the Ravelry top 5 hot right now patterns by clicking, liking, and casting on, I'll give away another copy of the eBook. If it hits #1, I'll add another one on top of that! That's a total of 3 possible eBook give-aways and 4 skeins of yarn! Woot!

I will draw winners from the list of comments, using random.org's random number generator. The first one drawn gets their first choice, then the second goes, and onward down the list. Are you ready? Get set! Comment!!!

monday's musing

“Victory is sweetest when you've known defeat.” - Malcolm S. Forbes

Stand by for some fun, everyone! :cough:give-away:cough: