SweetShop Studio: Head in a Basket? (and a few other things...)

Hi, SweetShoppers! I have a few quick updates for today...first of all, I've been busy writing a new hat pattern for the online shop(which should be back up soon...) It's a basketweave worked in the round...subtle but still pretty and visually interesting. I'm wearing my sample in the photos...I hope you'll all like it as much as I do...

So let's see, what else have I been working on? Oh, yes...remember The MC hat that I was working on? I finally finished it, and...

Ooh. No. Double no. Aside from the fact that I am wearing the hat inside out in this photo, I just don't like the way it came out. It's WAY too big(my own fault, for preemptively deciding to go up a hook size) and the join at each row is very visible. It's lovely pattern, but I didn't do a great job on it. The only thing I really liked about this experiment is the color combination. I wasn't too sure about this, but the mellow gray really makes the pastel yellow pop and appear almost neon. It's a really funky combination and one I'll be trying again in the future.

One last thing...I'm sure I'll be doing a full blog post about this when I track down who is responsible, but the other day I was walking in downtown Denver, near the Union Station construction site, and stumbled upon a fence full of crocheted flowers. I have no idea who's done this or why, but it was an unexpectedly cheery sight on a cold winter day.
I spent about twenty minutes taking pictures of all of the flowers on my phone(and probably looked a bit crazy while doing so...) but the display is really cute and well put together. It fronts a truly ugly, eyesore construction site and elevates the sometimes-grim cityscape just a bit...but a very important bit.

My favorite flower was this one...

And with that, I'll leave you to your crafty days, beautiful people. Peace!!

New Items! Blue Ruffled Scarf and Yellow Flowered Earwarmer!

*whew* It's the first week back at college and I am TI. RED. Too tired, in fact, to realize that "tired" doesn't look like much of anything when you try and separate out the syllables for emphasis.

Suffice it to say that it's been a long week. This patternista needs 5 more hours in the day so she can sleep. But despite that, I've managed to put some lovely(IMO) new items up in the shop today!

The first is this yellow earwarmer with a flowered accent, this time in a lacy ribbed pattern rather than a basketweave one. I'm thinking of making LOTS more of these because I really like them--hope this one sells online quickly and inspires me further. 

The other item is another curly, ruffled scarf. I don't care if these sell or not, I think they're amazingly cool and will probably make a million more. In this shot the scarf is tucked and wrapped to form a warm ruffly collar, but it's quite long and can also be worn draped like a regular scarf.

To find out more about each item, either click on the pictures or HERE to get to the shop. 

Now I'm off to finish a nifty custom ordered hat...

Peace!

Yarn of the Moment: Estonian Veljesta Pöllö

So when I was in Estonia last month, I saw quite a lot of knitwear and some pretty cool yarn. Applaud my self-control, fellow crafters...I only brought back two skeins. One was for my good friend Knitella, and the other was this lovely Veljesta Pöllö. I picked them both up for about 6 Euros. 

According to the all-knowing oracle that is Google Translate, "Veljesta Pöllö" means "owl wheels"...makes sense, since there's an owl on the label(which has, unfortunately and inappropriately, gone the way of the buffalo...so no pics). I don't know why it's called that, but I do know this...I LOVE the colorway of this yarn...it's sort of a muted neutral pallette of brown and cream and tan, with speck of blue and green. It's 75% wool and 25% acrylic but feels more like acrylic than wool so far.

The project you see on my hook is an eventual earwarmer...although it's since been frogged since I thought it'd be prettier in a basketweave stitch rather than a ribbed one. 

Is anybody using any interesting yarn lately? If so, drop me a line in the comments box and tell me what it is!

Peace!