Holli Yeoh Knits

I love my new business cards. My designer, Denise Tade did a great job and I’ve been having fun handing them to people. Their eyes kind of pop when they see the fun, colourful back.

There has been so much discussion about business names, logos, websites and so forth around here and Devan is soaking it all up like a sponge. He has started designing his own logo for a business he’ll have in the future. We’re not sure yet what his business will entail, but he’s well on his way to establishing a brand!  

I blocked my Mum’s sweater for her. She’s in town for Devan’s birthday and finished knitting the pieces to an Avery sample. I have a piece of gingham fabric on which I drew out all the pattern pieces and sizes of my designs with fabric markers. This speeds along the blocking considerably since I don’t ever need to measure.

I just love the colours in this Avery. The self-patterning yarn is from the Kaffe Fassett collection by Regia. I don’t know what solid she used. If you’re dying to know, send me a message in the comments and I’ll follow it up.

This morning I had the perfectly blocked pieces ready to go so I can hand them to my Mum when I took her to the airport. This sample will end up in a LYS shop  somewhere. Let me know if you see it in your LYS!

Devan’s seven! It’s my little boy’s birthday today. He is my star, my light, my everything. The years are going by so quickly!

We’ve been celebrating in grand style. Last weekend we had two birthday parties—a bowling party with his friends and a family party. Two parties means two cakes. And that doesn’t include the goodies I sent with him to school today to help celebrate with his classmates.

Devan outgrew my patterns long ago. I have had intentions all along to start designing sweaters for older children. I’m going to make it a resolution to do it during Devan’s eighth year. Soon he’ll be at an age where he won’t want to wear his Mama’s hand knits and then I’ll regret that I didn’t knit more for him when he was younger.

Audrey sent me pictures of the Jack that she completed for a friend’s granddaughter. Charlee is so adorable in this sweater! Thank you, Audrey, for sharing.

$49 (plus shipping)

This pattern is only available as a kit. It is basically the Candace cardigan with a Jack ‘o Lantern on the back. As you can see, I found the perfect yarn for this pattern.

We’re in the thick of Hallowe’en preparations around here. We went to the pumpkin patch last week and came home with five pumpkins.

Devan’s school also celebrates Hallowe’en in a big way and we attended the Hallowe’en Howl on Friday night. There were games, spooky decorations, haunted house, jello-eating contests and prizes. All in all, a fun evening. Our little king might dress up as something else on Hallowe’en night. He hasn’t decided yet.

Thank you Carmen of Melonhead KnitWear for your kind words and nominating me for a blog award. What a thrill! 

As an award recipient, I must follow the rules:

1. Please put the award on your blog. (done)
2. Add a link to the person who awarded you. (done)
3. You must nominate at least 4 fellow bloggers for this award. (below)
4. Add links to the recipients. (done)
5. Leave a comment so the recipients know they have received an award. (done)

I’ve sort of dropped out of the blog world a little lately and haven’t read very many blogs except for Carmen’s–needing to stay up to date with friends becomes the priority. These are some of my favourites:

knittingAstor–Astor has a unique take on the blog. Her’s is more of a photo montage and she blogs monthly. Love the idea.

Make It–Shannon offers craft business musings along with research or links of articles and posts on the subject. All this she does with a smattering of her own business efforts creating unique paper goods and stationary.

Dances with Wool–Lene’s knee socks were what first attracted me to her blog. She writes from the high Arctic in Finland. Lene’s beautiful designs and whimsical watercolours grace her posts along with strong photography.

The Walker Treasury Project–this blog provides me with inspiration and is an excellent resource. Knitters submit photographed swatches of stitch patterns from Barbara Walker’s books. I love seeing the swatches in different yarns than those in the books and they’re in colour! Such an improvement over the original black and white photos.

Thank you Carmen for making me take another look at some of the wonderful and interesting blogs out there.

I spent some time thinking about why I haven’t been reading blogs. It finally occurred to me that I had started reading books again. When Devan was a baby I found I no longer had time to read. This continued throughout his toddler and preschool years. I was given a good book for Christmas almost two years ago and I’ve been reading again ever since. To make time to read, other things had to go and I guess it was some of the time I spend in front of the computer. I’ll have to see if I can get some of that balance back in my life.

In recognition of the fact that I’m reading again–and boy, did I ever miss it when I wasn’t reading–I’ve added a widget to my sidebar.

Two yarn shops in the United States have just started carrying my patterns.

Look for my patterns at Knot Just Yarn in Burlington, WA. Becky was introduced to my patterns through one of her employees who recently completed Kieran. You can also take a look at Connie’s sweater on Ravelry. I love the green Smooshy by Dream in Color that she used for the body. I’ve used it before and it’s a dream to work with. The sleeves and collar are in a Trekking self-patterning yarn. Love it.

A new order is winging its way to Kathy’s Kreations in Ligonier, Pennsylvania. Kathy originally contacted me regarding a class she plans on teaching at her shop using my Devan pattern on Knitty. She liked my pattern line so much that she placed an order. 

Beehive Wool Shop in Victoria, Homecraft Importers in Vancouver and PUDDINGyarn in Calgary have also just restocked their Holli Yeoh patterns. See the full list of retailers who sell my patterns.

Margot sent me a picture of the Guess Who? gloves she recently completed. She won the kit from me by entering her name in a draw at my tent at the Victoria Knit-Out last June.

Margot writes:

The model is one of our granddaughters and she really thinks they are “cool”, so guess that is where they are going.

With the leftovers Margot plans on knitting a second pair for her other granddaughter.

Holli Yeoh patterns are now available for purchase through Ravelry. My Ravelry store is now stocked with my four top sellers: Ruby, JoJo, Avery and Candace. I included two more patterns–Annie’s Mittens and Guess Who?–which, along with the four others have the highest Ravelry favourites ratings. Right now I’m testing out how well it works to sell patterns on Ravelry. I’ll add more at a later date.

At a recent Guild meeting, Margaret showed me the vest she knit using my Aidan pattern. I really love seeing other people’s colour choices. I think Margaret may have bought the yarn from me and I love her colour combination. I never thought of putting those two together!

Margaret also shared with me a wonderful story about her visit to Button Button - a Vancouver store full of buttons. There was another customer there looking for buttons for not one, not two but five handknit sweaters. And the best part of this story–they were all my designs! Margaret had a great time helping her select buttons for the sweaters. I never did find out the name of this prolific knitter.  If you’re out there, please leave a comment!

We love Hallowe’en around here and it’s just around the corner. Celebrate in style with this sweet Jack ’o Lantern on the back of baby’s sweater.

$49 (plus shipping)

This pattern is available as a kit only. I found the perfect Hallowe’en yarn with orange stripes and it pairs wonderfully with the coordinating black solid.

The Jack ’o Lantern chart is designed to be knit on the back of the Candace cardigan, replacing the rectangular patch detail as outlined in the Candace instructions. The kit includes a downloadable Candace pattern plus the Jack supplement–it’s like two patterns in one. We ship the yarn separately.

The pattern comes in four sizes: 0-6 mo, 6-12 mo, 12-24 mo and 2-3 yrs. There’s enough yarn in the kit to knit the largest size.

In these tiny sizes it knits up in no time. Your little pumpkin will be so adorable wearing Jack this Hallowe’en!