Our art director discovered a fun little program called Pixelmator, which can transform an image or a small bit of an image into an elaborate all over pattern or a kaleidoscopic wonder. I am totally mesmerized by it too. Check out these transformations of our free pattern Baby Ferris (shown unaltered  bottom right).  Those baby feet are cute and kinda weird at the same time.

Update from Norah:

It’s always a thrill for the design team to see folks knitting and wearing our patterns. Imagine how cool it is to see a whole group of knitters in one of our designs. The Purl Diva did a KAL using Ditto, a free pattern originally knit in Latitude.

Liz knit hers in Vintage.

…and Susan made hers in Ultra Alpaca (in one of my very favorite colors)

I love the sleeve length on Susan’s, especially for Ultra Alpaca and it’s perfect on her. A shop KAL encourages folks to make modifications to suit their own style and needs and I am all for that!. You can see more versions on the Purl Diva blog.  For those of you who didn’t catch it the first time, here’s a link to a movie of me wearing ditto at the trade show in Columbus (TNNA), back in June.

Among the Dittos on Ravelry: Ultra Alpaca and Latitude.

I’d love to see images from some other Berroco KAL’s – send em along !

–Norah

So, as many of you in the Northeast know, Rhinebeck was this past weekend! We’re still recovering from the rush of spring photography and I almost bailed for some much needed rest, but when I woke to a gorgeous fall Saturday, I grabbed my keys and my knitwear and I hit the road! I didn’t regret it for a minute =)

The drive along the Mass Pike and the Taconic Parkway was absolutely stunning. The weather was perfectly Octoberish, grey and cool with vibrant leaf squalls swirling around me. The weather report was grim so the night before I had started a Hill Country Hat (a free excerpt from Clara Parkes’ new book) using 1 skein of Cuzco in Prune Mix. It wasn’t exactly as chunky as the pattern called for, but I used my size 10 needles, confident that I could adjust it if I needed to (the hat is knit top down). I knit it exactly as written and while it might be a little lacier than the hat from the book, it stretched and fit just fine. I had plenty of yarn, too! I bound off and wove in my ends at a scenic rest area on the Taconic:

It kept me perfectly warm! I took loads of pictures while I was at Rhinebeck, you can view them here. I had a few key Berroco spottings at the Ravelry party! First up is Sarah from Team Rav wearing a Ripley that she knit using the Vintage that we donated to the Sock Summit prize bags. So cute!

Next I met a witty woman named Thea Colman from the blog BabyCocktails who showed off her very cute Ultra Alpaca cardigan, pattern coming soon! The picture I took was very blurry, but I promise, it’s adorable!

Last but by no means least…I give you, Bob, Team Ravelry mascot. Well, it’s our Scottish friend Ysolda wearing a ridiculously accurate BOB HEAD that she knit in A WEEK. The best part? Bob’s tongue and ears were knit using Comfort Chunky! Besides those eyes, these are arguably the cutest parts of Bob!

If you went to Rhinebeck, I hope you had a great time! And if you didn’t, spend some time poking around the Internet, I think you’ll find plenty of excellent travelogues. I can’t recommend fiber festivals highly enough. Between the beautiful countryside, the excellent nosh and the bevvy of likeminded fibery friends, it’s the perfect way to kick off autumn.

Happy knitting,

CR

I whipped up a hat in record time this week! I used a ball and a half of Jasper, a gorgeous self-striping merino wool that knits up so quickly I can hardly believe it (about 4 hours, which for me is superduper fast). I used Jared Flood’s wildly popular Turn a Square pattern but instead of striping two yarns, I just let Jasper do it’s stripe-y thing. I think the cast-on edge is especially good looking. I used Ysolda’s tutorial for a 2×2 “stocking stitch” tubular cast-on and really elevates the simple toque. It’s a little big on me, but it’s going to someone special, I’m just keeping it warm (or the other way around…)

Some other cute patterns for Jasper and/or hats: Janine, Jester the cozy (and free!) Bell Rock Turtleneck and the Josepha cowl. I already have plans to knit another Jasper hat as a last minute birthday gift for a new friend. Jasper, I <3 you!

CR

Hi everyone! The winner of our Vintage giveaway is…blog reader Barbie! She commented with the correct answer so we’ll be mailing her the prize pictured below (I’ll need a mailing address and color preference though so Barbie, please email me at crose AT berroco DOT com, replacing the words with the usual symbols).

The prize includes several styling items that we used in Booklet #290 Vintage Arts & Crafts from Recycled Planet, a company that heads to the recycling bins for their raw materials. As a designer who is also concerned with the constant stream of waste that the fashion cycle seems to encourage, I’m always interested in any company or person who can manage to straddle the line between conservation and novelty. Two such projects have popped up on my radar and they manage to do that:

• Waste  Not Want Not in Providence, RI. Part boutique, part resale shop, part artist’s workshop, part social club. Located in a very crafty nook of Downtown Providence, this store has a really novel approach to retail, and locals take note, they’re hosting knitting nights!

• The Uniform Project is a thought-provoking fundraiser that also raises consciousness about how we dress ourselves. By wearing the same basic garment everyday and accessorizing it with vintage and donated items, Sheena Matheiken is hoping to raise money for schools in India. I’m sure many of us are still shopping conservatively this year–f you need any inspiration on how versatile one staple wardrobe items can be, head over to her photo galleries.

Okay, over and out everyone. Have a craftastic weekend!

CR

Today is an exciting day for me! As you’ll read in KnitBits #307, Booklet #290 Vintage™: Arts and Crafts is my very first complete collection. When we planned the fall collection, we talked about the need for a book of designs for young, preteens and yes, “tweens,” a cutesy word for a really underserved demographic in the knitting world.

Since I was the closest thing to a tween on staff, the task fell up on me to design for this age group. Knowing that some tweens grow faster than others, we decided to include sizes that go all the way up to a ladies’ large. The lovely model wearing Miroux is my size (5′8″, around 34B):

I confess, I was a bit nervous designing for tweens. I spent hours looking around websites, trying to get a feel for what that age group wants to wear. I remember being insanely particular which probably drove my mother crazy. As long as I was WARM, it didn’t matter what color or brand or whatever I was wearing…I, of course, felt differently!

One lucky day, Mary, one of our sample knitters, stopped by with her beautiful daughters and their friends in tow. I seized the opportunity for a little market research and asked them to draw some sketches of the sort of things they would like to wear. I was delighted when they brought in their sketches–they were TOTALLY in line with what I’d been working on! Simple, earthy colors with touches of bright, stripes, blouse-y shapes, comfortable details like pockets, hoods and handwarmers, all tween approved =)

I had so much fun styling this photoshoot. I sourced some awesome jewelry made from recycled materials (the tweens also noted that they were way into being green, which thrilled me). The model above is wearing some necklaces made from recycled magazines and the models below are wearing pins made from soda cans!

ETA: OK, so it wasn’t as hard as I thought! Glad so many of you know the film (rent it if you don’t, it’s very crafty!!) I’ll pick a winner from ALL the comments. But enough about the patterns, it’s PRIZE TIME! Tell me in the comments what inspired the names for these patterns. Next week I’ll pick 1 lucky winner from the correct entries who will win these accessories , a copy of Booklet #290 Vintage: Arts and Crafts and Vintage yarn to knit Diorama!

Okay, over and out everyone, have a great weekend!!

CR

Last week a KnitBits subscriber wrote in asking if we’d ever think of designing a maternity sweater. To be quite honest, we don’t have any in the works but we had fun coming up with a list of sweaters that we think would work for ladies who are in the family way. Though we’re flying blind here, so please feel free to chime in with your comments!

Left to right, top to bottom: Nuss, Anhinga, Haight, Paron, Peace, Moska, Pucker, Bitok, Cosima, Bantam, Remember, Montparnasse, Juliana, Pike, Hibito.

Any others?

CR

“Just as the bird’s wing evolved to fly, the human hand evolved to manipulate. An idle hand is not a happy hand. We really need to use our hands; they’re not happy if they’re not doing something.” [Barbara G. Walker]

The quote above captures my impression of Sock Summit 2009 pretty accurately! I’m very familiar with trade shows like Stitches, NENA, TKGA, TNNA, etc. and I have been lucky enough to attend many of them in the past few years. This year marked the first Sock Summit, a sort of knitter’s retreat on steroids! It had a fantastic marketplace full of amazing artisans, an impressive array of super fun events (like breaking the Guiness World Record for most knitters knitting in one place) and a truly astounding roster of knitting luminaries.

Berroco was there displaying a range of our sock yarns: Berroco Sox, Berroco Sox Metallic, Comfort Sock and Ultra Alpaca Fine, as well as a few of our more popular sock yarn patterns (not socks, incidentally): Celestine and Celestine Crochet, Saige and Johnny Boy are some of my favorites. I was also encouraging people to enter our Sock Star competition. There are still more than 2 weeks left to whip something up, give it a go!

I’ve put together a video of some highlights here and some of my snapshots in a Flickr set–I apologize for their quality; I’m not the best photographer in the world, I’m afraid. To be honest, things happened so quickly that it was a challenge to even get the cameras out and on! I was Tweeting constantly though and you can catch up with those Tweets here.

One of the highlights of the show for me was meeting Meg Swansen (I’ll admit it–I was too nervous to say hello to Barbara Walker!). Meg is true knitting royalty and SO beautiful! She was hilarious and kind, to boot. Norah says we have the same eyes! As you can see, I could barely contain my joy at meeting such a legend:

One thing that came up during the luminary panel over and over was the value of her mother Elizabeth Zimmerman’s book the Knitter’s Almanac. When I worked on the retail side of things I would constantly tell people to skip two lattes and buy a copy of the Knitter’s Almanac instead. It is my desert island book, it contains so much more than knitting advice. It gives you a glimpse into Elizabeth’s life and her amazing curiosity, bravery and wit.

Yesterday I proposed a year-long project to Norah involving the Almanac and Ultra Alpaca. So many of the projects seem well-suited to the Ultra Alpaca family and we know that the folks at Schoolhouse Press are fans. In fact, Cully Swansen, the handsome model/son/grandson in many of the Schoolhouse Press publications, has a hat pattern in the most recent Wool Gathering that calls for Ultra Alpaca! We’re still batting around ideas, but we’ll keep you posted.

I’m still catching up on my rest but I will say that my imagination has been running on overdrive thanks to the Summit. I’m sure you’ll feel it’s effects in the months to come

Cheers,

CR

Foreseeing that something BIG was happening, Cirilia brought Berroco to the Sock Summit. She’s not selling anything (we leave that to the shops). She IS promoting our sock yarns (Berroco Sox™, Berroco Sox™ Metallic, Comfort® Sock and Ultra™ Alpaca Fine, showing our audio slide shows, telling folks about the sock star contest and holding daily raffles.  If you’re at the summit, stop by and enter to win a Saige poncho kit!

Cirilia took some intriguing shots at our recent Knitbits photo shoot.