The Sweatshop of Love Blog

My trip to Michigan last week wasn’t all running around with kids in fields of tulips! My mom and I did some spontaneous kitchen painting, specifically some custom shelving with some pretty hideous kountry klasic wallpaper.

Me in Action!

Since the shelves were custom made for the space, there was no way to strip the wallpaper without taking apart the shelving, which we weren’t about to do, so I just got a tiny paint brush and carefully primered over each wallpaper section.

AWESOME Wallpaper!

It covered pretty well! I let that dry overnight, and in the morning painted a very light green over the primer.

After!

Pretty nice, right?

Looking So Much Better!

Nothing too fancy, but a pretty welcomed improvement.

I spent last week hanging with my family in Michigan, where spring really means one thing! Tulips.

Ryenn and a LOT of Tulips!

I grew up 20  minutes from Holland, MI, and last week was their annual Tulip Time Festival, where Dutch people from all over the world come to pay tribute to my favorite flower, and all the traditional Dutch pageantry that goes along with it.

Ryenn and Fries!

My niece Ryenn wasn’t very interested in the the pageantry, however. She took turns running up to each blossom to give it a squeeze, and running up to our huge cup of fries to shove one in her mouth!

Emily and Baby Nolan!

Which is a lot more than Baby Nolan did! My nephew wasn’t as into it.

PS – My sister in law Emily here is using her son to hide her baby bump! She is having another little boy in August!

Me and Ryenn STYLIN’

And I’m still getting use to there being TWO babies to play with! Here I told Ryenn to pout her lips because we just put lip gloss on, but she still isn’t too good with words.

50% Off!

I know I’m not the only one who is SUPER PUMPED about the fact that Etsy offers automatic downloads for PDFs now. The internet has been blowing up about it for days now! It’s just so nice to be able to set it and forget it instead of having to email each pattern purchaser individually. Not to mention the fact that this should eliminate those (pretty stupid) people who think they are purchasing actual hand knit items for only a couple dollars, and get super pissed when you email them a PDF.

I’m so pumped that I’m offering up every pattern in my Etsy shop for 50% off with coupon code ‘ITSABOUTTIME’! So get over there and snag your favorites on the cheap this week. Offer expires Saturday!

Knit Notes – Explore, Design, Create

I’m so happy to have gotten my hands on a copy of Knit Notes, a new designers notebook created by Nadine Curtis of Be Sweet. I’ve seen this floating around the internet for a few months but didn’t really get what the notebook was all about until it landed on my doorstep last week.

Inside Project Page

Knit Notes is a spiral bound, hardcover notebook full of pages just like the above, where you can sketch, chart stitch patterns out on graph paper, even punch holes and attach your swatches. Knit Notes is clearly designed by a knitwear designer so it’s got spots for everything you’d need to write down – fiber content, yardage, gauge. All those pesky things you sometimes find that you forgot to write down when you finally sit down to type up the pattern!

Confused? Nadine Helps!

After my first quick flip through of Knit Notes I didn’t really know where to start! But Nadine provides a lot of help at the start of the book to help you get the most out of Knit Notes. So whether you are a beginner designer looking to get started, or a seasoned veteran, you can easily get a lot out of having this notebook at hand.

Finished?! Awesome!

And at the end of all that hardcore designing you’ve got to have a celebration moment! Nadine leaves a spot at the end of your design section for a picture of your finished design.

There is a lot of really helpful stuff in here as well – a printed ruler! Common abbreviations, a rundown of different types of sweaters with measurements, notes about taking measurements as well as a complete list of standard measurements for women, men, children, and babies, and even heads and feet. Nadine also puts an example pattern at the back, so if you’ve got any questions about layout or wording, you can reference this provided pattern.

Knit Notes, $13.45 on Amazon right now and $14.95 at Be Sweet, is an amazing notebook for any knitwear designer. And there are 30 design templates, so it will keep you busy for years. And snag a few for your knitwear designer friends! They will be crazy jealous when they see you using your copy!

A huge thank you to Nadine for sending me a copy!

GrannySquarz4Lyfe

Since the Holla Knits launch last week I’ve been getting my granny squares on! There is a new special collection of Holla Knits coming out this summer – Holla Crochet! And it’s a little granny square heavy. Thank goodness! When I think about crochet I think about granny squares, and I’ve been having a ton of fun working a million of these up.