Just finished my first attempt at knitting a lace shawl.  Focus would be the word of the day in lace knitting.  It was a big difference from the simple knit, knit, knit, purl, purl, purl, that I have been doing in my previous projects.  Lace knitting switches up stitches. There is a lot of variety and this can be fun, but for me a higher risk of errors. I chose to do a lace shawl designed by my sister-in-law Kitman Figueroa. This beautiful pattern is called Xeni and you can find it in Kitman’s Ravelry store. Another place to purchase this pattern is at our Etsy store where you can get the pattern free with the purchase of a skein of our yarn.

What I gained from this knit is

• sharpened concentration skills
• identifying emerging patterns
• how to tink…(that is knit spelled backwards, so undoing knitting)
• I learned to read written instructions for this pattern.  Next lace knit I will use a chart.  Maybe I’ll have better luck.

My shawl is knitted with our Toro colorway, which is a very primary red.  So spicy. Kitman expertly knitted the other shawl pictured below.  Notice how I photographed my shawl in a clever drape so that it would be harder to do a comparison. 🙂

I enjoyed knitting this lace shawl but I think I’ll try toe up socks next.  I still have a quest to become a sock queen.

Xeni by Kitman Figueroa

Happy Knitting and Crocheting,

Diana Story

Tumbleweed Yarn

Wow, where has the time gone!  We here at Tumbleweed Yarn have completed our first year of business and it has been a great year.  We have learned so much and are inspired to do so much more this next year.

Here are some of Tumbleweed’s most memorable experiences of 2013:

DYE WORK SHOP

Kitman and I traveled from our beloved state of Texas to the great state of Massachusetts to attend a workshop with fiber artist Vicki Jenson.  We had a great time meeting people from other states who have an interest in perfecting their crafts with better dyeing techniques.  Discussing their varied interest in fiber arts such as felting, weaving, spinning and Kakishibu, just whetted my appetite to learn yet another craft, but I must resist! One woman had recently moved her family to a farm and aspired to raising her own sheep; her goal was to go from sheep to sweater! It would be so rewarding to handle the fiber from animal to garment. I think my favorite part of the workshop was learning the backgrounds of these talented women.  Just to list a few, there was a biochemist, a banker, a professor in political science, a theatre lighting technician and a psychologist.  I felt like I was in very good company. Vicki was a wonderful instructor and we left the workshop with hundreds of samples of various colors for us to play with and use in our colorways in the future.

CRAFT FAIR

2013 marked our first craft fair.  We participated in th3 Dallas Etsy Jingle Bash.  It was a lot of work building our stock for the fair and putting together our display booth.  The weather was cold and rainy so there was not as much customer traffic as we would have liked, but I felt like it was a big success for us.  We earned enough to pay for our cost and still put some money in the bank. Being first timers participating in the fair, we only expected to sell a skein or two, just enough to buy ourselves a beer afterwards.  So we were pleasantly surprised when we did as well as we did.  We look forward to our next fair in 2014.

MKAL

Kitman had a couple of MKALs this year.  She offered the patterns free if you bought our yarn and we got a nice response to the deal.  The amount of orders we received for the first MKAL took us a little by surprise and we had some long nights filling the orders.  Which was a nice problem to have! It was yet another great learning experience.

2014

Our focus for this year is to try to get the word out about our yarn.  We are feeling confident about our process and now we want to share our wonderful products with more people.

So as you daydream about your next project let us help you be inspired. We continue to add to our stock and below you can see our newest colors.  And please visit our shop to see our other offerings.

Lariat Self-Striping Yarn

Prairie Melon

Chocolate Cow

Cuppa Joe

Sunset

Happy Knitting!

Diana Story and Kitman Figueroa

Tumbleweed Yarn