fiddlesticknitting

Your Faves

Hey everybody! I hope everyone has had a nice Father's Day/Summer Solstice Weekend. After the craziness of the past two weeks, I was verrrrry lazy this weekend :) Want to do a post on my new "diet" and workout, but that will have to wait for a day or so.
I'm doing some Petite research and would like your feedback:

What are your favorite online sources for yarns, needles, notions, anything fiber related? How about indie dyers? How about your favorite sources for kids stuff? Have any favorite Etsy shops that create handmade toys or accessories for kids?

I have my favorites, and will share them with you later, but would love to know yours. Leave a comment!
Thanks!

Hope the start to your first week of summer is great!

Yarn Thing Podcast

Good Morning Everybody! Just wanted to let you know that Brandy and I will be on the Yarn Thing Podcast tonight with Marly! Friday, June 19th at 7pm (MST)/ 9pm (EST). Call in and say hi! Or you can listen to the podcast via Itunes. Check it out!

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/YarnThing/2009/06/20/Petite-Purls

Bliss

This dress went through so many obstacles before becoming what it is. First there were going to be big cables on the bodice, then there were going to be flowers in the same color here and there with a i-cord stem attached between them, then the flowers were going to be another color, there were going to be buttons added to the straps, hated the color I chose for the dress, and on and on. Lots of frustration. Lots of "I don't know what the hell I'm doing".  I still don't really know what the hell I'm doing when it comes to designing, but I LOVE the way Bliss turned out.
Without fail, it's this gorgeous photo that sells the dress. Satya was crabby that day, I was crabby that day, I wanted tons of flowers, couldn't find the exact location that I envisioned (have I mentioned that I'm a PITA?), etc. But my dear friend Stacy is beyond brilliant and what she is able to produce blows me away.
Her photographs are "like buttah". That's how I like to describe them. Creamy, perfect color combos (ok, the dress color helped that!), just amazing. I can't thank you enough Stacy, muah!
So, something that I've learned in the past month is that I know little to nothing about designing. Nothing about construction. I have great ideas and have NO idea how to bring them to life. I always think, oh that will be easy, you just do this and this and this, without ever thinking, oh but that is so not how you construct that. There's also a time issue. I'm a total procrastinator. Plus I am very low on time that I can spend desiging, or knitting for that matter. Do I ever take that into consideration? Nah. I like to torture myself by pulling close-to all-nighter, practically knitting with my eyes closed and then get very stressed out when things don't turn out the way I expected them to.
So I've learned a lot. There are a lot of things I need to change about my process. And the first thing I'm going to do is to just sit and KNIT. Someone else's pattern. Maybe another after that. Maybe read through the myriad of books that I have taking over my house and learn a thing or two about construction. Knit gauge squares. What a concept! (actually, I've gotten a lot better with that). I have a new design in my head for a toddler summer top, but NO CLUE how to construct it. Going to take my time on this one. No deadlines :)
Whatever happened to the Year of the Cowl, you may ask? Yeah, that got thrown by the wayside with all the Petite Purls work I had to do. I still have plans for it, but won't do anything publicly about it until the fall. I have a great plan, we'll see if I can pull it off. Yes, again, if you don't remember, my middle name is Ambitious :)
Finally, I want to thank everyone that checked our site out yesterday. We got the site hit numbers today and wow! They totally exceeded our wildest expectations! Amazing! We are off to a great start.
Ok, now I'll go back to my blogging every 6 weeks or so! jk!

Petite Purls

Isn't Jacques the cutest thing you've ever seen? I am pretty sure that I squealed when Katie's pictures came in, and Satya pretty much flung her body onto my laptop to see him.
I can't tell  you what an amazing experience Petite Purls has been so far. I have learned so much about myself, I still have so much more to learn about designing (but I'll keep that for another post), have learned a lot about computer stuff, perspective and having my eyes look at things both for myself and our potential readers.
We are so lucky to have such a seasoned tech editor, Joan, who has done such wonderful work so far. And what can I say about Brandy? She has been such a pleasure to work with and become better friends with. When this brainchild of ours was first born, little did I realize how talented of a web designer I was going to get to work with! She has made our site more classy and perfect than I could've imagined. Plus she's a great designer and has an excellent eye for just about everything. We make a great team, if I may say so myself.  I look forward to our future as partners in crime!
And how lucky are we to have such talented designers to premiere our site! When we put our call out for designers, little did we know we would end up with the perfect ensemble of designs: something for baby,  something for a hot day, something for a cool, breezy afternoon, something girly, something for mama and, the cutest toy ever for people of all ages! It was serendipity, I say!
Thanks to everyone that has shown support. We've had great feedback just in the past 14 hours or so! We look forward to our next issue and all future issues.
Well, I should come back down to earth and face reality: it's time to clean the house. <sigh>
I'll write a post about Bliss and my beautiful daughter tomorrow.

Our Little Pet Project

Want to know what Pixie and I have been up to for the past oh, seven months or so? Run, don't walk, and check it out! And tell all of your friends!

We'll chat all about it later..... I need to sleep!

Uh, (knock knock) Is Anyone Out There?

Why, hello! Can I tell you how many times I've written a blog post in my head in the past uh, month? 6 weeks? but never got over here to Typepad to really write it. I wonder if I still have some readers? I noticed that I lost a good amount of  readers after my last post, I am sorry if I offended anyone (I don't really know how I could've......but anyway).

So! What have you been up to? Want to know what I've been up to? You're probably thinking, oh Allegra, she hasn't knit a thing all year, is too busy with Satya, blahblahblah. Well, let me say, SO WRONG!!!! I wish I could tell you right now what I've been up to, but I can't :) You'll just have to wait :) You won't have to wait much longer though.....Check back here on Monday, June 15th. All I can say about what I've been up to is that it's awesome, it's beautiful, and you're all going to go crazy when you see it. Am I tooting my own horn? Why, yes, I am! That's how good it is!!!

Ok, enough vague self-promotion! Anyone out there going to Estes Park Wool Market this weekend? I am going on Saturday. Let me know if you'll be there and we can meet up! I am hoping to knit up an Ishbel by Saturday. I am in love with this pattern and want to make at least three of them!

I hope to blog a lot more often once Monday is here, so I hope you stick around! Here's an obligatory cute pic of my darling devil-child  daughter: