Swatches Trunk Show

Hi All! Wow so much has been happening around here. This year really is being good to us. I have tons to tell you, but that will have to wait for another post. For now I get to tell you about a fantastic trunk show going on.

Swatches, our Fresno shop on Bullard & West, moved to their new location a year ago. They spent the last weekend celebrating their anniversary and brought in our yarn for a trunk show.

Our yarn trunk show is continuing at Swatches for the whole month of April. If you didn't get over there this weekend, you still have time. Swatches even has sweater amounts in some of our yarns. Enjoy!

Miss Brooks - Guest Post by Sarah Wilson

Hey guys! Sabrina asked me to come on over to the blog and do a little post about my new Anzula Yarns pattern, Miss Brooks! This summer, I was fortunate enough to run into Sabrina while she was pitching my LYS on her way to TNNA. I was working on Guinevere in the shop that day, and we got to talking about design. After some delicious Kansas City barbeque, we agreed that I would design a dress with Sebastian and Mermaid for the next TNNA, January 2011. Four months and five skeins of gorgeous yarn later, I give you: Miss Brooks!

Worked entirely in stockinette and reverse stockinette, this dress is a timeless classic with plenty of sex appeal.

I have a thing for style of days gone by. If I could get away with dressing in Regency dresses and Tudor gowns every day I would, but that's another story for another day. For this piece, I wanted to reference the glamour of 1920's fashion; skirts were getting shorter, legs were just starting to go bare, and modesty was still a valued commodity. I considered giving the piece a dropped waist, but in the end I decided placing the skirt just below the natural waist line would keep the pattern more accessible to today's woman. A boat neck, sheer sleeves and sexy layered skirt finish the dress in style, snatching it away from the land of costuming and landing it squarely in the 21st century.

Check out the outline of that leg through the bottom layer of the skirt! Sexy! The top two layers cover you where it counts.

I particularly love the skirt on this dress. Each layer is worked side to side in reverse stockinette; the bottom edges are allowed to curl up, and they're seamed only partially from the right side, resulting in a cool sort of deconstructed look. Once you put it on, the bottom layer is almost completely sheer. Nineteen-twenties, meet The Sexy Knitter!

Vintage fashion not your thing? Give it an even more "right now" twist by styling it with a steampunk vibe, instead.

As much as I love the monochromatic look of the dress worked all in one color, I would be excited to see it knitted using a different color for each skirt layer. It would even make a lovely wedding gown, worked all in white or cream! Replace the satin belt for leather and the vintage heels for half boots, or add a bit of steampunk and make the style all your own. Can you see the possibilities? There are lots!

This dress was featured in the fashion show at TNNA in January 2011 and was a huge hit! Click here to get your own copy of the pattern (in six sizes from 30-50 inch busts) for just $6.00. This one's great for a knitting machine!

Many thanks to Lee Ann Barker for the gorgeous photos. She was, as always, talented and patient.

Watch for trains when you're shooting on the tracks, kids! Lord, I thought we were going to get run over...

***** Sarah Wilson is The Sexy Knitter, and will be designing another showpiece for Anzula Yarns this year. Visit Sarah on the web at www.sexyknitter.com, or on Ravelry, Twitter and Etsy as TheSexyKnitter.

How Far We've Come, Lets Celebrate!

I am sitting in my comfy chair at the studio right now, working on creating labels for the mini skeins that we give out at TNNA. As I am doing this, I'm thinking back to where we were last year & the year before and how far we have come. In 2008 we had our yarn & spinning fiber were in just one shop & we were still doing farmer's markets & craft shows.

In 2009 eight new shops started carrying our yarn. We had booths at Stitches West, Stitches South, Sock Summit & Lambtown. We grew & learned so much from each of these shows.

This year we took the leap and had our first booth at TNNA. What an experience that was! We had a fantastic team & fourteen new shops across eleven states started carrying our yarn. Then the next month we were off to Stitches West again & blew the previous year out of the water. It was so busy, I forgot to take pictures of the finished booth. I only got a couple during setup.

In June we made the trek across the country to Columbus, OH for our second TNNA. On the way we were able to stop in a bunch of our yarn shops. What a treat that was. The only thing that would have made it better would have been if I had remembered to take some photos. Our second TNNA experience was as good as our first. Many of our shops made reorders & a whole bunch of new shops made orders with us. We are now in almost 50 shops across the country & Canada.

We so love & appreciate all of our shops & customers! We wouldn't be here with out you. So we decided to celebrate. This Saturday, from 10am to 3pm, we are opening up the studio and all of our yarn & spinning fiber is going to be available for sale. On top of that we will have some other vendors here for DIO and our friend Matt is going to bring over his pizza oven. He will make wood fired pizza to order. How cool is that! We will also have coffee from Cafe Corazon, hot cocoa & tasty treats.

We have a lot to celebrate & be thankful for. We hope to see you then! Happy Knitting!!!