TV killed the internet Star

Yesterday, while minding my busyness upstairs I heard a whole set of beeps coming from my mobile in the living room... Weird I thought, something's wrong. I ran down the stairs and found my wee phone, showing 5 (!) messages. I was only upstairs for a minute... what happened? Well, the messages read:
- Hahahahaha. A star!
- Moviestar! -x-
- You look hot on tv! x
- Looked great! Hehe!

I was on tv...
Remember at the Stitch 'n Bitch day the 'Jakhalzen' team from 'De Wereld Draait Door' filmed me? Well, I waited a week for them to broadcast it and when they didn't I forgot all about it. So here it is, if you're interested.

They turned me into a chipmunk, but other than that it's a fun little film. If you're not Dutch, no problem, it's almost like a comic or an animation.

Have fun laughing at me! ;-)

Much Ado About Knitting (Episode II)

Last time, in episode I, you’ve learned about the preparation, the goddess, joined in some knitting philosophy and read about my rising star on TV. Now hang on to your needles, the story continues:

Episode II:

The Autograph Girl, Baffled by the Goods and Damn Near Exhaustion

Knit a River for a good cause

After Sjoerd, Puk and I got one scene down (in which we teach him how to knit a red tie), I skipped on down the road onto the book signing where I presented D.S. (cool initials, means goddess in French… (ok, stop with the adoration stuff! I’m really starting to need a bucket!!) I presented Debbie Stoller with three of her (my) books. She gasped, said ‘wow’, and asked if I’ve used the dairy already. When presented with my humble drawings and writing, she smiled. I think she was honestly really happy to see that it was put to good use. I just whish I had it sooner so it would be full of stuff. After signing the first two, she ran out of lines to write in the third book. So I said ‘Why don’t you write; ‘I rock!’ off course she wouldn’t and wrote; ‘you rock!’ which was a bit embarrassing, to say the least…

note that my knitted skull matches her shirt (unintentionally...)

I'm such a nerd...

After finishing my skull wrist warmer that I wanted to present to Sjoerd, but he not-so-politely declined, I shopped for the goods. I planned on ‘window’ shopping before I’d start throwing money around like a madwoman. But I think that plan got lost somewhere around the third minute after coming up with it… I lost my head. I really did. Heard of the phrase: ‘kid in candy store’, pshshsh, skip that, I was Charlie, in the freaking chocolate factory (coffee factory technically ...)!! Usually at this point you’d read: ‘I didn’t know where to start’, but gosh I did, I did! ANYWHERE!!
I’m at the same time proud and a little embarrassed by all the crazyshoppingness splashed here before your eyes. I simply couldn’t help myself. But in my defence, I saved up for it! Yes, I did! And I gave myself a holy rule: Don’t buy stuff that’s easy to get in the usual stores. Did it work? You decide.

THE LOOT:

One set of vintage straight needles and three sets of vintage dpns. Beautiful stuff! What greatness could have been made with them, all those years ago? And second-hand Fair Isle ‘fishies’.

Bamboo needles. Two sets of dpns and a circular one. Not easily obtained here in ‘the low lands’.

One skein of the ultra soft Phildar Bowling in the pretty green colors. Have held it in my hands so many times, this was the time to buy it. I disobeyed the rule, I know, but it was cheaper here!!

Two skeins of organic, home dyed sockyarn (100% wool) by Storm Op Zolder (Storm in the Attic). Color: Honey Bear. Great crazy colour combo. Pretty cool stuff at the Storm Op Zolder booth. Cool owner as well!

Two skeins of Wensleydale Sheep Shop Long wool in a powder blue and a light curry colour.
Can be felted, but I’m thinking maybe too pretty to felt….

A bunch of Drops Eskimo bulky yarn in off-white to make a scarf and hat or hat and mittens or mittens and scarf. You catch my drift. Very Dolce & Gabana, very this season!

And finally, two skeins of amazingly soft Drops Alpaca. So soft you can hardly feel it. One in a powder blue again, or maybe I should say light petrol. And one in a forest green mixed with a rusty colour. Great, great stuff! Are probably morphing into wristwarmers or fingerless gloves.

And I also got quite a bit of folders, flyers and busyness cards for follow-up-shopping online.
At the end of the day it turned out that I had mysteriously missed one booth. Puk took me to see it. And oh my gosh, the lusciousness, the wonder, the sparkling prettiness… The two sisters from Klazien's Kreatie sold the perfect green tweed for my cardi-to-be, the holy grail of my knitting. See, I’m on a quest for the perfect pattern and the perfect yarn and I’ve found the latter! Insert *happydance* here. Sadly enough I ran out of money way before I stumbled upon the sisters. Then one of them said: ‘We have an ATM, you can pay with your bank card if you want.’ My knees wobbled, my breath stopped for a second and then I did the sanest thing I did all day: I walked away… (clutching their folder tightly in my hand)

It was a crazy day, a crazy and wonderful day. The craziest thing about it all was the fact that people, strange people came up to me saying; ‘you must be Sas!’. Crazy @ss sh#t! Very, very, very surreal! Those people turned out not to be so strange at all, they were some of the Dutch bloggers I read and know well from their stories! I met Lies, Saartje, Tijm, Astrid and...am I forgetting anyone? It was great to see them in person and hear their voices. Great lassies the bunch of them they are! (read with Scottish accent in mind) I whish I had more time to chat to them, and meet every one of those bloggers out there online, but there was so much going on, I got swept away from one location to the next the whole day through. (mental note: blogger meetingpoint on next SnB Day!) These strange meetings and my TV appearance would definitely file under: my 15 minutes of fame. As the day would file under: 6 hours of bliss and wonder.

a certain someone's loving her new yarn..

another someone is loving her siggie so much she had to go knit outside. It was the funniest thing, this woman was cursing and smoking and knitting at the same time, a true stitch bitch, pardon my french...

Finally, after 6 hours of bliss, I got back onto my bike, full bags hanging from my handlebar and rode off into the crisp, bright sunset, feeling like an exhausted but happy, happy knitter.

The End

Van Nelle Fabriek

In reaction to Much Ado About Knitting (Episode I), the previous post:

A whole bunch of lovely lassies replied to my last post, beeeing a little sad about the way I portreyed the knitters at the SnB Holland Day. Gosh girls, I wasn't talking about you!! Not in the least bit. Aren't you girls the funky online knitters that are knitting funky and hip stuff? You are! Give yourself some credit! I should have mentioned Holland when I talked about my knitting world online. You are part of it too you know. Quote: 'I’ve got in contact with young(-ish) girls and women that are on the same knitting wave-length as I am.' THAT'S YOU! Little did I know that you were older than 30-ish (as mentioned) Which, when you think of it, is proving that I réally think you're young. Haha! ;-) I do feel that in addition to that it would've been nice to see some younger knitters too, another new generation. Which certainly doesn't mean that I don't have a world of respect for the elderly knitters. That's a completely different story altogehter. Hope I've explained myself better this time. ;-)

Knit it on you frisky young things!

x

Much Ado About Knitting (Episode I)

An epic story starts here, today. After a fun packed day SAS Knits It Again, crawls out of her bed, behind her laptop and shares with you a tale of knit and wit of meetings and greetings of expectations and realisations and of yarn and glory.

Episode I:

La D.S., S’nB Philosophy and TV Stardom

I opened my eyes yesterday morning and a vague familiar feeling got over me. Was it my birthday today? Did I get a new outfit? Did I drastically change my haircut? There was something going on…starting slowly at first and then rushing up to consciousness like new years’ fireworks, it hit me: IT’S STITCH ‘N BITCH HOLLAND DAY!!

Boyfriend Dear looked at me with unfocussed eyes, smiled, rolled back onto his other side while muttering; ‘sometimes you’re just a little kid you know, this whole week you’ve hardly been able to sleep because of this.’
What can I say? He’s right!

So I got my stuff together, packed a UFO or three, arranged everything travel light style (yeah right…), stuffed a big empty bag in the other bag for the loot and hopped on my bike. It was a lovely crisp autumn day and up until I had to climb a pretty steep bridge it was a lovely bike ride. With every meter I got closer to the Van Nelle Fabriek(the spot marked X on the treasure map) my heart started pounding a little harder, deeper, faster. By golly, I swear it skipped a few beats!

Wait… at the pass this is going, I’ll have to write about it all, every single detail. I swear… I could…

So I’m rushing right over to about 20 minutes after meeting my Rotterdam knitting soul mate in the lobby (above picture):
Before I schlepped my stuff to the first lecture, I grabbed myself a quick cup of coffee hoping that they’d allow me to drink it in the auditorium. When I arrived I pulled up a chair, while balancing my big bag full of knitcrap, trying to haul it over to the next chair, planning to get myself real comfortable for the main, main, main, MAIN event of the day….and dropped my coffee on the floor...
After realising that this location used to be a coffee factory and formulating the excuse in my head that the coffee was now back where it came from –back home so to speak-, I acted as natural as I could and sat down to quietly check out the knitters (and what they were knitting) around me. Scanning the room my eyes got jerked back to the place in the room they just passed before… There she was, in all her knitting glory: La Stoller, the knitter of knits, the founder of greatness, the …. (I just made myself feel sick). Well, Debbie Stoller, writer of the Stitch ‘n Bitch books and founder of the first Stitch ‘n Bitch group (NYC) stood there, quietly talking.

I’m not making this long story short… not at all… Are you still reading?

While Debbie spoke, in amazingly well Dutch (her mom is Dutch), I knitted a skull wrist warmer. She was wearing a skull T-shirt and I swear it was a total coincidence. I’m sooooo in sync with Debbie…. (Gosh Sas, this is nauseating stuff, cut it out!). The story of how she started knitting, the S’nB group and writing was fun and charming and at the end we asked questions and chattered like sparrows until her time was up. My question: What are you knitting right now? Was followed by the answer: A book! It was kind of sad that she’s too busy to knit and it’s turning into work for her. I’ve sent in a design for her next book, all about patterns for men. I’ll keep you posted on that one. Oh and guess who I was sitting next too? Her mum and aunt, really lovely women and as a humble knitter I felt in the presence of history and history in the making at the same time.

I was a little disappointed at the turn up at Debbie’s lecture, it being the S’nB NL day and all, I thought we were going to be like sardines in a tin can (only less oily), but no. And then I realised something. The phrase ‘knitting is hip’ is seen a lot in Dutch media lately. But it’s not so much ‘hip’ here as it is ‘back’. Not all knitters are hip and young and frisky fresh. And by young I mean ehm twenty, thirty-ish… the kind of knitters you associate with the Stitch ‘n Bitch phenomenon. I have to say I was a bit disappointed at the amount of young, hip knitters overall this day. And then I realised something else. Something quite amazing and logical at the same time. The knitting society online is something completely different from the knitting society in 3D. It’s really bizarre realising that those are two completely different things. Online I knit with girls from the US, Ireland, Sweden, New Zeeland and Australia. I’ve got in contact with young(-ish) girls and women that are on the same knitting wave-length as I am. I surf the sites that I like, sites with modern patterns and mostly young designers and I live in a fabricated knitting world. The closest I get to this self-made-world-of-knittyness in real life is my group of knitting friends in the knit-togethers we organise at our homes (so technically not an S’nB group). But these girls aren’t NEARLY as obsessed as I am and mostly they only knit while we’re togehter in the group.
Sigh…
End of philosophy bit.

After that I was a little chicken running around the different halls trying to figure out where the #@#% Miss Stoller was going to be signing her books, when I ran into Sjoerd. This geezer I’ve know for a couple of years. He’s actually doing my job at one of the pop clubs/venues I worked a couple of yrs ago. But he’s also in television nowadays. In a daily talk show called ‘De Wereld Draait Door’ (loosely translated, funnily enough: ‘As The World Turns’) there’s always a couple of minutes taken over by de Jakhalzen (The Jackals). These Jackals are a group of well dressed men in black with red ties that make short films of interesting events while ‘tacking the Mickey’ out of it at the same time. Sjoerd is one of them. You know what’s coming next…
Yup, I and Puk were two of their ‘victims’. I could write a whole post on this subject, but for your sake I’ll post a link to the site where you can download the show after (and if) it’s broadcasted. If I’m not too embarrassed that is… Let's just say it all went great, but I'm thinking after the editing, it might all look very, very different...

End of episode I

Tune in next time for more funpacked adventures of SAS @ SnB Holland Day, while she Knits It Again!

Van Nelle Fabriek

Stars 'n Flowers

My homegirl Sterre, daughter of my homegirl Roos celebrated her second birthday not too long ago. I asked Roos if she'd like me to knit her wee girl something. And she did. She'd like a black hat and scarf.

And so it was done. From this book I took a pretty 'hat with flower on top' pattern and designed a scarf to go with it myself. It took me a bit longer then expected, because of the small needles, but it was really fun to knit, especially the flowers; quick and cute! The whole project took me about a week and a half or maybe two weeks... can't remember exactly.

At first I was worried whether the hat would be to big for her, but it fitted her perfectly and because I decided to knit a size in between the sizes in the book, she'll be able to wear it again next year.

Oh m'gosh, how cute is this girl?! Two years old and smiling like a professional model!

Together with her gorgeous mommy showing her new winter outfit.

You'd think; 'what an adorable picture.' But what you don't know is that this little star just got out of bed and smelled like poo mixed with toothpaste. (lucky you!, poor me.... it does explains my weird facial expression!)

Pattern: Flower Toggle Hat from Designs For Kids By Lucinda Guy + self desingned scarf which is basically using the same stitch knitting an 8" wide scarf, starting with a border in one color, (the same length as the one in the hat) and ending with the second color. Graft it together and make more flowers from the book to pimp it up. The length of the scarf is about 1.15 m (45")

Materials: Lana Grossa, Merino 2000, superfein, 100% virgin merino wool. needle size 3-3,5 (mm) but I used 4,5 mm. 1 skein of 437 (hot pink), 1 skein of 433 (red) and 3 skeins of black (lost the number...)

Alterations to the pattern: Sizes in de book are for 2-3 yrs old / 3-4 yrs old and 4-5 yrs old. The hat is knitted in two pieces, I took made one piece in the smallest size and one in the medium size to come up with a size that's somewhere in the middle. The girl is two but fits it perfectly. (she doesn't have an unnatural big head by the way...)

Time 2 knit: About two weeks, knitting an hour or two a day, for the whole set.

End result: Both loved by myself, the recipient (she'd actually wear it indoors while squeaking and smiling) and the recipients parents. (the kind loving it a knitter loves, repeatedly crying out how cool it is and how lovely it looks and how fantastic you are for making it) Should I just come clean? ... This is why I knit, it's just a self esteem booster... hehehehe

Tag Rotterdam

Remember the Ladyfest? Well, I promised you I'd show you some pictures of the finished knitted tags from the workshop I gave. Well, the camera results were a wee bit disappointing, but still, here are some of the tags in full glory, framed by the beautiful city of Rotterdam. (most of them are taken at night... so it might just as well be Paris... Barcelona or Capelle a/d IJssel...)

knitted by a Romanian knitter who's organising Ladyfest Romania

you'll remember this one, I added it for picture volume...

anonymous knitter in action in broad daylight (bold!!) while actions questioned by wee Chinese passers-by.

Tagging right in front of my favorite hang out, I'm fearless!

Some funky knitwear by another 'anonymous' knitter. I was told that the Erasmus Bridge (aka 'the Swan') is prominently in the background... somewhere...

Anyone who feels like tagging in Rotterdam with me, let me know. I'll provide you with the logo so you can print it on adress labels, attach it to your tag and go Heat Up The City in the name of 'Tag Rotterdam'!! Let's give the people of Rotterdam something to smile and wonder about and brighten the place up a little!! (I know the logo's not great, I just quickly whipped it up before the workshop, but hey, it communicates, right?!) If you want to join, HOLLAR!

On other knitting matters:

I knitted Daniel a simple skull wristband for his birthday but forgot to post the pictures. Daniel is a very talented and extremely nice photographer. He printed one of his pictures for my birthday. I love home-made gifts! In the picture you see my friend Steven (on the left) with Reinier together with two other fellas they form the band Cellophane. They absolutely rock, you should really check out their 'My Space'.

maybe not so flattering a picture but it's totally due to my poor camera phone, let that be clear to y'all!

At the moment I'm working on a i-pod nano cover and a scarf for Daniel (I guess he's become a fan...) and a scarf for his girlfriend (and talented multi-artist) Kim. There's hardly any time for 'my own' projects, but I'm enjoying myself to no extend. I'm really, really flattered that people are now ordering 'SAS Knits It Again' knitwear.

I've almost finished the hat and scarf for Sterre, pictures coming up shortly!

Now I'm off downstairs, where there's more knitting to be done. I just luuuuuurv the weekend!

Raspberry Beret

Let me just start you off with this beauty. A double rainbow appeared over WaterFront (the pop venue/club that I do PR/publicity for) I was too late to capture them both, but I did get just the one. It was be-au-ti-full, and we're already in a great location. I just wanted to share this with you guys and now...

on to the knitting:

Remember when I got that great package from Andrea? Well, it came with some really soft and funky kid mohair/merino blend from Touch Exclusive. Great New Zealand made stuff. Well, I conjured up some plans to make the most out of it. And I think I succeeded. Two skeins of a 100 grams made me a complete fall/winter set. The beret is the 'last minute purled beret' by Wendy from Knit & Tonic, the shawl pattern I also took from Wendy's blog. And the pattern for the mittens is this one from Garnstudio. I finished the shawl the last just so that I could make the best usage of the yarn since the pattern is done when you're done with your yarn... I added two pink buttons, but it can also be tied as a scarf and a pink crocheted poodle I got from my friend Roos.

Thank you Drea!! I'm wearing it all the time, I love it! :-)

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Last Friday we had our first Knit-together (Brei-eenkomst) of the season. We have a summer stop since most of our knitters are beginners and still associate knitting with winter... but we'll soon kick that irrational thought right out of them, I promise! Zita hosted the knitting party and invited two new knitters; Nancy and Cindy. It took them about two seconds to get the hang of it and they each finished about 1/8 of a scarf by the end of the evening. Faultless!!

It was all good! (and not only for the human knitters...)

This is my current project. A hat for Roos' daughter Sterre's birthday.
It's from this book:

The original title is: 'Designs for Kids' by Lucinda Guy and was first published by Rowan Yarns in 2005, it's a great book full of fun kid's patterns for sweaters, hats, scarfs, blankets and stuffed animals. I'm making the Flower Hat as requested in black. But I'm using some pink and red as well to spicy it up a little. After I finish the hat I'm designing a scarf to go with it since there's no matching scarf design in the book. But hey, I'll manage. I have some Ideas, how hard can it be?! (or am I tempting faith here by saying this...?)

Meanwhile I've finished an i-pod nano bag and as soon as it's received by it's new owner, I'll take and post some pictures and maybe even the pattern. I can tell you, it's really, really, no wait... REALLY small! And I've come up with some rather nifty designing solutions. But all that later! Bye!