photo by kitchknits via Flickr

From time to time we pass along charity knitting opportunities for those who are so inclined.  This week we have a charity that we think you all can get behind.  It isn’t really a charity actually – it’s a grassroots movement to provide warmth and comfort to a portion of our society that needs both.

The project is called “Sweet Caroline” and is all about knitting wool caps for premature babies.

Several knitters have come on board with this already.  Meliabella (Ravelry name) from the His & Hers video podcast organized a knit along for these caps.  You can read about it here.  Response has been fantastic and you’re invited to participate, too.

All you need is this free pattern and between 10g and 50g of leftover sock yarn.  The best yarn choices are sw wool/nylon (no luxury fibers due to sensitivities).  The free pattern is here.  Don’t feel like you can’t alter it, though!  There are a load of different stitch patterns that would look awesome on these caps.  Click through the projects page to see all the ones people have created.

Once you’ve knit the preemie cap (or several of them… they are quick and satisfying knits) you can mail it to your local NICU (google the local hospital for address and mailing guidelines) or to any NICU of your choice.  Be sure to share pics of these caps with us so we can see what you’ve created!

Things have appeared quiet here at IY Central.  It’s been quite some time since the blog has been posted to and even longer since anything new was introduced.  It’s not that I’m not here – I am.  Rather, it’s because I took some time to stop talking about living Intentionally and actually DID it.

Living Intentionally isn’t easy – it’s much simpler to float on the tide, letting circumstances and events lead us where they wish.  Paddling against the current can be difficult and while worth it (that’s how you get to where YOU want to go, of course) … it can be very hard to do.

So how did I do it?

I started with the idea that I needed more balance in my life.  I love what I do.  Truly.  But there came a point where work was consuming me: it was all I worked on, thought about, talked about, and did.  I was having a hard time talking to other adults about anything buy yarn and fiber.  I didn’t even have time to knit, the craft that began this business path.  Clearly, something needed to change.

So I took this feeling and thought hard about it.  Balance: what does that look like?  What areas of my life do I need to pay more attention to?  How do I justify spending less time on work?  There was a lot to think about, and more than I could pop into a bubble chart in my notebook.

Enter Mindbloom.

Mindbloom is a site designed to help you achieve balance in your life.  Your life is represented by a small tree.  Each branch on that tree is a different area in your life you’d like to work on – for me that was career, lifestyle, balance, and creativity.  Each area allows you to set actions, things you do every day or week that show you’re making progress in that area.  For example, in my lifestyle branch, one of my actions is to “Do fun things outside the house.”  If I do something fun, I put a check in the box.  It’s uber easy to see which area of my life needs a little work.  The leaves start out green and as an area gets neglected, they turn red, then brown.

So that’s where I’ve been – living my life Intentionally.  Now that I have a better balance, I’m more able to create with Intention.  Later this week I’ll be sending out a newsletter that showcases the newest Limited Edition Intention.  It was designed and dyed specifically for you.  I hope you like it.

For more info on Mindbloom, click the image below.

Wendy D. Johnson (WendyKnits to most) is a terrific knitter and designer.  I use her Socks from the Toe Up book as my basic sock recipes and have admired many of the shawls and sweaters she has blogged about.  Her newest Shawl is the Japanese Garden Shawl and it is, as you might imagine, as stunning as all her other work.

This isn’t just a shawl, however.  Until the end of April, all proceeds from the sale of this shawl are going to the American Red Cross to help with their relief efforts in Japan.  That makes this shawl more than just knitting.  There is Intention going on in both pattern and project, and it’s something we here at IY can really get behind.

In order to help WendyKnit’s efforts, we’d like to give away a copy of the pattern.  Please leave a comment on this blog entry *with your Ravelry name* by Sunday March 27 at 9pm EST and I will gift one commenter a copy of the pattern on Ravelry.  Please also add the shawl to your queue and click “add to wish list” so that I can easily gift the pattern to you.

It seems that when faced with a crisis, knitters come together to help as best they can.  Now, more than ever, it’s clear to me that all our Intentions have love at the core.

I mentioned a while back that I was making a pair of stockinette socks out of my skein of Focus.  They are finished and I love them.  Here’s an in progress shot:

Focus

I have no finished object shots, because as soon as they were dry from blocking they went on my feet and have barely left them since.  I keep meaning to photograph them when they are clean, but they just don’t stay still long enough!  Those socks are on my feet too fast to capture on film.

I’ve begun knitting with the newest Limited Edition Intention as well.  I looked for a long time for just the right pattern, but ended up casting on for a pair of custom mittens instead.  It’s past time I have pretty mittens and this yarn is gorgeous.  I’ve only gone about an inch past the cuff:

New LEI!

I love them.

Several people are also working with their Intentions yarn.  Click the links below to read what they are up to.  Make sure to leave a comment if you like what you see!  More blog trainers will be added/linked to this post as they reply to my emails (seems I’m not the only person with an explodey life.  Thank Heavens).  If you wanted to join the train but forgot, it’s not too late!  Just send an email to revealATintentionyarnsDOTcom with a link to your blog and we’ll add you to it.  What are you waiting for?

• The Adventures of KTO
• The Fiber of My Being

If you’ve ever tried to create a design with colorwork, you’ve probably done what I have; labored with coloring pencils and graph paper, trying to make everything look right.  Once the chart is right and you’ve cleaned all the eraserbits off, you have to figure out how to digitize it.  What a pain!

Thankfully Clara Parkes, knitter and writer extraordinaire, has come to our collective rescue.  She tweeted the other day about a wonderful site that helps you create beautiful colorwork that’s already digital!  The site is called Tricksy Knitter, and the chart is here.  Try it out and brag about your new chart making skill in the Intention Yarns Ravelry group.

PS: Blog train is still scheduled for tomorrow. Write up your blog post today!  Email me at revealATintentionyarnsDOTcom when you are done and include a link to your blog.  Thanks!

Photo courtesy Ethan Hein via Flickr

So I had every Intention (get it?) of hosting a fantastic blog train today.  I meant to email everyone, get everybody on board, and sip my coffee this morning and enjoy what everyone is creating with their Intentions.

Life just laughed at me.

Things at IY Central got a bit crazy and I didn’t get the necessary emails sent.  So instead, I’ll be moving the train’s departure date to March 19th and will be emailing participants RIGHT NOW so that I don’t let this get away from me again.  If you’re looking for the train, I’m sorry!  I hope you can understand about the craziness that is life and work and fiber.  Please come back next week to see the train.  I promise there will be one!

photo by Starley2 (flickr)

The Intention Yarns blog train is scheduled for Saturday, March 12.  That’s this Saturday.  Have you written your blog post yet?  I’ll be sending out email reminders to those who said they’d participate.  No worries if you haven’t signed up yet – there’s still time!  Just drop me a note here or by email (revealATintentionyarnsDOTcom) and you can hop right on.  I will be posting about my Focus socks as well as my plans for the newest Limited Edition Intention.  I have it wound into a center pull ball, but haven’t begun knitting yet.  Soon, I hope.  Today’s task is to pick out (or design) a pattern.  There are just so many great choices!

Speaking of the next LEI, it’s about to be launched.  I’m just waiting on one more extra for the packages to arrive.  The yarn has had its photoshoot, is all reskeined and pretty.  I can’t wait to tell you all about it!

This does mean, however, that Focus is going to be retired.  It’s my goal to have one LEI going at a time to avoid confusion on my end.  I have a limited number of skeins left – if you’ve been thinking about purchasing a skein, I’d do it now.  I’ll be removing Focus from the shop on Saturday, March 19. That gives you just over a week.  I love this colorway and would like to offer it again, but it will be months before that can happen.  Why wait?

As spring arrives here at IY Central, expect that things will be moving a bit faster.  There will be more LEIs.  I’ll be adding a new Intention to the core seven.  there may be a knit-along.  Downloadables are coming.  Patterns will soon be available.  If you’d like to stay on top of everything that’s happening, be sure to sign up for the mailing list.  I send out a newsletter about new things just before I blog it for the entire populace.

I’m hoping you are enjoying the sunshine we haven’t seen much of.  Happy Intentioning!

Several people have commented or emailed me saying that they’d like to join the IY blog train.  GREAT!  I’m so excited.  Here are some more details for what this is going to look like.  If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask them.

If you haven’t signed up yet but would like to play along, please do!  Just drop me a comment or email so I know that you’ll be participating.

rachel_titiriga via flickr

The big idea: On the same day, several people post a blog entry about what they are (or will be) making with Intention Yarns.  Below each post is a hyperlinked list with all the participants’ blog addresses so your readers can click from your blog to the next blog in the train and so on.  It’s a fantastic way to see what we’re all doing (and it gets you new readers, too!).

When it’s happening: Blog train will take place on Saturday, March 12.  That’s when all the posts will go live and the linking will begin.  You don’t have to wait until then to write your post!  Write it, add pictures, link patterns to Ravelry … then leave it in your drafts.  Email me and give me the web address so I can hook you up to the train (revealATintentionyarnsDOTcom).

Where it occurs: Your blog, this blog … other Intentioners’ blogs.  Your own little bit of the internet where we can ooh and ahh over what you’re creating with IY.  You don’t have to worry about anyone but yourself – I’ll email you a cut-and-paste-able list of everyone’s web addresses (already hyperlinked) so you don’t have to worry about a thing!  You can just sit back and watch your traffic and comments pour in.

I’m so excited to do this!  If you don’t want to participate but are curious, I hope you’ll be back on March 12 to ride the train.  I hope to do this again later in the spring so you’ll have another opportunity to participate. Until then – happy knitting!

Photo courtesy of -Tripp- via Flickr

I’ve been sending a lot of skeins of Intentions out into the world lately and that makes me very happy.  I love imagining what each skein will become (and sometimes people send me pictures, which makes me ecstatic).  Very often, though, I never see these skeins again … and I want to.

So I’ve decided that in March I’ll be hosting a blog train.  A blog train is a really neat idea where on a specific day a group of participants blog about the same thing. Then they all link to each other so that readers can get to all of the blogs and read everybody’s posts.  It’s an awesome way to be inspired by others and to drive more traffic to your blogs.

This might sound complicated, but really it’s not.  If you think you might like to participate, please leave a comment below or email me (revealATintentionyarnsDOTcom).  All you need to participate is a skein of IY yarn and a blog.  You don’t have to have DONE anything with either.  I’d be interested even if all you tell me is what you’re planning with your yarn – and I’m never going to judge how long it’s been since you last blogged.  I promise.

So who’s going to join me on this ride?  It’s going to be awesome.

Every week I search the internet to find awesome free things to blog about.  While there’s a lot of free stuff out there, not all of it’s good.  Some weeks it can be tough to find great freebies to offer you – that’s why last Friday I decided to give some Intention Yarns away free (more on that later).

This week the internet gods have smiled on us, because I have not one but SIX free things to share with you.  Plus there’s the free skein of yarn from last week (but more on that later).

The first is a free short story from the author Rachael Herron.  You may know her from her blog Yarn-A-Go-Go or from her first book, How to Knit a Love Song. I bought this book when it came out and have read it several times.  I love it.  I reviewed it on my podcast, too.  I follow Rachael Herron on Twitter and really enjoy her personality.  Because I am also subscribed to her newsletter, I get updates about her newest book’s progress and more.  She recently sent an email about “Honeymooning,” a short story written about Tom and Janet (two characters from How to Knit a Lovesong).  For a limited time this story is being offered FREE.  It’s a digital book meant for Nook or Kindle - but if you don’t have one, don’t despair because you can download it to your computer, too (Mac and PC).  I have downloaded it but haven’t read it yet.  I can’t wait to get started.  Get your copy free for another week or so.

PS: Rachael Herron’s new book, How to Knit a Heart Back Home, will be released March 1.  I’m betting it’s worth pre-ordering.

The rest of the freebies I have to share with you are ebooks as well, this time from Interweave Knits.  I subscribe to their newsletter largely because they offer freebies like these from time to time (and often have terrific sales on knitting books).  Whether you knit or crochet, Interweave has a collection of patterns to offer you.  Currently available for FREE:

7 Knitted Hat Projects

8 Crochet Hat Projects

3 Scarf Patterns (for handspun!)

6 Baby Crochet Patterns (more like toddler age)

7 Free Knitting Patterns for Men

I told you there was a lot of cool free stuff this week!

Now, without further ado, I’d like to announce the winner of the free skein of Intention Yarns.  Click play to see the who the winner is:

I have to say I had an awesome time with this contest.  THERE WILL BE MORE.  I’m thinking that the next Limited Edition Intention will have a free winner as well – and that prize will be more than just yarn.  I hope you had fun with this contest, too.  Congrats to the winner and a heartfelt thanks to all who commented.  Happy knitting!

~May all your Intentions have Love at the core.