This season has been explosive and pleasantly relaxed all at once for me. As the season draws closer to New Years, we Bewilderknitters show up with our booth at every Roadrunner Farmers Market on Saturdays. It's really a joy being there. Early mornings allow me to bundle up in feather down and gloves and experience winter. We have been running the booth for so long that set-up and break-down is easy. I know just what booth to go to first thing to get my morning Toddy coffee, and then I go to Bill's booth at Kissed by Fire, where he has awesome breakfast burritos with his terrific salsa! And I'd be remiss to not also mention the Wei of Chocolate booth, which has flower essence infused chocolates, need I say more?


The farmers market is sponsored by Chipotle, which is swiggity-sweet. Also, did you know that Roadrunner Park Farmers Market has won New Times Best of Phoenix for their produce? Cora did, and she bought practically enough kale to fill my entire van last week, then promptly went home to spend six hours juicing it on Sunday!


This season is our first of having actual displays of yarn for sale. Yep, we've hinted at it in previous blog posts and mentioned it in passing on our Facebook page: in addition to our handspun yarns, we now offer the yarn we use for sale at our booth. We carry what we use in our products, which now allows us to share another side of our experience with other knitters and crocheters.

We even put together knit kits with patterns and the huge needles we like to use are in the kits too. Along with some cute felted Bewilderknitty mushroom charms! If you're a knitter, do swing by to see what colors we have in stock. The Knit Kits help projects knit up quick and also make a good gift by themselves.


The yarn moves pretty quickly, so follow us on Facebook to get an update every time we get in a new shipment.

Cora's boyfriend Dan comes to the events on Saturdays and brings his pugs, which Karen's kids are abundantly happy about. The pugs look pretty pleased, too. Pleased Pugs.

We also get to wear knitted hats ourselves at these chilly events. Lately the temps have been around a high of 65! Karen wore her striped ribbed hat.

And I tried on one of my magic hats.

Here's Cora beside her spinning felted jewelry stand.

And here's some general photos of the booth last week. I didn't have my fancypants camera, but "the perfect is the enemy of the good," so here goes nothing:

Finally, here is a photo of a very lovely customer who bought my magic hat and scarflette set called "Star Child." She looked so lovely and the whole look really suited her. I was so glad to get a photo before they left the booth!

I want to thank all the lovely shoppers at Roadrunner Park along with all of the terrific vendors who keep coming out with their delicious products. I'm so glad we have a culture like this to participate in in Phoenix!

As mentioned in our last blog, we are building Bewilderknit Kits with yarn, custom needles, darning needles & stitch patterns. Our yarn is always chunky and we use it for our knitting, too! We recently placed a big, exciting order, and these pictures sum up the Bewilderknitters' deluge of consummate joy at the arrival of our Herculean Malabrigo shipment!

Shay emptied the box's contents onto a big sheet on our couch (to protect the yarn from cat fur or dust) and we sat around the pile in a circle with big bags. 

 

Every one of us wanted every skein we saw. Too much is never enough when you knit in all your spare time, and when you're confronted with some of the Best Yarn in the World.

We split up the yarn between us by going round-robin, starting with Karen. We each picked out a color we wanted and put it in our bag until our next turn. It was a smorgasbord, a lavish harvest, a cornucopia of yarny deliciousness!

Even Sebastian was happy to stake his claim on the big box of wool.

Knitters, don't bother trying to rob my house. I managed to knit eleven finished items in four days. There's nary a full, untapped skein to be had.

However, don't be dismayed! We did manage to set ten skeins aside for Bewilderknits Kits!!

Check our Events Calendar on Bewilderknits.com to find out where we'll be next and share a piece of the Malabrigo Pie with us!

In the outdoor market community we came across many other knitters and fiber artists who kept asking us what yarn we use to create our one of a kind items. So, in response to their inquiries, we decided to start offering it up for sale at events, as well as launch an online shop. Not only are we now offering our favorite fluffy yarns for individual sale, but we're also developing knit kits!

Made for knitters and do-it yourselfers, the Bewilderknits Kit contains everything needed to make your own magnificent knitted project. We've included fluffy yarn, big wood needles, a darning needle and stitch patterns that we use in our own Bewilderknits designs. Suitable even for beginners, this kit makes a marvelous gift for knitters, either keep it yourself or give it away!

We had a wonderful idea for personalizing the needles and carrying over our Bewilderknits branding: molding little mushrooms and snails and such on the ends of the needles. It was just an idea for many many months. Then along came my dear friend Dan from Better Than New Fine Furniture Repair. It was he who made our idea into a reality. After snagging a pair of my needles just a day earlier, he presented me with beautiful mushroom adorned needles.

Now that we had a fantastic prototype, it was time for mass production. So Dan took me down to his shop to teach me how to make our Bewilderknits needles.

Below are photos of my adventure...

After prepping the needles with sandpaper and a razor blade, you have 7 minutes to mold a mushroom onto the needle before it starts to harden up...

Once they've dried, you paint them red!

Then, I got to wear a snazzy mask to spray some sort of sealant on them....

Then it was time for the white dots...

And don't forget the undersides!

One final spray of sealant and it was time to let them dry overnight.

Tada!!! The Bewilderknits Kit Knitting Needles all ready to go!

Keep an eye out for our knitting kits and skeins of yarn for sale online and at events. :)

- Cora

How exciting! My work was featured in two Etsy Treasuries in a matter of days! Woohoo! :)

My Pom-Pom Giant Asymmetrical Scarf was featured in the "pom pom pom pom pom pom pom..." Treasury created by ifONA. It will expire in a matter of time, as all Etsy treasuries do. So below is a screen shot! I'm on the second row from the top, far left.

I wondered what it would look like if I made a scarf entirely out of gigantic pom-poms, and here you have it! This scarf was an experiment gone oh so right. I decided to add a knitted base strip that could wrap around your neck to provide warmth and comfort. An entire scarf of pom-poms wasn't the most comfortable thing; it was somewhat awkward to wear. This little strip of knitting really fixed that problem.

I had so much fun coming up with all the different ways you can wear it. My favorite is the giant flower that rests on your chest, with each pom-pom representing the flower petals and center. I have more of these in the works. I should have a couple for our first event on October 1st at MADE Art Boutique for Phoenix First Friday.

I'm getting super excited for the season to begin!

Cora

Well lookiloo! My Just Because Asymmetrical Block Scarf was featured in the "Shades of Mint & Red" Treasury, created by Petek Design. It will expire in a matter of time, as all Etsy treasuries do. So below is a screenshot! I'm on the 3rd row, 2nd from the right. How exciting; this is a first for me! Yay! :)

Over the past couple weeks I have been trying to upload a few items from my 2010 Fall Line each day, and I'm still at it! I've posted all of the items that I took pictures of; however I still have a pile of stuff to photograph that continually grows. It's been quite a productive summer and I'm excited to show my hard work off.

The Bewilderknits Season starts in just 15 days!!! With our first event in front of MADE at Phoenix First Friday on October 1st, 2010, it will surely be a great way to kick off the season. We're hoping for some nice, cool, fiber-wearing weather! If you're in the area, please swing by and say hello!

Cora

It warms up in April, and that means we have more time to do other things aside from events ... like filing taxes, going camping, learning new knitting techniques, and sleeping in on weekends.

Cora and I were mentioned in the Phoenix New Times blogs in April!

Here's Cora's interview about eating in Phoenix in their Chow Bella blog.

And here's Gwynne's interview about her wardrobe in their Jackalope Ranch Phoenix culture blog.

I look forward to the summer - it's hot but our time is less tied up. Schedules are wide open and that alone can operate like fuel injection for creativity.

Tell you what, February's First Friday was enormously busy compared to January.

I think First Friday is still figuring out what it wants to be. I know there is a big controversy about the Roosevelt street closure - from the sounds of it, the expense of it is strangulating to the local businesses in the area and prohibitively expensive in comparison to the previous street closure, which was only on Garfield. Between the politics happening right now over this issue and the lack of access to electricity for vendors on the street, we are extremely appreciative for our partnership and support from MADE. Without this collaboration, we would have to power the lighting for our tent with a power generator, which pumps air pollution into the already-polluted winter Phoenix air, which we were not willing to do.

Aside from this issue, vendor requirements are another factor to consider in the overall scheme of things. In short, is First Friday going to be a place where local artists can show their work and find a good audience (and affordably so), or is it going to be a place for vendors who hawk items imported from other places? One of the guidelines for vendors at the Tempe Indie Chic event and the Sunnyslope Art Walk is that someone who has a booth must be representing their own work. I understand the challenge this situation creates - the street closures are very expensive, the police came in and said that the street closure needed to happen on Roosevelt instead of Garfield, and in order to afford the street closure, it must be paid for by someone. Also, will it stay bizarre? It's been known for being a bizarre free-for-all rather than some totally organized thing where you can't do what you want unless you pay for a booth and follow the system. That's kind of the point, to have a bizarre free-for-all, isn't it? Hopefully that won't get squashed.

I saw this event in Kevin Patterson's Facebook status:
"In my Inbox from artlink... There will be a Downtown Artist Issues Task Force meeting on February 11th, at City Hall at 3:00 pm. Please come. The key topic will be the street closures on Roosevelt and their impact on First Fridays. Please RSVP to : 602.262.4637 so the city can find an appropriately sized room."

Thursday at 3pm ... how many people with day jobs will be taking time off for this? I'm lucky because I have some flexibility.  Oh, the politics!

So, I make mention of this issue because it's the context for February's First Friday. It was EXTREMELY busy compared to January. People weren't out of town on vacation anymore. We weren't looking down the street towards Central, where all of the organized booths were smooshed up against each other, wondering if anyone would wander down to where we are. This month, we were in the thick of it, and it was busier than ever!

First Fridays have gotten way more fun for Shay and I now that we have a home base at a booth, instead of trying to find a seat at an overly-crowded bar. We try to show up for set-up around 4:30pm and don't leave until 11. We used to do a lot of bar-hopping but nowadays we wake up way early the next morning for Roadrunner Farmers Market, which requires set-up beginning at 7 am.

Karen shows up whenever she makes it after work. Also, Cora's schedule is packed full, now that Phoenix Chorale has rehearsals on First Fridays which are Free and Open-to-the-Public. So, she shows up whenever that ends.  

This time, Logan was singing just across the street from us. Modified was very crowded. 

 

  

  

Shay managed to capture a photo of only one rad bicyclist, but he wasn't around with the camera when the parade of bicycles rode past us (twice). The bicyclists were followed by a parade of skaters. It seemed a lot of people were into creating their own parades.

  

I guess this is what the band next door to us looked like. I didn't get out and see much, aside from walking into Modified. 

  

I did see this guy walking around with a big kitten on his shoulder. If you blow up the bottom picture to full-size, you can see the reflection of the neon word "OPEN" in his eyes. It looks like he was struggling to stay awake.

  

  

I enjoyed listening to this girl's voice from where we were setting up. The idea I've heard a lot (and even wondered sometimes myself) that "people who come to First Friday have no money to spend" was debunked. Someone came up and put $1,000 in her tip jar.

This was the first time we unrolled and used our new Bewilderknits banner. Using the digital art from the ever-talented MALL, my husband Shay created an entire Bewilderknits night time scene for our banner. In this new scene, all three of us Bewilderknitters are sitting in a knitting circle under a tree in the dark (much like on our camping trips) in the moonlight. We are either very small or else insects are very large, because there is a giant ladybug in the tree above us and a very big snail is carrying away our balls of yarn. We came up with these fantastic ideas for images and MALL brought them to life with her terrific skill. We were SO excited to have our new banner featuring her artwork blown up to a 10 foot wide by 2 foot tall size.

We received a lot of questions about who did the artwork for the banner. You can click an image to blow it up and see more detail.

I'm the one in pink spinning yarn. She took a photo I sent her of my spinning wheel (a Spinolution Mach II which I blogged about and have pictures of here at my Kittyknitter blog) and she also put me in a scarf pinned together with one of my felted flower pins, pictured here.

Cora is knitting in teal and brown, wearing a hat with a giant pom-pom much like the ones she always makes, and Karen is working on one of her felted purses.

We were quite excited to put this up in our booth.


Mall even made reference to my Kittyknitter box line for me, by putting a stretching kitty next to my spinning wheel under the tree.

 

Something major was going on - either just the crowdedness or the great mood happening in the awesome weather, our new banner, or who-knows-what. People totally paid attention to our "Please Touch & Try On" sign and the booth became constantly filled with people.

 

In the picture below, everyone who was wearing something took it home with them!

My friend from ASU who I graduated with came with her friends and they all took home multiple items! They also looked fabulous in them, and I am making a special order for a capelette now. Anterre really looks fabulous in the teal cowl! I was so pleased :)

Pretty soon, a drumming circle started up just next to us in the yard. Shay took a few pictures before he jumped in.

  

 

 To our surprise, February's First Friday was nearly as big as our Tempe Indie Chic event at the ASU Art Museum. We're excited for Third Friday. The weather these days is better than ever, and we meet (and re-meet) the greatest people at these events.

Gif maker