The weekend after Thanksgiving, Bewilderknits will be showing at the 3 Tarts Holiday Trunk Show in Phoenix. It's located between Greenway and Thunderbird just East of 44th Street. We'll be there along with many other local artists, here are the details (click to expand):

October's First Friday was a remarkably hot and unbelievably busy way for Bewilderknits to make our debut for the new 2010-2011 season. When we said last Spring, "We really need to start our season earlier than December next year," we really hadn't been thinking about things like 100 degree nights in early October.

In terms of foot traffic, I hadn't known what to expect, because the politics regarding First Friday street closures went on all summer - I guess, while we were knitting - and the final word was: no more street closures. The apparent upside of the street closures had been the "Wow! There's loads of people!" effect which is just generally fun. The downside had been that there'd been vendors last fall reselling imported wholesale items made in Nepal. While the knitting was not a bad product by any means, it wouldn't have been very fair to compete against that booth. Particularly when I found the products they were selling on the interwebs for wholesale prices of $3 apiece ... Not to say people shouldn't buy products from Nepal, but First Friday needed to figure out what it was trying to be, and if the big idea was "Local and Handmade," then they should stick to that. In order to raise enough money to pay for the street closures, they weren't capable of being too selective about the vendors.

By not doing the street closure, so many booth vendors like ourselves needed to partner up with the local businesses, and this was, from what I could see, a pretty cool thing. There were SO many artists set up in front of Revolver Records. MADE had so many vendors out front that Cindy had to build a map of her yard so everyone would have space for their displays. What I liked about this set up was that only local handmade booths were likely to get any real estate in this situation. This meant that all the people we met at booths, like Chadwick who was next to us with his Broke Street Jewelry, were the people who make the items they sell.

In Chadwick's case, the jewelry of the night was bangle bracelets and rings and earrings made from recycled skateboards. Very nice.

October 1st is nowhere really near Halloween on the calendar, but in First Friday Fashion, of course people acted like it was. I determined I need to take more risks with fashion down there. I'm beginning to feel old and conservative. Shay caught a picture of this really creative steampunk guy with his family. I was very fond of the neon green goo and the obvious time spent on the details of his shoulder ... thingies.

 

And we ran into Nathan Blackwell who was wandering around with some of his zombies, who were further Halloweenifying the place by handing out flyers promoting Zombie Team Building. Shay plays a part in the Squishy Studios production (in a rare non-zombie role), and so does fellow Bewilderknitter Cora (as a zombie). Though I won't post photos of the undead on our blog. I trust you know what they look like. They're everywhere, after all ...

 We did a redesign of our booth layout since last season, since we had so many items this year and felt the need to use more of the space. The credit goes to Cora, actually, who drew  -  to scale and printed out in xerox copies  -  a new T-shaped layout and brought it to a Bewilderknits meeting! 

We also decided to do a big upgrade of our tablecloths. Cora and I bought some snazzy upholstery fabric and sewed them all up on hot summer weekends, along with velvety covers for our boxes that we set our heads on.

Also, I got all inspired one big-garbage day in the neighborhood and snagged a big fallen tree branch from a neighbor's tree-trimmings. I had a vision for it, and executed it with the help of Karen's felted bags.

 At first, we all thought we were going to die from the heat ... and also experience no foot traffic. Who wants to look at wool in 100 degrees? But then Karen looked at her phone and said it was actually only 99 degrees, and that must've made all the difference in the world because wow was it crowded! And we weren't the only ones with cameras.

 

I was super happy (like I always am) when someone with big hair came up to try on one of my ginormous knitted hats. He stuffed all of his dreads up inside it and everything fit.

 

We sat behind the booth celebrating every rare breeze and weaving in ends and adding on buttons to new projects.

Then we packed up the van at 10:30pm and tried to get some sleep to prepare for the next morning's farmers market. See you next time!

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

We have been busy bees this summer, prepping for the Fall season. While everyone else is moaning and focusing on the heat (ok, I'll admit it: us too), our minds are focused on this winter.

However, with the summer comes time to focus on goals we have outside of the constant ones ("Knit More! Spin More!" for example). One of our goals was to start up our online yarn shop, and we launched it last night: Introducing the Bewilderknits Yarn Shop! We took all of the product photos yesterday and I was so pleased with how they turned out. Karen was remarking how delicious all the chunky wool yarn looked spread out in rainbow colors for the photo shoot.

Brown Sheep Burly Spun yarn has been one of our favorite yarns to work with. We always meet knitters at our art walk and farmers market booths, who inevitably ask what we use to knit our final projects. So we thought we would start with this! Burly Spun knits up fast, comes in all the colors of the rainbow plus some hand-painted colorways, and is almost as thick as pencil roving. It works well for felting projects such as bowls and purses. Plus, Brown Sheep yarn is made in the USA.

Like everything we do, our yarn shop is a work in progress, growing organically. Please take a look and let us know what you think of the layout!

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.

On Saturday March 6th, Bewilderknits hoisted our tent up at the Melrose on 7th Avenue Street Fair, marketed as M7. This was a new event for us, but it has been going and growing for a handful of years now. This year they got so big that Clear Channel donated a big billboard on 7th Avenue & Glenrosa, along with other free advertising spots to promote the event.

I think we all have grown to enjoy hosting booths at these all-day events. They don't feel as hectic as short events; we never have the feeling that we just set up and already we're striking the tent.  The longer the event, the more we have time to just sit around, or knit, or in Cora's case, spin yarn all day.

Sometimes it feels like it's hard to get a solid uninterrupted block of time to just work on knitting or making yarn. All-day-long events are terrific for this! Plus (and this might just be me, since I just finished graduate school), I have this problem where I feel like I need to be "being productive" all the time. I'm still trying to get over that :) In the meantime, I can sit at a booth and "do nothing" while "being productive."

Part of what was really cool about the Melrose Street Fair, and any new event really, is that we compare and contrast it with other events we've done: the downtown 1st & 3rd Fridays, Tempe Indie Chic, Sunnyslope Art Walks and the Roadrunner Farmers Markets. Each event has a vibe and there's a sort of trend to the crowds who are walking around.

Our booth was directly across from an LGBT Pride booth. Much of 7th Avenue in this section is lined with rainbow flags. The gay church is right next to a big gay bar. I like how many of the businesses are gay-owned but they cater to everyone. Copper Star coffee often has rainbow flags out and there's a bunch of mixed cultures inside. Young teachers, who come from all over the valley, grade their papers there on weekends. I go there to knit, spin, meet with friends, blog and pick up fuel for our First Friday events. (Credit for the picture below goes to The Hot Sheet blog.)

This part of 7th Avenue is also lined with vintage shops. Blueberry Deluxe is a fabulous new addition to the strip with vintage and handmade items, and our booth was right next to her. Retro Redux, now renamed Retro Ranch, was next to us on the East side. An old friend from high school is behind the counter, we cross paths often at events. I've been a vintage collector since high school so I've shopped the 7th Avenue strip often.

Landis Cyclery is just South of where we were located, on Indian School and 7th Avenue. I got my first bike there when I was little. A surprise bike from Santa came from there when I was 11 (my dad chose to support local businesses instead of elves overseas), and then I routed countless people there to buy more awesome cruiser bikes when I came back from my month in Japan a few years ago. We have three Electra bikes from them (the rainbow Petro Zillia cruiser and two Townies - I used to have the Gigi but I sold her … I think it was to support my yarn addiction, but I can't remember now).

Hmmm. I love that I've lived here so long that every single area of town has a storied piece of history for me. And now I can add the Melrose Street Fair to it!

The weather was outstanding, and as usual, the yarn-spinner of our group was bombarded with questions from passers-by.

Small felted accessories were popular. We still have plenty of cold-weather items but of course, the ominous summer is on Phoenician's minds by March already.

So we had plenty of summer scarves available - made from ribbon yarn, linen or bamboo. I laid out my mini tendrils. We were catty-corner from the booth for Practical Art, so it was cool that my leafy tendrils were available on the Southeast corner and the Northwest corner of our intersection.

Also, Karen's felted purses were a real hit. They keep getting awesomer. There were always small crowds of people standing around them being like, "It's totally amazing."

I was very excited to wear a rad dress I'd been dying to wear. It has concentric circes of white fibery yarn all over the bottom of it. So I made Shay take a picture of my dress while I demonstrated the features one of Cora's pom-poms. My white legs are camouflaged with the white tent wall behind me! You can tell I was getting sunburned already in this picture. Later, I took off my sunglasses and we laughed at my giant white circles around my eyes while the rest of my face was pink. So, in this picture, it is as white behind my sunglasses as my legs look.

We got a lot accomplished at the booth that day. Cora especially did a lot of yarn spinning!

Karen did a lot of knitting while also admiring the artwork at the booth behind us.

Obviously, I was taking a lot of pictures. Behold the most fabulous photo ever of Cora's handspun yarns, twinkling in the sunlight:

I had my new Massive Tassels scarf out for the first time, too. It's not knitting. It's simply fiber. It's a scrappy scarf that's all about using scraps of different fibers to create massive tassels.

There were zillions of bicycles and pedestrians. It seemed like half of the pedestrians came with a side of dog. Dogs came in all shapes and sizes. Even dogs with mullets. It was so entertaining!

We were next to a giant painted garden and bike themed wall which was a fun view.

We snapped this photo of a woman who bought one of my Happiness Hats for her upcoming 60th birthday (she didn't look like she was approaching 60 at all - and she was super cheery. Shay said "She's an old partier!") She gave me a woo-hoo wave as she walked by later.

 Of course we also met other knitters and fiber enthusiasts and had a ball chatting with them all. The weather was great. It would go from being way too sunny for me to being deliciously cloudy and overcast.

Pretty soon it will be hot now. I think I'll just go up north for some extended winter weather, and when that fails, stay inside and knit under the air conditioning, preparing for next season.



In case I haven't said it yet, HUGE Thank You's go out to all of our supportive friends. Supportive friends includes anyone who comes and says Hello at a show when you hear about it, and friends who tolerate me talking about Bewilderknits all the time, and people who read this blog or agreed to get pinged on Facebook by our status updates all the time.