Febraury was a very exciting month! It began with attending the CurveLV lingerie/swimwear trade show in Las Vegas with Eucalan promoting and selling Wrapture to stores around the world. Then from there, I flew to San Jose to exhibit with Fiesta Yarn's at Stitches West. I debuted a new colleciton of knit patterns called "Date Night Knits" and it was very exciting! From there, I took a red-eye flight overnight to attend CurveNY lingerie/swimwear trade show in New York City with Eucaland promoting and selling Wrapture to stores around the world.
SharkHunter and I have a tradition of going out for sushi dinner when I return from a long business trip, and this was no exception! But I was home for only for a couple of days before heading to Cleveland, Ohio to tape season 1100 of Knitting Daily. And, you know what that means: lots of knitting and crocheting step outs for my segments! We both came down with a terrible cold during the few short days I was home, and it was a challenge to get all the step outs done in time, but I did it! Travelling with the cold was challenging, too, but I survived and the trip went really well. Here are a few photos of Eunny and I on set:
And, now I am back home safe and sound. SharkHunter and I are almost completely rid of our coughs & colds, and it is time to think about my next projects! Will it be a book? A collection for a yarn company? A new series of YouTube tutorial videos? Magazine assignments? All of the above? I guess you'll just have to wait and see :)
Here are some snapshots from CurveLV Las Vegas, NV:
We stayed at the Venetian Hotel and the gym was F-A-N-C-Y! Notice all the options on the stationary bike's screen? I thought it was hilarious. I did a 50/50 split of my cardio time between the bike and the stairclimber. I was one of the few women in the gym without full makeup on. It was quite a glamorous place...
Next funny shot was of what I thought was crime scene tape on one of the hotel doors in my corridor. You'll have to read it up close to see how and why I was wrong...
Setting up the Eucalan booth is pretty straight forward and simple, except we have to hunt down steaming stations (and they are hard to come by because EVERY lingerie vendor needs to steam every piece of clothing for their booths) and we have to steam two banners that hang on the back walls of the booth. I totally lucked out this time and found one that was available on the first try! 
Then, we stand on chairs and hang the banners on the walls. It's just high enough that stretching my arms up to reach the hooks on the top of the fake walls over extends me to almost lose my balance. Luckily, I have managed to appear graceful each time so far... :)
Now you KNOW I brought a project to work on, right? If you recall in an earlier blog post, I was working on a shrug loosely based on the construction method used in Babylonia Hat from The Finer Edge. Well, I brought it to work on in the booth because I hadn't finished it in time to wear it the first day. And I finished it! The construction method is awesome and I'm really proud of the fact my theory was successful. The pattern it in tech editing right now but will become a PDF pattern here on my site in the next few days. So excited. And I LOVE wearing it. It feels fabulous on.
Lunch at the Sands Convention Center in Las Vegas is so yummy, too. We order out from an Asian vendor called Wasabi Jane's and the chicken is SOOOO good. It normally comes with rice or noodles, but they gave me a low card option of a side of green beans instead. It is amazing and I will probably always get this for lunch every day in Vegas from now on!
The newest Wrapture ad for Eucalan was listed in the show book and all I can say is O-M-G I LOVE LOVE LOVE it! How adorable is the graphic in this ad? I want to frame it at my desk, or put it on a tshirt or a bag or SOMETHING. Just love it :)
Dinners are always amazing in Vegas and this trip was no exception. Here are a couple of my favorite meals: smoked salmon pizza on a sourdough crust laced with shaved red onion and dill creme fraishe for the sauce. Heaven. Seriously. And I overlooked the late night carbs and ate THE.WHOLE.THING. Yes, it looks like a large plate of pizza and yes, I ate the WHOLE THING. I forgot to take a picture of another yummy dinner I had at PF Changs: Seared ahi tuna slices on a bed of arugula tossed in a wasabi viniagrette. Delicious. Bad news was the waiter told me the item is going to be discontinued and that is really unfortunate because it's the healthiest item on the menu and I frequent this restaurant often on work trips (several different shows in different cities). 
Anyway, I will enjoy it as long as it remains on the menu. I did take a photo of my fortune, though. I love reading my fortune in fortune cookies - only for entertainment, but still :) "The best thing to do this week is to prepare for the unexpected."
Next stop after Vegas was Santa Clara, California for Stitches West. I was exhibiting in the Fiesta Yarn Booth to debut my new collection called "Date Night Knits". The first day I helped set up the booth with Jeannie Randolph and Amy Olson and it was an efficient, tightly run ship! There is an incredibly amount of yarn that is organized into their booth and it is so efficiently organized we were able to get everything done in time for Student Preview night. 
Unfortunately, after only 20 minutes after the show opened, I tripped on the carpeting and fell ON MY INJURED HIP but very very FORTUNATE to not have re-injured myself. Still shaking my head over that one! Anyway, I managed to get up and get right back to work selling and doing demos and teaching knitting and crochet at the booth. In the photo on the right, Jeannie, Amy & I are all wearing samples from "Date Night Knits".
Next day, I did several demonstrations on knitting lace, knitting flowers, crocheting picots and foundation stitches, tunisian crochet and even taught a woman to crochet for the first time ever! So many lovely people visited me in the booth and it was a great day. 
Great day was followed up by a great evening, finding two of my pieces in the fashion show, and having a great dinner at the fashion show banquet dinner. I ALWAYS love the dinners Stitches hosts after the fashion shows. They do a great job, seriously. Yummy.
Next day I spent the majority of the day in the booth, but had to leave a few minutes shy of closing to get to the airport to take the redeye to New York because CurveNY opens in the morning! Can you believe it? I scheduled back to back work days with a red eye in between meaning no bed just an economy airplane sleep between two work days??? 
What was I thinking??? Haha, I thought it would be good character building and a funny story to tell afterward. Guess what? I was right :) Of course there were weather delays, it is Feburary afterall. But I landed in NYC by 10am, hopped in a cab, headed to the hotel, took a shower, drank two cups of coffee, hopped in another cab, and made it to the booth by 12:30!!! Not too shabby, if I do say so myself...
The next day we had great opportunities to be seen & heard by the media. I gave a video interview in the booth, and we gave several other interviews. Jennifer Edgar played a trick on me and it was perfectly captured by a photographer in our booth. LOL Good luck getting me to tell you why I'm hysterically laughing, but still... you get the idea! I met a 'higher up' from Womens Wear Daily and thought that was awesome! And, there was a booth of toys licensed for "Fifty Shades of Grey" book series that seriously made me blush. Every time I walked past the booth. Lots of gorgeous lingerie, as usual for the Curve shows. I fall in love with the vendors every time I go.
We stayed at the Marriot in Time Square and it was such an amazing experience for me! We stayed on the 42th floor so our views were A-M-A-Z-I-N-G. And the hotel restaurant had incredible food but the view was spectacular because it was on the 8th floor and faced Time Square. 
The roasted beet salad was so good we shared it every night for dinner.
On our last night we always go to Angelo's Pizzeria for incredible NY pizza. It's a little restaurant that is upstairs above the David Letterman Theatre and that is fun. We stopped for cupcakes after dinner but if I'm going to have dessert while in NY it will always be a black & white cookie. There is something about that cookie, and only in NY. I can't explain my love for it, but I love it. 
Then we stopped at the Hershey store for souveniers to take home. I wanted to shop at the candy store in Vegas because they had the most ridiculously large candy bars, but I was so many cities away from home still that I wanted to wait until NY before buying souveniers.
The hotel was bizarre, and maybe just to me because I'm not used to tall hotels. But the bank of elevators didn't have up and down buttons on the outside and didn't even have ANY buttons on the inside! You typed in your desired floor in the lobby and a screen told you which elevator (A through N) to go to and it would automatically take you to your floor.
The room had the most unusal venting system. The air vent in the bathroom was SO LOUD it sounded like the fan was on but maybe 10 times louder. We tried to buck the system with a map over the vent to quiet the sound (because closing the bathroom door wasn't enough)! Even the stamp on the tile tells you something: either they think we are dumber than rocks for needing the reminder, or the vent is so strong it contantly blows the shower curtain out of the tub!
Wednesday, April 3, 2013 at 11:01AM ;)
Have you seen "Baby It's Cold Outside" Cowl I designed exclusively for Tahki Stacy Charles? PDF Crochet Pattern available HERE. It is a simple little cabled cowl that is worked in rows, not rounds, sideways, and seamed with crochet at the end. The fabric is all post stitches with cables that are offset every other repeat.;)
Next, we crochet our first cable pattern row (row 4). Ch3 (counts as first dc), skip the next 4 stitches, fptc (front post treble crochet) around the post of the 5th st, then fptc around the post of the 6th st. Working behind on the 4 sts we skipped, dc in the 3rd st, and dc in the fourth st. Working in front of the stitches made, and working in the first and second sts skipped, fptc around the post of the 1st st, and fptc aroudn the post of the 2nd st. Note: ALL 6 sts have been used. Fpdc in ea of the next 2 sts. Repeat across entire row and this is what it will look like: NOTE: notics how the cables don't exactly look right yet. It takes the following row of back post double crochet to really firm up the fabric and allow the cables to pop.;)
When working row 5: ch3 (counts as dc), bpdc in ea st across, make sure you work each stitch in the correct order. Because of the twisted nature of the last row, it is difficult to see the stitches yet alone figure out which is the next stitch to crochet. I like to peel the top of the fabric toward me so I can peek and see the stitches on the wrong side, while stretching them out at the same time. As long as you work them in the correct order, after the next row it will look like this:;)
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