Tigers and Rabbits and a giveaway

February! I'm a little scattered because February 3 is New Year's day according to the Chinese lunisolar calendar, which means that I've got to clean and clean and clean some more. But tonight I have a giveaway for you all! This month, I'm giving away half a set of stitch markers. But it's not just any half set.

You see, normally my stitch markers come in sets of 4. But the February Phatfiber box theme is gems and minerals, so I decided to make a very big set indeed. That set will be an assortment of 15 widgets in five sizes including the rarely seen extra large (12mm) marker. So, half a set will net you seven widgets, and I've thrown in a couple ring markers, too. That's 9 markers total. Here they are displayed on corner of my helical blanket, which will incidentally take up the other part of this post.


Some of the widgets are made with copper this time, which is softer and will develop a patina more quickly. I don't actually know what all the stones are.

For this month's giveaway I'd like a story, true or made up, involving Tigers (for the year we are leaving) and/or Rabbits (for the year we are entering). It can be as silly or as serious as you'd like, and coherence is overrated. I'll accept jokes, limericks, and haiku in lieu of a full narrative.

I'm leaving this one up through Saturday, February 5 and I'll randomly pick a recipient on Sunday. Once again, entering both the blog and the Ravelry group giveaway is fine.

For me, I'd like to mention Hotshot. She was an elderly little dwarf bunny who died of old age last week. I got her in July 2007 from my niece who was moving overseas, and she'd been a grand old lady ever since.

Last winter she became very sick with one of those mysterious rabbit malaises where she went all lopsided and couldn't balance. We moved her inside and made sure she was hydrated and could eat, and she got much better. She was never quite 100% again, but she'd run around on my floor and bother the cats quite comfortably.

Now her not-quite-buddy Squirrel (also a dwarf rabbit and also from my niece) has moved into Hotshot's indoor digs and is getting used to being actually warm. Poor guy usually overwinters outside, but it's just been ridiculously cold. So while I'll miss Hotshot, I'm glad Squirrel will have a more comfortable time of it.

Now it's your turn!

Meanwhile, this was December's Mystery Box, for those who were wondering. 



And below the cut I'm going to talk about my Helices blanket.

tap*tap*tap*tap*tap

First up, January's giveaway of a pair of earrings from Written Insight goes to AbsolutGillian! I'll contact via Ravelry. :)

Second up, a repick for December's giveaway is Ilina!  I'll contact via Ravelry as well. 

Meanwhile back at the ranch, I'm making a lot of stitch markers lately.  The January Phatfiber theme is Chinese New Year, and I was able to squeak in this month's samples under the wire.  I received the beads I wanted to use yesterday and shipped out the samples today. I was focused on finishing so I didn't take a picture, but I have the pieces I'll be making for the shop in progress.


6mm widget removable stitch markers in progress, jade and red brass.

I'm actually pretty pleased with this picture. I tweaked the contrast but not the color or white balance, and I think it's pretty good.  Of course, that's partially because I started with this:


I'm still putzing around with trying to take more color accurate pictures and it seems to help to put something pure medium blue into the frame. I suspect the camera registers the blue and no longer feels compelled to compensate so hard in that direction.

That leads me to put my scissors in everything, so if you see them hanging out at the edge of a shot that's why. To whit....


This my anvil for when I make the widget stitch markers. My father is a retired civil engineer and this is a piece he picked up on a job site.  It's a small discarded section of a long threaded steel rod that was cut with a diamond saw.  They're used to draw together items under tension.  It's 1.5in in diameter, weighs a hair over a pound, and is the perfect size for my purposes.  I've used electrical tape to wrap the sides so the rough sides don't damage my beads, but the top where it was cut with a saw is very smooth.  The scissor serves double duty in this shot, adjusting the color as well as providing a sense of scale.


And here it is with my knitting which I put on pause for the stitch marker frenzy.  Six balls of yarn were a bit annoying to move around whenever I had to clear my work surface, so I stuffed everything in the basket. This is one of those times I particularly appreciate center pull balls that can sit neatly stationary while still feeding out the yarn.

OK, hammer back to the anvil time, I need to finish my markers for the shop!

Stitch marker update

This is a picture of the lawn. See that stitch marker in my hand?  There's one just like it lost in the grass and weeds. This is why I should never photograph my stitch markers outside. Especially when I put the camera down on my board, causing it to tip over and fling 36 widgets into the lawn.

Especially when the widgets are green and brownish red for the May Phatfiber theme of Blossoms and Bark. 

*facepalm*

I found all of them but one.  I finally gave up when I was starting to lose what light there was, as I had to finish the pictures.  Despite this, I did manage to update the shop with more markers, today. I also relisted the custom set since I mailed out the ones from the weekend.  Pics and links after the jump.

Ponderings

I'm sitting here waiting for my turn in the kitchen since it's my turn to cook (chicken braised with tomatoes and onions and some herbs, I think, and pasta, and some sort of green veg). And since I can't get anything significant done in the next 20min, I thought I'd blog. (:P)

First, I wanted to flash a picture of what keeps growing. Namely my in progress Widgets. I assemble them and then they languish like that for a while until I get around to hammering them.

It's never done. *facepalm* I assemble a whole bunch and then realize I've not done the ones I need for the next month and then pull out more beads and and and. Yeah.

And then I wanted to muse a bit on how the Phatfiber Box has morphed from what I expected of it. Namely, I thought that the samples were the thing, you know? The bits of fiber or yarn in hand. But it turns out that the pictures are the thing. There's more to it than that, but I'm just going to talk about a general trend, here.

Graphic ponderings

I spent today making ads for the widgets.

Ad making is a weird thing. I have no training in graphic design and no background in marketing. But from experience both as a consumer and as a person who used to watch people debate the merits of assorted publications and ad copy, a few basic things should apply:

1. It should be clear - who and what's being advertised, where to get it, etc. If a person seeing an ad can't easily answer "who, what, where", then something is likely wrong. 
2. It should be clean - clutter obscures the information, and the key to an ad is getting across a specific bit of information to entice people into clicking through to the shop. This means text should be as succinct as possible and images shouldn't obscure what there is of text.  And images should be clearly comprehensible when it's tiny because dude, I'm not getting any younger and my screen resolution is set pretty fine.  Folded into this is the fact that the text should be proof read and free of errors, and the images should be free of random artifacts and obvious cut and paste markers. 
3. It should be attractive for the target audience - which is to say if you're advertising to people who are interested in fake blood and gore, then fake blood and gore is the way to go. I'm not, so no big, splashy zombie parties in my ads.  I'm selling yarn and stitch markers, so my ads figure yarn or stitch markers, and I try to go for pictures that will tantalize.
4. It should make sense - And by this I mean all aspects of it. There's got to be some sort of internal cohesion, and random things just popping up don't "make sense". 

These are the basics, and it's almost all based on aesthetics which are totally subjective.  I was making ads for Ravelry, so I'm really familiar with my competition's ads.  Tonight, I realized I got bit with the minimalist bug.  To whit, this is what I ended up with for the dalmatian jasper ad:
   ETA: 
 (eta: the spacing was bothering me, and the smallness of the foregrounded widget.)

Now, it's kind of chilly in color which is potentially off putting, but I decided to keep it because it's a counterpoint to the warmth of the tiger eye ad. But look at all that white space!  I think I could have tweaked the spacing of the words a little bit more to make the white space a little more emphatic, but I'm happy enough with it as it is.

Widget removable stitch markers

I introduced Widget stitch markers to the shop last night.  I'm really happy with this design. Been pondering it for a couple weeks, and then spent days working on the actual final result.  Since these are removable markers, they're suitable for both knitting and crocheting.


Dalmatian Jasper and non-tarnishing Nickel (large) and Tiger's Eye and non-tarnishing Brass (small); click on the image to go to the listing.

I love split stitch markers. I use them for all sorts of things other than marking my place, and they make great tiny stitch holders.  I really like dual functionality too, so these fit over the needle and can serve as a regular stitch marker as well.