BirdinHand is open for business!!

Here are some of the designs that are available either at Etsy or Ravelry. You'll find the links to my shops on the left side of the blog.



Shirani and Sue are at the yarn show in Pittsburgh this weekend and they were nice enough to take some of my patterns and business cards with them. I'm incredibly excited about launching Bird in Hand Designs, and really I have Shirani to thank - her encouragement is what got me going in this direction in the first place. Thanks Shirani!!! It's especially fun to be kicking things off on Valentine's Day - one of my favorite days of the year!

I tried the neck warmer in a chunky yarn

I had bought some of the gorgeous Aruacania Aysen recently from Cultured Purl (for a shawl that never made it passed the drawing board) but it was So Lovely it needed to be used.

For the neck warmer, I cast on only 84 stitches and used a larger needle - US9 for me but for the rest of the knitting world I imagine a US10 would be great. I eliminated one of the pattern repeats (28 stitches worth) and I ended up with a gauge of about 14-15sts/4 inches. I'm REALLY happy with the way it turned out: this yarn is incredibly soft, even for an itchy bird like me, and very scrunchy, which I like in a cowl. And it only used one skein of the yarn, which means I have enough leftover for another project!

I have a couple of free patterns on Ravelry

I'm still in beta mode but I'm opening this blog up to the everyone so I can get it just right before I officially open for business. I JUST attained designer status on Ravelry and now have a couple of patterns available with free downloads here and here. So check them out and let me know what you think!

My first post as BirdinHandDesigns!!!!

So, the ball is rolling on setting up my little company. So much to do! I have to admit it's a bit overwhelming. Here's what's happened up till now:

• Purchased my own domain name. This was a bit scary, so i purchased two as a backup, but ultimately I think birdinhanddesigns.com is the way to go.
• Set up this blog which will act as my little store front window. There will be links to an Etsy shop, Flickr to see all my photos, Ravelry where I hope to make some new friends, and of course The Cultured Purl, without which there would be no BirdinHandDesigns!
• Created a Flickr account and started the long, slow process of uploading all my photos
• Realized I probably should bite the bullet and upgrade to Flickr Pro so i can have ALL my photos in one place without ads.
• Bothered all my family and friends for ideas on what my logo should be.
• Called on one of my PTA friends to create my logo.
• Created a myspace account (my children rolled their eyes at that one) to generate some interest out there in the wild World Wide Web.
• Panicked at realizing I have to restructure all my knitting patterns so they're consistent, professional, and have my new logo at the top.
• Panicked even more when I realized it's not easy to convert Excel files (the format of ALL my patterns) to PDF files for selling online.
• Discovered I can buy some reasonably priced software to do that fairly easily.

There, that's a start. Oh, I didn't mention the almost constant level of anxiety from worrying about what my company should sell. I've already sold patterns, so I should feel confident about that. But HeartGuy is convinced most people want the knitted piece, not the pattern for how to do it. So, maybe I should offer some finished projects too...