The red is some lovely scarlet bougainvillea, and the green is my Hill Country dress--the pattern for which is now available! I'm thrilled to announce the release of the "Hill Country Does SHELTER" collection, which is an amazing group of patterns created for the new Brooklyn Tweed wool yarns. Just click on the link to visit the Hill Country Weavers e-commerce site and check out all of the patterns; Jared Flood's going to do a special post about it on the Brooklyn Tweed blog, too. There are hats, sweaters, legwarmers, and other accessories featuring all of the colors in the SHELTER range, and all with a dash of uniquely Austin flavor. They're each available as individual PDF downloads, or grouped in two PDF e-booklets at a generous discount off the single-pattern price. The layouts are gorgeous, with loads of great pictures of the designs themselves and the South Congress district that Hill Country Weavers calls home. WARNING: You may have a hard time choosing just one. I want to make them all myself. Especially Sarah Rose, Elizabeth Cobbe's sweet lace-edged cardigan...
Can I just tell you how great it's been working on this project? First of all, I'm in fabulous company: There are two Elizabeths (MightyGoodYarn and Elizabeth Green Musselman of Dark Matter Knits fame), a Kathy and a Kourtney, an Emily, and Suzanne herself, owner of Hill Country Weavers and all-around amazing lady. As the impresario of this project, Suzanne not only created her own beautiful woven blanket design (AND adapted it to scarf size, so she actually made TWO projects), recruited the local designers and photographer (the fabulous Meg Rice, who you may know as winemegup on Flickr), researched graphic designers and printers and photo shoot locations, oh my!, and brought the whole thing home in a matter of what, four months?
The finished product looks really amazing, and being a part of it might just be the best gift I get this Christmas. To celebrate the launch of the collection, and make this a gift that keeps on giving, I'm announcing my first-ever blog giveaway contest! Just comment on this post with your favorite homemade holiday memory (mine is the taste of my mom's peppermint pinwheel cookie dough). On New Year's Day, I'll pick a name at random from all the commenters. The winner will receive a free pattern of their choice from my Ravelry pattern store (you don't need to have a Ravelry account) and a $50 gift certificate to Hill Country Weavers. (That's enough for several skeins of SHELTER yarn, or both pattern collections. Not that you have to get those exact items, but I'm just saying...)
Tidings of comfort and joy to all of you!
37 comments:
Merry Christmas, Snowden! I think my favorite homemade Christmas memory is probably dinner with the aunts/uncles/cousins at my grandma's when I was a kid. Specifically, Grandma's homemade noodles and yeast rolls - I've spent a lot of time trying to replicate those!
This is awesome!
Your dress is extraordinary. Love Christmas easc year. New memories each year.
The patterns are lovely! Favorite memories are any that involve having my kids home for the holidays!
cyndi-mailatcoxdotnet
Merry christmas! My favorite memory is going to my grandmother's house. She was amazing cook and always made a dress for me for christmas.
Merry Xmas! My favourite memory is the taste of homemade spaghetti for soup which my Mom basically only makes for xmas, because it's too much work... :)
Merry Christmas! My favorite homemade memory is a new one. We used to always have those refridgerated pop open bake yourself cinnamon rolls for breakfast Christmas morning and I never liked them. Last year I made fresh from scratch homemade cinnamon rolls. This year my brother called me a few days before Christmas asking if I would please make those rolls again this year. :)
Christmas wishes to you from Oregon! I'm absolutely in love with the Sarah Rose cardigan pattern and can't wait to make it and others from your collection!
Beautiful dress! My Mom made bell ornaments using a foam bell form, red sequins and decorative headed red pins. They were so beautiful, and are one of my first (and favorite) homemade Christmas memories.
monikita45 at hotmail dot com
The Christmas eve my mom's hair caught on fire from the sparkler and she didn't know just kept on waving it with a big smile on her face....is one of my favorite memories.
Love the pattern!
My favourite memory that I now laugh about was the year my dad made me a doll house. On christmas eve he was still putting the final coat of paint on. I woke up and went to the kitchen to see what he was doing. There was the front of my doll house propped up above out stove drying before the morning. I asked what he was doing but I don't really remember what his reply was. That was the year I realized there was no santa.
I wasn't sad thought that doll house was Ace, and I have it to this day, ready to use with my daughter :)
Congratulations on a great design! My favorite Christmas homemade memory? Sewing polar fleece hats for my entire family in 1996. My dad still wears his when he's snowblowing in Minnesota...a jester hat in Green Bay Packer green and gold.
My favorite homemade memory requires a little background. My dad is Czech, and so our Christmas was mostly about Christmas Eve, when we would go outside to look at the first star and wait for Baby Jesus to deliver the presents. When he's done, Baby Jesus rings a bell that has been hung on the tree.
So, my dad, being a genius, recorded a tape that was like ten or fifteen minutes of silence, and then the sound of a ringing bell. So, for those years when I was young enough to still believe, the bell would ring when no one was in the house! It was so perfect, and probably extended my discovery of the truth by at least a year!
Throwing my hat into the ring with the memory my first Christmas with my then boyfriend/now husband. Being a California winter, it was warm enough for us to have the windows open in our second story apartment. A bird flew in and wound up hanging out in our tree. Cats went insane, there were a lot of broken ornaments, but the bird was cool as a cucumber until it flew back out the window on to a better tree.
Merry Christmas! I stumbled upon your stuff through my friend Elizabeth's blog. (MightyGoodYarn) Such amazing stuff! My most-recent favorite memory is making wreaths for my family for Christmas--even the hubby joined in with the hot-glue.
Happy Holidays! My favorite Christmas memories all involve being with my family; I miss my Mom and Dad who made Christmas so special.
Beautiful pattern (like all of yours)! Favorite childhood memory...the cookies and fudge. Yum! And now, just watching my two kiddos open their gifts! Happy Holidays to you!
My favourite homemade Christmas memory is making mince pies with my mom & siblings. Delicous.
Merry Christmas! Favorite Christmas memories are my mom's Stollen sweet bread and Moravian Love Feast Buns. They so much say Christmas to me!
Love the dress!
just commenting to say i love your dress again, snowden! so proud to be the photographer for this project and excited to see how it's turned out. hope you get loads of love for this because you and all the designers truly deserve it! i want to make everything!
My favorite holiday memory is putting out the lights (candles in bags) on Christmas Eve while waiting for Santa to arrive on the fire truck.
Lovely dress design, Snowden!
My favorite Christmas memory is when my family got stranded on the side of a snowy road in the middle of no where in New Mexico. Some strangers passed by and cheerfully helped pull us out of the snowdrift that our car had skidded into because of the icy roads.
My favorite holiday memory covers many childhood Christmases, listening to my great-uncle play Christmas songs on guitar. He was a professional bluegrass player, and even my grandpa didn't complain while he was playing. :) Thanks for making me think of it and thanks for the opportunity to win.
My grandparents on my father's side were French and my Memere made the best soups I have ever tasted to this day! I wish I had the recipes to more than one of them, alas, she died when I was about 12 years old. I still miss her and her wonderful soups!
I love the collection the designers came up with for the SHELTER collection! Your dress and pullover design is beautiful! Thank you for this contest and I hope you have a Safe, Healthy and Happy New Year!
My favorite holiday memory is caroling with my family of 8.
Verna
Oh, Snowden, such a pretty dress! My favorite Christmas memory is the time mt cat climbed up inside our Christmas tree, and we couldn't find him for a whole day. We heard him, but couldn't find him. When my 3 year old brother finally saw him, he climbed up inside the tree to get to him, almost pulling the tree down. They were both absolutely covered in pine sap, which had to be cut out of their hair. Unhappy, disheveled boy, unhappy disheveled cat. But they smelled so fresh for days.
Beautiful dress! My favorite Christmas memory is living in North Dakota for four years while my Dad was in the military. My grandparents would fedex frozen tamales and my mom would make chicken tortilla soup for dinner. We have 4 white christmases before coming back to Texas, but we always added some spice in to warm them up!
My favorite Christmas memories are visiting my grandmother-sharing Christmas with all my cousins. My dear grandmother always had fresh poundcake, boiled custard and carrots, peas and corn in a white dish-she thought the veggies looked so pretty-and packages of frozen mixed vegetables could not be used-she didn't like the lima beans in the mixed veggies!
Liz Cobbe sent me over here! I have to tell you your designs are beautiful! My favorite holiday memory is me and my cousins, all 13 of us, standing around our grandfather at the family's Chanamas celebration, circa 1976 to the early 80's. Grandpa would press record on the cassette deck and we would all sing our favorite songs. We each got a solo with grandpa playing MC. My cousin Sara still has the cassettes, one from each year, and last year her husband managed to put them on CD and we played them for our teenagers. With mixed horror and hilarity we listened to each and every one! You could hear grandma in the background encouraging us, grandpa telling her in Yiddish to be quiet and our parents telling both of them to stop it and let the kids sing.
Congratulations, Snowden! My favorite homemeade holiday memory is seeing three misshapen ceramic Christmas trees that all three of us little ones made in kindergarten. We basically molded a bunch of clay around a finger, pulled it off and pinched the edges to simulate branches, and then glazed them. After Mrs. Slip popped them in the kiln, we had shiny green lumps that somewhat resembled trees. My mom proudly displayed them every year, even though they were hideous. But it still warms my heart to think about it. I still have mine!
Lovely dress! Making cookies--dozens and dozens of the same five or six recipes--with my mom every year when I was growing up is my favorite homemade Christmas memory.
I always try to make something handmade for my family for Christmas. On Christmas morning they were trying to remember some of them. Last years got a big laugh as they talked about the slippers they got and how one was short and fat and the other long and skinny. Hey, it's the thought that counts. I was quick to ask them if any of their friends mothers had knitted them anything for Christmas---answwer, No.
My favorite homemade Christmas memory
is the beans my Mawie always tried to cook! She burned them every year and it was such a gas when she did! We all brought a can of beans one year and she stopped making them but it was all done with a sense of fun and love.
I love these patterns, they're gorgeous!
My favourite homemade memory is the taste of the special potato dish we have every year. It's just a tad sweet and absolutely delicious, and we only have it at Christmas (so I look forward to it all year).
Hope you had a wonderful Christmas and wish you a happy New Year!
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! One of my favorite memories is getting yarn and knitting needles on Christmas morning when I was 9 and learning how to knit that day. I had knit through the entire 1 oz. skein by the time we had dinner at my grandmother's house - we even have my first day of knitting captured on 16mm home movies. The next day, we went to Woolworth's and got more yarn. I still have the scarf.
Every year I try to incorporate a little handmade into the holidays. My current fave is this year's mostly successful first gingerbread house with my 3 kids. I was happy it stood up and the kids decorated it using every available candy bit. one of a kind for sure.
congrats on the new collection! fave homemade memory is sugar cookies with my mom....
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