Tag Archive for ‘customers’ at adam knits!

Tag Archive for 'customers'

Want Some Yarn? 19 Jun 07

Today on the blog (in lieu of actual knitting), we have some exquisite Yarn Nerd yarn up for sale. I’d put them up in the store, but then I have to take a bunch of pictures, create new listings and send an e-mail to the newsletter to let everyone know there’s new yarn…and frankly, I’m feeling lazy. I figure I have enough of a captive audience that visits here, that you won’t mind taking it off my hands ;)

And thanks to everyone who took my Yarn Nerd Survey, your responses really helped, and I think I have a much better idea of what interests you crazy knitters. (As if I have room to talk about crazy knitters…) I have a big yarn order (20 lbs! Ok, so it’s not huge, but it’s the biggest one I’ve ever ordered!) coming in soon, so after I get some of that dyed up I’ll give away a couple skeins to those who participated.

Now without further ado…the yarn! If you want one of the skeins, just leave a comment, and I’ll send you over a Paypal invoice for the price listed plus $4.60 for shipping. Easy peasy!

All yarn is my 900 MHz Mega Merino, a great superwash merino fingering weight yarn, at 450 yards per skein.

Denim Blues - 2 Skeins Available @ $25 each

Happy Shopping!

Tomorrow I’ll tell you the name I picked for my lovely bike :) And thanks so much for all the suggestions, you guys crack me up!

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Adam

in customers, dyeing, shop and yarn nerd

Time Is A Luxury…That I Have Now! 16 May 07

37 Comments

You know, it’s amazing how much I can get done when I don’t have homework! Last night I managed to cook dinner, dye yarn and relax for a bit, all in the same evening! I could really get used to this no work after 5 PM gig. ;)

To top it off, I got to open the windows to let in the breeze from some evening rain, and witness this beautiful sunset. Isn’t it gorgeous? I looked outside and realized that the color of the sky matched my roses! These brilliant bursts of color don’t last too long, so I dashed outside to get a picture. It’s actually the 2nd night in a row we’ve had rain, which makes both my garden and me happy. Although anymore nights of rain will most likely cause the local populace to begin to go crazy from the lack of Vitamin D, so hopefully we’ll have a nice sunny day soon.

In knitting news, I finished my Broad Spiral Rib socks, and I love them ever so much. There’s just something about this yarn and the pattern that makes me want to wear them all the time. I haven’t even pulled them off my feet long enough to give them their inaugural wash! They were a blast to knit, and I couldn’t wait to finish so I could wear them. All in all, it took me a little over 3 weeks to finish them, which I think is a good pace for me. That puts me about on track for a pair a month, which I think will be my new goal. If I accomplish that, by this time next year I’ll have more handknit socks than normal socks!

Pattern: Broad Spiral Ribbing from More Sensational Knitted Socks.
Yarn: Austermann Step → Dark Gray/Light Gray/Turquoise (Color #21). This yarn is “enriched with Aloe and Jojoba Oils”, and although I don’t know if it really helps or not, the socks are very soft.
Needles / Gauge: I think I got 8 stitches / inch with US #1’s. I knitted these with Magic Loop, as usual.
Construction: I knitted these top down, with a K1, P4, K1 cuff, then the spiral ribbing on the leg. I did a slip stitch heel with garter selvedges. For the toe, I used the Round Toe, which I’m now madly in love with. It seems to be the best fitting toe for my feet that I’ve found so far!
Completion Time: Just over 3 weeks (April 21 - May 15)

I also tried dyeing roving for the first time last night! I’ve had a sample on hand for a while, and have been meaning to dye it up. Anne graciously agreed to accept the roving as part of our hand-spun/hand-dyed trade. Now if I could only figure out how to braid it! Anyone know of a good link they want to send my way? I tried to have Scout show me a while ago, but I got lost at, “it’s just like braiding hair!” Not being a girl, or having any daughters, I have no experience in hair braiding, and am therefore inept at fiber braiding.

Anne also picked a lovely custom colorway of Dijon Yellow and Light Gray, which I dyed up in some 1500 MHz Sport Nylon for her. I really love the way these colors go together, don’t you? I can’t wait to send her this yarn and get the lovely yarn that she spun up for me!

I also dyed up a Create Your Skein order for the talented Flint Knits, who is planning to make a Chevron Scarf from these 2 skeins. Didn’t she pick great colors? I really love these skeins together and think they will look awesome as a Chevron. I hear they’re all the rage these days ;)

Lastly, speaking of things that are the rage in the knitting world today, I’m sure you’ve heard of Ravelry by now. It’s an amazing new site that Jess (of frecklegirl) and her husband Casey have been working on. It’s an online knitting notebook/community where we fiber nerds can hang out, interact with each other and geek out over yarns and patterns. I got an invite a week or so ago and have been having a total blast. I know that a lot of you are waiting to get in, and I know many people are frustrated, but I assure you that it will be worth the wait. Jess and Casey have been working hard (really really hard!) to make sure that the site is up to snuff, and that it doesn’t go down in flames when it opens. It will be ready soon though, so try to bear with it just a little longer ;)

Oh yeah, and here’s the part you were hoping would come…I have 2 Ravelry invites to give away to you, my lovely readers. In an attempt to not be stampeded on, or accused of favoritism, I will be giving away these invites to 2 random commenters. Just leave a comment on this post by tomorrow morning at 9 AM MDT, and I’ll randomly pick 2 people to send an invite to. If you currently have a Ravelry account, just be sure to let me know in the comment so I don’t pick you.

That’s it for me, so good afternoon and good luck!

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Adam

in albuquerque, customers, dyeing, finished objects, home, knitting, ravelry, socks and yarn nerd

Green-”ish” Thumb 03 May 07

19 Comments

So you know when you don’t talk to someone for a while, and you have a lot to catch up on, but you don’t really know where to start? That’s about how I feel, even then it’s only been a week since my last post. (Although in the Interwebs, 7 days is pretty much like an era!) It seems like my life has been nothing but school this week…and maybe it seems like that because it’s true!

I’ve just been chugging along, getting ever so close to that light at the end…even though it still feels like I’m going in circles. I did finish classes today, now I just have 3 finals to go. Sadly, the last take home final isn’t assigned until the 2nd to last day of finals week, so I still have 8 days before I’m free and clear. And no sooner will I get there than I’ll be starting preliminary thesis research for the summer, so it won’t really ever end. Such is the life of a grad student I suppose. Just one more year…one more year…

It hasn’t been all work and no play this last week though, I did get to do a lot of work with these lovelies:

I’m not exactly the biggest green thumb in the world, but I’m trying to learn. It also helps to have a Mom who’s pretty much the gardening queen of the universe. Just a little.

I am both enamored and creeped out by Lamb's Ear

I planted a container with flowers, a container with some Lamb’s Ear (I’m not sure whether to be enamoured or creeped out by this stuff) and grasses, and the coup de grace: an herb garden. There’s nothing than I love more than some fresh herbs, and now I have a little herb store in my front yard!

I have no idea what they are...but aren't they pretty?

I think all those lovely flowers should suffice for Eye Candy Friday, don’t you?

I also have a bit of fiber love to spread too. First up, check out the Tree Scum yarn that Anne spun for me! Isn’t is amazing? We’re doing a hand-spun for hand-dyed trade, and I’m super excited since I’ve never knit with handspun before. I can’t wait to dye her yarn so we can trade and I can get to the knitting! Second, it’s another FO made with Yarn Nerd yarn! Teresa knit up this gorgeous Clapotis with some of my 900 MHz Merino in the Berrylicious! colorway. Isn’t it awesome?

In other fiber news, I finished my first Broad Spiral Ribbed sock the other day, and immediately cast on for the second. I’m not sure if I could ever allow myself to fall prey to Second Sock Syndrome…I think the guilt alone would cause me severe anguish. Anyway, I love this sock and can’t wait to finish the pair.

I used a Slip Stitch Heel with Garter Edges and a Round Toe (definitely a new favorite). The Broad Spiral Rib pattern is from More Sensational Knitted Socks. This Austermann Step yarn is nice, but I’m not quite sure that the “Aloe and Jojoba enriched” claims are entirely true. Although the colors are so nice, I think I’ll forgive the marketing speak.

I’m glad the previous weekend was relaxing, because I think that this weekend will definitely have a significant portion of take home finals and math books. Do you have anything fun planned?

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Adam

in customers, finished objects, home, knitting, school, socks and unm

Is It 5 Yet? 27 Apr 07

18 Comments

Man am I ready for this week to be over! It’s been a long one, full of late hours at campus and lots of homework. I also had lots of Yarn Nerd orders to ship out, (thanks everyone, you rock!), so I often found myself awake at 1 am, packing yarn or working on math simulations. The math simulations aren’t so hot, but at least the yarn shipping is still a labor of love, so I don’t mind packing a few skeins up in the wee hours. I keep telling myself that I’ll keep more humane hours after school is over, but then I’m sure I’ll spend a few nights watching movies and knitting into the early hours too. At least I’m still young, because I think in a few years this lack of sleep thing won’t be so easy to recover from.

I have a nice relaxing weekend planned, involving dyeing up some Create Your Skein orders, knitting on my sock, and a little yard work. The yard work isn’t terribly relaxing, I have to install a new sprinkler timer and a new pond pump, but it’s a change of pace from bit error rate calculations so it should be nice. Speaking of the weekend, I woke up this morning to find my sock (which may or may not be a physical manifestation of my inner fratboy) trying to convince me that it was high time for a beer. While the sock made a convincing argument on why I deserved a nice treat after a long week, I had to tell him that it just wouldn’t happen. Just because it’s “5 o’clock somewhere” doesn’t mean I can just go hog wild, at 8 am nonetheless. I guess I’ll just have to wait until 5. Anyone else looking forward to quitting time after a long week?

The sock is progressing nicely though, and I’m hoping to sail down to the foot this weekend so I can seam it’s mouth shut…I’m getting tired of it trying to get me to shirk all my responsibilities…

Also, my Eye Candy for today is the lovely pond Irises (I think that’s right, is that what you said they were Mom?), which are beginning to bloom. I’m looking forward to the summer as my backyard is a great place to hang out and listen to the pond, while taking a nap in the grass. It’s a lot of work to get it up and going, but I’m making steady progress. Plus, I think the Irises alone make up for all the labor!

Finally, the last thing I have before sailing off into the wonderful land of miller time is a finished object that I’m very proud of. Although I didn’t knit this sock, I did dye the yarn for it, and I think it’s smoking hot. It was knit by Chawne (I don’t know if she has a blog, but her Flickr photos speak for themselves), with my 900 MHz Merino the in Tour de France colorway. This is one of my favorite colorways and I think she did real tribute to it with her simple sock design. Isn’t it sweet?

I was sad :( to find that Chawne found 4 knots in the skein when she wound it. 4 knots? Man that would make me mad if I was knitting it! Knots do occur occasionally when hand-dyeing, but I always try to limit them, and I would definitely not send out a skein with 4 knots if I knew about it. But sometimes the skeins come from the mill with knots already, and those ones are sneaky little buggers.

Anyway, the short of it is, if you buy yarn from Yarn Nerd and are less than pleased, do let me know! I want you to be extremely happy with every Yarn Nerd purchase, and I will do whatever it takes to keep you as a Yarn Nerd fan. I value my customers highly, and I would love to hear your opinions on my yarn (good and bad). Because good customer service just makes the world a better place, ya know?

Oh boy, 10 minutes until 5, I can’t wait! Have a great weekend everyone!

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Adam

in a nerd's life, customers, knitting, nerdy, school, shop, socks, weekend!, works in progress and yarn nerd