HP Marketsplash offers 100 free business cards, no shipping or processing fees! You can choose from one of their customizable templates or upload your own image.
Being a dork, I wanted to create my own. I fired up Scribus, created a 9x9 grid, and punched out this:
And a few weeks later, I had this in my hot little hand:
Generally, good stuff. I'm very happy with the print quality. The paper's a tad flimsier than I would have liked, but you can pay a little extra for heavyweight cardstock if you want.
Apparently the first batch of cards came out with some color issues, but they sent them to me anyway in addition to the corrected set. Not sure what I'll do with them yet, but I'll find something.
The free cards are supposed to come with a little advertising line on the back, but mine came with the "premium" plain backs. Maybe it was a mistake in my favor, or maybe an apology for taking longer than promised?
Speaking of the taking longer...
The website says you should receive your order in 7 business days. On March 26, about a week after I placed mine, I got an email from one of their customer service reps saying that my image wasn't the correct size, which was confusing to me because the design page would only accept 1050x600px images. I emailed Ashlee with the original image, she was very nice and promised to fix it for me.
On April 11, I hadn't heard from them lately so I emailed Ashlee again, she responded on the 15th and said my package had been shipped. Yay! I got the package on the 17th.
The delay wasn't a big deal to me, I was in no hurry. If you need your cards by a certain date it may be a good idea to order a little bit ahead of time just in case.
Overall, I'm satisfied and will probably buy some more when the free ones run out.
Last week I was spending some time in Atlanta and decided to get together with some of my Ravelry friends for knitting night. We went to Knitch in the Virginia Highlands neighborhood for their Friday night get-together. The shop does free knitting nights at 6:30PM every Thursday and Friday.
Parking was a bit of an issue. There's a small lot behind the shop, but it and the nearby on-street parking were totally full. My ride ended up dropping me off and leaving, as he didn't really want to hang out in a yarn shop anyway. Quick note: Don't park across St. Charles (in front of the bar) if you plan on staying later than 8PM: you will get towed, as we found out.
The shop is HUGE. The downstairs area has yarn everywhere, plus some seating. Up a spiral staircase is more yarn, spinning supplies, a big table, and couches. Most people at knit night were hanging out upstairs. There were a lot of us, and I was made to feel more than welcome.
The yarn selection is awesome. They had everything you would expect to find (Noro, Cascade, Rowan), plus some more exotic stuff (Artyarns, Habu), and even a few locally-made yarns and original patterns. I didn't buy anything (right now, money is short and yarn is long), but was sorely tempted to skip going back to college and buy the place out.
In short:
Go to Knitch. It is awesome.
First off: KNITPICKS! SCOTLAND! TWATWEASEL! Now that that's out of the way....
I finally succumbed to the call of cheap internet yarn.
When I moved a few months ago, I lost my LYS (Knit 'N' Knibble in Tampa, if you're in the area stop in, pet the yarn, and tell Caroline I said hello!). And then the local Jo Ann moved farther away, so my only source of yarn is Wal-Mart. Now, I've used my fair share of Red Heart and Simply Soft, and they definitely have their place in the world (I'm the ultimate Lazy Laundress... no way am I handwashing a wool afghan), but sometimes a body has to knit socks. Or lace. Or felt something.
And that's where Knitpicks comes in. For only marginally cheaper than Wally World, you can get fibers that come from an actual animal. Apparently they also sell some ballin' circular needles, but I haven't fallen for those yet.
In case you missed the Shopping Spree post, here's the picture of my Knitpicks loot:
4 skeins of Essential, two kettle-dyed in Jay and two regular-dyed in black. Total wallet damage: $19.15 with shipping ($10 of which came out of my Project Wonderful ad money, thanks adverteisers for contributing to the yarn fund!).
So far, I've knit up all of the Jay and just cast on with the black.
The yarn has a little bit of fuzz to it. The Jay was knit into a lacy pattern, and you can still see the stitches clearly, even though they're not extremely well-defined. The finished fabric has nice stretch to it and springs back into place easily. It's some of the softest sock yarn I've ever touched.
No wear report as the socks are for a Christmas gift, but I'll update later after they've been washed a few times. I expect some pilling because of the fuzziness, but hopefully not too bad.
What wonders are to be found at the local library!
I was wandering through in search of a book on Microsoft Office for my mother (try as I might to teach her, she just needs to have instructions open in front of her), when I stumbled across this title. A book on spinning, written by someone who started out with no knowledge at all and got to be an expert? Sounds like a good read to me!
Before you pick the book up, realize that it was published in 1971. This may make it seem a bit "dated" if you're expecting glossy pages, artistic photographs, and modern prose. You're not going to get any of that. My copy smells a bit musty, there are no photographs, and the writing style isn't like the knitting books I'm used to. What you do get is well-drawn (and sometimes funny!) black-and-white illustrations, and an interesting approach to the subject matter.
Rather than writing as an instruction guide, Marilyn Kluger tells you a story. She starts with her first exposure to spinning at her grandmother's house, gives you tips on finding a wheel based on her own experience, and explains what she found was the best way to detangle and clean a raw fleece. Reading her book, you feel like you're learning right along with her, not being lectured.
The book does focus mainly on wheel spinning, but even as a spindler I found things to appreciate. There is one chapter on using a hand spindle, and the sections on finding, preparing, and dyeing fiber are useful to spinners of all tool preferences.
Maybe someday I will pick up a wheel and put more of the book to use, but for now I'm happy to appreciate what I can. After all, we're all just making string out of sheep.
Today I'm talking about The Sheep Shed Studio, a company located in Wyoming.
The Sheep Shed team buys unspun fiber from Brown Sheep and processes it to re-sell. They offer mill ends (imperfect rowing requiring a little more work by the spinner) and "grab bags" of fiber (smaller pieces of roving, batts, etc), as well as regular high-quality rovings.
The mill ends come sorted by color, "brown tones", "black tones", "blue tones", or "Whites". You order by the pound.
The rovings come in a wide assortment of colors, and Carol also hand-dyes some of the rovings into beautiful variegated colorways. These cost a little more, but are worth it if you don't know how to dye yourself and still want a gorgeous, hand-painted yarn.
I placed an order for two pounds of white mill ends (only $25 including postage/handling!) yesterday morning, and received a confirmation by 8 PM, saying that my order is going to be packaged and shipped by Monday. So far I'm very impressed by the professionalism and quality of service.
I'll give you another update when I get my order!
Some of you might know that Brittany offers a warranty on their needles and hooks. If you break one in "normal use" within 5 years of buying it, you can contact them for a free replacement.
On the website, it says it normally takes about two weeks to process a return. You'll see why this is important later.
I originally emailed them over six weeks ago because of a snapped DPN. I got a reply right away, and was hoping my new needle would be coming soon. Three weeks after that, I got another reply saying "Will send ASAP", when I'd assumed they had already sent the first time they emailed me. I tried calling a few times in between emails, left a message once, and never got any reply.
A week ago, I finally got the replacement. It was about six weeks from the original email to the time when I received the package.
They were very generous in sending me two new needles instead of one, and the product itself is great. These are some of my favorite sock needles to knit with. It's very nice of Brittany to offer a warranty at all, when many needle producers don't, but I was very unhappy with the customer service policy. Promising two-week return service that actually takes over a month is just unacceptable.
