Pitter Patters

As I mentioned last week,   I have a few tips to share on sizing down the French Press Felted Slipper pattern for little girl's feet.

My sister Amanda (baluethy on Ravelry), recently made slippers for both of her daughters by modifying the original pattern ever-so-slightly.

Here are the main things that change:

1.  Use one less strand of yarn on each part (two strands for the bottoms, only one for the sides and straps)

2.  Take out one stitch of width on bottoms (Cast on 4 stitches instead of 5)

3.  Take out ten rows of length for the bottoms

4.  Take out eight rows of length for the tops

My nieces are ages four and five, and although they are two sizes apart in shoe size, my sister followed the same exact formula for both feet.  She just made sure the child was with her as she felted, so they could try them on during the felting process.

I have had someone else tell me they made the slippers for their 10 and 12 year old daughters by simply taking one strand of yarn out and following the pattern as written.

I realize that the above are very general adjustments and some of you would like a little more detail.   In order to provide a little support, and to help each other out along the way, I have started a thread over in the French Press Knits group on Ravelry.  Hop on over to share your hints and tips here.

Yarn on the House

Have you heard about Yarn on the House? If you haven't, you should! It's a new blog whose purpose is to give away free yarn...EVERY WEEK!

Veronika (of Yarn on the House) has already given away skeins of the new Malabrigo Twist, Cascade 220, Cascade Eco Alpaca, and Malabrigo Worsted. If you're wondering what the giveaway is for this week, take a look below:

Yarn on the House is giving away 3 French Press Felted Slipper Patterns- and two of them will come with Paton's Wool as well. So, make sure you stop by, look around the site, and leave your comments. Veronika (Ve) also came up with some interview questions so her readers could get to know me a little better. Hop on over- you'll probably learn something new about me as well!

The Results Are In...

The entries have been counted. And recounted. The hanging chads have been closely examined.

Our tabulations went late into the night. Many valuable lessons have been learned about blog giveaways- next time it will be far less complex. There were many links to check and blog posts to read, and when all was said and done we came up with 922 entries- WOW!

Each entry was assigned a number and placed into an excel document (I did mention we were up late... right?!). Then, we headed over to random.org to find our contest winner. Don't worry, we had quite the ceremony. Joe provided the drumroll via his thumbs and laptop surface- I did the announcing. It was such a thrill to scroll through our excel document to see who our slipper recipient would be.

And the winner of the E2K Slipper Giveaway is...

Tara said...

Oh, fun! The burgundy wine with any of the silvery buttons.

So Tara, we suggest tonight you celebrate with a nice glass of burgundy wine to go with your new pair of French Press Felted Slippers. But keep your thank-you speech to a minimum, you have only 48 hours to claim your prize or else we strike up the music, cut to commercials, and pick another winner.

And speaking of picking other winners...

The lure of generating another number through random.org, proved to be too great. So we doubled our fun and picked again...Susan said...

I never win stuff on blog giveaways, but why not? I keep meaning to pick up the pattern and make myself a pair and a few for gifts. Burgandy Wine slippers would be cute. I'm having trouble picking a button! If I win, can you surprise me?

So Susan, it turns out you do win stuff on blog giveaways. Lucky for you we couldn't pick just one. Perhaps you can meet up with Tara for the celebration, as you both seem to have a penchant for wine. 48 hours to claim your prize.

Thanks so much to all who participated! It really was a great time seeing the response. Stay tuned for more patterns, and more giveaways!

E2K Slipper Giveaway

Typically, I don't get nervous signing on to Etsy. Since opening my shop last April, it has been a place of comfort, a place where I have met so many welcoming and talented people who offer encouragement at the drop of a hat. It has been a place of learning how to run a business, and also a place for learning more about myself.

However, a few weeks ago a thought occurred to me as I began to approach the two-thousand sale milestone. My mind flashed back to my senior year of high school. News stories about the world screeching to a halt on the first day of the year 2000 were everywhere. We all imagined the worst: Airplanes dropping out of the sky, computer screens blowing up in user's faces, medical equipment malfunctions.

Could a similar crash result in the world of Etsy? I shared my ideas with no one, afraid of being labeled a 'scaremonger'. As the event horizon approached I grew increasingly anxious, but this morning as I logged on my fears were assuaged. Two-thousand sales and counting.

The E (for Etsy) 2K Giveaway is born out of that relief. We dodged a bullet folks, and things are still sailing on. In celebration, I am doing something I have wanted to do since starting this blog- a giveaway (now I just have to figure out what to do with 400 pounds of freeze-dried food and 1500 gallons of gasoline we stocked in our bunker. Maybe it will come in handy if Mad Cow rears its head again).

This week, I will be giving away a custom pair of French Press Felted Slippers (MSRP $65). These snugly little flats have been a very hot selling item in my Etsy shop since their inception in April. You may have seen them gracing blogs like the Yarn Harlot, One Pearl Button, littlebrownpen, Dear Golden Vintage, and many others. If not, let me introduce you!

So what do you need to do to enter? Simple! Just leave a comment below with your favorite slipper color and button combo. Make sure you leave an email address where I can contact you.

You can receive additional entries by completing any/all of the options below (make sure you let me know in your initial comment about additional entries):

Follow me on twitter (frenchpressknit) and tweet about this giveaway (make sure you include a link): 1 entry daily

Follow my blog: 2 entries

Subscribe to French Press Knits blog: 2 entries

Become a fan on facebook (French Press Knits Facebook Fan Page) : 1 entry

Blog about this giveaway: 5 entries

Update: You can let me know in one comment how many 'tasks' you completed for additional entries- thanks!

Update: to enter via facebook, become a fan and respond to the link I have posted about this giveaway by hitting the "like" button- this will get your vote counted(even if you were already a facebook fan)

This giveaway will end Friday, February 5th at 11:59 PM. Each entry will be assigned a number and winner will be chosen by random.org. Winner will be contacted by email and have 48 hours to claim prize or a new winner will be chosen. This contest is not limited to US residents- anyone can enter!

Version 2.1 Errata Notice

I'm very much enjoying all of the craft room ideas that everyone is suggesting. I've been having a lot of fun looking at all the pictures on the links people are giving me... keep them coming!

Today a fellow Raveler contacted me to let me know of an error in the new pattern. In the first section about knitting the bottoms, it reads:

Make 2, the first one should be just as written(right sole). The second (left sole) is made as an opposite by reversing shaping.

It should read:

Make 2, the first one should be just as written(left sole). The second (right sole) is made as an opposite by reversing shaping.

I will link this post to the Ravelry pattern page and update it when necessary.

Bickford Seam Video Tutorial

My big plans for this week included having these videos up a few days ago. Unfortunately, uploading video to my computer/youtube was not as easy as I expected. After a few redos, I think we're finally ready to roll! Let me know if you have any questions, hope this is helpful!














And for those of you who enjoy spacial relations- here's is a quick 'road map' of the direction of the seam:

And here you can see a portion of the seam in a different color:

On Being 'Harlotized'

Many of you have heard by now. Even more of you are here just because of it. But for those of you who don't know, it's true... I've been 'Harlotized'.

You may be wondering why there is a can of spam(the oh-so-delicious pork and ham treat) in a post about being 'Harlotized', but there are some who are wondering what it even means to be 'Harlotized', so I'll start there.

It all began last monday night, December 7th. I was checking my email when I noticed that a certain Stephanie Pearl-Mcphee purchased my French Press Felted Slipper Pattern. Could it be? The Yarn Harlot herself was purchasing one of my designs? I went straight to her Twitter Feed to read "buying yarn for French Press Slippers".

Just because of this little mention, I saw a small spike in slipper pattern sales over the following days. I had to ask myself what kind of crazy power this woman has...she didn't even put a link up and people started buying my pattern!

Fast forward a couple days; this is where the real craziness began. On Thursday, I got home from work to find my email address flooded with new mail. Not only were there hundreds of new emails, but every time I glanced down at my laptop screen, there were more- the list just kept growing.

At first I assumed there was something wrong- but then the realization hit me... I had been 'Harlotized'. No sooner than this idea popped into my head, I went straight to the Yarn Harlot's blog. And there it was!

Oh, to write with such power to command thousands of reader's attention. No one does it in a way quite like the Yarn Harlot does. As you can see, the post needed no pictures. There were just a few links to click along the way... and the results were astonishing!

I didn't even read the whole post before it struck that I had to start sending out emails as fast as my fingers(or the three year old computer) could. You see, when a customer purchases a pattern from me on Etsy, there is no automated system like Ravelry. I have to do the grunt work myself- send out an email with PDF attachment. (And contrary to popular belief, I didn't actually sell out of the PDF- the link Stephanie used was one specific pattern. When that one pattern sold, it said 'Sold Out', but there were always others up in the shop).

I got to work on the emails and it was not long before I got this:

I was flagged for spamming for sending out too many of the same thing to different email accounts. I changed my email address in Etsy, got back to work, and encountered this:


And so it continued for 6 different email address before I realized I could upgrade my Google account to Google Apps. I quickly shelled out $100 and started sending emails from the original address (after a few hours had past and I gained access again, of course!). It wasn't too long after that I ran into this problem:

AGAIN!!

Things have slowed down to a point where I am not getting locked out anymore, but I'm afraid Google, Yahoo, and Hotmail will probably be monitoring my IP address for the next year or so!

All in all, I can't thank Stephanie enough for giving my pattern so much exposure. She has quite the following, and I am blessed to be mentioned on such a wonderful blog. I am forever indebted to the Yarn Harlot for her 'Oprah effect in the knitting world'!

What about you? Do you have the pattern yet? If not, head on over to Roxanne's blog, the 60/40 where she is hosting a giveaway. Two copies of the French Press Felted Slipper Pattern will be given away on Saturday. All you need to do is get to the post and leave a comment about your favorite holiday tradition.

While you're there, check out the rest of Roxanne's 'Homespun Holiday' series, you'll be happy you did!