toffle

I found a copy of the book "Who Will Comfort Toffle?" in a little place called Reading Frenzy, in Portland. I love Tove Jansson's books (actually, I wish I could be Moomintroll), and her illustrations are both fun and lovely. I think this book will become a favourite at bedtime.

tiger lily

Quite unexpectedly, I received a book in the mail last week - Stitch n' Bitch: Superstar Knitting by Debbie Stoller. Inside this book is a secret I've been keeping for about 3 years, and much of that time, I wasn't sure if I would ever get to share it with you. You see, at the very end, on page 344, you will find a pattern by me. Crazy, eh?

You will notice that this is my original Tiger pattern. I was actually asked to submit this pattern for the book (even more crazy). Afterwards, I decided to change the one I sell, so it wouldn't compete with Debbie Stoller's book. I really love the new design, and asked if they would rather have that one, but I guess they decided to stick with the original. It's in good company, for sure, as the whole book is one beautiful pattern after another (I may need another break from knitting toys, after I have a good look at everything in there).

I'm not sure if this is going to change things for me. It still feels a bit unreal, as I did the work so long ago, and the book was released just last week. I suppose I will have to wait and see how many people make it to the very last pattern, and come looking to see what else I've done.

Introducing Qoop

Hello, Mr. Mitten here. I haven't blogged in a long while -- I'm back full-time at work, and late summer is very busy time of year in the world of education (I work at McGill University in Montréal).

We're not quite ready to go forward with our plans of having a self-hosted shop (this requires lots of work and lots of time), but we're making small steps toward that goal. One of them is cutting back on our dependence on Lulu, and we're now glad to introduce an option to buy printed copies of our books through Qoop, which is another on-demand printer like Lulu.

Qoop offers a number of benefits over Lulu. First of all, they provide similar quality printing services, but at a significantly lower price. For example, a wire-bound colour copy of the "Festive Knits" on Lulu costs $23.55, and on Qoop it is $19.03. They also offer a USPS "Media Mail" shipping rate, which literally costs about 3-4 dollars to ship a copy of the book across U.S.

Qoop also gives you more control over how you want your book done. If you prefer "Perfect Bound" books to "Wire-O," you are welcome to select that option (it's fifty cents cheaper, too, though I find that pattern books are way nicer when wire-bound). If you don't care for colour and just want it for the text, then you can even choose the "Black and White" printing option, which further cuts the price by about $5 (a black-and-white wire-bound copy of "Festive Knits" is $14.22).

If you've been holding out until the price of the book drops, then now is your chance. :)

• Fuzzy Mitten's Festive Knits on Qoop

Once the new edition of "Fuzzy Knits" is done, it'll be available both at Lulu and at Qoop as well.

Hope you have a good evening, and happy knitting! :)

-Mr. Mitten

Book pricing and costs

Hi, everyone. Mr. Mitten here with some more info on the book's pricing. As Barbara said earlier today, Lulu recently had a price hike on all printed materials. Before, you were paying $12 in printing costs per book, but now it's up to $15, which is quite a significant difference. Unfortunately, that means that we couldn't continue charging $19.95 per book, especially considering that we also have to pay Lulu's commission on each item sold.

This is why the price for printed books went up by a bit. We tried to make it up to you guys by lowering the price on the download version to $17.50 -- hopefully this will help those of you who aren't interested in getting the printed version (though it's nice and shiny! I'm very pleased with it.)

Just a couple of words about our operating costs -- we barely have any. :) The book was written entirely in Free Software (pictures done in Gimp, covers and charts done in Inkscape, and the layout done in Scribus, all of it running on Fedora Linux). Apart from Lulu (or Etsy), there are no other middlemen, so anything you pay goes straight to the artist, making sure that she is always pregnant with new ideas (*badum-pum!* ;)).

Overall, this distribution model works out pretty well for everyone, and unless Lulu's printing costs go up again, we should be able to continue to offer patterns at comparatively low costs (at least compared to some other pattern designers.)

getting there

The new Festive Knits book is taking it's time coming together, but with hard work and some luck, we will be ready to order a test print by the end of the week. We've been trying to find a few spare hours in the evenings and on weekends, but with so many other things happening this time of year, the book is taking longer than we planned. Oh well, it should still be ready for you by early November. We have photos of most of the patterns now too, and I'll be getting them up on Flickr in the next day or two. That way you'll have a better idea of what's coming!

I'm feeling a bit better today (hooray!), but I get tired so easily. Although, that could have as much to do with my pregnancy as the cold. Unfortunately, I've made my niece and my hubby sick, so I now have two sick people to look after. I better get well soon! The big bowl of home-made chicken noodle soup I ate for lunch should help. Having a sister who went to cooking school is great!

We've had frost here the last two nights, and the colourful leaves are starting to fall. As much as I enjoy the colour of the season, it just makes me think of all the gardening that must be done soon! I'm so happy that I'm not working as a gardener this year. It was fun and interesting, but I think fall is definitely the hardest part of the year for gardening. It's cold here, and often damp or raining, so you're always waiting for break time and your thermos of hot tea, hoping your gloves will dry on the air vent on the way to the next job. Last year we also had snow early, so many days I worked in that, trying to get the last of the plants out or tied up for the winter. I'll go back to gardening some day, perhaps, but for now I'm happy to settle down to being a mom, and designing toys for you to knit.

big surprise!

What can I say about our holiday? It was a nice, relaxing break. The weather could have been warmer and drier, but we made the best of it. The scenery was very pretty and autumn-ish, with plenty of rolling hills, farms, colourful trees, and an occasional glimpse of the sea. I won't have any photos to share until we get our regular computer back (it's off getting a new hard-drive), but hopefully we managed to get a few good ones. We shot lots of video too, so at least some of that should turn out well. I even managed to find myself some yarn, although I wasn't sure the shop-owner was going to let me escape without talking off both my ears.

So, I think I promised to reveal a surprise? Well, the project that has kept me so busy for the last few months is a new book! It will be called Festive Knits like our very first one, but most of the patterns are different, and organized on a seasonal theme. Some of them are animals you have seen before but with different outfits, some of them are new toys altogether. I wanted to work up a bunch of new patterns to have for next year, and it seemed like a good idea to put them all together and reuse the book name. We're hoping to have it ready for the first week of November, so there will be plenty of time to order for Christmas. If you don't want to buy the whole book, though, most of the patterns will be released separately later this fall or some time next year. (I'll let you know more details about the book as we get closer to finishing it)

Now you know why I've had so many mysterious new toys in my flickr photos lately :)

positive thinking

View from the hilltops
Originally uploaded by mricon

It's pouring rain here today, not normal weather for Montreal in January, and not appreciated in the least. I'm trying to conjure up warm memories of more pleasant seasons, and feeling grateful I don't have to go out today.

The lack of blogging this week results from a whirlwind of knitting, although I'm keeping my sanity with small breaks for visiting friends, making birthday presents, and cooking chicken noodle soup. Oh, and reading way too much. I've gone through 3 novels in the last 2 weeks, and I think I need to slow down, or try something more challenging.

Today I'm dying more yarn! And knitting, of course :) The toy I'll be working on today is actually for another pattern booklet. We need better pictures, so I'm going to finish off a puppy I started a couple months ago. The Easter pattern booklets didn't go over as well as I hoped, but maybe this new one will do better. It will have the Siamese kitty, Boyish monkey, and Puppy. I try not to worry too much about these booklets, though. The Fuzzy Knits book is doing very well, and I'm selling a few other things here and there. So far, my gamble to do this full-time is working out.

technicolour hands

I've been selling plenty of books lately, which feels so good! I hope you're enjoying them, or will, when they arrive. I really like the new version, especially the pictures. The Festive Knits photos were a bit desaturated, but fortunately we figured out the problem.

I realized I never shared a photo of this wee cutie, like I promised. I made a similar one a while ago, for the same person. If you're curious, I used fingering weight alpaca on 2.25 mm needles, but otherwise followed the pattern exactly. The toy turned out about 13 cm (5") tall. The problem is that the dress certainly won't fit a kitty that small. I sort of divided all the instructions in half - half as many stitches for the skirt, a little over half as many rows, I think. It takes a little fiddling to get it right. I love how tiny and adorable she is, so maybe I'll make more in the future.

Right now I have bunnies and lambs to knit. I bought some suri dream for the lambs, because I thought it would be similar to the acrylic yarn I had been using (but natural fibres, of course). It is so lovely, fluffy, and soft! I think it will be perfect. But this morning I will be dying some of the plain yarn I bought, to be used for the toys outfits. So off I go, to have fun and get me some technicolour hands!

P.S. My husband is holding the kitty for maximum effect - he has large hands, so the kitty looks even smaller :)

fuzzy knits

The new version of my pattern book is now available at my Lulu shop. It has the same patterns as the Festive Knits book: polar bear, puppy, squirrel, lamb, easter bunny, boyish monkey, tiger, panda, siamese kitty, pocket mouse, big teddy, fluffy duckling, and super cape as a bonus. The cover and picture pages have been changed slightly, but otherwise that's it.

We had considered getting an isbn number, but they wanted us to change a bunch of things about the format, and it costs quite a bit. For now we are keeping the book the way it is (so you still get the spiral binding!) and if it gets really popular, we will consider the isbn number then.

I have ordered a few copies that will soon be available in my Etsy shop. There will be a few copies available for sale by themselves, and I will be putting together a few more kits. So if you have a friend's birthday coming in the next few months, keep me in mind :)

Do you guys mind spreading the word for me? This book is available wholesale to yarn shops, and I know of a few I can contact. But if you are 'in' with your local yarn ladies, and they like my designs, please put them in touch with me. I can hook them up with the place to order my books in larger numbers.

new year plans

First things first, the feature pattern for January will be a cardigan with tiny cables. I had lots of people ask about the cardi this wee cutie is wearing, so hopefully you will all enjoy knitting this for your little toys.

handsome Pete

Second, I plan on putting out a cow pattern. I'm still not quite sure how I'm making the spots, or what it will wear, but I should have it ready by mid-January. Any ideas on appropriate clothing for a cow? Too bad I already have overalls with the monkey... I'm contemplating giving it an udder, but that might be just a little too goofy ;)

There will also be a unicorn pattern to replace the reindeer. I need to order yarn to knit up the new pattern, so this might not be ready until the end of January. I really want to use some fun, sparkly eyelash yarn! So if you have a ball hanging around your stash, or see something pretty in a bargain bin, think unicorns! When this pattern comes out, I may also try putting together a tutorial. I know this pattern is complicated, with lots of seaming, but the finished toy is so awesome I would love for more people to try it out.

My wonderful hubby has also put together a new, non-holiday version of our pattern book. This should be available from my Lulu shop within a few days. I also hope to order some so I can offer them in my Etsy shop, and even put together a few more kits. I had so much fun with the first few, I want to try them again! Besides, it gives me an excuse to buy more vintage buttons from the local thrift store :)

I have a few more totally awesome pattern ideas for later in the year, but I think I will save the surprise until closer to when they will be ready.

blizzarding

I wish you could see the snow here. I want to take photos, but the camera would only get wet. We should have over a foot (or more than 30cm) by the end of the day. They're fat, fluffy flakes too - the prettiest kind. I always enjoy snow days like this, but then, I don't drive :) Good thing I bought myself some new winter boots on the weekend for my trip to the post office.

Thanks so much to everyone who bought a copy of our pattern book :) There was a lot more demand than we expected, and we ran out of printed copies this weekend. But if you still want one, you can order it directly from Lulu. Mr. Mitten is working on a non-holiday version, which will be available in January. It has all the same patterns, only the picture pages have been changed. The kits were a lot of fun to put together, and I will definitely put more in the shop once I have more books.

Today will be for working on Christmas presents. I must say, a break from knitting the toys is appreciated. I wouldn't want to get bored of them. I managed some sewing yesterday too, and someone on my gift list is getting an apron made from a vintage tablecloth. Think yellow, brown, and olive 70's goodness :) Sorry, no pics until after Christmas, since I wouldn't want to spoil the surprise any more.

is it too early?

Festive Knits
Originally uploaded by mricon

Can I mention the C-word?

My wonderful husband has spent the last few weekends working on a big surprise for all of my fans. (I helped a little with the editing, but he really did the worst of the work) We now have a pattern book! Woo hoo!

I am really excited about this, because it's an idea we've talked about for months. Only lots of pressure and late nights managed to get it done in plenty of time for Christmas shoppers. We imagined it as a gift for people who love to knit, and love cute cuddly things. Of course, if you want it just for yourself, that's okay too :) The book has 12 toy patterns, plus a little bonus, and you can get it in printed book form or as a pdf file. We ordered an early copy, and it's so special to be holding our book in my hands, with lovely colour pictures and everything!

I hope you all like it too :)