The M Club: First Shipment for Magpie Mystery KAL!
I hope that all of you who celebrate had a lovely holiday yesterday! I've been waiting to share what was in the first M Club package for Magpie Mystery KAL until after X-Mas as I know many put it under their tree as a holiday present!
It was my first time building a kit for a club... and I had a blast! Finding the perfect balance of yarn/beads/goodies, and keeping it under 12 oz for shipping and within my budget was a great challenge!
The Yarn: It's great to have friends who make yarn! I fell deeply in LOVE with Jill Draper's Hudson, a US sourced spun and dyed Merino superwash a few years ago, and started to beg and plead her to make a light fingering weight version of it. Well, this fall, Jill obliged and released Esopus, which is AWESOME! The moment I knew the yarn was going to be available I ordered enough from Jill for the club's first shipment. I love being able to bring the club and brand-new yarn we all can feel good about!
Magpie, the first MKAL, in this series, plays with 2 colors of Esopus, 500 yards of a solid and 250 of a variegated. Jill worked her magic and based on my "ideas" came up with the perfect combo I wouldn't have thought of myself. I adore rich deep chocolatey browns and royal reds!
The Beads: I chose some lovely Toho and Matsuno glass seed beads that match the variegated but POP against the solid. SO much fun choosing beads! I learned, though, that you when you are ordering 10 kilos of beads, you must do that early, as it takes 6 months for them to come from Japan!
The Mini: A big part of The M Club is the 4th KAL which is only open to members of the club. In the first 3 shipments everyone is recieveing a "piece" of the 4th KAL. This first piece is a mini of Yankee Puritan from The Yankee Dyer. Michelle had given me a gorgeous skein of yarn last year and I'd been holding onto it waiting for the perfect project. Well, this is it! The biggest struggle with these is not remembering where they are kept until the 4th M Club. Luckily Kristen started a thread in our Ravelry group where people can post where they are stashed. Brilliant! It seems that there are a lot of Tardis' involved!
The Goodie: My buddy Colleen gave me an empty tin in September for stashing tools and I decided the first gift should be a tool tin! Perfect for stashing beads, dental floss threader, a caffeinated sweet treat, and a silvalume (one of my favorite knitting tools). The club can expect to get more surprises for their tin in coming shipments!
Want to see something fun? Justine suggested setting up an online map so we could see where and when the M Club packages arrived... AH-MAZING! There are knitter's around the world joining in!
For those of you not in the M Club: Magpie is open to all, whether or not you are part of the M Club, all you need to do is sign up by purchasing the pattern, and then go find yarn and beads! Jill's shop is on break until Jan 2, but she has offered free shipping when she returns to anyone who wants Esopus for their Magpie. Just use the coupon code mysteriousmagpie. I also saw that a shipment of Esopus just landed at Happy Knits... they've got some great color combos!
The Yarn: It's great to have friends who make yarn! I fell deeply in LOVE with Jill Draper's Hudson, a US sourced spun and dyed Merino superwash a few years ago, and started to beg and plead her to make a light fingering weight version of it. Well, this fall, Jill obliged and released Esopus, which is AWESOME! The moment I knew the yarn was going to be available I ordered enough from Jill for the club's first shipment. I love being able to bring the club and brand-new yarn we all can feel good about!
Want to see something fun? Justine suggested setting up an online map so we could see where and when the M Club packages arrived... AH-MAZING! There are knitter's around the world joining in!
For those of you not in the M Club: Magpie is open to all, whether or not you are part of the M Club, all you need to do is sign up by purchasing the pattern, and then go find yarn and beads! Jill's shop is on break until Jan 2, but she has offered free shipping when she returns to anyone who wants Esopus for their Magpie. Just use the coupon code mysteriousmagpie. I also saw that a shipment of Esopus just landed at Happy Knits... they've got some great color combos!
I wondered what people were talking about, brown yarn, now I get it after seeing the photo.
ReplyDeleteMy shipment was all variegated, no brown.
Did you open your skein up? It's actually two skeins, one brown with a slight variegation to it, and one red/purple. If this isn't the case, e-mail me!
DeleteOh, Ha! My bad! I undid it and there ARE two skeins in there, one brown and one variegated. It was so artfully twisted together that I thought it was one big skein.
DeleteNever mind!
Phew! You weren't the first person stumped by that!
DeleteI'm so ready for this! I didn't join the club this year and I have to stash dive for Magpie (my stash is HUGE) but I'm really excited. I've been in a bit of a knitting funk lately and your patterns always bring me out of them. Thanks for giving us three this year! Happy new year to you and your family.
ReplyDeleteWell, there is nothing like a good KAL to get you out of a funk! Looking forward to it!
Deletenext can u add a retractable measuring tape w/ ur logo on it to add to the tin? I lovelovelove project tins and keep one with me at all times
ReplyDeleteGood idea! You know we all LOVE measuring tapes and can never find one when we need it!
DeleteThanks -- i thought it was just a crochet hook -- never heard of a silvalume!
ReplyDeleteI just want people to know that the staff at Happy Knits are wondeful at giving advice on color combinations. I've ordered from them a few times and I told them some colorways that I liked and they suggested 3 or 4 colors to coordinate. We discussed it back and forth over email. So if you're not sure about which Esopus colors will work well together, they are a fantastic resource.
ReplyDeleteGreat advice, and SO true, the Happy Knits girls are awesome!
Delete