Golden October dread tams & slouchy beanie hats

In Germany we call a sunny and warm October the "golden October", similar to an Indian summer here.
This slouch beanie was inspired by all the bright leaves colors soon to fall.

I love to start new projects ... and I dislike finishing them. These tams could have been listed weeks ago, but better late than never:)

I don't get tired of making these patchwork tams, they turn out differently each time and I won't know the overall look until the rim has been finished. Predictable can be boring, and I love surprises.

A different version with a wool blend as 2nd strand.

 

This improvised star tam is a prime example of procrastinating. Finally listed on Etsy.

Extreme bulky yarn, but wonderfully soft and casual. A tam of my "blue hat period".

From Zen to Biz

Interrupting my trend of serenity and nature subjects by a shameless self-promotion post.

Finally, after mulling over a new custom design tam idea in my head for weeks, I actually set down and created 3 new "custom color tam" listings in different sizes on Purple Sage Designz.

(Above: the moderate size, small/medium)

The longer style.

The wide crown style

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I need to show off my new patchwork skirts

In the triple digits F heat, not much I want to talk about really.
But I am proud of sewing new hippie skirts for the patchwork loving mamas out there.
A welcome break from crocheting tams every day. (I still make them in the evening, but sewing during the day). With many sun tea breaks:)
Both patchwork skirts are for sale at my Purple Sage Designz website. They are made partially with recycled fabrics, an eco-friendly choice.

These skirt themes are already in queue:
Groove Beach skirt
Indigo Blues Patchwork skirt

So...I am kind of old-fashioned

I don't own a cell-phone.... there is life without a cell-phone.
I don't twitter...because I just don't get it.
And I don't feel comfortable to aggressively market my wares on every social site out there on the internet.
Call me stupid, but I don't want to step into the footsteps of the big box stores and websites.

It's not like I don't argue with myself if these features may have benefits.
The rebel in me refuses to do something just because everyone does it.

Here is my good ole-fashioned blog promo.
I ordered several boxes of pure wool yesterday, and I need to make room:)

The new tams above can be purchased here.

Season change

An unusual sight for an early September morning. The clouds of a cold front actually makes it feel chilly here in Northern Oklahoma.
There is no doubt that fall has entered early this year. Even though I am not the one who loves to shiver I am always looking forward to this 3 rd season of the year (well, it may not be fall yet according to the calender, but many leaves already turn yellow on our giant trees and cover the ground beneath.)
In a few days the sunny afternoons will be back for sure. But the morning and nights will bring soothing coolness.
I love all the translations for the word fall:
Autumn
l'automne
Herbst
I remember when I was flying my kites as a little girl, breathing in the smell of new crayons and books every new school year and running through the meadows in search for mushrooms and berries.
Here is a nice little poem devoted to the month of September.

September by
Helen Hunt Jackson

The goldenrod is yellow;
The corn is turning brown;
The trees in apple orchards
With fruit are bending down.

The gentian's bluest fringes
Are curling in the sun;
In dusky pods the milkweed
Its hidden silk has spun.

The sedges flaunt their harvest
In every meadow-nook;
And asters by the brookside
Make asters in the brook.

From dewy lanes at morning
The grapes' sweet odors rise;
At noon the roads all flutter
With yellow butterflies.

By all these lovely tokens
September days are here,
With summer's best of weather,
And autumn's best of cheer.

Here is a free crochet tam pattern of mine

Hi, from time to time I get requests to sell my hat patterns.
I don't write down patterns in a conventional way. I make a quick sketch and note number of rows as a future reference for me, that's it. I am a visually oriented person when it comes to comprehension, I always learned with diagrams.
In the past I wrote down 2 patterns in the conventional way.
If you happen to stumble upon the pattern tutorial that I had posted last year and have questions, please send me an email.
I had an anonymous poster repeatedly ask questions about it, but I can't reply back to you without an email address or other way of contact.
Recently I wrote one pattern down because I had a request for it.
I will share it hear today...maybe it will help you get your own tams started. I have learned a lot online from tutorials and now it's time to give back and contribute.
BUT, I kindly request not to use this pattern to create items to sell online, please feel free to copy it if you sell the tams locally only.
Patterns are great for inspiration. I personally cannot follow someone else's pattern, it never works out right and I collect patterns for the sake of collecting and looking at the beautiful pictures.

Voila:

4 chain stitches, close with a slip stitch.
1. Row:chain 2 (counts as first dc) and crochet 15 dc into the ring (16 dc total), close with slip stitch as throughout the whole pattern.
2:2dc in each dc (total 32)
3. *1 dc in dc, 2 dc in next dc* repeat until end
4. *1 dc, 1 dc, 2 dc in next dc* repeat to end
5. *1 dc, 1 dc, 1dc, 2dc in next dc* repeat to end
6. *1 dc, 1 dc, 1 dc, 1dc, 2dc in next dc* repeat to end

I used Vanna's choice acrylic yarn, hook I (9mm), I have enough width for my crown now, you can increase more or less according to your yarn

Now I continue with V-stitches
(4 chain stitches, 1 dc in same space *skip 2dc, 1dc in next dc, 1 chain stitch, 1 dc insame dc, skip 2 dc* repeat to end)
Next row you crochet the *dc-chain-dc* into the space of the chain stitch, if you use a different color, you get the zig-zag-effect.)
I crocheted 6 rows, but you can do more or less. No increase or decrease of stitches.

Next row: SC only and I crocheted 6 SC and then crocheted the next 2 SC together (decrease made). Repeat throughout row.
Next row: I made simple v-stitches: *skip `1 SC, 2 dc in next single crochet, skip next SC* repeat to end
Final rows: single crochet, decrease after 6 SC, I usually make 3 decreasing rows, last row in crab stitch without decreasing.
Can be adjusted to your head circumference, decrease more or less.

I hope this made sense:)
Good luck!

Sometimes a little silence can't hurt

Especially when you don't have anything important to say.
So I'll just indulge in a little bit of self-promotion today.
I want to thank Gimla of the Mature Natural Blog for her special feature of a few Etsy hat stores showcasing our summer tams and snoods.
Thank you so much for including me!
The feature is here
Work in progress is the title of the picture below and following are a few new clothing items pictures. My materials and supplies are overwhelming and I need to create!
A pile of hats that is awaiting to be finished and listed.
A patchwork skirt that finally came to life after concentrated sewing.

I had already given boxes full of baby yarn to charity groups, but I need to put the rest of my light weight skeins to good use myself and I have decided to make these little summer halter apron tops for girls.
(Tops and skirt available in my Etsy shop.)

Mixing up my YARNS

Just a brief post today.
I have placed large orders for hemp yarn and other natural sustainable yarns and I feel the need to work with my overflowing yarn inventory. Justification is the magical word!
I mixed a few unusual yarns and worked the combinations into new tam hats:
Avocado green chenille, regular worsted weight brown yarn and an extra strand of novelty yarn held together with the main yarns.
Same here, ice-cream colored feminine tam: pink chenille, cream and brown acrylic and the fuzzy extra strand.
A custom order, hope my customer will like it. Dark brown 100% hemp, warm brown cotton and terra red cotton. 3 different textures and different thickness.
Another scrap patchwork tam. You can tell I can't throw out materials and will use every decent length strand of yarn. The fuzzy brown yarn ties the colors together into a more coherent weave.
For this longer sock tam I have used copper red and black acrylic, combined with a strand of
terra red cotton yarn. It adds to the touch of the material and makes it super sturdy, but yet soft.
This tam is earthy in mainly green and brown acrylic, but spruced up with a "ribbon" (synthetic) yarn which features several pretty pleasing colors like gold, rust red, purple in a beautiful tie-dye effect.
Some of these tams are already for sale on my website and in my Etsy store, some still need to be uploaded.
My computer works slowly these days (or the cable) and a lot of times I just walk away from it to do other things because it takes forever to upload pictures.
Planting seeds into starter plant pots, walking my dog...and crochet. Besides other things:)

An ordinary day -- that's the way I like it

Things are finally returning to a slower and less hectic pace. Sid is recovering from his nose surgery, not quite there yet, but he is doing pretty good.
It's gradually warming up, but still windy outside. The strong wind gives me a headache and I had been "headachy" for days now. Today I feel much better. I started to plant my first flower seeds. I am an awful gardener, but with big plans each spring season. Trial and error:)
So, what do you write about when there is not much to write about? I guess I just appreciate the fact that nothing out of the ordinary is happening. Leaving me enough space to just work on my hats, drive grocery and yarn shopping, organize the house, go outside and -- feel content. If only for a while.
Last night I was lucky to stumble on another re-run of the movie Crash on FX. The finale/conclusion always makes me sad though. But what a refreshing show considering all the other crap that is usually shown on TV.
Blogging for others or writing my own personal journal?
Probably the latter recently, but I have drifted away from the whole "blogging about Etsy thing", daily store features of other Etsy sellers, Etsy community talk and all the other social network sites where sellers hang out. Oh well, maybe someone will look and read anyway:)
But, I have not been idle, so, I show off some new tams today:
(Above picture) I call it the "Traveling the gravel road tam" because it reminds me of a gravel-covered path or walk way, the colors range from black to light-colored stones, with a bit of brown earth thrown in there.

And here is a longer totally unisex tam for guys and gals.
Available at PurpleSageDesignz.

Truly WEARABLE Art in Crochet -- AnnieBriggs, a personal favorite

AnnieBriggs
has been in the crochet clothing & accessories business for quite a while, but it has not been until recently that I stumbled upon her creations listed on Etsy.
When I spotted one of her jackets in her forum avatar I instantly clicked on the image of a, what I would call a Bohemian inspired crochet jacket, beautifully handmade in cotton crochet and accentuated with fabric ties. Besides jackets she also creates skirts, tunics, tops and hats and smaller accessories, mainly for women, but also some girl clothing.
Most appealing to me is that her sweaters are extremely wearable and versatile. I could imagine myself wearing them with jeans, casual skirts or any elegant attire (what I usually don't wear, but it all seems possible). Some high-end designers incorporate crochet into their lines, but at times I doubt the functionality of see-through dresses or tops unless you are super-skinny or 18 and coverage is no subject. AnnieBriggs' crochet on the other hand looks functional and runway-worthy.
When I conversed shortly with Annie she revealed that she may soon persue a different career outside of the craft world. And close her crafting business. If you like her crochet fashion you should act quickly and visit her website and Etsy shop. If I didn't have a huge sum of money invested in all my inventory (yarn) and if I couldn't crochet, I would order the jacket above. Most definitely! (But, since I have all my yarns and call myself professional crocheter, I guess I will just have to make a BoHo jacket for myself soon.) Hope it will turn out at least half as pretty as Annie's.

Proud mama of new tams

Hi there, it has been a while since I had a bunch of new hats for sale. The above irie-inspired visor tam is already taken though because it was a custom order for a very nice repeat buyer.
So last night I sat up and finished them all. Unfinished projects bother me when they keep piling up.
We had to exchange our cable for the internet service all throughout the house and things seemed to take forever, but, just like a proud mama I can finally show off my new stuff.
Available at
my Etsy shop
and
my website

Looking forward to our vacation

Sid and I have been under the weather for a while now.
The weekend didn't happen as planned and we didn't drive to Shawnee's Arts & Craft Fair. It was an overall cool cloudy weekend with some sunny high lights, but the forecast of rain made us change our plans and just take "time out". It's a strange feeling when you are not really sick, but you don't feel like a "powerhouse" either. And your body sends you that message to take it easy or it will go into strike mode. I am a big believer in listening to body messages.
Great news is that we got our tickets to fly to Cancun, Mexico and stay at a nice hotel close to the beach for a few days.
A typical tourist vacation package nevertheless. But, I have done my fair share of back pack traveling throughout my life in Europe. For me this is actually a novelty. The convenient way of vacationing. So we''ll be the the typical American tourists, haha.
After camping in the Rockies and train riding through Germany we may actually enjoy it. My first trip to Mexico ever. I was thrilled to visit Spain when I was still living in Germany. I love tropical sceneries and I am a sucker for palm trees. Yep!

We need to "get out there"

And I am not talking about a cruise or the internet either:)
But into the real life sunshine and events>>>t-shirt weather in Oklahoma, hurray!

I have shifted to some warm weather designs because I am playing with the thought of doing my first craft shows this year. Coming Sunday will be an Art & Craft Fair in Shawnee, OK, and we'll go to look on. It's not too far to drive and we will have fun just looking around. That way I can easier decide if this is a way of vending for me.

I made this cute little toddler blouse the other day. And I think it's sweet. Maybe I will get into sewing more now that it starts to warm up. I'll see how well I will be doing with clothes.
I am about to list a few more other tams on Etsy and my website, check them out, the links are located at the left of my blog.

So far the new year really didn't present itself in any outstanding way for us, it's been work, cold weather and staying at home a lot. We are so ready to travel and have some fun.
We are in the process of planning a short spring vacation to Mexico. Searching for blues festival tickets in Oklahoma (Tulsa used to be great, but we couldn't find any info for 2008) and check out some craft and art festivals which we found with this website http://www.craftmasternews.com/index.htm

The whole online advertising and socialising sites and communities like Etsy are fine, but get boring after a while. Inspiration comes from the real world. I like being online, but the longer I use the internet, the more I see the importance to shut it off for a while and go outside and live.

Creating frenzy

What I have learned from completing my taxes?
Well, one fact is: I have way too much material and unfinished inventory.
This bothered me to the extent that it triggered a lot of energy to make new things. Loving this feeling:)
Above are only a few new tams that I have listed on Etsy today.

And I have uploaded a lot of sweet vintage aprons and some sewing patterns to my 2n etsy shop Retrochicboutique.

With snow storms still all over the country I also listed another warm patchwork scrap hat on my website Purplesagedesignz

That's not all. I have finished my first little girl peasant top of all the sweet clothes I am planning for my next project. Blumenkinder (flower children). I already registered the shop on Etsy, but I am not sure yet if I should test run them in my main Etsy shop first.

I love to create, and with sticking to my new schedule of creating first, marketing second I hope I will have a busy spring and summer season.
Off to enjoy my weekend. It is an amazing Saturday evening outside, with temperatures in the mid 50s.

Crafter or Salesperson?

I have been pretty busy between attending a funeral, cleaning house and spending time with the family. Breaks from "living online". Sometimes I wish my work would just end there after finishing my hats. The joy and dilemma of selling online. The "salesperson part" is the one I enjoy the least. Especially these days with all the requirements to "put yourself out there"...onto Flickr, myspace, IndiePublic, forums, yahoo groups, squidoo and all the new places that pop up every day.
I have decided to do no more then just tend to my lovely blog and list my items on my website and Etsy. Time will tell if this will be the right decision, but it feels right for me.
I will try to attend craft fairs and shows this year as well. Back to good ole' old fashioned selling.

And the beat goes on...

This Sunny & Cher song was in my head when I rushed back from the accountant appointment, taxes are done . A milestone every time in March, to move on with life and just go back to the routine. I love my routine.
This warm brown and dark red tam is a hat design I have done very often over the years, and yet, it's still fun to crochet.
Available on my website Purple Sage Designz

Spring is on my mind! What is better to express my longings for a nice warm breeze then with a lavender doily cotton tam?
Available on Purple Sage Designz

Color...I am crocheting "out of the box" these days. I love unusual color combinations and a bit of boldness.
Rust and dark citrine tam...available at my Etsy shop

I still love the Irie color combo and have made this Jamaica inspired tam.
You can read more about it in my Etsy shop