Designs by KN blog

… anything could happen, anything could happen, …”  The lyrics to that song are in my head this morning after hearing them yesterday coming from the TV in the family room, while I was busy in the kitchen. The melody in the background somehow made its way into the subconscious.  Very apropos to the design-frenzy mode I’m in right now.  Anything can happen!

As posted on the Designs by KN Facebook page, I literally dreamed up a design while sleeping Monday night.  On Tuesday morning, I couldn’t wait to see if the dream would become reality. To my amazement, the project turned out even lovelier than imagined.  I entered it in response to an invitation to submit designs for the Stitch Craft Create project.  Design frenzy continued throughout the day and I was able to produce three projects total.  It will be a long wait to see if any of them are selected.  Even if none are, at least I’ll have three new designs ready to share at some point in the future.  Anything can happen.

As you may or may not know, I worked in our local library technical services department for twenty years.  In the position of catalog librarian I had the good fortune of handling brand-new books (including knit and crochet titles), placing information about them into the library’s online catalog for access.  Over time, I amassed a personal library of craft titles. Even though knit/crochet books were available through the library, I usually ended up purchasing my own copy for a home library.  I’m glad I did, because now that I’m retired if I choose to browse/read, I can just walk over to my own bookshelf and select one.

Since it’s been so cold this week in Colorado and since there are no baseball/football games now and it gets dark early, a typical routine after dinner has been to grab a book, a cuppa hot tea and read about knitting/crocheting until I fall asleep (no wonder I dream about it too!)  This week’s grab bag of titles chosen at random from the shelf have been interesting and educational:

Yarn Stash Workbook by Laura Bryant

Couture Crochet Workshop by Lily Chin

The Knitgrrl Guide to Professional Knitwear Design by Shannon Okey

Wrap Style by Pam Allen and Ann Budd

Speaking of wraps, the one completed last week garnered compliments on FB, Ravelry and Flickr.  I love it when yarn from stash matches well with one of my “older” patterns for a successfully completed project:

Something Special Wrap in Fiesta Yarns “La Boheme”

A Christmas gift to myself was “Molly Mannequin” since my live-model (DD) is living further away now.  DH plans to do more photography after he eventually retires, and wants to set up a little loft studio to practice photographing my knit/crochet projects.  For now, I do the photography by grabbing our little Canon PowerShot SD 1200 IS camera and capturing my own views.

Speaking of photos, anything can happen with those too.  Last Friday was “United in Orange” day in Denver, CO in support of the Denver Broncos playoff game Saturday (too bad they blew it and lost.)  That morning I just happened to turn my head to look out the window for a second, and saw this awesome sight:

The morning sun was highlighting the branches of a tree against the backdrop of an approaching snowstorm, turning them orange. I named the photo “Broncos branches” since it was taken on “United in Orange” day.  It’s one of my favorite photo-capture moments of all time. Anything can happen if you just keep your eyes open for opportunities, same as with designing for publication.  Watch for submission calls, pay attention to the guidelines/rules/deadlines, do your best work and send your ideas out there.  As I said at the end of this designer spotlight interview, “you just never know.” Anything can happen.

Back to wraps … I was up early today so started work on a new crochet project.  This is one of my personal favorite patterns, an oldie but a goodie in the Designs by KN collection:  Shortie Shell Capelet.  It’s a quick-crochet project that results in a soft, light-as-air shoulder wrap. I really do love everything about it, so have made several over the years:

I’ll leave now to go crochet, but here’s one more example of “anything can happen.”  On our trip to Hawaii last summer, we stopped at a sidewalk ice cream shop in Kona.  Just as we were leaving I noticed a bright green gecko on a nearby railing.  Actually there were two of them, coming up to drink out of their own little tea set on the deck …

Keep that camera handy!

ETA:  today’s completed Shortie Shell Capelet in Red Heart “Symphony”

P.S. On a recent out-of-state trip with DM, we happened to watch an episode of the XFactor semifinals where the group Fifth Harmony performed, you guessed it … “Anything could happen!”  No wonder this song stuck in my head.  Watch their performance on YouTube.

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