Something special happens when the mercury hits about 70 degrees (Fahrenheit). Not too hot, not too cold, we break out all those open toed shoes and maybe (after loads of sunscreen) bare our shoulders.
And when that happens there is nothing quite like bringing your knitting into the great outdoors with you. That’s probably why Knitscene’s summer issue has an entire section called Special Summer Handbags. And wouldn’t you know it? There are some JP beauties in there.
Big thanks to Knitscene for featuring our Bella and the L.J. Kaelms in summery shades of Pearl and Lucky Green. Can’t you just imagine yourself swinging your Bella down the pier or parking your L.J. Kaelms on a blanket with some knitting and an audio book, the breeze ever so slight?
If you haven’t had a chance to check out the new issue, there are some seriously adorable patterns in there. The Lakota Tank by Sarah Wilson has me thinking summer, for sure! What’s your favorite?
Anne over at knitspot is also a seasoned traveler (with a penchant for taking great photos of foliage, among other things), which is why we asked her to give our L.J. Kaelms a try and see how it worked out for her.
Isn’t Toby (her pup) super cute? Totally adorable. Can you believe all the stuff she fit in there? I’m seriously impressed. Makes me think I need an L.J. Kaelms for my next trip in the sky.
Anne loved the bag. Of course it didn’t hurt that green is her favorite color. But she loved the weight and the pockets as well. She wasn’t sure if it would replace her older green bag for traveling, but she did say this:
I do find this one a little more stylish, so I’ll definitely grab it to tote along when I feel the look is important — and certainly I love how it babies my iPad. I also really like that it could easily work as my only bag for overnight trips — I may even try that sometime soon.”
Traveling with just one bag? She must be a pro. I’d love to see what she gets in there then and if it fits under her airline seat. See how hers fit in the bottom left photo there?
Thanks for sharing your travel thoughts with us Anne! You can read the whole review of the L.J. Kaelms on the knitspot blog, along with all sorts of fun pictures. Check it out!
Could you travel with just one bag? What tips do you have for traveling with your knitting?
Spring is one of my favorite seasons for many reasons: gorgeous flowers blooming, more sunshine and of course, cute clothes that haven’t seen the outside of the closet since fall began. Hello open-toed shoes!
Featured in the editor’s Fresh Picked Knits, we’re proud to be called “great,” and happy to be featured in Creative Knitting this month! You can check out the whole magazine online, and there’s even a knitalong with the bucket hat. The pattern is free right now. Sweet!
The event runs from March 30 to April 1 at the Grapevine Convention Center in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. There will be all sorts of great classes, an evening with Ravelry and of course, a marketplace! You can register online here.
I’m not exactly sure why, but socks have really been on my mind lately. Maybe it’s the cold weather. And I just ran into a link for an article about darning socks from a completely non-knitting related site.
So when the Spring 2012 issue of Sockupied arrived, I wasn’t surprised. But I was delighted to see the L.J. Kaelms highlighted in the “Must-Have Supplies for Socks.”
If you haven’t checked out Sockupied, you can get it here. There’s some great stuff in there. Remember our Knitter Profile about Donna Druchunas? She wrote a great article about Balkan textiles: Did you know the shoes were so flimsy they wore two pairs of socks? They’re so beautiful and intricate, I don’t know how they could bear to cover them up!
(She also raves about her L.J. Kaelms: “I like it so much that it’s now my go-everywhere travel purse.” Thanks Donna!)
And of course, there are some of the most beautiful patterns for socks, which means if I decide socks are my next project, I’ll have some tough decisions to make.
One of the big reasons we have our Knitter’s Profiles here at JP is so we can learn more about the people who love the craft and Jordana Paige’s bags. I have a confession though. I also love the profiles because I get a chance to ask quirky questions and most times I get an answer.
When we chatted with Susan of With Pointed Sticks, her answer to the question about how she likes her eggs cooked was just brilliant. I’ve been asking that question a long time (as a waitress and journalist) and this is the best answer, hands down. Read on and enjoy our latest Knitter’s Profile.
Susan and her brand new L.J. Kaelms
When do you enjoying knitting most?
I do 90 percent of my knitting on the train to and from work. I have a two-hour commute each way, so I put on a podcast and settle in with the uninterrupted knitting time. It makes complicated projects easier, because I can’t get distracted.
How did you find out about JP?
I’ve known about her as long as I’ve known about knitting. I can’t remember the very first place I saw her bags and patterns, but one of my first knitting memories is seeing the Starsky cardigan in Knitty. It looked so cozy and so out of my realm of doing. Knitty was the first place I saw patterns I might actually want to knit, rather than the sweaters I saw in my grandmother’s old knitting pamphlets, and Starsky was one of them. I also seem to remember seeing an ad in Interweave for JP bags, and thinking they were gorgeous, but at that point I didn’t think I’d ever be good enough at knitting to warrant a purse designed specifically for carrying projects.
If you could eat or drink anything with no consequences, what would it be?
I really. Like. Eating. All things. It’s so hard to think about this. Most recently, my fiance and I took on a Bloomin’ Onion from the Outback, and it was so disgustingly perfect, but goodness gracious I never wanted to eat again after that!
What project are you working on right now?
Oof. Still Christmas knitting. After that, I’m planning on some complicated lace shawls, since I was on a stockinette kick for a long time. I’m ready for a change.
What’s the one knitting project you’ve always wanted to try?
I’d love to try beading, but it seems so fiddly that it makes me nervous. I also don’t know if it’s something I’d actually wear. I might try a lace-weight, long cowl with beading at some point, because cowls are fairly non-committal.
How do you like your eggs cooked?
In cake.
You just got your first JP bag … congrats! Tell us a little about that.
Ahhhh! I know! I’m so excited about it! I made a decision a few years ago to only buy cheap purses so that I could replace them as soon as I got sick of them without feeling bad. But after a particularly awful Target purse, I was ready for something that would hold up for awhile. L.J. Kaelms was the first bag I thought of, because I’ve been drooling over it forever!
Susan reviews her L.J. on her blog
Coffee or tea?
Coffee. Always coffee.
What inspires you?
As far as knitting goes, I’m most inspired by Fall. My mental queue starts at the end of August, and I’m always so inspired by the upcoming Fall that I come up with enough projects for the entire year.
Most recently, I was inspired by a woman I saw knitting on the subway. She was blind, and came in with a seeing eye dog. She sat down, pulled out her knitting, and started knitting faster than anyone I’ve ever seen. She had a huge smile on her face the whole time she was working.
How did you learn to knit?
It wasn’t one of my finer moments actually. For my thirteenth birthday, my grandmother wanted to get me a “Teach-Yourself-To…” kit, but didn’t know which one. My grandfather decided I should learn how to knit. It had plastic needles and acrylic yarn, and I was SO BAD at it. Which shouldn’t be a big deal, but when I was in middle school, I couldn’t handle being bad at anything.
I ended up throwing the needles and deciding never to knit again. Both of my grandmothers teamed up to teach me how to knit and purl after that. I stopped for a few years, then when I was 17, I got a random urge to start knitting again, and I haven’t stopped since.
What was your first knitting project?
Aside from the standard garter stitch rectangle everyone’s supposed to knit, my first real project was the Alexi scarf from Berroco. It was made of Caron Simply Soft, and took me six months because there were so much cabling and seed stitch. It’s not especially functional, because it’s not long enough to wrap around my neck, just drape over my shoulders, but I was so proud of it that I wore it to school all the time just so I could look at it periodically during the day.
When I went to a real yarn store (that is, not Michael’s) for the first time, I was wearing my scarf, and I told the store owner that I was scared of knitting a sweater because I didn’t think I could handle sleeves. She looked at my scarf and said, “well, if you can knit that, you can knit anything!”
Forget knitting ... she's on to designing these days.
Have you ever knit a JP pattern?
Currently I haven’t, mostly because I love her sweater patterns, but up until recently I’ve knit maybe three sweaters my entire knitting career. I just finished college, so dropping a sweater’s worth of money all in one go was overwhelming. After calculating the time and money I spend on small projects, though, sweater knitting might just be more economical, in which case Starsky is on my list. It’s one of the first patterns I remember seeing in Knitty, and there’s a bit of nostalgia for me in those patterns. It’s nice to remember the things that initially inspired you!
What’s one of the strangest things you’ve put in your JP bag so far?
It’s so new that so far there hasn’t been anything out-of-the-ordinary in it. I have, however, been able to fit a strange amount of things in it. I was at my LYS the other day (Windsor Button in downtown Boston), and the woman asked me if I needed a bag for my *many* skeins of yarn.
I looked at the yarn, then down at my new Jordana Paige bag, and said I thought I could handle it. I put my bag on the counter, and she said, “ooh, is that a Jordana Paige? I’ve never seen one in the wild!” I stuffed yarn in it, on top of the several projects that were already in there, and I said, “YES! I love it! I can fit so much crap in it!”
What’s one of your favorite outdoor activities?
I went to Cape Cod with a few friends two summers ago, and we went kayaking in the ocean. It was the first time I ever did it, and I’ve been thinking about it ever since. We also spent a good chunk of time screaming songs from the early 2000s, so that could be why I enjoyed it so much.
Do you have a favorite type of knitting project?
It changes all the time, depending on the season and what’s in my yarn cabinet at the moment, but currently I’m in a fingering-weight shawl place. I tend to run hot, and they’re the perfect layering option when cardigans are too warm.
Do you do any other sorts of crafty stuff?
I sew a little, crochet a little, make jewelry now and again, and I had a brief stint with collages. I have a lot of things I try out, but knitting is the only thing that sticks. I just started spinning a few weeks ago, and I’m hoping that takes. It very well could because it goes with knitting so well. I’ve also always wanted to make mosaic tables, which is a weird one, but I’ve had an urge to do it for several years now.
Do you prefer to knit alone or with friends?
I’m almost certain I would prefer knitting with friends, and I’ve tried to teach a whole bunch of mine, but none of them liked it as much as I do. I started a podcast last week, in the hopes that it will give me the opportunity to talk about what I love, and talk to other knitters as well.
If you’d like to be featured in our knitter’s profile, we’d love to hear from you! Email or leave your info in the comments and we’ll make it happen! Don’t worry, you don’t have to submit photos of yourself if you’re not into that (but we do want to see your knitting and your bags for sure!).
If there is something that’s been on our minds lately here, it’s been travel. Here to fan the wanderlust flames at Jordana Paige is knitter, designer, author, teacher and avid traveler Donna Druchunas. She sits down for a chat in our latest edition of Knitter Profiles.
Knitting in Rome
JP: What’s the best time for you to knit?
DD: I love knitting when I travel. It keeps me from getting nervous, frustrated, or just plain bored when in airports and planes or when on long car rides. I especially love buying one skein of a special yarn I find at a shop I visit and making a small project that I can finish
during my trip. In fact, I’m working on a booklet with a “knitter’s dozen” of patterns that I made during my year of travel in 2010. I went to Hawaii, Alaska, New York, Florida, Wisconsin, England, Scotland, France, The Netherlands, Italy, Geneva, and Lithuania. It was an amazing year.
JP: That sounds so awesome. We’ve just been talking about how well-traveled JP bags seem to be. What stamps are on your L.J. Kaelms’ passport?
DD: Alas, I didn’t have my bag on last year’s trip. But this year it’s already been to Oregon for Sock summit, and then to New York, New Jersey, Maine, Nova Scotia in Canada, Boston, and Vermont in October and we’re getting packed to go to California, Vancouver, and Denver this month. Now that I’ve had time to experience using my L.J. Kaelms bag, I can’t imagine ever traveling without it.
JP: How did you find out about JP?
DD: Jordana very generously sent me a bag for Sock Summit. I’d seen her bags before in yarn shops and had been drooling over them, but never had the gumption to actually order one!
JP: What was your reaction?
DD: Futterwackin! I was so thrilled.
JP: If you could eat or drink anything with no consequences, what would it be?
DD: Right now? A whole box of Scottish shortbread. Sometimes I want to devour a whole NY pizza or a 3-lb Maine Lobster drowned in melted butter. I love good food, especially when in the company of good friends.
JP: Where is one of your favorite places to travel?
DD: It’s so hard to pick. I’m hooked on Europe these days. I love going to Lithuania and I have wonderful friends in Switzerland and England. The hardest part of traveling is falling in love with places and people that you won’t be able to see again for a long time.
Donna at Woolfest in England
JP: How did you get into knitting and cruising?
DD: I don’t remember. Somehow I got in touch with Melissa at Craft Cruises and I was excited about doing an Alaska Cruise because I’m always looking for another excuse to visit Alaska again. The cruise let me visit places like Haines and Juneau that I hadn’t been able to get to on my previous research and teaching trips.
Now I do a cruise every year. This last one to Canada and New England was with an absolutely AMAZING group of women and would have been a wonderful experience even if we’d never gotten into port to explore. But, OMG, the yarns we found once we got off the boat. I’m back to familiar territory with another Alaska Cruise in May 2012.
JP: What project are you working on right now?
DD: Beaded fingerless gloves. I’ve adapted an Estonian lace/leaf pattern with beads. I’m making a second pair for myself now and then a pair for my niece for Christmas. I’ve also promised some Facebook followers that I’d get a pattern written soon, too.
JP: What’s the one knitting project you’ve always wanted to try but just haven’t gotten around to it, or you’re just a little intimidated by?
I bought an Intarsia sweater kit from LaLana wools years ago and I don’t know if I’ll ever actually make it. I don’t hate knitting Intarsia, but I don’t know when I will have time for such a large Intarsia project because even though the knitting itself is simple, it requires a lot of attention and is slow going. I’ve been daydreaming about making a mitered-square or lace shawl with the yarn instead…we’ll see.
JP: I love the portrait of you and your kitty on your website. Who drew that?
JP: How many JP bags or patterns have you bought/knit over the years?
DD: Two now! I picked up a Bella bag, which is smaller than the L.J. Kaelms bag, at Interweave Knitting Lab so I can use it when I’m not on the road.
JP: Coffee or tea?
DD: Both. Mostly coffee. But I love Chai and my English friends have taught me to drink black tea with milk and sugar. It’s quite addicting!
Coffee time in Vilnius, Lithuania
JP: What was your favorite book to write?
I know it’s politically incorrect to say, but Arctic Lace. Because I loved the travel and research that went along with that book, and learning about a different culture. I’m working on a book about Lithuania right now that will be a lot like Arctic Lace, although (obviously) the details and knitting projects will be completely different.
Donna with her kitty, Uno.
JP: What are your cats’ names?
DD: Uno, DeeDee, and Buddy. They all came with their names from the shelter, and I didn’t see any reason to change them. Although I sometimes call them Monkey Boy, Tiny Girl, and Budski.
JP: What inspires you?
Everything, but especially travel and beautiful yarns. It is impossible for me to take a trip and visit new yarn shops without creating an entire pattern line in my head. The hard part is when it comes to making them real. There’s only so much time in the day (the year!) and I have to force myself to focus.
JP: How did you learn to knit?
DD: My grandmother taught me. I don’t even remember learning. It’s like I was born knowing how to knit.
JP: What was your first knitting project? How did it go?
DD: I don’t remember making anything except a swatch of honey comb cables when I was a girl. Obviously if I was knitting cables, I’d done other things before that. But I don’t recall any projects and whatever I made is now lost.
JP: If you were a superhero, what would your superpower be?
DD: Flying like Superman so I could visit any place on the planet in an instant!
JP: What’s one of the strangest things you’ve put in your JP bag?
DD: God knows. LOL. I carry it with me all the time when I’m on the road, so everything gets tossed in at one time or another. A chewed off fingernail? Leftover paella?
JP: What’s one of your favorite outdoor activities?
DD: Swimming in salt water. I miss living by the ocean so much, being land-locked in Colorado. I’m not a big fan of lakes with slimy, muddy bottoms.
JP: Do you prefer to knit alone or with friends? Why?
DD: Alone. Whenever I go to knit group I either a) mess up my knitting or b) put it down and just enjoy chatting with my friends.
JP: Thanks for all your time answering our questions! You’re an inspiration to the knitting traveler.
Thanks for inviting me. This was fun! I love talking about knitting and travel and my Jordana Paige bag has become the intersection of these two loves in my life. PLUS it has room for all of my writing materials, too. Amazing!
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You can find Donna on Facebook, Twitter, and Ravelry. If you’d like to be featured in our knitter’s profile, we’d love to hear from you! Email or leave your info in the comments and we’ll make it happen! Don’t worry, you don’t have to submit photos of yourself if you’re not into that (but we do want to see your knitting and your bags for sure!).
But really, our bags have more stamps on their passports than we do! We just shipped a full selection to a LYS in Iceland and the L.J. Kaelms just made its way to New Zealand for a review from entangled.
Entangled has some great things to say about the L.J. Kaelms, in particular about the construction.
“I have to say I’m quite impressed with the quality of the materials used. The red faux leather of my L.J. Kaelms has a nice pebbled effect with a matte finish … The findings (zips, buckles, etc.) used are very solid and obviously good quality – these make or break a bag in my eyes.”
It’s great to hear feedback on things like that, because Jordana puts so much time and effort into designing these details; it’s good to know it gets noticed!
You can read the rest of the review and the magazine by subscribing here. It’s a great issue, with an article about high fashion hand knit design finding its way into patterns we can knit. There are also loads of pictures and stories from places like England, India and New York: more places for us (and our bags) to travel!
I’m a firm believer that everyone has a creative bone in their body. One of the coolest things about working for Jordana Paige is that her products are all about encouraging the creativity of crafty people.
But what’s really neat is all the art that’s sort of behind the scenes here. When we send out greeting cards or thank-you cards, they feature original art from different artists. Her straight needle box also has original art on it.
And her latest bag, the L.J. Kaelms, is featured in a lovely piece of artwork by Tali, who took some time to talk about her inspiration, her craft and a few other fun things.
JP: How did you meet with Jordana?
T: Beyond being a marketplace to sell and buy handmade art, Etsy is also a great community of people. Jordana saw my paintings there and contacted me.
JP: What is your primary art medium?
T: I love painting in several techniques, which are: color pencils, oil pastels, acrylic paints, and even ink. My favorite at the moment is acrylics.
JP: If you could eat anything with no consequences, what would it be?
T: I could eat hamburger and chips several times a day!
JP: What project are you working on right now?
T: My work is primarily taken by private commissions. It seems like I don’t have enough time to paint for myself, but I love painting for other people and making them happy.
JP: What kind of constraints did you have for the L.J. Kaelms bag?
T: Jordana asked me to make the bag the star. Her work is beautiful so it wasn’t hard to concentrate on the bag. The medium is an oil pastels done on kraft paper.
JP: Do you knit or do other crafty things aside from paint?
T: I love photography. A lot of the time, I paint my portraits from photographs I took. In the past, I also danced, but less so now.
JP: How did you get your inspiration for the art you did for Jordana?
T: The picture Jordana sent me was all I needed to get me motivated. I really enjoyed painting this commission.
JP: Have you been commissioned to do other work or do you mostly do your own and sell it?
T: Mostly I am my own boss. I like deciding what to paint for myself, and most of the time the paintings I do are not constrained by my clients.
JP: What inspires you?
T: Sunshine! I wish days full of sunshine and happiness to us all!
Thanks so much for taking your time to speak with us Tali! And thank you for the sunshine wish … it’s a bit overcast here today. You can see Tali’s work at her Etsy stores: Tush Tush and Tosya.
