Author: tobyroxane

Hey guess what? (I feel like a disproportionate number of my posts begin with “Hey guess what?”)

This one is pretty major: I HAVE BEEN SIGNED WITH A DISTRIBUTOR. ! ! ! ! ! ! !

Deep South Fibers, the company that represents and distributes the work of such illustrious designers as Ysolda Teague and Stephen West will now be representing ME, as well. This means that my patterns will be available in yarn shops INTERNATIONALLY. I’ll be represented at TNNA trade shows, and basically, I’ll be a celebrity among a very small, specific group of people.

Seriously, I could not be more jazzed about this.

Also, don’t forget my trunk show at Down Cellar is this Thursday…which is now the day after tomorrow! I’m really looking forward to it. I hope to see all my old Thursday night friends, and of course, meet lots of new friends!

New pattern up! Sandscape:

…to everyone who came to see me on the studio tour! It was a lot of fun. As those who visited me know, I was quite a bit sick that day. Like, nose-drippingly, coughing-up-green-stuff sick. You’ll be glad to know I went to the doctor today and got some medicine (turns out I have a sinus infection AND bronchitis) and should be fit for human consumption shortly.

When did it get so hard to rest? In high school, getting sick was like hitting the jackpot. You couldn’t ask more from life than a week off from school. But when you’re a grown up, it’s so totally different. It’s been REALLY HARD not to keep on going to my studio because I feel like I’m so BEHIND. Never mind my brain is so foggy I probably wouldn’t be of any use anyway. Considering I’m my own boss at this particular endeavor, you’d think I wouldn’t be so strict about deadlines.

Anyway, bad horror movies are my favorite thing when I’m sick (I wouldn’t mind some good ones, though–recommendations please?) and lying down is looking VERY tempting.

STUDIO TOUR TOMORROW…BE THERE.

The other day I made a list of all the projects I currently have on needles (original designs only). There were ELEVEN, not counting the six I’ve swatched but not actually started. I can’t say I was shocked…really, I had expected as much. I seem to have trouble focusing on one or two things and getting them done because, I think, I am constantly bombarded with ideas and I feel like if I don’t start something right away, I’ll lose it into the ether forever. I’m trying to combat this by getting in the habit of making detailed sketches and notes and filing them in places I will later be able to find.

So far it seems to be working–now I’m down to ten.

But seriously…think about what this means for you guys. There are so many patterns clamoring to be released into the knitting universe!! If I could only get out of their way.

The studio tour is this Sunday!! Do not forget to come to the Adult Contemporary Lifestyle Collective. It will be so good.

I think I have a facebook hangover. I was on there for about 2 hours last night making my Toby Roxane Designs page and of course, I looked around a bit. It wasn’t so bad at the time, but this morning I woke up feeling bummed.

I’ve been saying this for a very long time: facebook is bad for your mental health. Its sole purpose is to get you to compare your insides to other peoples’ outsides, and it convinces you that what you see on the internet is patently REAL. This is not the case. “Oh, you saw it on TV so it MUST be true.” People don’t seem to realize that the same is true for the internet.

My problem is that I look at a bunch of people I hardly know and what they’re doing (and what they SAY they’re doing) and what kinds of pictures they have up and compare them to what I’M doing. I have to say, while I’m totally fascinated by everything I do in this little studio, it probably looks pretty dull from the outside, especially to a bunch of non-knitters.

I was talked into making a facebook page for my business by a number of people. “You reach so many people!” But what is this “reaching”? Great, a bunch of people who don’t know how to knit are looking at pictures of my knitwear and thinking they’re going to buy an actual hat.

This is why I’m sticking with ravelry. I’m so glad you guys all get it.

I’m having another trunk show! This one is going to be at Down Cellar, in Basking Ridge. It will be kicked off by “Toby Night,” on Thursday night, June 14th from 6 to 8. You should definitely come, it’s going to be fun. I’ll have all my samples there, you can try them on, buy patterns, and eat cookies.

Did you notice I put some more little tabs up there on the main menu? Keep checking the “Events” page for more things like this.

Also, big news: I finally sucked it up and made a Toby Roxane Designs page on facebook. It was pretty major for me to go on facebook long enough to create the damn thing so you all better like it.

My computer, this very one I’m typing on, is very old. It’s about four years old, but in computer years, that’s probably about 80. It’s had some problems in the past (mostly my own fault: apparently when those little software update things pop up you’re supposed to actually DO them) and lately it’s been alright, but I’m still a little nervous about it. I still say my little made-up computer prayer whenever I close it up and put it in my bag:

“Now I lay you down to sleep,
I pray the lord your hard drive to keep.
If you should die before you wake,
I pray the Apple store people can recover your files.”

I had an external hard drive for a little while–I was very good about backing up all my work, and then…I bumped the table a TINY bit and it fell on the floor and never worked again. When I posted in the Computer Help group on Ravelry, people seemed to think I was pretty dumb. Apparently these external hard drives are NOT supposed to be dropped or else they WILL DIE. You can’t blame me for being a bit surprised because I drop my phone all the time, and that’s basically a computer. Even this very laptop has fallen prey to a few minor mishaps, and nothing has gone majorly wrong. I think they should put some kind of warning to that effect on the box external hard drives come in: “We know you people drop your phones all the time and that’s more or less alright, but this is NOT THE SAME THING.”

In college one of my best friends had an external hard drive that he attached to the wall behind his desk with approximately one entire roll of duct tape. I thought he was being melodramatic, but now…I’m starting to get it.

Hey guess what?

I’m going to be on the South Orange/Maplewood Artists Studio Tour!

Here’s the deets:
Sunday, June 3rd
11am to 5pm

If you’ve never been on one of these, it’s a cool concept. What happens is you go get a map (I think you have to pay a nominal fee like $5 or something) and using the map, you go around to a bunch of different artists’ studios. The artists are there, often working, and you can talk to them and look at art and buy it. My dad was a stop on the tour a few years ago and it was fun.

Here’s the tricky part: my actual studio isn’t on it–I’m going to be at Allie and Rebecca’s house on Prospect Place in South Orange as part of the Adult Contemporary Lifestyle Collective (what I do is a lifestyle choice, I can tell you that). It’s going to be really awesome–there will be I think a total of nine artists, all teenagers and twenty-somethings, and they’ll be doing everything from performance art to collage.

If you can, you should definitely drop by. I’m curious to see everything myself…and I will, of course, be there, along with all my samples and patterns.