Osborn Fiber Studio

Announcement, Announcement, Announcement!

I’ve hinted, I’ve planned, I’ve made promises, and now it’s time to make it official. Starting in Advent 2011 is the first-ever Osborn Fiber Studio pattern series, and it’s based on the Liturgical Year.

What’s the Liturgical Year? It’s the traditional Christian calendar. You’ve heard of the Chinese New Year, Rosh Hashanah, and other ways of counting the passing of the seasons that are not identical to the Gregorian calendar by which we run our lives. Traditionally, Christians have such a calendar too, and we use it to tell the story of Jesus every year.

What’s the series? For every season in the Liturgical Year, I’ll be releasing one to four patterns (depending on the length of the season), for a total of 12 patterns. Each pattern will have some of the symbolism associated with the season worked into it. Along with the patterns, I’ll be providing explanatory essays on the meaning of the seasons and the symbols.

How does the pattern series work? The patterns will be available individually at the prices listed on the Series Page; they’ll be announced as they come out on the blog and in the newsletter. Or, you can subscribe to the whole series for 52$, which is 10$ less than the total of all the patterns. Subscribers will receive each pattern by email as soon as it is released, and they will also be the first to get some little extras I’m cooking up.

Why subscribe, if I don’t even know what the patterns look like? You can always check out my designs to see if you like what I’ve designed so far, but I will be using what I’ve learned through a whole lot of knitting to push my design boundaries way farther than I ever have before. You can think of it this way: subscribing is a way you can be a patron to this independent writer/designer, still in seminary, still learning so much, trying to make a go of it. I suspect that is worth it to you.

When do subscriptions open? They are open as of August 1st (there is a “buy now” button on the Series Page). Sign-ups will stay open for the duration of the series. However, if you sign up before October 1st, I will give you the Stole Sweater pattern for free as a thank you. (Update 9/14: Stole Sweater pattern is now finished!)

Asked 6/22: How much would it cost to buy all the recommended yarns up front? I spent around 500$; your mileage may vary. Of course you can substitute other yarns for any project, which is why I include weight and yardage. However, many of the patterns are not actually fully designed yet, so you might want to hold off until I have a harder yarn estimate.

Asked 6/1: Will you do kits of all the yarn for the series? Bless you, I wish I could, but I really don’t have the capital to make the investment that would take. However, I am working now to make sure that there’s at least one supplier for every yarn who will ship globally. You’ll be able to get your yarn in time, to the best of my ability. Of course, we can do kits for Osborn Fiber Studio yarn! We will do those on a dyed-to-order basis, so email me when you are ready to order and we’ll talk specifics.

I have more questions! Post a comment to this post, or email me. I’ll answer your question and if it’d be helpful to others, I’ll add it to this post.

Okay, that’s enough of me yakking. You should really go check out the Series Page (no, I’m not tired of linking to it; why do you ask?); it includes not only a list of patterns, but there are pictures of the recommended yarns, projected dates, etc. It should be worth a gander.

Ready for the next plunge?