Now Available on Craftsy!

I have slowly been getting my patterns added over on Craftsy. If you haven't checked out that site yet, you should, it's pretty awesome. They offer tons of online craft classes and you can find everything on there from knitting/crochet to quilting, beading and more. It's like Ravelry in that people can post pics of their projects and you can save them to your favorites for later.

All of the patterns I add over there are, of course, also in my Ravelry shop. I have been getting quite a few sales over there, so if you are designer, you should check it out too, if you haven't already!

You can check out my Craftsy store here.

I have lots of knitting to share this week. My knitting mojo went out the window for a couple of weeks but seems to be back with a vengeance. Stay tuned. :)

(Almost) Wordless Post

Couldn't resist the two color shawl craze. Casting on for Scalene. :)

A Knitter For All Seasons

Welcome back for Day 4 of Knitting and Crochet Blog Week!

Today's topic: Seasonal knitting. How does the weather affect your craft?

I don't think it does too much for me. I pretty much knit what I want, when I want. I definitely work on socks year round. Same for shawls. Although, I do find myself wanting super holey, lacey shawls more in the summer. In the winter, I think I go for more garter stitch. Just seems so cozy to me. I think I knit a little less in the summer, just because I am out more, but I still knit...a lot.

I did just check my Rav notebook to see when I knit my most favorite hand warming item of all time, my Bird in Hand mittens.

I knit those in January of 2009. Right in the middle of a Chicago winter.

How about you? Do you knit certain things depending on the weather?

My Knitting Heroes

Welcome back for Day Three of Knitting and Crochet Blog Week!

Today is about your knitting and crochet heroes. There are so many people that I admire and look up to in the knitting world. I thought about this long and hard and here are just a couple of my absolute faves.

Stefanie Japel. I secretly want to be her. I am so inspired how she went from being a scientist into a full-time career in knitting related endeavors. It is exactly what I hope to do. I've mentioned it a few times on the blog before, but I took a really great online class with her a couple years ago and it has lead to everything awesome that has happened to me knitting-wise. I never would have started designing shawls without that class, and the shawls are a BIG part of what helped me get a book contract. So, basically I owe my entire design career to her. Plus, she dresses really cool.

Jenni. My knitting BFF. Seriously, this woman knits the most amazing things. Which you wouldn't know because she never adds photos to her Ravelry notebook. :) Just trust me. She makes me want to knit sweaters and giant beautiful blankets. Which reminds me, I never blogged about our wedding gift from Jenni....it was the most ridiculously awesome throw.

There is nothing that Jenni can't knit. And, whenever you have a problem with your knitting, she always seems to know the answer. She is wealth of useful knitting knowledge!

Who are your knitting and crochet heroes?

Photography Challenge

Welcome back for Day 2 of Knitting and Crochet Blog Week!

Today is photography challenge day. I decided to let my inner science nerd and inner knitting nerd meet today and I superimposed one of my favorite things to knit (cork people) onto a picture of the lab I work in.

Looks like little cork man is all ready to test some raw sewage for ammonia content.

I didn't do a very good job with my photo editing, but that somehow makes this picture much more hilarious to me. :)



Color Lovers

I enjoyed Knit & Crochet Blog Week so much last year, I thought it would be fun to take part in it again this year!

Today's topic is about color. What do you go for? What do you like?

So, here is a flash of the majority of the sock yarn stash:

I think the major thing I see there is solid. Now that most of my knitting projects are my own designs, I find myself gravitating towards the solids and semi-solids. They show off your design way better than a variegated yarn!

There is also kind of a lot of blue/green in there too. I had to send off some of the yarn stash to the publisher to get photographed for my upcoming book (HOORAY!) and I think I sent them kind of a lot of red and purple. So, once that comes back to me, I think my sock yarn stash will be much more rainbow-licious. :)

As for my finished objects...I see a lot of solid there too. What can I say? I have become a sucker for a really good solid/semi-solid yarn.

Come back tomorrow for Day 2 of Knitting and Crochet Blog Week. It's Photography Challenge Day!

Happy knitting.

WIP Wednesday: Keegan Socks

The last couple weeks I have been working on some fun knitting. The handspun scarf is bound off and just needs to be blocked. I can't wait to block it and show it off! Once that was off the needles I started on some Keegan Socks, designed by irishgirlieknits for Kollage Yarns:

Love the wee baby sock. I especially love that it took only an hour to knit it. This is going to be a shop sample for the yarn shop and I am happy to knit it. The pattern is great. I look forward to finishing up the second sock and start on the hat.

It's WIP Wednesday...what are you knitting?

New Pattern: Willoughby Mitts

It's April, which means it's bonus pattern time in my e-book! This month, it's the Willoughby Mitts:

Head, Shoulders, Wrists and Toes E-book

$20.00



The pattern is meant to compliment the Willoughby Shawl, which was released in the e-book at the beginning of March.

To make both the mitts and the shawl you will need 2 skeins of Hazel Knits Entice MCN. One of my favorite new yarns!

The patterns for now are only available in the e-book. They will be available in May for individual purchase.

The e-book is now just $20.00. And, by the end of the year you will have 8 patterns.

Head, Shoulders, Wrist and Toes E-Book

$20.00

In my e-book so far I have covered the head, the shoulders and the wrists. Hmm, I wonder what could be next? :)

WIP: The Handspun Scarf

So, I busted out my spinning wheel like I do every few months and finally finished up some Black Trillium SW Roving (Colorway: Fountain of Youth) I got while in Portland.

I got all excited at how pretty it was, and wanted to immediately start knitting with it, so this is the only pic of the yarn I have:

It is mostly sport weight, I think, but has some spots that I would call fingering and some spots that are worsted. I am getting a little more consistent while spinning though, which is great!

I decided this yarn wanted to be a scarf, because I was pretty sure it was going to stripe wickedly awesome. And stripe awesome it did:

I LOVE it. I cannot put this thing down. I am going to have a completed scarf in no time!

The pattern is mistake rib. There are a bunch of free ones on Ravelry, but I looked it up in a stitch dictionary. My scarf is pretty skinny right now, but I plan to stretch it out a bit when I block it. I am so into this scarf, I have some pretty serious plans to dig out more of my handspun and make another one....just in time for spring.

Happy knitting!