My second-to-last physical quick knits club packages (before switching to pdf-only) got mailed out a week ago – it was some hectic times getting this one together, but I am so so happy with how it turned out!  The theme was Accessorize, and my aim was for there to be something for everyone…

With the 15 yard mini-skein, the pattern was these Blooming Flowers, in 3 different sizes (barely blooming, blooming, and the cephalopod-esque fully bloomed) – the 15 yards is enough to make 6 or 7 of them!

By threading a pipe cleaner (or 2) through the flowers, and wrapping it around ribbon, the flowers can be turned into a necklace (like above), a headband (like below, or like this), a bracelet, or whatever else the maker can think up!

Another option is to turn 2 (or more!) flowers into a pair of earrings, like these:

Each club package included everything needed to make earrings like those, which means members could also choose to use the parts to try out my 2-bead earrings tutorial (like the ones below), or make any other kinds of earrings with the 2 earwires, 2 headpins, 2 eyepins, and many assorted pairs of beads included in the package!

Or, another option for members is to use all those parts to make a collection of beaded stitch markers!  Turning each headpin, eyepin, and earwire into a stitch marker means you get 6 fancy-pants beaded treats for your knitting!  Aaaand, the other pattern can provide a place to store them:

To accessorize your keys, bag, or whatever you clip it onto, the Robot Monster Pouch is sized exactly to hold a tic-tac case, which can be repurposed to store stitch markers, or anything else that fits!  The case wasn’t included in the package, but the googly eyes were:

Everyone got a bundle of 4 pipe cleaners and a piece of ribbon, and a little (recycled) baggie filled with all those jewelry-making parts, a keyring, a hook, and lots of beads…

… mostly from Knittn’ Kitten, many of the beads are either vintage (like these 50’s glass chevron beads) or czech glass!  Pretty!

Oh yeah and the yarn!  Recycled dyed is 56% nylon, 40% angora, 4% lambswool fingering weight – used to be a bright fuschia color, overdyed with blue, purple, and red to make a less bright purple shade.  I named it Dedicated Follower of Fashion.  The spun yarn, Fashion is Danger, is a lambswool/angora/rayon blend with a shiny silver strand running through, spun and plied with vintage lurex metallic thread and a variegated thread.

And a complete club package:

Don’t forget to sign up for the last club kit (only a few days left till the 1st) – August’s theme is Games and I’m way excited about it!!

Oh hey, I forgot to tell you last week that my Brimming with Color hat pattern is now available to all!  When I first blogged about it, when it was released to Twisted’s club members, I thought I couldn’t release it until October, but their policy changed, so it’s out now, yay!  (on ravelry)

Speaking of Twisted, I don’t think I ever mentioned here that my connect-the-dots stitch sets and my Double Scoops ice cream headband and earmuffs kits are there!  So, if you’re local and you like supporting awesome yarn shops, you can check out my stuff there, yeah!  (They also sell some of my absolute favorite yarns ever, like Brown Sheep and Malabrigo and Noro and Imperial Stock Ranch and Alpaca with a Twist…….)

And since this was a quickie post, I’ll throw up a few photos of my tomato plants!  The weather was harsh when they were starting out (the reason for the brown on the leaves, maybe?), but I think they’re doing ok – I don’t know anything about gardening though… They are mostly green and the bigger two have flowers, and the smallest one looks like flowers are coming soon, so I think they’re good!

The biggest/oldest of the three:

And the medium sized and smallest ones:

I am going to be SO freaking excited if/when actual tomatoes start appearing!!

It’s out! You can now knit anything and everything from my January-April club pattern sets!  $3 for a month’s worth of 2 patterns, or $6 gets you the whole EIGHT pattern ebook!!  (on ravelry)  The 23 pages include…

January’s Afterthought Earflaps and Pinwheel Earmuffs (original blog post):

February’s Argyle Cuff and Bolt (original blog post):

March’s Cabled Frame and Camera Patch (original blog post):

April’s Fruit+Veggie Scrubbies and Mini Produce Bag (original blog post):

Sorry if I sounded all advertise-y but I’m sincerely excited about releasing this ebook!  I really love a lot of these designs so I’m happy for the exclusivity to be over and now anyone who wants them can get them!  Yay!

You can find and buy everything on my site here, or on ravelry here.  Happy knitting!

June’s club theme was Traveling – here’s the package!

The 15 yard pattern was a luggage tag pouch, which can be either knit only or crochet edged:

The yarn – Deep Sea Diving Suit – is 100% shetland, recycled lace-weight-ish, light green half overdyed with blue to make a striping turquoise and green pattern.  Each package included an info card to fill out and put in the pouch.

With the 10 yards of 100% recycled cotton – grey, light blue-grey, and green spun together for a bulky weight yarn, called Aeroplane Over the Sea – the pattern was a leaf-ish sleep mask…

…which is completed with a piece of elastic:

So all packages included a length of vintage or reclaimed elastic, all from my favorite local craft thrift store:

Then for one extra, everyone got a reclaimed tag and a piece of recycled map (both from Scrap), which can be glued together to make a travel bookmark.  And the other extra (which took me way too long to make and is a major reason I’m so behind now! I love mixes too much!) is my summer road trip themed mix CD, let’s take the road, but not on track…

Like I said in the note to members, of course, while it was made with road tripping in mind, it will work just as well in your ipod on a plane or a train, on foot, or at home!  The cover art is a piece of Montana road map, and this is the track list:

I’m pretty happy with how it turned out!  A side note: back in November, the club included a winter mix, but at the time when I posted about it I was organizing a mix swap so I didn’t want to reveal the track list… in case there are any mix-lovers out there who are interested, I’ve now uploaded the track list image (which is designed to slip inside a floppy disk sleeve, hence the weird round picture)

So, that’s it for June’s club; I hope all the members enjoyed it!!

If you’re into the club concept, there are still 2 months left before I switch to pdf-only format!  July’s theme is going to be Accessorize and I’m getting excited about it.  The mail-out date is a bit later than usual (July 20th) but the sign-up deadline is still July 1st, so grab your membership soon!  July only or July-August 2-month subscriptions are available for a discount.  Happy June!

I’m so excited to tell you about my future leethal quick knits club plans!  I’ve been brainstorming about it and planning out all the details for the last couple of weeks, and I’m really looking forward to making the switch, which will happen after I’ve completed 1 full year of the current club.  Not sure what it’ll be called yet, some ideas:

• leethal quick knits club: the next generation
• quick knits club 2, electric boogaloo
• quick knits club: the new class

Any better suggestions? hehe… Ok so here’s the deal: starting in September, my club will be PDF only!  But wait, it’ll be awesome, I promise!  (I was totally inspired by my buddy Star’s supercool sock club, by the way.)  Each month I’ll be making a club ebook, which will always include:

• at least 2 quick knits patterns, perfect for using up yarn leftovers
• at least 1 step-by-step tutorial for another project fitting with the theme
• at least 1 fun extra, which could be anything from recipes to games/puzzles to embroidery or applique patterns, etc

Each month revolving around a theme, and everything designed with a focus on using up leftovers, recycled items, and things that you probably have on hand or are super easy and cheap to obtain.  I’m excited to put more attention into awesome project tutorials, instead of having to figure out ideas based on what I can include in 30-40 packages each month, limiting creativity potential.  And, of course, this means club subscriptions will be much cheaper (like, less than a quarter of the current club cost)!

Other major change: no more exclusivity!  Each month, the club pdf will get released to the world, and be available for anyone to buy, forever.  So, if you don’t like the idea of  buying something when you don’t know exactly what it is that you’ll be getting (like my current club), you can wait until it’s released each month and see if you like it.  It will be a majorly discounted per-month price to subscribe, however, and there will be a rad bonus for club members only…

Each month, all subscribing members will be entered into a raffle to win a club kit package!  It won’t necessarily include everything needed for all the projects like my current club, it will vary each month depending on the projects, but every month I’ll be putting together a few packages of kit materials that fit with that month’s ebook and sending them out to a few lucky members!

Ok that’s enough info about this future club for now, since it won’t be happening for awhile, but the reason I wanted to tell you about it now (besides that I’m excited about it) is that there is only one week remaining to get 3-month subscriptions to the current version of the quick knits club! If you love the physical packages, grab a membership now for the last 3 months – June will be a Traveling theme (yay for summer road trips!), and July + August are yet to be announced, but I’ll be sure to make the last couple months extra awesome for sure!  Starting June 2nd, you’ll be able to get a 2-month subscription for those last 2 months, and then in July you’ll just be able to sign up for the August club alone… and in August you can start signing up for the new club.

(those photos above were from old clubs, now moving on to May’s package…)

You already saw a chunk of May’s Home Decor club package, but here is everything that each member included (above), and the yarn – I Feel Like Going Home and To Go Home:

Which are used to make the Stuffed Ball Cord Pull and Garter Strip Light-switch Cover:

Everyone’s package included a standard switch plate to use with the knit cover, and I stuck an extra bonus idea in the pattern pdf, for this fitted cord pull cover:

The extra goodies were half of a record album cover, 2 book pages, 1 of them with 2 stamped designs added, and 5 reclaimed magnets:

So with the club items, pictured on the left, and some basic craft supplies, pictured on the right…

…members can make 5 custom crafted magnets and a switch plate (or multiple switch plates, or more magnets, or other crafts!):

See my switch plates post for album cover plate how-to, and I’m planning a future post of magnet ideas!  It was a fun club month for me, hope you enjoyed it too!

First of all, this post is much belated, so because of that, and because the May club mail-out date is later than usual, I’m extending the May club sign-up deadline through Wednesday (the 5th) – May’s theme is Home Decor, and I have some fun ideas brewing!  (Sign up for just May, or for a 3 month subscription at a discounted price!)

So, April!  Fruits + Veggies theme!  It was a fun one!  My favorite part is the spun yarn pattern – I managed (with much trial and error!) to design a mini produce bag with just 10 yards of yarn, a square of reclaimed vintage lace, and an extra little bit of recycled cotton yarn, plus a loop of t-shirt fabric for the handle.  With big needles, yarn-overs, and dropped stitches, it expands to hold a totally decent amount of fruit!  (in the pictures, it’s holding a lemon, an apple, an orange, 2 tangelos, and a lime):

That spun recycled yarn is double stranded orange cotton, yellow lambswool, and a couple secondhand threads (green + orange), all spun and plied together – it’s called Trees Keep Growing:

And then to complete the bag, everyone got the square of lace, t-shirt loop, and extra bundle of orange cotton:

The dyed yarn pattern was a bit different this month – included were 4 fruit+veggie dish scrubbie designs (well, 3 really, because the orange and the tomato are the same shape) and the members get to choose which 2 they want to make.  The yarn was divided into color sections with one end starting with red, to knit up either a strawberry or a tomato, and the other side starting with orange, to make either a carrot or an orange, and green in the middle for both leaf tops:

This yarn was kind of nuts to dye – after balling up the whole bulky sweater worth of yarn, I decided to skein it all together as one gigantic skein, to make the dyeing easier – but it made the washing, drying, etc, much harder (wetter and messier!)…

But, it worked, and everyone got a 15 yard chunky mini-skein with 5 yards of red, 5 of green, and 5 of orange – called If it is Growing:

The main extra crafty goodies were a kind of embroidery kit – a sheet of paper with drawings of a bunch of different fruits + veggies, a piece of fabric (like a mini tea towel), and a sheet of carbon paper for transferring:

Using a pen (or a mechanical pencil with no pencil sticking out, my favorite method), with the carbon paper blue side against the fabric, on a hard surface, trace the drawings you like, how you want them on the fabric, and tah dah – transferred!  Then embroider over the pictures however you want… or you could trace over them with fabric paint pens, or get creative with some other method…

And the final extra bit of fun – everyone got 2 of these fruit+veggie blank greeting cards.  I got them at Scrap reuse center (also where the carbon paper came from); the photography is by J. Christie Studio:

A complete April club package:

And all the stuff hanging in my kitchen (I love how useful this club kit was!):

A note to anyone interested in these patterns – sometime in July the last 4 months of club patterns will be released in an ebook, and separately (like the first 4 months were), so that’ll include the earmuffs + earflaps, cuffs, picture frame + photo patch, and these 2 designs!

Did anyone wonder what all the dyed Imperial Stock Ranch was for?  This is what! (rav link)  (I actually started out designing The Shapeshifter with it, pre-dyeing, resulting in this prototype, which didn’t work out; then I started designing Twisted Ankles with it, making this hand-dyed pair – then overdyeing, but that wasn’t working out for the context either, so then this hat happened!)  For now, I’m just showing you for fun, but in October the pattern will be available to all!

Update 7/04/10:  Turns out I got to release it earlier than I’d thought – the pattern is for sale to all now in my shop and on ravelry! Hooray!

It’s for the Twisted Single Skein Club!  The same club that I designed Ocean Breezes for last year (which, coincidentally, will also be available to all in October!) – Twisted is the coolest yarn shop ever, by the way (duh)!  So yeah, the hat… it’s pretty basic, bulky, so quick to knit, and versatile – wear the brim up or down for different styles:

And the pom poms!  Optional, of course, but one skein of yarn is plenty for the hat plus 3 or 4 of them if you want (or fewer huge ones)!

The top is a little bit interesting, easier to see in these pre-blocked shots with the harsher lighting (click to see bigger on flickr):

So, the Twisted club members all received the skein of Imperial Stock Ranch Lopi yarn, the pattern (with pom pom tutorial), 5 packets of Kool-Aid, and pdf versions of all the dyeing tutorials!  Fun!!

Designing this hat with the hand-dyed yarn in mind, and designing the dye jobs with the hat in mind, are what inspired me to do my next ebook on yarn dyeing!  The project is on hold till after the move, but I’m excited to get going on it!

There have been some really awesome projects popping up over on ravelry, using my game knitting ebook concept, so I want to share some of my favorites with you!!  First of all, if you don’t know what game knitting is, head over to my original blog post from when I released the ebook, and scroll down to the 2 quote block excerpts from the book to read what it’s all about…

(warning – lots of ravelry links in this post, so if you’re not a member, you should join!!)  Click the photos to see the project page for each item.

Bagheraa in Denmark has made several fantastic game knit hats!  I lovelovelove the one above, based on the same kinds of patterns as my Arrested Development hat, but I think it looks much better than mine!  It was knit to British detective shows… And below, two more hats by Bagheraa – to the left is a combination of slip-stitches and purl bumps, knit to a few different things; to the right, a ski sprint hat which had 3 different game patterns going at once, depending on which thing happened – so cool!

Hazellucia has also made several projects… I love the cowl below – using game knitting to determine striping patterns isn’t something I’ve done myself, but now I want to!  And the hat to the right was worked in 2×2 ribbing, with a purl/knit stitch worked for every occurrence, in kool-aid dyed yarn:

The cabled hat below, by Charmling in California, turned out beautifully!!  It was worked in the traveling cables pattern to Firefly:

Skudge in Pittsburgh knit up this gorgeous short rows scarf to various shows, using Malabrigo sock yarn:

SFcorgi in California knit up this patchworky game scarf – her game was created by knitting while working at home, with occurrences having to do with computer loading times, clever!  My favorite part is the red cabled section at the top:

Thirdbreathh in Las Vegas made a cool, stripey version of the bobbles headband, to Grey’s Anatomy – I love the different colored bobbles all scattered throughout:

Himalaya in Qatar made these fantastic sleeves, working short rows to House, in Manspun Heavy Metal yarn – rad!!

Verylisa in Australia improvised a cool soap sack (which she explains on the project page) – she used the eyelet game pattern, and knit to a Charles Dickens audiobook:

And I saved Kim Werker’s hat, knit with Blonde Chicken’s bulky yarn, for last because Kim also wrote a great blog post about game knitting awhile back…

…Want to read more about the concept?  Several fun posts/reviews have been written over the last few months – all the ones I know of are listed on my pattern page; some good ones are at Kitchen Sink Dyeworks, Craft Leftovers, and Nuts about Needlepoint applied the concept to needlepoint, cool!

And, in completely unrelated news, after the majority of responses (via twitter mostly) were voting for the club theme to be revealed, I’ve updated the sign-up section of the club page with April’s theme: Fruits + Veggies!

It’s about time I show you what was in the March leethal quick knits club packages… But first, I think I’ve gathered a few new readers in the last couple of months (hi!) so, I’ll make sure you all know what the quick knits club is!  Once a month, I send out packages to all the members which always include: a 15 yard mini-skein of recycled hand-dyed yarn, a 10 yard mini-skein of spun recycled yarn, patterns to go with each of the yarns, anything that the patterns need to complete the project (could be buttons, ribbon, a piece of fabric, etc…) to make it a full kit, plus some extra fun goodies, which all fit into a theme for the month.  (See examples of past club packages here; I also have the patterns from the first 4 months in a mini-ebook here.)

I’ve been doing the club since last August, I totally enjoy coming up with all the stuff to fit a theme, designing the mini-patterns, putting together the extra goodies… fun stuff!  Unfortunately, membership has seriously been dropping the last few months, so I really hope I’m able to continue doing it for awhile (I planned to keep it up at least through this year, if not longer)… If it sounds fun to you, you can sign up for a 1 month kind of trial membership, or a 3 month subscription at a discounted rate – sign ups for April are up through the end of this month.

Ok with that said… March’s theme was photography!  Yay!

The dyed yarn was an unknown wool/blend from a reclaimed, hand-knit sweater, a light grey-green overdyed with blue, for a teal kind of shade… I named it Pale Green Things (after a Mountain Goats song).  The spun recycled yarn was a fine, 2-ply, 100% shetland wool yarn, which I overspun, then navajo plied, turning it into a cabled yarn.  I named it Pale Blue Eyes (after a Velvet Underground song).  With the 15 yards of dyed yarn, I designed a picture frame:

I’m so happy with how the frame worked out!  Lots of trial and error, ripping out and redesigning, but in the end, I think it’s pretty neato!  Basic cables over garter stitch, short rows to turn the corners, and a piece of mat board in back turns it into a functioning frame.  The kits came with the piece of mat board (remnants from my local art shop), and a piece of inkjet printer photo paper, salvaged from my old photo lab day job – photo labs have so much waste, it sucks, so I would take usable scraps whenever I could to save them from the garbage.  (The inkjet photo paper came from the expensive large-format prints, so it’s really nice, top quality epson luster paper, rad!)

For the 10 yards of spun yarn, I designed a camera-shaped patch… My original plan was to design a wrist strap, for point-and-shoot cameras, but I couldn’t figure out a good, functional design idea, so I made the patch instead.  But then I included a bonus alternative option – if you don’t like the patch, you could use the yarn to cover your camera’s wrist strap with i-cord!  So everyone got the 2 patterns, as usual, plus a bonus how-to sheet for the i-cord strap.

For the extra fun stuff, everyone got… a camera! Just kidding… that piece of mesh fabric taped over my camera serves as a “star filter” – check it out… taken with that point-and-shoot:

And this one was taken with my DSLR, for a pretty different effect:

I even tried it with my crappy phone camera, and it worked, so it could be used on any kind of camera each club member has.  So, everyone got that piece of mesh fabric, an instruction sheet with how to use it, and shooting in the dark tips, plus a button that was made with a page of an old photography how-to book from the 80’s:

And lastly, everyone got 2 old slides, rejects rescued from my local reuse store.  I am planning a tutorial for slide earrings (soon!); as for other ideas for just 2 slides, I bet you could make a nightlight (though I can’t find a tutorial online for one), or a cool pendant… If you can come across a collection of old slides at your local thrift store, flea market, yard sale, here are a few links to crafty things you can do with more slides: window hanging, curtains, lampshade.  I’m totally planning on making a slide curtain for our new house!

So that was March!  I haven’t decided for sure on a theme for April yet, but I have a list of great themes to choose from…. I’ll throw this idea out there to see what you think:  the clubs have always been a complete mystery until they are mailed out, but would you prefer if I at least revealed the theme early, before the sign-up deadline (not the specific patterns though)?  Would you be more willing to sign up if you knew what the theme was going to be?  I like total mystery, but maybe most of you would rather know…

Woooo it’s up!  I first started designing this hat way back last summer, then once I developed it to be any-gauge, perfect for handspun, I decided it might fit well into Knittyspin and submitted it!  Yay Knittyspin!!

So yeah, it’s a simple hat, but what makes it awesome is that it can be knit in any gauge, with any yarn, and you don’t even need to swatch first!!  As you probably know by now, I love any-gauge patterns, but you may not know that I hate swatching!  This hat was specifically designed to be magically knit in any gauge with no swatch needed – just cast on and start knitting (from the top down), then figure out the measurements later on based on the gauge once you’re able to measure it – SO easy!!

And, since it’s so versatile with yarn size, I made it versatile with actual hat size as well!  There are 3 size options – cloche, beret, and super slouchy style – something for everyone!  Out of my samples, the commercial yarn version (in Dream in Color) is the only cloche style, and the striped white alpaca and hand-dyed colors version is the only super slouchy; the other 3 are beret style.  As you can see, the same size style in different yarn weights can look pretty different.

Another thing I like about this design is the cool swirl you get at the top when working with any kinds of stripes!  (oh you know how I love swirly-ness!)

Oh and as for the buttons, also a different look depending on yarn weight… you can choose how many buttons you want to use, but generally, less buttons look better on bulkier hats (like the one big one on the super bulky, and the 2 big ones on the bulky blue version), and more buttons look nice on finer gauges (I’d actually meant to use 4 on the grey commercial yarn sample, but it didn’t work out for some reason… but 3 is a good number!)…

Do you like my themed photoshoot?  Pete and I had fun shooting at the Rhododendron Garden (blogged at the bottom of this post), assigning one old camera to each hat.  I even shot some film that day on a couple of those cameras!  (I’ve shot with all five of them at some point, yay film!)

I think that’s everything I’ve got to say about it… queue it on ravelry here, find it on knitty here, see it on my site with my other patterns here… I’m so happy to be in this issue with so many amazing patterns and designers!  I won’t get into detail, because you should check out every pattern yourself, but I love the know it all bag and the gams most of all!

It’s here!  Shapeshifter is an any-gauge pattern and can be worn a seemingly endless number of ways, giving it truly infinite possibility!  (Many thanks to April for thinking up the fabulous name!)

It’s an asymmetrical chevron shaped flat piece, with very basic eyelet lace making buttonholes all over, along every edge and down the off-center chevron seam – depending on how you line up the buttons with the eyelets, and whether you add any extra buttons or ties, it can shift into a hood or a cowl in whatever style you can arrange it into!

I’ve been wearing my bulky orange one constantly since finishing it, and I loveloveLOVE my new handspun version!!  I’d love to see someone else knit one up in a nice sock yarn – I bet it would be gorgeous!

Button size depends on gauge, since bulky eyelets are much bigger than finer gauge eyelets, of course – I chose these 3 mismatched vintage beauties to pop on the orange base:

The pattern PDF is 9 pages – 2 of those pages are just photos of different ways to wear it; the 3 pages you might want to print out are photo-less to save ink.  (The pattern itself is on one single page, but there’s some simple math to figure out your numbers for your gauge, and I provided a page of help with the calculations to make it as easy as possible.)

There’s a page on making a hood, either by adding extra buttons or tying up the hood seam.  Even with the hood, there are lots of different ways you can position the buttons for the cowl part, for a tighter, warmer fit, or with looser wrapping, etc.

I didn’t attempt explaining how to wear it all the different cowl ways, because the way I usually position it is to get in front of a mirror and just start wrapping it and buttoning it until I like how it looks.  I often can’t recreate a position (like this one – I love how it looks here and I couldn’t recreate it for the photoshoot!) so there’s no way I could explain to you… But, my advice, just play around with different positions, twisting and looping in different directions, and you’ll find methods you like.

For a little design backround… the original idea developed off of this smaller piece I made a couple years ago (on ravelry) – it was knit at a super loose gauge so that the fabric was all buttonholes, and I loved how it could be worn so many different ways.  It’s a silly little piece, but the asymmetrical chevron and buttonhole abundance were a great combination!  I made the prototype (ravelry) a couple months ago (in Imperial Stock Ranch’s Lopi bulky wool), perfected the eyelet pattern, and adjusted it to turn it into an any-gauge pattern!

You can grab the pattern for $4 on the leethal page, or on ravelry – I can’t wait to start seeing your versions!!

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my business, with some things coinciding and pushing me to get more organized and really figure out what I should be focusing on.  Doing creative things for a living is damn hard sometimes, and I’ve felt a little lost for the last few days.

I want to just do what I love, design things I’m passionate about, blog tons of free tutorials and other fun stuff, and not worry about money at all, but alas… rent does need to be paid, we are searching for a house, and though I’m in no financial state to even think about contributing to the down payment, my monthly half will likely go above what it is for this supercheap apartment where we currently live.

I have absolutely no plans to change what I do, change this blog or my website in any drastic kind of way, and I will continue to design and make things I’m into, even though I know they’re not the kinds of things that will appeal to the bulk of mainstream knitters or buyers… sigh, that’s just how I roll.

But, I am trying to figure out just what I should be putting at the top of my priority list, that kind of thing.  I’m currently working on 4 different concrete knit designs (1 free, by the way), plus several more ideas floating around in my head, and I have big plans for a freaking awesome ebook, which I want to get started on as soon as possible!  And then there’s the connect-the-dots stitch sets, which I absolutely love designing, but are not exactly booming with sales, so, sadly, it’s not practical for me to devote tons of time there.  I know if I did some kind of big makeover to the packaging/branding/etc, they might attract a wider audience, but hey, I like using recycled envelopes, and I like them having a handmade feel, because, you know, they are handmade!

That’s the problem for so many of us creative professionals… the conflict of staying true to who we are, continuing to do what we love and love what we’re doing, with that damn need to pay the bills messing it all up.  I learned all about business planning, and also about google docs, the other night at Trillium, from super awesome superPhoebe, which is part of where all this business analysis came from…

So, I’ve created a survey with google docs to try to help me get a better grasp of who you are, my dear readers, what you like, what you want, and how I might want to steer what I do in that direction.  It’s a short survey, and it’s totally anonymous and every question is optional – I really so much appreciate any feedback you can give!  ThankYouThankYouThankYou!

Now another thing… some topics discussed at that same meeting, and also reading Ysolda’s latest post, about sharing design process, got me thinking… if I’m designing something to self-publish, there’s no reason to keep it a secret, so why not show you a first version prototype of a design that I’m working on?  So this is one of the designs I’m currently knitting up – while knitting this one pictured, I changed some design details as I knit, since it was just to test out the shape, and then I frogged it.  I’m working up another similarly sized one now, and I’m planning on making it an any-gauge pattern, so I’ve spun up a skein of self-striping specifically to make it into another one of these bad boys!

It’s kinda bonkers, but I love it!  It’s super transformable – can be worn a bunch of different ways – and by adding more buttons it could be even more so!  I had been thinking about trying to release it next week, like in a few days, but it would probably be Fridayish at the soonest, and now I’m wondering whether I should move my to-do list around and put this design off till later.  So, part of the reason I’m showing you here it to ask, whaddya think?  Do you want the pattern asap, while there’s still a little winter weather left?

Oh first of all, there’s only a few more days to sign up for the March club – and I’m really excited about March, it’s gonna be a fun one!!  Ok now for February…

There’s everything above, but I’ll start with the yarn… The 10 yards of recycled spun yarn is called Night Is The Day Turned Inside Out, and my color choices are totally inspired by Weaverknits’ love of Grellow!  It’s a 100% cotton recycled sweater yarn, in 2 shades of grey, wrapped in 3 threads – thin dark grey and variegated purple, and thick yellow/white/blue variegated:

And the 15 yards of dyed recycled yarn came from a reclaimed hand-knit sweater, so the fiber content is a mystery, but it’s some kind of wool or wool blend, dyed short striping sections of dark purpley red, blue, and grey-green, over the grey base.  It’s called Whatever Gets You Thru The Night:

The 2 patterns this month were both cuffs, both meant to be as gender-nonspecific as possible – Argyle Cuff and Bolt.  The theme this month was a little weird – I called it “His or Hers” and it’s loosely inspired by Valentine’s Day.  I got thinking about the 14th… how it means really different things to different people, depending on relationship status, etc… so I decided to put together a kit that can be used for all different purposes or people.  So, the point is, either (or both) cuff could have been a V-day gift, or just an any-day gift, or not a gift at all…..

Bolt ties around the wrist, and the dyed yarn came with 2 buttons to use for argyle cuff closure.  The argyle knit up in a solid would pop more, as April shows in her ravelry project!

Then the extra goodies were a greeting card, and a bunch of card making and decorating materials – so they could have all been turned into Valentines, or any kind of greeting cards, or silly works of art!  Check out my awesome sticker-covered card:

The non-specific greeting cards are reclaimed cards, cut to fit in the (reclaimed) envelopes, then made over with photos I took (either the dinosaur or the horse).  Then I included a 2-sided crayon, and 10 stickers inside the envelope.  Everyone got a set of fish stickers, and 6 foam stickers – 2 each of farm animals, sealife, and dinosaurs (awesome foam stickers from Dollar Tree)!  And then there were some strips of cool patterned paper (blogged back here), which could either be made into little mini-cards (or Valentines like mine), or could be cut into shapes to embellish the greeting card, or whatever else.  Thanks to Scrap, my local community reuse shop, for all these great cards, envelopes, and paper tags!

So that was February – weird disjointed theme, I know, but hopefully everyone had fun with it all!  March’s theme is more cohesive, I think it’s gonna be rad!  (See more quick knits club stuff and info here!)

Want to knit some legwarmers?!

My newest design, Twisted Ankles is squishy, bulky, cabley yumminess – with the cables twisting around each other, then bursting off the garter stitch base to become buttonhole straps, wrapping around the backs of your legs…

There’s a smaller size, which are like ankle warmers (the blue/green and white examples) and a taller size (the orange example) – I was so eager to get this pattern out (I’d planned to release it last week and wasn’t able to), and I decided pretty last minute that I wanted to knit up a taller size example (which I just finished this morning), so the orange version photos are pre-blocking, but you get the idea!

For a pair, you need about a skein (130-160 yards) of bulky yarn (or super bulky, depending on how the brand labels it) and 8 fun buttons of your choice!  See the pattern page, or ravelry, for other details, or to buy the 11 page pdf for $4.99 – it includes full written patterns for each leg, and charts for each (my first cable charts!).

Side note – don’t you love these natural wood+bark buttons I picked out at Twisted?!  I’d planned to choose something cheap, but splurged a little on these because they just looked so fabulous against the orange.  By the way, the orange yarn is Brown Sheep bulky Lanaloft (an awesome bday gift from my buddy Star – who knows me oh-so-well), which I am completely in love with!!  I am so happy that my most favorite local yarn store started carrying Brown Sheep – yumyumyum so woolly and smooth and squishy!  (you may be seeing a project in the worsted soon!)

So yeah, back to the pattern!  I had it test knit by 6 fabulous knitters, and am ever so grateful – a few of them sent along some photos of their finished knits!

Above are Line’s pair, in Copenhagen!  She used Lammy Yarns Fjord Solid – 135.7 yards (124.1m); US 13 / 9.0 mm needles – and they look so warm with those boots in that snowy Denmark setting!  Thanks for all the great photos, Line!

These are Anna’s – I love the pink cables contrasting against the worn chucks, so comfy looking!  The yarn here is Cascade Eco+ held doubled.

And Amber’s 2-toned pair – if you run out of yarn like she did, it’ll look cool to just switch to a new color for a chunk – yay asymmetry!  These are Lion Brand Wool Ease Thick & Quick in Sky Blue, with size US 13 needles.

Anyone want to see some design process background stuff?

One morning, I brainstormed up the concept of buttoning legwarmers with cables that twist around and become buttonhole straps, while still half-asleep, and sketched it out right away before I forgot.  I knit up the idea and it turned out pretty much exactly like the sketch, but I didn’t like it – it was too small, the cables weren’t nearly squishy enough, and it was basically boring looking, to me…

So I updated the design, with the same basic concept, but fixing those problems, making the cables bigger and squishier, etc.  There were some minor problems with that one, but the final design stayed pretty close – in the photo below, the left one is that second version, and the right one is the final pattern… also, the left one is blocked and the right one is not yet, which, as you can see, makes a difference for sure:

Once I figured out the final pattern, I knit up a pair with some hand-dyed yarn (natural Imperial Stock Ranch Lopi base).  The pattern was final and I loved it, but I couldn’t say the same for my dyed yarn…

So, I took off the buttons and stuck the knit up pieces back into the dye pot, overdyeing them much darker, then sewed the buttons back on and tah dah!

My finished example was complete!  Hope you like them!