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!!

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!

So all the house-buying stuff has been going super well, and now our moving date is exactly one month from today!  That means many things, a major one being that I need to de-stash!  I also would like to make an extra bit of moving-expenses money, so I’m kind of combining these needs into a leethal giveaway sale!

I’ve created a giveaway page in the shop (which you can click to from the top of the shop home page, or the photo box on the leethal home page), full of various pieces of recycled sweaters and other fun crafty gifts, and if you place any order from my shop (that totals at least $9) you get to choose one – I pay shipping on the gift, you get some fun materials to craft with!

Want some ideas for how you could use these sweater pieces?  Here are some projects/tutorials I’ve made!

Felted sweater jewelry! For this project, it’s best if the sweater pieces are very felted (technically, fulled) to avoid any unraveling.

Use sweater pieces in bigger recycled sweater projects, as buttonbands and/or pockets, like the ones in my cardigan or vest.

No tutorial for these, but coffee cup sleeves are easy to make, functional, and have tons of room for creative embellishments!

I’ve made tons of hats with felted and un-felted sweaters – this hat tutorial for the one above shows how to make a kitty hat with a sweater that doesn’t felt (only difference between a felted sweater is that there can’t be raw edges that will unravel).  I did a post on craftster many years ago (pre-blog) with a bunch of recycled material hats… Here are a few more examples below – the triangle top fabric on the left is one of the giveaway options:

And one last how-to by me – also a looong time ago on craftster, I did a silly little tutorial for these felt boots:

You can find more recycled sweater projects in a Threadbanger roundup I did awhile back… I know I once saw a how-to for making a purse with a sweater yoke (which would be perfect for light pink piece three down on the right) but I can’t find it – if anyone knows what I’m talking about, you could post a link in the comments…

And then my other crafty giveaway option is a baggie of beads, which came from Knittn’ Kitten!  I have an alternate motive with this option of sharing a piece of my most favorite craft store with a few of you far away from Portland who aren’t lucky enough to be able to shop there.  Each baggie has a bunch of beads, mostly glass, all in pairs, so they’re great for earrings.  The reason I’m de-stashing so many of these beautiful beads is that I keep buying bags of them, use 2 for a pair of earrings for myself, and the rest of the bag sits there since I don’t really do any other bead projects, so now I get to spread the bead goodness!

I did a tutorial for these simple 2-bead earrings, a good beginner project… Each giveaway baggie also includes some cheap earwires to play around with (the same kind I used in this pair and these) and a few eyepins.

If you were being observant at the top of this post, you may have noticed some books in the back of that giveaways photo – that’s because leethal’s month of giveaways will include some raffle-style blog giveaways as well!  This week, Monday through Friday, I’ll be posting a book a day to give away!  4 are knitting books, one is another kind of craft book, all ones I’ve been given and haven’t used, so I want them to go to new homes where they’ll be appreciated and used!

And one last thing, for you, my dear blog readers… I’m extending the shop giveaway to pattern sales (on leethal or ravelry) for anyone who reads this and contacts me about it – if you purchase $12 or more worth of pattern pdfs, through April 17th, email me (leemeredith at gmail dot com) with your gift choice and your mailing address, and I’ll send it your way!

I just found out from Heather this morning that she declared April Stashbusting Month!  So, I didn’t know it when I planned my giveaway month, but I’m totally participating in busting my stash (though I doubt I’ll be doing much stash crafting this month!) – play along and make things with your stash stuff! Yeah!

I almost forgot – I added a bunch of new leethal recycled, printed shirts (and a couple sweatshirts) to the shop!  They were made back in December, finally online now… I’m working on more shop updates, so throughout the next couple of weeks I’ll be adding more stuff for sale, and probably adding more to the giveaways page too (I’ll let you know about both here on the blog), but then after the move, I’ll probably be taking certain things that haven’t sold out of the shop for good.

I think that’s all for reals… Happy giveaway month!

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!

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!

Oh my how quickly this month is flying by!  Crafty Wonderland on Sunday went super well – it was great to meet a bunch of you, thanks for saying hi!!  The new stitch sets were well received, I got some neato gifts from other crafters, met some new people, good day!

I’m making some holiday cards for the Scrap sale on Saturday, and since I won’t be selling them online I wanted to have some way to spread them outside Portland a little, so how about a last minute holiday giveaway?! Yeah!  I don’t have any pictures of the cards right now – they are holiday/winter themed connect-the-dots pictures, sealed onto recycled blank cards.  Since the cards are recycled, they don’t come with envelopes, but they’re great for attaching to a gift or giving to someone in person…

So, the giveaway will go through the weekend and I’ll mail the cards to the winners on Monday – I’ll pick 3 winners to get 2 cards each. (Unfortunately, there’s no guarantee you’ll get them by Christmas, but hopefully you will!  If not, they could be used as New Year’s cards…)

To enter, comment on this post before Sunday 7pm (west coast time) with an idea for a picture or a theme you’d love to see in connect-the-dots form!  (Could be a stitch set idea – something there could be 5 of – or just a stand-alone image, or anything else.)  I’ll email the winners around 7:30, then get back to me with your address by Monday at noon-ish so I can get them mailed out; US only because of shipping, I think that’s all the details…

Remember my Haka hat pattern?  I decided it needed to be rephotographed, so Pete and I took my favorite version of it with us to Twisted the other day and did a quick photoshoot in front of their sock yarn wall.

Haka is a fantastic last minute gift knit!  Using bulky yarn (texturey handspun like this one works fabulously) and big needles, you can knit it up during a movie or two (maybe three if you’re slow like me) and have several done in the next week!

Haka is also a super fun hat to wear in the wintertime, as it can be worn 4 different ways!  Buttoned under your chin for maximum warmth, as in the top 2 pictures, hanging loose as you see above, or fastened behind your head to keep the strap out of the way – along the bottom of the hat so the earflaps still cover your ears and keep you warm:

Or fastened up behind your head, holding the earflaps up:

The Haka: strappy flappy eared hat pattern is only $2 on my site or on ravelry, since it’s such a quick and easy knit!  Because I’d love for there to be more projects pictured on ravelry, I’m offering another giveaway deal!  If you knit a Haka hat and post it (with pictures!) as a ravelry project anytime throughout the winter (how about through February to be specific), I’ll send you a free pdf of your choice, out of either: Double Scoops, Ten 10 yard cuffs, Ninja Mitts, or Bad Movie Bingo!  To claim your free pdf, send me a ravelry message once your project is up letting me know which pdf you’d like.  Yay!

As for other last-minute gift ideas… well, if you’re looking to knit, there are my quick knits patterns (all using less than 15 yards of yarn) and my huge quick knits links list, with tons of patterns by other designers using less than 20 yards.  My 10 yard cuffs would make great gifts, and then I have several free patterns that are quick – gradient mitts, big bulky bucket hat, mary jane style booties, or a 35mm film strip cuff could all be done in less than a week, easy!

Ok and this isn’t just about self-promotion, I promise!  If you need to find a great gift for someone who wants to learn to knit – maybe your mom/sister/brother/friend tried to teach themselves and couldn’t grasp it – Diane wrote a fantastic review of Blonde Chicken’s new Learn to Knit Kits.  It sounds like the perfect substitute for a super patient one-on-one teacher, and you can learn on your own time with the kit instead of sticking to a class schedule.  Go read Diane’s review to learn more, as she goes into detail and has actually used the kit to learn!

As for a knitting-related gift for a loved one who’s already deep into the craft… Twisted’s Single Skein Club is still taking members for 2010!  This is the club that I contributed the Ocean Breezes hat to this year, and next year is sure to have some amazing patterns!  The club will ship to you (US only I think, but I could be wrong) so it’s not just for locals – it’s pricey since it’s a whole year of awesome yarn and patterns, but it could be a great gift for a family to go in on together!

And how about some good last-minute non-knit handmade gift ideas?  I’ve done tons of tutorials in the past for quick projects, like those 2-bead earrings (super quick and fun!) – so you can browse through all of those on my tutorials page.  The newly redesigned Craft: site has lots of great tutorials, including some superdelicious looking food posts lately (like Chocolate Chestnut Mousse Trifle!) if baked gifts are your specialty!  And their Quick Crafts section is a good place to browse for last-minute gifts to make!

Also a reminder in case you missed this bit of info – my connect-the-dots stitch sets are available as pdfs too, which means you could buy the pdf and print the set onto fabric to give as gifts for as many people as you want!  (A stitch set, plus an embroidery hoop, floss, and a needle would make a great kit gift!)  The pdfs include a how-to for printing on fabric; or you could print the designs on paper to make a little mini-zine of connect-the-dot puzzles for the game-lover on your gift list.

I’m feeling guilty about not having time to do any new gift tutorials like I’d planned to do throughout the month, so hopefully I gave you a few ideas here, even if they’re not newly written for you…  Maybe I’ll have a chance to write up a quick one I’ve been thinking about on Sunday, we’ll see… Anyway, happy gift crafting, and don’t hurt yourself knitting too much this week! (that advice is for myself as much as it’s for you!)

This is super belated, books I got back at the beginning of the year, but now that I’ve gotten a few more recently I’m going to do a series of Japanese book posts over the next few weeks!  You may remember my initial excitement about these incredible books from the first time I went to Kinokuniya last year, when I bought my first 2 books, both hats, one knit/crochet, one sewn.  I also wrote in that post about Japanese craft books in general, as well as more on Threadbanger, if you want more info.

First one, Knit Work by Hikaru Noguchi (isbn978-4-529-04645-9) – assorted knitting with great style!

Some of my favorites!

Something about most Japanese knitting books – there’s lots of crochet thrown in there, like knit+crochet are equal! Yay!  That headband below is crochet (with knit ties):

I love this weirdo intarsia – the concept of having a chart for an abstract blob of colors.  Silly and awesome!

And lots of great photo how-tos means non-Japanese speakers can still figure out how to make things, yay!

And the second one, with no English words (isbn978-4-277-17216-5), is all hats!

Mmmmm hats… a couple of favorites:

Again, knit and crochet, together equally.

Speaking of knit and crochet hats, have you seen this 52 hats in 52 weeks project?  The artist, Edda Lilja, is in Iceland, and also values the two yarn crafts equally, as you can see in her amazing creations.  You can see all the hats here.  Some of my absolute favorites (but it’s so hard to choose!): this one, this one, this one, this one, and this one.  So inspiring!!  Now I need to practice what I preach and start working with crochet more!!

Find me?!

How about there? Here’s a harder one…

What a fun costume!! The only problem with it was that I felt bad for the other members of my group, since I got all the silly comments and stuff! Such as “I found you!” and the more clever “Hey I’ve been looking for you all night!” and the weird “Waldo” said kind of like an insult while walking by. It was great when our friends Kate and Kit were meeting us at Beulahland and they had to search through the crowd to find Waldo!

I did put a few hours of valuable knitting time into making the hat, and Pete and I spent a huge chunk of our day off at the freakin’ mall trying to find a red+white striped shirt, which was totally worth it to be Waldo, but it would have been a boring costume without my buddies as the Waldo world townspeople!

Pete found a grey+black striped sweater and wore my Mary Tyler Moore striped+pompommed hat and his piano scarf to be a stripey Waldo nemesis type guy; Star wore red+white striped socks and gloves, a red+white polka dotted shirt, and a white hat to throw off the viewer; and Caitlin+Patrick provided more hats and stripes in the scene.

And then Kit joined in as Woody the cowboy to add to the picture! And awesome Kate (who was Amelia Earhart) took the photos!! Yay, thanks Kate!

So there’s me as Waldo – simple costume, but not easy to find a shirt like that!! Ended up with a hoodie (folded the hood under) from this weird store called GenX on 82nd. Knit the hat from recycled cotton (improvised design – 2×2 ribbed brim, then stockinette, works well as a slouchy hat with brim unfolded), and the glasses are “nerd glasses” from the Halloween section at Value Village, with the lenses popped out.  (Downside of the costume – couldn’t see too well all night without my real glasses!)  Plus Pete’s cane from when he hurt his knee, a backpack to complete the look, and I tried to keep my bangs swished to the side all night to look like his!

Our night might have been a little silly (our Halloweens usually end up that way) but I’d say the group costume was a total success!  Yay!

Oh hey, did you know that Waldo is a spinner?!

So that was our Halloween group night, but now I need to move backwards to Halloween afternoon at Twisted! Fun times!

I came to the event just as they were finishing the web, sadly, armed with my unneeded wheel and alpaca.  The web was rad though!

And I got to help hang it up in the corner, so at least I was able to contribute something to the project!  Then I spun a bunch of dirty alpaca, straight from the fleece, just for fun!

I got to meet Jimbo and Inga and Jimbo’s giant crochet hook!  Carved from a solid log of wood, it’s heavy and smooth and rad!!

And then, for some crazy but awesome reason, Jimbo decided to give me one of his hand carved nostepinnes that he’d brought for prizes!  So beautiful!!  (More photos in my flickr – it’s so photogenic!!)

When I got home, I wanted to try it out right away, of course!  So I found a nostepinne how-to on a blog (Fiber Fool), which I glanced over quickly then proceeded to not really follow the steps when I stepped away from the computer to try it out.  It was fun, but a bit of advice: when trying a new fiber winding technique for the first time, don’t use a freshly spun fuzzy alpaca single!

I stopped at this point and wound it into a hank, with much tangling, but no breaking!  Anyway, here’s my alpaca skein (174 yards) before washing – it’s pretty much bright white fiber, with the off-whiteness being the dust.  Spinning straight from the dirty fleece is fun!!  (With alpaca, not wool, because alpaca doesn’t have the greasy/waxy lanolin that wool has.)  It’s soaking in its 3rd soapy water bowl now, with lots of rinsing between soaks, so it’ll be nice and clean by the time I’m done, don’t worry!

So yeah, fun Halloween!!  Thanks Twisted for your awesomeness!!

Don’t get too excited, this one is just for Twisted Single Skein Club members for now, but I’m excited to finally get to show you anyway!  I designed this hat – Ocean Breezes (rav link) – for Twisted many months ago and it’s been so hard to keep it so secret!  It will be for sale to all through Twisted in 2010, then I’ll be able to start selling it in a year, so I’ll let you know when it’s available!

I designed it as a big, slouchy beret-style, then the test knitter knit it up in a tighter gauge, resulting in a smaller, cloche-style, which turned out super cute!  (Modeled by Twisted co-owner Emily!)  And either size hat is adjustable to any size with button placement – speaking of buttons, do you love those fish buttons as much as I do?  They totally inspired the hat design… the yarn in that colorway, plus the discovery of those buttons, and tah-dah!  Ocean hat!  I knit up my first prototype (which is much bigger and a little different) in some hand-dyed green yarn, and I made another one in the same yarn but a different color (dark reddish brown) – haven’t taken photos of those yet, but I love them both!

And, if you’re here in PDX, be sure to make it over to Knittn’ Kitten this week, for the new free project by Sister Diane! Diane says:

I wanted to do a little project that makes a simple, useful gift you can make for pretty much anyone on your list. The patchwork process is very easy – even if you’ve never done any patchwork, you can do this. Then, all you need are some inexpensive cotton dishtowels from your variety or dollar store.

I got to see the samples in person when I was in on Saturday (to gather supplies for my upcoming project!) – so cute!

Something excited for the rest of you… it’s been revealed that we are going to be compiling all of these Kitten projects into an ebook for everyone in November!  So that’ll be rad!

Ok that’s it for today!  Back to spinning recycled yarn with me!

Ohmygosh, it’s done, it’s really done!  I thought this day would never come!  This ebook concept has been brewing in my head, in some form or another, since early 2007, no kidding!  For quite some time it was just going to be a blog post, then I had plans to make a free pdf, but then the more I worked on it and developed it further, it made sense to turn it into a whole book!  An ebook that started out (in outline form) being about 13 pages, then grew into about 30 pages, then eventually ended up totaling 65 pages! Whoa baby!

So that’s it – Game Knitting!  The book includes enough patterns to make over 150 different designs – but the whole point is that you can make up your own patterns and ideas, take it into other items, and your design options truly become infinite!  You could even use the concept with other crafts beyond knitting – crochet, embroidery, cross stitch, weaving?

So ok, what’s game knitting? What am I even talking about?  It’s the concept that was used to knit all those teaser hats I’ve been sneaking into blog posts since the beginning of the year.  You have to buy the ebook to get all the specifics, but the basic concept is free to all!*  From the intro page:

If you love both knitting and playing games, maybe you’ve wished you could somehow do both at the same time. Sure, you can knit a few rows while waiting for a Scrabble player to figure out their move, but it’s a bit trickier to work your needles and hold a hand of cards simultaneously. Well now here’s a way you can not just play and knit, but turn your knitting itself into the game! And create a truly one-of-a-kind knit object in the process, defined by the randomness of its design.

Game knitting, as it was invented and played to make the items you see here, is based around TV shows, which means if you don’t consider yourself a game lover, but you do have a weakness for television, you too will love game knitting! However, if you want to, some creative thinking can surely move the game away from the screen (and the book includes many ideas).

Game knitting is a concept as opposed to a pattern, which means it can be used to make anything you can knit, as long as it’s a simple enough shape. The book features mostly hats, but there are also examples of scarves, mitts, headbands, and cuffs; knit whatever you love most, as it works out best to game knit an object you are familiar with knitting in the first place. As you can knit any shape, you can also game knit with any yarn/needles/gauge.  You could even take it further and use the concept in non-knitting projects!

This information is also on the Game Knitting page of my website, along with little thumbnail previews of every single page, to try to create the illusion of flipping through the book!  You can enlarge the first few pages (including the table of contents) and get a sense of how the book looks overall.

The ebook is designed for optimal computer screen viewing (large, spaced out font for easy reading) and the pages you may want to print out have smaller pictures, which you can print in grayscale to save on ink.  The pages you wouldn’t have any reason to print are full of lots of large color photos.  Thanks so much to Diane, for both the help in learning Pages to build it, and for the ebook inspiration!

And more about the concept… from page 4 of the book:

The easiest way I’ve found to describe how game knitting works is this:
You make a list of reoccurring things that happen in a TV show, as if you are going to play a drinking game to the show (drink each time something on the list happens), and you want it to be a crazy night!  Which means, if you really were to turn your list into a drinking game, you’d either want to take very small sips of light beer, or you’d be too drunk to play after a couple of episodes.  So, once you have this game list, you design a knitting pattern around doing/changing something in your work every time something on the list happens.  This may be as simple as switching from knit to purl stitches, or making an eyelet hole, or something a bit more complex, like cabling or turning your work for a short row.  Just don’t try actually playing a drinking game as you game knit!

Once you get the concept, you can see that it could be used in forms other than playing to TV.  Make a list of things that your favorite podcaster is always saying, or things that keep happening in the audio book you’re listening to, or things that happen every day on your train commute; anything that you know will happen at some random interval, and you can watch out for while you knit.  Now that you know what game knitting is…

Why game knit?

1. It’s fun!  Especially if you’re playing with others (they don’t necessarily have to be knitting), so you can all shout out when something on the list happens.  Your finished knit item will carry with it the memories of the game playing!

2. Randomness is cool looking!  It’s hard to make a pattern look random on purpose; game knitting it a way to create a look of chaos (in a good way!) because your pattern really is random.

3. Inspiration!  If you are a designer, or want to try knit designing, seeing the way a certain game pattern works up can be great inspiration for new design concepts!  It can also be a fun cure for creative block.

Pete and I have a way fun time watching silly TV shows while I’m game knitting, calling out whenever a list item happens on screen.  (It’s super similar to Bad Movie Bingo!)  And I lovelovelove the random (as Pete calls them, chaos) patterns that result!!

Besides about 11 base patterns (hats, headbands, mitts, etc) and 18 different game patterns, with tons of variations and notes for how to design your own, the ebook also includes:

• Game lists for 11 TV shows
• A list of game list ideas beyond television
• How-tos for 3 types of cabling, 2 with no cable needle
• Instructions for adding ear flaps to any hat
• Blocking tips
• Links to other technique tutorials

Want to hear how the concept first came into my head?  It was way way back when I worked my day job in a photo lab/camera shop in Orange County… I had a supercool boss who let me knit behind the counter when there were no customers (which was pretty often during most times of the year), so I was always picking up my knitting for a short while, putting it down to help someone, and picking it back up, all throughout the day.  So one day I brainstormed the idea of changing my knitting pattern every time I put it down and picked it back up – and I tried it, and it resulted in this hat!

So, it worked, just not spectacularly.  Not many changes makes it look more like stockinette/reverse stockinette “ribbing” instead of a random pattern.  But I loved the idea, and wanted to take it somewhere.  I don’t remember how exactly it evolved into the TV show system, but I’m guessing it involved a conversation with Pete, and he definitely had a big part in developing the idea, and in making the game lists.  The next try was this hat, played to My So-Called Life:

Those were back in 2007, then in early ‘08 I picked up the concept again, knitting a couple more bulky hats to try out some new ideas:

But I got distracted and didn’t get back into it till early this year, when I started making hat after hat, and then some non-hats – my example item number has now reached 19!  (20 actually, but I count my cuff pair as 1 item because I meant for them to be a set.)  See them all in the Game Knitting flickr set!

So that’s that, game knitting’s path from bored at work to ebook!  Because of the way you play (when we thought of the TV idea) the working title when Pete and I talked about it was always “drinking game knitting”, hah!  To some perfectionist knitters, the chaos patterns might look like you knit them while drunk!  I love the randomness though, I hope you do too!

Wow, so much info, here’s all you really need to know: The 65 page ebook (16.9MB) is $9.  Click here to directly purchase it; click here to go to the ravelry page (and get it there); click here to go to its webpage where you can check out all my other patterns too.

Your purchase of the ebook means you’ll get any future updated versions if there are ever changes or additions.  There’s even a chance I might add more patterns in the future, if I figure out any more that look great, so you’ll automatically get the updates emailed to you.

*I’ve chosen to give away the basic Game Knitting concept to everyone, and of course you are free to play even if you don’t purchase the ebook, but I do ask for one thing in exchange – if you knit something using this concept, and post it on ravelry, flickr, your blog, etc, please link to my game knitting page (or this blog post) so that your followers/friends learn about it!  Thanks!!

Also, the game knitting term and the content in this blog post and on the webpage are protected under Creative Commons.  Feel free to post any of my images if you want to talk about it on your blog, etc, as long as you credit and link to me, thanks!  (And a quick note: the book has taken me an insane number of hours to make, and there is tons of specific info about everything game knitting related, so if you’re playing with the concept without the book and having a hard time, I would guess that the book will answer any questions you might have and make it all much easier for you!)

One more quick note – if you get the book and notice any typos, confusingly worded sentences, or anything confusing or weird in general, please let me know!  This is the biggest project I’ve ever done, and I fear I may have missed mistakes in my proofing, but the great thing about ravelry is once it’s up for sale, I can always update the pdf any time I make any changes, and updated versions will go out to anyone who already bought it.  So yeah, don’t hesitate to let me know about anything that might possibly need changing, thanks!

And I’ll leave you with my original cover image, which I actually like a lot better than the real cover, but I thought the (badly Photoshopped) remote addition was important since TV watching is such a major part of game knitting play, and my favorite of the blooper shots:

Well well well things are a little bit nutso in leethal world right now, so I thought it would be a good idea for me to let you all know what’s up, and what you have to look forward to in the near future, because I might not be around for a week or so… Things are exciting, but oh so hectic!

First, a quick update about my club!  2 things are new with October memberships – first, 3 month subscriptions!  I already told you how I changed it so the club will always include 2 patterns, for each of the 2 yarns – with this upgrade, I raised the price (starting with October) to $16/month, but a 3-month subscription will knock it back down to $14!  I’m really excited about the October club, by the way; while I’m currently dyeing and designing for September (which rocks!), I’m brainstorming Oct and can’t wait to get started on it!

And second, thanks to my most favorite local yarn shop, I’m now offering a local Portland pick up option!  Portland members, pay no shipping, and pick up your club package at Twisted whenever is convenient for you!  Of course, while you’re there, I highly encourage some browsing, shopping, tea drinking, and hanging out – this is the kind of wackiness that Twisted induces:

Moving on to some of that nutso-ness I was talking about… Pete and I were painting his new studio’s floor till 2am last night, so that we’ll be able to start moving his stuff in tomorrow!  I mentioned how I’ll be expanding my studio space a couple posts ago, but I just showed some photos of what my studio looked like when I first got it set up, almost 2 years ago.  Nowadays, this is a view of my space, looking towards the window wall – pretty cluttered, but at least the desk has a little cleared space (not usually true)…

…but then when you turn the other way, this is what you see:

Holy crap, right?!  It’s basically been a storage room for about a year and a half-ish, with too much stuff to organize properly.  Yeah so I’m crazy super excited to get this reorganization project going!  What does this all mean for you, dear readers?  Fun stuff!

Once my studio is actually functional as a work space again, I plan to spend tons of time in there, crafting away!  You can look forward to clothing recon tutorials, fun how-tos and project ideas, as well as more printed clothing in the shop, and whatever else the new space inspires me to do!!  This is Pete’s side of the room which will soon be mine! All mine!!

So that’s what Pete and I have been working on together on his off-time.  During our work hours, I have been hard at work on my upcoming ebook!!  You don’t get much info just yet, but those hats up top are a sneaky peek.  My original goal release date was this week, but then I decided I wanted to make a few extra things, so the last many days have been spent knitting like crazy and I’m really hoping for the release to happen next week (though, realistically, I’m thinking 2 weeks from today will be the day).  No hints, but I’m really super duper ultra excited about this project!!

I’ll be having some other exciting news soon too!  I want to tell you now, but I think I’m supposed to wait.  I’ll give you a hint: it’s not knitting related, or even crafty really, but it’s definitely do stuff! related, and it’s awesome!

And then, after the ebook, I am planning several new patterns – some free, one for a kit, one crochet (!!), and then another ebook!  Oh man, and it’s almost holiday craft show season already!  Nutso, I say!  So, you may not be hearing from me a whole lot, but I will be back with that announcement on the 15th!

how was your wwkip day?  not that we don’t all knit in public all the time, but it’s always fun to have an excuse to go knit with a friend over coffee + ice cream (in my case) instead of staying in and working all day like i normally do on saturdays.  i met my awesome buddy star at pix for an americano and some fabulous blood orange ice cream – no shots of me knitting since i was working on a supersecret project!  (but there is this super awkward one the barista guy took when he misheard star asking me to take one and thought we wanted him to, haha)

we got to talking about designer fairness issues, a subject that was going around on knit designers’ blogs a few months ago after annie modesitt bravely addressed a major problem with vogue knitting’s designer contracts.  unfortunately, the subject came up because of a potential problem star might have with a design contract, reminding me that i never wrote about the subject here like i’d planned to.  basically, if you are a knit designer, aspiring to be one, or are a buyer of patterns in any form, i encourage you to read one or all of the posts by annie modesitt, ysolda, or knitgrrl. (these are just the ones i’ve read – let me know if there are more good ones.)

personally, i am more and more confident that self-publishing almost exclusively is the route i plan to continue taking as a designer.  i may someday submit a design to a magazine, if i have a pattern i think would be a good fit, but if/when that happens i will be reading my contract thoroughly and i will not be signing unless i’m ok with everything.  and i’ll know that there’s still a chance something will happen with my pattern that i’m not happy with, because sadly, that’s just the way it goes, it seems to me.  (usually this means it gets edited down to fit the layout, but it could be worse.)

if you are a new designer, aspiring to get published in a magazine or book as soon as the opportunity arises, i urge you, please, read those posts and don’t accept any contract that isn’t fair to you.  by signing a contract that doesn’t value your work, you would not just be hurting yourself, but you’d be making it harder for all other designers to get fair treatment.  with magazines fighting to stay in print, paying more attention to their websites as marketing tools, trying to cut corners whereever possible to stay afloat, we really need to make sure we’re not sacrificing our own well-being as designers to help them.  i want the magazines to survive as much as any other knitter, but designers deserve fair treatment dammit.  like ysolda says:  The only way things are going to change for everyone is if we stand together.

one last way to look at it, if you don’t understand why it’s important for designers to be treated fairly… imagine a knitting magazine minus the patterns… well, that’s just ridiculous… how about, think about what you like about knitting magazines and knitting websites out of everything there is (patterns, articles, book reviews, ads, etc) – now think about what percentage of the value for you comes from the patterns… now read this excerpt from annie modesitt’s post:

Designers earn just a hair more now for a pattern than they did in the mid-80’s. Factor in cost of living, and we’re earning less than we did 20 years ago. Add to this the latest slap in the face – 90% of internet sales revenue will go back to the magazine – and we, as designers, realize exactly how much we’re valued. T E N P E R C E N T.

not cool. right? right.

ok moving on to fun fiber-related stuff… black sheep is friday!!  i’ll be heading to eugene with caitlin, star, and kate, and i’m suuuper excited!  it was a great time last year, and i got tons of fibery goodness!  this year, i’m bringing less cash and buying only a few specific things i have in mind, but even though my spending it limited, it’s just so fun to look at all the pretty fiber and yarn… mmmmmmm… and then there’s the animals! yay!

and lastly, for this knit-tastic post, i made this hat for a birthday present for my brother ben:

ok that’s all, just wanted to show you.  i have a feeling i won’t be posting for a little while because pete’s parents are in town so we’ll be hanging with them a bunch doing fun portlandy things.  if you see me at black sheep, say hi!

oh hello there world. i’ve been so out of everything lately, it’s been a weird last couple of weeks.  pete had a semi-emergency surgery a week ago and has been home recovering since, so i’ve been working less than usual, and things like blog-reading and twitter-following almost not at all, so i’m pretty detached.  we’ve been watching lots of tv shows (the wire, party down, x-files for nerd nostalgia…) and movies and i’ve been knitting away on cuffs and brainstorming/planning some future projects.  so, speaking of cuffs, you may remember that several weeks ago i said i’d hopefully have them done in a week-ish… well yeah, that was crazy of me to think that could happen, first of all, and then i got slowed down by other things, but now i’m finally on my way to hopefully releasing the whole thing by this weekend, for real.

one thing that distracted me a bit was finding out that craftstylish has decided to go in another direction (or something) starting at the end of the month and none of us bloggers will be doing tutorials anymore.  which means a couple of things for you, dear do stuff! readers… i’ll have more time to work on my blog/website, now that all those hours per week are freed up, and if i have any fun tutorial ideas now i can post them here instead of there, so hopefully do stuff! content will be more frequent and more exciting!!  (for me, it means a less fun thing – scrambling to figure out ways to scrape rent money together, which has led to some quality brainstorming time and i’m sure will all be for the best in the long run because now i have some plans i’m super excited about!)

so, my last 3 craftstylish tutorials… out of order because this one - fabric cd cases - is my favorite!  i’d originally planned for this project to be for mother’s day, which is what mine was made for, and then show my wedding case as another example, until i realized at the last minute that it would be posted after mother’s day! so i wrote it up focusing on the wedding angle (so lucky i had that wedding case to show!) and just mentioned that it could be for other purposes, even though that’s so silly because of course it could be used for anything/anyone – any gift occasion or for yourself, as well as for music or video cds/dvds instead of photo discs. duh. but, you know, it’s wedding month, so i had to steer it in that direction.

for my mom’s gift, i filled that case with music cds because she has a new-ish job which has her driving up to several hours a day all over southern california, and no ipod hook-up in her car.  oh and also, my mom has great taste in music, so i knew i could give her a bunch of my favorite cds and she’d love them!

the case is completely hand-sewn, with a hand-knit i-cord tie.  i really (surprisingly) enjoyed hand-sewing this project – now i want to do more sewing by hand!  i get so frustrated with my cheap sewing machine so often, i love that hand-sewing puts myself in control, like with knitting!

last night, my last tutorial post went up: monogrammed napkins with recycled sheets. i love working with thrifted sheets, all the great patterns and colors! i had a hard time thinking of wedding projects, so this is a simple one, but i love how they look!

before those 2, i started off celebration month with greeting cards made from recycled materials.

basic concept, but i was happy to show how easy it is to print on grocery bag paper, something i love to do, and also to make custom envelopes with recycled paper.

i had fun decorating my different card examples (one for mother’s day, one for graduation, and one thank you) and i took way too many photos and had to cut it down tons for the post. so these are some that i couldn’t fit in…

so that’s it for now.  hey, if you’re free tomorrow evening and live in portland, my wool jewelry class still has ten spots as of right now, at the albina library (ne pdx).  it’s free, i provide the supplies, all you need to do is register, should be fun! oh oh i just thought of one other thing i can show you!  check out the hat i knit for pearl for her 1st birthday!  recycled cotton, so soft!

hi! it’s been quite a busy week around here! i just wanted to post a bunch of randomness to keep updated around here… so first of all, my button post for last week on craftstylish was 3 different scarf remake projects – making boring fringed scarves into different styles of buttoning scarflets…

i scored with some supersweet vintage buttons lately!  this whole stash came from scrap and a cool vintage stuff store on hawthorne and 14thish…

i love the woven fabric ones!!

susan’s powell’s event was fun – i made a super cute button hair clip!  i’m excited about the bolt event tomorrow – hope to see you there!!

and it’s always cool to see projects from the book in person!

i haven’t showed you much knitting lately… here are a couple recent hats i’ve finished which are part of the mystery project i showed other sneak peeks of here and here (at the bottom)…

my old bff from college in san diego is coming to visit next week, then it’s handmade nation weekend (#craftgasm for those of you on twitter!) so i’ve been trying to get all caught up on deadlines and stuff for the next week+.  i think i’m doing ok, but as always there’s tons of stuff i want to try to fit in and no time.  but i did somehow manage to squeeze in a little knit stitch design, which i hope to post later tonight or tomorrow…