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!

Well, this stupid sickness has much delayed my knit design work, but luckily finishing my website updates required slightly less energy, so I got it all uploaded yesterday!  Some of this stuff had been in progress for several months, so I’m so happy for it to be public, but there are some other more minor updates still to come in the near future!

So, the two major things you’ll notice on the blog and on any page within leethal.net are the new headers and the new drop-down menus.  There’s also a new link to a search leethal page in the blog menu to make that easier – there has always been a search bar on the leethal.net home page (since the new site went up about a year ago) but now there’s an obvious place to click here on any blog page, hopefully helpful!

Anyway, I’m really excited about those drop-down menus!  A lot more work than I’d expected them to be, with my limited understanding of css and javascript (code is from here), but so totally worth it!  Now you can basically get to any page within leethal.net from any other page!

And, the headers… those were a sudden burst of inspiration that happened right after the summit last week… I love headers that look crafty and real (like here and here and here for example) so I made mine kind of as analog as I could – these are the photographs I took that got edited to become the header, with different photos plugged into the frames for each leethal section:

And then, there’s some new content!  Finally, photography prints are now for sale in the leethal shop!  I put together these photo trios and matted prints way back over two years ago, and had many of them for sale on etsy for awhile, but etsy and I don’t really get along, so I’d been planning this update for quite some time… There will be further updates to this section, as you can see eluded to on the page, but for now – affordable artwork, trios of 4×6’s or matted 8×6’s for $15!

Other more minor update – I separated my knitting patterns into ebooks and single patterns, since there’s kind of a big difference, and I have more ebooks coming soon, so it seemed like a good idea.  You can still browse through them all together on the same page, but now in 3 separate categories: ebooks, single patterns for sale, and free patterns.  Oh, and I keep forgetting to say here – my ravelry designer page is now viewable to non-ravelry members!  So, that link is in the patterns drop-down menu also, for easy clicking.

And gigantic update #2 – brand new leemeredith.com!!  This one was a loooooong time coming, always pushed down on the to-do list, until finally I had a burst of inspiration from somewhere and just went ahead and built it!  My superold photo portfolio that used to live at leemeredith.com still exists (in major need of updating!) through this new page, but now this page makes a heck of a lot more sense to who I am now.  Through this home base, you can click over to leethal.net, do stuff! blog, photo portfolios and shop, my twitter, my flickr, me on ravelry, bad movie bingo, me on blip.fm, and more…

And after some extreme coding frustration, I was eventually able to get my blog’s feed (and twitter and flickr feeds) to show up in the drop-down menu on the page, yay!  I don’t know if it was worth the effort, but I wanted to make it happen and I did, so I was happy about it!

Oh, if any of this stuff looks super different (bad) on your screen, or doesn’t work or something, if you could let me know what browser you’re on and what the problem is that would be excellent – I’m on a mac with firefox and safari, so I’m just hoping everything works out fine in other systems…

Ok that post was much longer than I thought it would be… hope you enjoy the new stuff!

I want to take a minute to tell you about something I think is completely awesome and could really change the way our community and the whole internet works.  The concept can be hard to grasp if you’ve never heard of anything like it, so I’m going to explain it as it relates to you, as a craft blog reader, but keep in mind that it reaches much further than just blogs or the creative community (actually, it currently has very little reach in our creative community, but I’m hoping that’ll change!)  So, here it goes…

Right now, this craft/knitting/blog world of ours has two kinds of content: free and paid.  There are free knitting patterns and for sale knitting patterns; there are tons of free craft tutorials, and then there are craft books and ebooks you can purchase (just a couple examples).  If a blogger you love writes a rad tutorial that you use and you want to show them your appreciation, you can comment on the post, share the post with your friends on twitter, facebook, your own blog, etc.  If they have advertising, you can click on the ads, which will help them, but kind of indirectly-ish… If the blogger happens to have a book, or an ebook, or a for-sale pattern or something else to offer, then you can purchase that to support them.  And now enter Flattr, adding a new, easy, direct, genius way to show your appreciation to your favorite creators!

Here’s how it works:

• Once you have an account, you put some money in it, and choose a total amount you want to give out each month (this can be changed at any time) – as little as 2 euros (about $2.50) can be chosen.
• When you read/see/hear anything you like online (Flattr calls them “things”) and it has a flattr button, click flattr to show it some love.
• At the end of the month, your chosen amount will be evenly divided between all the “things” you flattred, and distributed between them.  (If you chose to give 2 euros, and you clicked on 5 things throughout the month, the creator of each thing would get a fifth of the total, about 50 cents, from you.)
• If you have a thing you made/wrote, you can put Flattr buttons on your site/blog, add them into the Flattr list of things, and watch the counter add up as people flattr you.
• The money that you receive from being flattred gets put into your revenue account (separate from your “for flattring” account) for you to keep, or for you to transfer over to use for flattring others.
• You can have an account and flattr people without having any “things” yourself, but you cannot have things for people to flattr without giving back and flattring at least 2 euros total each month.

Make sense?  If you want a more visual explanation, click over to flattr.com and watch the video on the home page.  Obviously, if hardly anyone is using it, it’ll be pretty worthless to us all, but if this really catches on and becomes regularly used within our community, it can seriously help sustain us bloggers and designers – if a blogger receives a bit of income each month from their free tutorials getting flattred, it will allow them the time to make more free tutorials and keep on being awesome!

A bit of a tangent…  Have you heard of the concept of micro-payments?  (I was first introduced to the idea through comics by Scott McCloud.)  I love it so much, but it’s pretty much theoretical because of the way the internet and payment methods work… If a blogger was able to charge just pennies for a tutorial, instead of offering it free, would you buy it?  Imagine an internet alternate reality in which you can buy something for any tiny amount (2 cents, 5 cents, 10 cents) with one click of a button (no being redirected to paypal, no fees on either end) – if your favorite bloggers offered up their awesome tutorials (that they put hours of work into) for 5 cents instead of free, would you pay the nickle?  I’m guessing the answer is yes.  And then, on the blogger’s end of it, instead of putting all that effort and creative genius into the world for lots of non-monetary gain (which is great, but the bills still need to be paid), if 500 people enjoy your tutorial, you get $25, if 5000 people like it, you get $250, etc.  That’ll help you to keep on creating fabulous content, a win-win for everyone!

Sadly, the internet doesn’t work this way, and there are fees, and it’s basically impossible to offer something for 5 cents.  But, dude, you guys, Flattr comes pretty damn close to making this happen!  It’s a whole different thing from what I just described, but what I described was a concept that had been floating around in my head for awhile, this what-if frustration, wishing that when the internet was a baby and paypal was being born, things could have been different from the beginning.  So when I first heard about Flattr a few months ago, I was so excited that this could be our answer to this want for a micro-payments system.

By the way, paypal does offer a micropayments account, though it’s a bitch to get set up, it does help with knitting pattern sales – any purchase under $12 will charge a lower fee than a regular paypal account will.  But, with the fee rate of 5 cents plus 5% of each order, it’s far from a true micro-payments system that I daydreamed about above.  (Charging 5 cents for something is still impossible.)

Anyway, back to Flattr… it’s in beta now, so you have to get an invite – you can either sign up for one on the site, or find someone who just signed up, since every new member gets 3 invites to give out.  It’s based in Sweden and seems to be catching on much more quickly in Europe than over here in the States, and hardly at all in the worldwide craft community (a “things” search for craft brings up 8 results, and 2 of them are me), so let’s get it rolling crafters!  Spread the word – the more people who know about it, the more likely it’ll catch on, and if it doesn’t catch on, well then this thing will never happen and it’ll be a true shame.  Let’s make it happen!!

Comment if you have any questions, I’m happy to explain details further if needed!

Here it is, part 4 of my yarn dyeing tutorial series!  This is probably a good place to announce, my next big project (not counting all the smaller projects I’m currently working on) is a yarn dyeing ebook!  I’m guessing the release date will be around late summer, and it will be awesome, seriously.  Everything you could ever possibly want to know about dyeing yarn the way I do it, plus a bunch of knitting patterns designed to work especially well with hand-dyed… it will rock. hard.

This how-to is just for the striping, not the dyeing itself – for how to dye, see my recent part 3 post, and my old part 1 and part 2 dyeing tutorials, plus the other sites I linked to, and a bunch of questions and answers in the comments of part 3.  If you’ve never dyed, I strongly encourage you to dye up a couple skeins of solid or simple variegated yarn before going for the long stripes!  And here we go…

Place two chairs facing each other, as far apart as you want for your stripes.  My yarn is dyed with suuuper long stripes (I think around 12 yards), so it was wound across my whole apartment – from the corner of the living room to the end of the dining room (granted, my apt is small).  You can make the stripes as long as you want, but this tutorial is kind of optimized for long stripes…

It’s easier to keep your yarn in place with towels around the chairs, so it doesn’t slide.  On one of the chairs, wrap the yarn in sections – I wanted 5 colors striping, so there are 5 sections.  Wind the yarn around the back of one chair, over to the other chair, around the back, and back over to the first – it’s just like winding yarn around your knees or a swift, but just longer, in a huge loop.  On one chair, keep it in order in the sections (wind from top to bottom, and repeat), and the other chair can just be all in one big section.  (Careful with cats, they like yarn you know.)

Tie each of the sections together behind the chair – I color coded mine because I wanted to dye them in a certain color order.  If you don’t care about the order, don’t worry about color coding (and if you’re not lucky enough to find scraps of yarn in each of the colors you’re dyeing, you can just use whatever scraps you can find and write down a key, like black=blue, etc).  Then carefully take off the top section loop and wind it over to the other chair, or just kind of fold it, however you can keep it from getting all tangled.

Tie the yarn together in the back of the other chair, in a figure 8, holding all the yarn securely – this will be where the colors change.  Then tie that first section into a kind of hank, close to the back tie…  Repeat for each section, carefully making 5 (or however many sections you have) different hanks, all attached together at the top:

If you dye them like that, you’ll get major tangling problems later, so you’ll want to add a couple more ties to each hank section – it doesn’t really matter how you tie them, as long as it holds the yarn in place, but not too tightly…

Now soak your yarn and get ready to dye!  For a little color-mixing bonus info, I wanted to tone down my kool-aid colors a wee bit, so I blended them in shot glasses… I was using Lemon Lime, Berry Blue, Strawberry, Orange, and Lemonade (the exact same 5 colors used in my crock pot yarn) – I mixed a little green into the orange, a little orange into the green, a little green into the blue, a little orange into the yellow, and a little blue into the red.  There’s not a huge difference, but if I were to compare my colors to the straight-from-the-packets colors, you’d probably see it…

I dyed this yarn on the stove top, which I think is easiest for this kind of striping – you could use microwave or crock pot methods if you prefer.  You’ll need to set up your dye pot (heat up the water before adding yarn and dye), a bowl with your pre-soaked yarn, and another bowl – I like putting a colander in the other bowl, which helps the yarn cool faster.  Take the first section you want to dye and place it in the heated dye pot, submerging it right up to the edge where all the sections are tied together, but make sure no yarn from the other sections touches the water.

Add color and dye the first section, then lift it out with a spoon (or tongs) and place it into the other bowl (or colander).  Place the next section into the dye pot, and repeat for each section, always being careful to dye up to the end, but not into the other sections.  When dyeing the last color, you can try to fill in any spots that didn’t get dyed from the other sections – I dyed yellow last for this reason, since yellow overlapping with other colors wouldn’t be a problem.

Once it’s cooled, rinsed, and squeezed dry, try to get it all untangled the best you can and hang to dry for a day or two.  When dry, replicate the way it was wound on the chairs.  Start with the side where the colors meet, then untie one section at a time and loop it onto the other chair.  Then hand-wind it all up into a ball – you’ll have to weave it through the loop sometimes to untangle parts, so trying to wind it into a hank instead of a ball can be disastrous (I know from experience)!

Now you have a big, awesome ball of striping yarn! Yay!

Wind it into a hank if you want to photograph it or keep it around for awhile before knitting or crocheting (or weaving) it up…

Mine knit up in these big fat stripes! Fun!  This is a hat – of course, if knitting something like a sweater, the stripes would be more narrow, and on something like mittens, they would be much wider… and, on a finer weight yarn, they’d be more narrow too…  (By the way, my base yarn is Imperial Stock Ranch’s bulky Lopi wool.)

I’d love to see your yarn!  Have fun!

Oh goodness, I have not been able to keep up with everything while Pete’s on vacation!  I’ve been working on deadline-y projects whenever I can squeeze it in, and I’ve spent the last many days (week? I don’t even know) working on this project I’m about to announce, bit by bit, but I’ve been completely detached from things like twitter and blog world… and I am weeks behind now on posting photos-a-day, though I’ve still been taking them, so you can expect 3 weeks worth of photos this weekend!

Ok so, the one thing I have finished – the first 4 months of leethal quick knits club patterns are now available in a mini-ebook!  Each month’s pattern pair can be purchased alone, but it’s a much better deal to get the whole set – 8 patterns, plus extras (like the pencil cover), in a 20 page pdf for $5.99, versus 2 patterns from an individual month for $2.99.  But that way, if you really just want one pattern, you can get it for half the price of the whole set.

The ebook is all up on ravelry too, and all the patterns are now on my quick knits patterns page, where you’ll find more photos of each pattern.

Not much else to say about this, since the patterns have all already been released to club members and blogged about…

A couple fun quick things… I’ve been spending some time in Pete’s studio playing around with making music!  So much fun!  Us and a couple musical buddies (Star and Grant! Yay!) have created a couple of songs (I’m the only non-musician, so I’m either on super-simple drums or xylophone) and then Pete and I made a song by ourselves yesterday.  Nothing to put out to the public (yet?) but I just wanted to tell you because it’s been such a fun time – yay music!

Lastly, I have another pattern I’m super excited about that I had been hoping to release this week, but it’s getting bumped to next week because of life… but hey, since I’m just self-publishing it, it doesn’t have to be super secret!  Here’s a peek for you!

I’m so happy to tell you about this new ebook by Kristin Roach, of Craft Leftovers! Card. Paper. Ribbon. is a fabulous 63 page pdf ebook, packed with well photographed and illustrated how-tos for projects like turning used wrapping paper into “papercloth” and then sewing it into awesome things……

…..combining used gift wrapping ribbon with yarn to crochet or knit into sturdy bags and boxes……

…… and making paper from old greeting cards, which could then be turned into new greeting cards, or a rad stab stitch sketchbook!

Divided into 3 sections (greeting cards, wrapping paper, and ribbon, naturally), each project goes into great detail, and also has tons of room for creative personalization.  I love the horizontal format (in fact, thinking that’s how I’ll be laying out my next ebook!) – more friendly to computer screen viewing – and the whole thing is beautifully designed.

Kristin collaborated with Diane of Craftypod for the publishing part (love that idea of an indie craft business person publishing another indie crafter’s ebook!! keeping it all in our awesome community!) and they just did a fabulous job of putting this book together!  As all of Diane’s ebooks have, Card.Paper.Ribbon. has printable pages for each project, with no unnecessary photos wasting up your ink.  What really makes this book visually stand out for me is Kristin’s great illustrations throughout – both practical and super cute, love them!

So hey guess what?!  Diane and Kristin offered me a giveaway copy of this awesome ebook!!  Leave a comment here sometime in the next week (by Monday the 15th around noon) answering the question:  what’s something that normally gets trashed (like wrapping paper) that you’d love to see in crafty reuse project ideas? I’ll pick a winner at random to be emailed the prize ebook.

And if you want to grab a copy for yourself right away, head over to the Craftypod shop, where you’ll also find all of Diane’s awesome ebooks!

Making this quick because I’ve been sick all week and am no better today; hopefully my fluffy head won’t prevent this post from being readable.  Need to put off as much work as possible to get myself healed up in time for Crafty Wonderland on the 13th, so don’t expect much from me for the next week either, sorry.  Just posting this now because I’ve been getting some emails and promised I’d blog as soon as it was released…

Remember that Lined Zippered Knit Coin Pouch designed for Knittn’ Kitten, from a month ago?  Well it’s now available to everyone, everywhere!  Click here to get the free download through Craftypod, and check out all of Sister Diane’s other fabulous ebooks and tutorials while you’re there!!  She was beyond awesome to put this Kitten ebook together for everyone to enjoy, so be sure to thank her if you like it!

You can find my pattern on ravelry here if you want to fave, queue, or save the ebook in your rav library; I’ll also be adding it as a quick knits pattern, since it can use less than 15 yards of yarn (depending on yarn choice/gauge).  I’m proud to have taken the photos for the cover and the intro pages – my favorite is the thread shot below!  Once my body stops attacking me with this cough from hell, I’ll be doing a little something else neat with the photos from that shoot!

Shortened excerpt from the ebook (by Diane):

In Portland, Oregon, where we all live, there’s a tiny shop called The Knittn’ Kitten. It’s a craft-supply thrift store, filled with vintage fabrics, sewing notions, yarns, beads, buttons, patterns, and lots of other treasures. …But, as much as we all love The Knittn’ Kitten, economic forces have us shopping less in general lately. And so, in early Fall 2009, we learned that our beloved Kitten was in some danger of closing for good. A group of us got together to see what we might do to help. …We took turns, offering up a new project each week and spreading the word on our blogs. …And since our blogs are read by people who live far from Portland, and can’t get to The Knittn’ Kitten, we thought we’d also share our project sheets in this ebook – it’s our gift to you.

All we ask in return is that you support your favorite local independent craft stores. They need you.

Yeah!!

And the projects you’ll find inside:

• Bib-Style Statement Necklace, by Heather Mann
• Crocheted Ribbon & Bead Necklace, by Heather Mann
• Knit & Stitch Zipper Pouch, by me
• Seed Bead Hairpins, by Teresa Sullivan
• Dress Up A Dish Towel, by Diane Gilleland
• Felt Halloween Bag, by Joelle Groendes
• Cupcake Applique, by Christine Blystone
• Jersey Doily Scarf, by Bridget Benton
• Fabric & Button Pincushion, by Susan Beal

Enjoy!!  Now back to rest with me!

You crafty readers are probably already well aware of Craft Leftovers, but for anyone who isn’t, I’m happy to enlighten you!  Craftleftovers.com is Kristin Roach’s website, which is focused on projects you can do with materials left over from bigger projects. Ranging from sewing to knit to crochet to embroidery to bookmaking to weaving and much more, you can find the archive of all Kristin’s free projects here.

So, in addition to those free projects on her site and blog, Kristin also has a fabulous zine!  Craft Leftovers Monthly is all about living life creatively.  It’s full of resourceful projects, patterns, and ideas for using what’s on hand.  It turned two years old in August, and is 100% recycled and handmade!  There’s also an optional kit each month that you can order with with the zine, so fun!  And starting with the current issue, the zine format has been upgraded to 5×7, 32 pages, and now with projects by guest designers!

To celebrate the new zine format, Kristin has donated 2 copies of the winter issue for me to give away to two of you!  Awesome!  Just leave a comment here before Monday at 8pm (west coast time), telling us what craft material you have most of in leftovers – for me it’s probably yarn, but I have a ton of fabric scraps too!  I’ll choose 2 zine winners at random, which I’ll post here Monday night – and there might be a little something special for all non-winners too!

It’s time for my Kitten project! Lined Zippered Knit Coin Pouches! Closed:

And opened:

They use a variety of different crafty materials and tools, all available at Knittn’ Kitten!

The specific materials I used for each of my 2 examples (not showing: zippers, sewing+knitting needles):

I had fun combining knitting and hand sewing together in this project, and seeing the different pouch types you can get from different gauges.

I played around with some freeform wool embroidery on my first pouch, and tried out a small version of Diane’s woven appliqué idea! So fun!!

This isn’t exactly a quick project, with all the hand sewing (at least not for me!) but it’s so satisfying when it’s finished and looks all neat, with the bias tape and lining. Use them for coins, crafty bits, or whatever else you can stick in there…

So locals, head over to the Kitten this week for the free project sheet! Yay!

In other local Portland news, there’s a rad event happening on Friday at The Woods – An Evening of DIY, with Julie Sabatier, of the awesome Destination DIY!  The event will include (copied from the Woods’ site)

live demonstrations and interviews about how to make radio, how to make a terrarium and how to make bacon. Delicious sweet and savory treats will be served. A silent auction will include many fine items to enhance your DIY projects or spark a new one. The show will be book-ended by performances from musician Leviethan and musicians/visual artists Billygoat, who will show off their gorgeous stop-motion animation and give us a window into how they do what they do themselves.

Sounds fun!!

And one other thing worth checking out – this one’s for everybody – 6 of my favorite craft designers just released a collaborative ebook!  Crafty Tree Trimmings features projects by Diane Gilleland, Susan Beal, Linda Permann, Kayte Terry, Betz White, and Patricia Zapata, each with their own personal crafting style!  I love the idea of a collaborative self-publishing project!  From Diane’s blog post:

We also wanted to create a truly indie publishing effort – one that would delight crafters, do some good in our community, and compensate each contributor for her work. It might seem odd, saying that one of our goals was to get paid. But it’s a fact: a whole lot of traditional print publishing these days is based on people contributing projects for free. I’m really proud to show that it can be done differently.

Heck yeah!!  I think fair compensation is a major issue in our field – in knit/crochet designing, tutorial writing, selling things we make, etc – and finding new, independent ways of making a living doing these things, without having to sign unfair contracts or do hours of work for nothing, is freaking fantastic!  And, on top of all the awesomeness of the book, they are donating a percentage of each sale to Project Linus, which “collects handmade blankets for children who are suffering from illness or trauma, or otherwise in need.”  Don’t these crafters rock so hard? Yes.  This ebook is totally inspiring me to try some kind of group self-publishing… maybe in 2010.

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!

Just a few things I want to share with you…

First, Amanda of Bread and Badger’s new ebook: Crafting a Modern Press Release, for sale in her etsy shop!  I was lucky to get to take a press release workshop with Amanda through Trillium a few months ago, and now everyone can learn from her PR experience and success with the ebook.  If you are a small business owner, this is a great resource, and makes the maybe-scary term press release much more friendly and manageable! (That’s Amanda above with one of her mustache mugs!)

I was super excited to hear about the launch of The Creative Life – the new website project by crafty superheroes Kim Werker and Betsy Greer!  A fabulous blog for those of us who work independently in creative fields, reading the dialogue that’s been taking place is inspirational, comforting, and so much more! It’s hard to pick just one bit to quote from everything that’s up so far, but I’ll just give you this piece from the first post:

Our hope is to start a giant conversation with you about all sorts of things that boil down to this: What’s it like to strike off on your own into a creative field, where do you find support and community when you do it, where do you turn when it seems everyone in your life thinks you’re crazy? We’re not into compiling top-10 lists or giving advice on how to find an accountant. We’re very much into striving toward waking up each morning feeling at peace with the tasks we have to accomplish and the comfort of knowing there’ll be food on the table.

I recommend scrolling down to the bottom and reading the posts in order (bottom up) to understand what’s going on.  And comment to be part of the conversation!

One of my absolute favorite craft sites/shops, Craft Leftovers, is having a fabulous summer sale through the end of the month!  Really, fabulous, go see for yourself!!

And I’ll leave you with me looking silly holding my Kanzashi flower, made with the help of Kanzashi In Bloom author herself, Sister Diane, at Twisted the other day, yay!  It’s a fun craft – different from the kinds of things I usually make, so mine has its own creative personality (some may call it messy or amatuerish, I call it fun and cute!).  I love the wood button, really makes it work!

sister diane gilleland (of craftypod) is the official master of ebooks, in my book – first she released making a great blog a few months ago, and now this gorgeous 59 page weaving un-loomed project book!

with amazing detail in each of the project step-by-step how-tos, as well as tons of intro-to-weaving info, and tips/tricks/troubleshooting, this is a fantastic place to start learning to weave for anyone interested.  no need for a big, expensive loom when you can make such a variety of projects (5, each with lots of variations, plus a 6th free project) with no loom!  this is the project i’m most excited to try out myself:

weaving directly into fabric! how cool is that?!  i’m thinking about adding woven polka dots to a bag or something, not sure yet…  then there’s this beautiful bag:

i love the colors!  check out diane’s post to see all 5 projects (including weaving with twill tape, with magazine pages, and on a carboard loom), and to grab that extra free one!

in case you fall in love with just one of the projects, diane really took advantage of the ebook format and is offering each project as a separate pdf file.  oh and another way she rocked the ebook is by creating a text-only instruction page for each project, so that’s all you need to print and minimum printer ink is needed.

this book is such a fantastic example of self-publishing, and so inspiring!  everything looks totally published book quality, but diane did it all independently and is able to sell it herself instead of having to deal with a publisher/sellers/etc.  i know everyone loves to hold a book in their hands, especially a pretty craft book, but this is really the way of the future and puts the power in the artist’s/author’s hands, yeah!  rock on, diane!

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!