Tag Archives: ravelry

Indie Design GAL 2019 kicks off with pattern sale

It’s the sparkliest time of the year: The Indie Design Gift-A-Long starts on Tuesday! I’m one of 286 participating indie designers this year.

The Gift-a-Long is a multi-designer event through Ravelry to help you kick-start your holiday gift-making. It begins with a pattern sale, and then the fun and games begin on Ravelry, with KAL/CAL activity and prizes. Here are a few of my patterns that are included in the coupon sale portion of the GAL; you can see the rest (there are 20!) in the GAL bundle on my Ravelry designer page.

GAL 2019 collage

The pattern sale runs from Tuesday, November 26 at 8:00 pm US EST – Monday, December 2, 2019 at 11:59 pm US EST. The coupon code is giftalong2019 and it’s good for 25% off any of the participating patterns from all the designers.

The KAL/CALs will run from Tuesday, November 26 at 8pm (US-EST) through New Years Eve December 31 at midnight (US-EST). Check out the Ravelry group for all the details. Your project with any paid pattern by a participating designer is eligible for prizes, not just the patterns in the sale.

You can see all 286 participating designers in this thread. I’m having a good time looking through the list and picking patterns I want to knit! Eventually. Or at least in my mind…

I don’t really gift knit for the holidays (too much pressure), but this is a great time to stock up on patterns for the knitting year! And participating in the KAL at a relaxed pace sounds good to me. How about you? Are you a deadline gift knitter?

I’m hosting this Thanksgiving year, so I’m in a whirlwind of prep. Happy Thanksgiving, y’all!

Indie Design Gift-A-Long

It’s been quiet on the blog, but that doesn’t mean that I haven’t been knitting and planning. I have several prototype projects in progress, a couple design proposals out, and I’ve set up some fun in the Indie Design Gift-A-Long.

giftalong 2014 pdxknitterati

What is Gift-A-Long? It’s a multi-designer promotion through Ravelry to help you kick-start your holiday gift-making! It begins with a pattern sale, and then the fun and games begin on Ravelry, with KAL/CAL activity and prizes. You don’t have to belong to Ravelry to buy patterns, but you do have to join if you want to participate in the KAL/CAL games and prizes.

The pattern sale runs from Thursday, November 13th at 8:00 pm US EST – Friday, November 21, 2014 at 11:59 pm US EST. The KAL/CALs will run from Thursday, November 13 at 8pm (US-EST) through our New Years Eve party, Wednesday, December 31 at midnight (US-EST). Check out the Ravelry group for all the details.

Here’s a link to my featured patterns for this event. The discount is 25%; use the code giftalong2014 at checkout.

Ready, set, KNIT! (or crochet…)

Are you knitting gifts for the holidays?

Thrumbelina KAL begins today!

We’re casting on for a Thrumbelina KnitALong today! This KAL is not a mystery KAL. All the information you need is in the pattern. We’re sharing questions, tips, progress…

thrumbelina2

Before you cast on, you should read through your pattern for information on how to thrum. You can also watch my thrumming video on youtube.

I just made an extra tutorial on a tip for continental style knitters.

Just remember, it’s important to make sure your working yarn wraps around the thrum, rather than coming up underneath it.

continental thrumming

Edited to add: The Thrumbelina pattern is on sale for 25% off ($4.50 instead of $6) through the end of January. Click here to purchase through Ravelry. I meant to do this earlier, but I forgot! If you purchased this pattern during the month of January, I’ll be contacting you.

Who’s casting on with me? Come join the discussion in my Ravelry group!

Don’t worry; I’m still knitting the Rose City Yarn Crawl Mystery Shawlette KAL. But I’m caught up until the next clue comes out on Friday.

Knit on!

Social by nature…

I was once described as “social by nature” in the NY Times. It’s true; you can google it! And here are some ways to find me with social media:

This blog, of course. And the Lantern Moon blog, too.

I’ve added a Facebook page for PDXKnitterati. I’m using it for all things knit- and fiber-related: blog posts, sales, contests, and more. You can find it here.

I tweet as @pdxknitterati, if you’re inclined to be part of the twitterverse.

There’s a PDXKnitterati Ravelry group, too!

Every once in a while I check to see how people find this blog. Mostly it’s linking from somewhere else, but the search terms that people use can be a riot. I was surprised to see that if you google “pum pum pum aloha aloha,” my blog is the number one search result. Must have been the thrummed knitting on vacation!

Knit related: I’m sketching for a little design project. I think I’ve gotten my little selfish knitting binge done, and it’s back to work! Oh, but I’m also knitting some worsted socks. For me. They’re a relentlessly cheery take-along project, or TV-watching project.

cheery

Hugs and Kisses Fingerless Mitts

You may remember these fingerless mitts that I knit for my sister’s Christmas gift.

oxo cable fingerless mitts

I finished editing the pattern yesterday. It’s been tested by some of the wonderful test knitters in Ravelry’s Free Pattern Testers group. (The FPT group is a great resource.) I’ve included links in the pattern to my new tutorials on paired lifted increases and cabling without a cable needle. You can see all my tutorials on my tutorials page.

More information about the pattern is available here.

Happy knitting!

Ishbel, interrupted

I must be loose. A looser knitter than Emilee, anyway. She finished her gorgeous Ishbel with less than one skein of Malabrigo sock yarn. That seduced me into thinking I could do the same. As I neared the end, I realized that I wasn’t going to make it. I weighed the remaining yarn and found that it takes a little more than one gram per row. I had 10 grams of yarn left. And 10 rows to go. And a bind off row. Ouch. I really didn’t want to buy another $20 skein for about 3 grams of yarn.

interrupted

I kept knitting. Now I have three rows left to knit, plus a bind off row. This tiny ball of yarn isn’t going to make it.

Luckily, there is a Ravelry group called Malabrigo Junkies, and they have a forum thread titled “ISO/FT/FS.” In English, that’s “in search of/for trade/for sale.” Since I only needed a little, I posted there. Within a couple hours, I had a reply. KellyInTexas is my hero!

I love a happy ending, don’t you?

What is a sock

What is a sock start, but a gauge swatch?

Yesterday’s foray with the Bleeding Heart Shur’tugal left me cold. That big blobby pool of pink just didn’t make me happy. The spiral reversed direction between the ribbing and the dragon scale pattern, and the area where it reversed was like a big pink eyeball. I couldn’t take it, so I ripped it out.

bleeding hearts

The pattern calls for 64 or 72 stitches. I had already reduced it to 56 stitches on size 1 needles because I’m using STR Mediumweight instead of Lightweight. I knew if I increased to 64 stitches, I would have to knit on size 0 or 00 needles. No way. So I went the other direction, and cast on 48 stitches on size 2 needles. (ETA: I thought they were 2’s, but they’re still 1’s! I guess I can switch back to my new Lantern Moon blondwood Sox Stix, since they’re the same size as these Brittany Birch.)

spiral

(Please excuse the harsh lighting. The sun actually came out, hooray!)

What a well behaved spiral. Just what I wanted, and it looks a lot like the spiral on the designer’s revised pattern for Shur’tugal. (Ravelry link for the updated pattern, but I don’t think you can get it elsewhere. Join Ravelry; it’s free!)

So I’m much happier. The sock is a little snugger, but still big enough for my leg and my foot. And there’s no pink eyeball. Ahhhhh.

Leyburn KAL

I’m in! I just joined the Socks That Rock Leyburn Knitalong on Ravelry. I’m doing it with Socks That Rock Mediumweight in Eggplanted, top-down, 56 stitches cast on for the ribbing, decreased to 54 for the Leyburn stitch pattern. Here’s what I have so far.

leyburn start b

I really wanted to try this cuff treatment that I saw on the Twist Collective Blog. Theirs is in a contrast color to corrugated ribbing, but even so, it’s so cool looking! It gave me a little giggle to deliberately put a twist in, after years of admonishments to “be careful not to twist” for circular knitting. Be aware that you have to work this part on straight needles; ask me how I know…

I switched to knitting in the round as soon as the cuff detail was done, just before the ribbing.

And I think I may try a short row heel, since I’ve never done them before. It’s always fun to learn a new trick. We’ll see when I get there. For now, I’m just enjoying the stitch pattern.

Knit on!

February in August

Now that Josephine is done, my knitterly attention has turned back to the February Lady. This Dream in Color yarn is so lovely to work with, and it smells good, too. A multi-media experience! I put the sweater on a 40 inch needle this morning, and tried it on. It’s beautiful, feels great, and it fits! The fronts *will* overlap, due to my adding 5 stitches to each side so that they’re wider than the back. I just need to decide how long to make the lace section; it’s at my waist now. Here’s the obligatory progress picture, but not on me. I fail at taking my own picture in the mirror.

lady4

I’ve been enjoying seeing all the finished Lady sweaters on Ravelry. It’s great to see how people have made this pattern work for them. There’s lots of variation! I’m in the knitalong group there, too. I’ll miss the KAL group at Twisted this week; I’m hosting the pinot and piano event this evening.

I love this shirt Sharon gave me.

unwind2

Thank you, Sharon!

Knitting + WordPress = ?

Where am I? Why am I here?

 I’m curious about the blog world. My page at comcast is hard to manage, so I thought I’d try WordPress.

 I’m currently in love with knitting. I’ve been knitting for about 30 years, but most seriously in the last 10. I have some free patterns out on the web; I’ll post them here, too, when I figure out how. I’m in a creative whirlwind (mania?) this spring, designing and writing some new patterns, and I’ll be selling them through Ravelry.com. It’s a big step, and I’m learning all sorts of techie non-knitting things along the way.

I’m MicheleLB on ravelry.com

 Hello, world!