I can't quite manage to have all of you come over for trick or treating (but just imagine the size of that bowl of candy...), but this seems like the next best thing. Anyone with any level of paid Patreon membership can have the Ensorcellment pattern for free from now through Halloween! You've totally got time to bang out a whole pile of these before the little ghoulies and ghosties show up on your porch. The pattern is out of retirement and up for sale on both ravelry and payhip as well (the retired patterns generally come back in November, [...]

I've talked a lot about the annoying, unreasonable sort of pills that indicate a lousy garment, poorly made (you can see the shoddy Madewell sweater saga over here, should you wish to do such a thing). But some pilling is just part of the life of a sweater. And today I was tidying up what seemed like completely reasonable case of pills, so it seemed only fair to show what reasonable pilling looks like (if you want to watch me do it and listen while I talk about it, you can see a video over here, it's a public post [...]

The time has come, winter draws near, we must raid the Strategic Cashmere Reserves (aka the pile of sweaters old sweaters that don't fit well at the back of the closet) and cut one down to make this year's pajama sweater. The pinking shears are honestly just because they don't get much use and I want to let them come out and play. The first few times I did this, I thought it would help prevent fraying/unraveling, but I've found over time it doesn't actually make much of a difference and nothing really comes undone, no matter what scissors I [...]

I have the weirdest favor to ask... It's time for me to reach out to yarn shops about the nifty little knitting multitool we're all so excited about. And while I caaaaan just send a bulk email about it, that's awkward as hell (I mean I've done it before for books, but ugh it's just never fun). It works so much better if I can say "I asked my people where they'd like to see these, and your loyal customer Barbara said she'd love it if you carried them." I have it on good authority that yarn stores don't mind [...]

TL;DR up top for anyone in a hurry: The preorder for the knitting multitools is open! You can find it right here. More info for folks who want all the details: I made these for the mail club this summer, everyone loved them and wanted more, so now I've made that happen. They pack a whole bunch of tools into a teeny tiny space, and I've never seen anything quite like them, so let me tell you all about them! They're sturdy metal cards, just a hair bigger than a credit card (about the size of a playing card, they [...]

TL;DR right up top for folks in a hurry: The metal tool cards are coming back! I've been getting constant requests for these since the summer, and I've finally found a place that can make what I want! In a day or two, I'll open a preorder. We're doing a preorder because production takes several weeks, and I want to be sure I get enough for everyone. I'll have a pack of two for $50 or a pack of five for $100. If you preorder in the first week, you'll get free bonus gauge cards (one with the two pack, [...]

Riiiight, so earlier this summer I played with indigo, dyed some napkins, dyed a bench, had a good time, made a big mess, and just sort of left everything set up in the garden and would give things another dip every time I wandered out there. And then events, as they so often do, occurred. And I got distracted. And so this was no longer the uppermost thing in my mind. And I completely and totally forgot it the bench, the napkins, and the dye existed. For a solid six weeks. While they sat out in the sun and the [...]

Ahem...please consider this a demonstration of why you need to swatch to figure out your needle size. A friend and I knit these swatches on the Exact Same Needles from different colors of the Exact Same Yarn, and look at the difference in the gauge. The yarn label says "Needle Size 3mm (US 2-3), 28sts to 36 rows = 10cm square" (that's 7 stitches and 9 rows per inch for those of us who think in inches). We both used the exact same US size 2/3mm needles (not just the same size, the actual same needles from the same set [...]