Yarn and pattern matching, resupply break. The yarns I ordered last week came on Saturday (because both the good folks at the yarn shop and the good folks at the post office are awesome and doing heroic work to help us all be as comfy as possible while we stay home as much as possible). I love them both. I *think* I know which one will end up being the best bet for the pattern I want to design. But as always, the only way to tell for sure is to swatch. So, more swatches are next. Yes, more! I [...]

Yarn and pattern matching, take three!⁠ ⁠ Now, I don't actually have much in the stash in heavier weights (most of my knits are in that dk to light worsted range). And if I stick with single ply yarns, I have even fewer choices on hand. But I did have this, so I figured I'd swatch it up and see.⁠ And we're pretty darn close here. I wouldn't mind if it were a hair thicker (but I think this will still be lovely, which is important, because I want to have the pattern work at a range of yarn thicknesses [...]

Yarn and pattern matching, take two.⁠ ⁠ This is closer! The yarn is more substantial, so you see that nifty sort of cable effect much more clearly. And I really like how it looks in a single ply yarn (I am a sucker for single ply yarns, and they are perfect for things like hats that don't get a ton of abrasion).⁠ ⁠ But it's still not quite as big as I'd like. A hat's going to hang out on your head, and you have to be sure you have a pattern at the sort of scale that shows up [...]

Ok, so let's walk through the process of matching yarn to idea.⁠ ⁠ I have this idea for a pretty little not-quite-cable I want to play with. I think it would look delightful as a nice chunky rib on a hat.⁠ ⁠ The first step is figuring out, mechanically, if the set of stitches and stitch manipulations will do what I think they will do (because wow is the answer to that question not always yes). ⁠ ⁠ And I don't know a way to do that other than just grab some yarn and see. The first yarn I grab [...]

So yes, yes you can indeed put the hearts inside the envelopes!⁠ ⁠ Though to be fair, if you knit an Absolutely Massive Heart and a Very Very Tiny Envelope, you may run into problems of scale. But if the general question is 'is the envelope open on the inside,' then yes, yes it is.⁠ ⁠ Though I did have a couple of folks who were a little...surprised...that, when they put a puffy thing (the heart) inside a flat thing (the envelope), the flat thing was then less flat. So I suppose maybe I should mention that the envelope is [...]

So I've somehow managed to refrain from talking about it too much here, but, um, I'm fond of board games. If you know me long enough in person, there will come a moment where I try and casually inquire if you, too, happen to be fond of board games. Usually people say some version of 'um, ew no, why on earth do you ask' and I have to explain about how if you haven't played them since you were a preteen, you've been missing out. Occasionally people say yes, and then I have to do that delicate dance where I [...]

As promised, a few crimes for your consideration.  These are Entrapment (the purple one), Collusion (the blue one) and Misprision (the pink one). You can use the code CRIMINAL to take 10% off any of the patterns, or buy all three together and get one free. I have a traitorous brain.  It combines a short attention span and some serious distractability with a tendency to ask 'right, so, what if we did this just slightly differently next time?' Put those three together, and I tend to find myself tearing off down rabbit holes, only to emerge, days or weeks later, [...]

Ahem. Yarn. ⁠ Now look, some yarns are easy with their charms, they show you just how delightful they are in any form...skein, cake, swatch, full sized knitting. They let you know just how marvelous they are the very first moment your eye falls upon them. ⁠ But some yarns are a bit more modest. They want you to get to know them a bit before their full glory is revealed.⁠ And had I just seen this yarn in the skein, I would have thought 'ooooh, lovely colors, very cheerful, but maybe just a bit too chaotic for me personally [...]

Did you miss them? Because I know I was missing them...⁠ ⁠These are the next round of patterns to come back out (as part of the massive pattern reformat/update project that was supposed to take up most of 2020, but then 2020 turned out to be rather more eventful than anyone anticipated, so it's been extended into 2021).⁠ They all follow the same formula, start with a mellow background yarn, then pick a nifty contrast yarn and do Fancy Stuff With Slipped Stitches. They're my favorite sort of colorwork (the kind where you only use one yarn per row), and they [...]