I know a bunch of you will cast on for these right away when they come out tomorrow, so I want to send you on a scavenger hunt today so you'll be all set. The spools need something inside to give them shape. Which sounds a bit vague, but I promise it's not hard! You probably have exactly what you needed kicking around in your kitchen, bathroom, garage, junk drawer, or recycling bin. You’ll need two round, flat, waterproof things of the same size to use as the top and bottom of the spool plus something cylindrical and waterproof to [...]

The little spools are all set to come out on Tuesday (standard 'assuming the malevolent forces that seem to be shaping the timeline do not strike me or my nearest and dearest down with whatever catastrophe they dream up next' disclaimer goes here, because apparently we need that these days, but the pattern is all ready to go). This one is going to be exclusive to patreon folks for a while. And anyone who signs up for patreon at any tier before the end of September will get it for free as part of their membership. It will (probably) come [...]

You know how, when you've been in the middle of a big project for a long time, and it starts to wrap up, it's sometimes a bit...disorienting? Like you were so in it for so long that you got kind of used to that um, let's say 'heightened,' level of fluster and panic and stress? And then when you finish, and things start to calm down, you maybe find you've kind of forgotten how to chill? Like you keep looking around for the thing you're absolutely sure you've forgotten you need to be doing, but you really can't find it, [...]

Ok, I can't keep it to myself any longer. My name is Hunter Hammersen, and I knit Tiny Nonsense!⁠ ⁠ That big project? The one I spent the first half of the year quietly working on and the last three months not so quietly working on? Yeah, this is it!⁠ ⁠ There's a spiffy new website (you're on it right now). The patreon is up. The six returning patterns are out in their shiny new format (if you previously purchased any of the returning patterns, you should have the updated version now).⁠ ⁠ The transition should be pretty seamless for [...]

And here we have Tufted, the last of the six returning patterns! If you're one of the folks who asked me to let you know when I was ready to start sharing the Shiny New Thing, and you've checked your email recently, you'll know why I needed to show this little buddy off last! You might also be able to figure it out if you happen to go lightly snooping around various places online if your the sort to want to do that and really don't want to wait... (Don't worry if you weren't on that list, I'll be sending [...]

There was a plan, but plans can change! The plan was initially 'knit up all the returning patterns so you can show them off and talk about them.' But somehow knitting time is scarce when you're trying to...do all the things. So the new plan is 'you can just go ahead and talk about our returning friends even without knitting a brand new one.' Because really, I don't think anyone will mind!   These little guys are Shiversome, and they'll be joining Palpitation (the hearts), Scintillation (the stars), Hoard (the acorns), and Chimney (the houses) when the patterns come back [...]

So while I did not actually manage to knit a brand new house, I do have something new to show you. Well, no, the towers are not actually new. I knit them back when I knit the houses, I just didn't share them when I first knit them. I didn't show them to anyone back then because the thought of adding Yet Another Thing into that house pattern (the house pattern that already included two different shapes of house in three different sizes and five gauges, had four pages of charts, seven pages of step-by-step photos, and four pages of [...]

Did I have grand plans to knit an extra of each of the patterns that are coming back so I could talk about them and tell you little stories about them and give you soft fuzzy feelings about them? And so I'd have some sort of content to share with you while I'm doing the never ending list of tiny, fiddly tasks that are involved in this massive project? Yes! Did I manage to pull that off for the hearts and the stars and the acorns? Yeah, somehow I did! Did I manage to do that for the houses? Did [...]

Ok, back to needles! We talked about whether you need to use DPNs (no, use anything that lets you knit in the round) and how to think about gauge for tiny things (usually 'make a dense fabric' rather than 'hit a specific gauge'). But there are times you need to think about gauge more precisely. For my patterns, that's mostly for things you can wear. For wearables, getting a specific finished size is usually important. A hat won’t fit if it’s 2 inches bigger or smaller than you expect. So getting a particular gauge is important, and you will need [...]