They’re up!
They're back, but not for long! I bring my retired patterns back for a few days once or twice a year, and they just went live. Let's run through the details real quick, short version first if you know what you're looking for/are in a hurry, longer version below that with more info in case you still have questions. Short version: The retired patterns are up on both ravelry and payhip. They'll be up at least through Sunday night. Paid patreon folks get an extra 25% discount on everything in either shop for the first day of the sale (details [...]
A little birdy told me…
The retired patterns are coming back for a few days later this week! TL;DR: Retired patterns come back for a few days once or twice a year (usually in summer and after Thanksgiving). That's happening later this week, they'll be up for a few days, then they'll go away again. If you catch them in the first 24 hours, I'll have a little something extra. I'll send a note to folks who get messages from me (either mailing list or patreon) when they go live. Make sure that's you if you want to hear (or you can hope the algo [...]
Treasure!
I found a treasure at the thrift shop! Looks to be about three yards of a lovely, slightly slubby, slightly tweedy fabric in what I think is either wool or a wool blend (it's in the wash now, and I'll go all mad scientist on it to see if I can figure out the fabric more later). For a whopping five dollars. It's likely destined to be a skirt (I may be planning a trip to my favorite fabric store to find a contrasting fabric for pockets and the waistband), but I am, at least theoretically, also open to suggestions!
Petal variations
Swinging back by just to show off some of the different ways the paper flowers from Posy come out if you play with different sizes of petals (and because I mean really, they're pretty, they're fun, and I feel like someone out there absolutely meant to go get the book and then the summer got busy and you sort of forgot and now you've been reminded)! Really though, I cannot say enough good things about having your friends over to goof off and make silly paper flowers for an afternoon. I think you should do it, I think your friends [...]
Short Rows
Ok short rows...short rows are how you make the egg look like an egg, rather than a weird circle. And short rows are also one of those things that can feel completely confounding when you first hear about them (I mean they did for me, and I assume I'm not totally alone in that). But all they really are is a little bit of extra fabric you sneak into your work to change the shape of the piece. That's it. Everything else is detail. And folks get really really really into that detail! Like people have OPINIONS about the correct [...]
Compromise
I think I found a reasonable compromise between my baser tendencies and the incessant demands of capitalism. Meaning I spent Monday dutifully moving projects closer to done (the problem is many projects have a timeline that lasts for months, so I literally can't actually finish it all the way through in a day or a week or even a month, all I can do is do the next step, but that never actually feels like finishing anything), then shoved the stuff to start this in my purse and cast on while I was out doing things yesterday. Because it's not [...]
Lifted Increases
So these are my favorite subtle increases. Note I said subtle, not invisible, because physical objects do not work that way! But they're a little more understated than either yarn over based increases (which tend to leave holes) or knit front back/make 1 increases (which tend to give you twisted stitches, and sometimes sort of also holes). As always, this will make so so so much more sense if you look at your knitting, think about how it goes together, and understand what you're trying to do (rather than memorizing a set of steps and working them by rote). I [...]
Writing Lines
Ok, question first, then story time! So the question is, do I drop what I'm supposed to be doing, what I planned to be doing (namely getting ready for the retired pattern thing and finishing up the egg pattern) and, um, knit a pencil? Or do I cosplay as a respectable grownup and finish my work first then do the pencil if the enthusiasm holds. For you see...I found a treasure... Thursday I was headed home when I came upon a barn sale (new for me...yard sale yes, garage sale yes, but barn sale was new). And in front of [...]
Cat Butt Cast On
Right, so, up to you what you call this one. But once I heard that particular name for it I certainly never forgot. But either will work if you're trying to search online for other ways to do it. This cast on starts with making a loop of yarn around your finger (or something else), forming your first round of stitches around that loop of yarn, then tightening the initial loop up to make it as small as possible. That means your stitches start out already joined in the round, ready to start working out from the middle. It's nicely [...]
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