Friday, November 20, 2015

Indie Design Gift-A-Long

It's that time of year again... time to cast-on holiday gifts... or at least to start planning them. And I know a great place to start!


TATU Socks

The 2015 Indie Design Gift-A-Long on Ravelry began last evening. A group of over 300 knit and crochet designers are offering from 5-20 patterns each with a 25% discount through midnight (EST) next Friday, November 27. There are over 5000 patterns on sale!

You can browse by designer in the Participating Designer Thread.

Or, you can check out these Gift-A-Long Pinterest Boards:

Hats and Head Things
Cowls, Scarves and Neck Things
Shawls and Stoles 
Sweaters and Other Garments 
Hand and Arm Things
Feet and Leg Things
Baby and Kid Things (except toys) 
Toys, Home and Miscellaneous Things
Crochet Patterns

After you get all of your patterns and your gift knitting plans in place, don't forget to join the Indie Designer Gift-A-Long group.

There you will find some amazingly lively and incredibly fun GAL-2015 KAL/CAL's with tons of gift knitting support, some really fun games, lots of friendly chatter, and thousands (yes, thousands) of prizes! The fun goes on and on every day until the end of the year 2015!

Ready, set, GIFT!





Wednesday, November 18, 2015

Dear Daughter (I know that you have been knitting lately),


And then you sent this photo of your little dog sleeping in a cowl that I made (for you). "For your blog", you messaged. Thanks, my blog could always use a good pet photo!

I know that you have been knitting lately.

You gave me that Honey Cowl project of yours (no project photos) when I saw you about a month ago, and you had me do a little repair work. (It really was not all that bad.)

Did you know that the yarn I gave you for the cowl was the Berroco Ultra Alpaca yarn leftover from the Feldspar pullover that I knit for your dad?


He wore it on Saturday when we went out to dinner while you were home for the weekend.

I cleaned up this pile of abandoned knitting from your bedroom floor where we left it after our abandoned knitting discussion. I ripped out the skinny scarf that you were teaching someone how to knit (and you don't remember who)... and the hat that you started that was coming out way too big.



I know how tough it is for newer knitters to rip out old knitting, but sometimes it puts you where you need to be to move forward.

I have a new hat pattern (I custom wrote) and yarn ready for you when you finish your Honey Cowl. I am looking forward to seeing the finished project. I love it when you knit, but I love you whether you knit or do not knit. Love, Mom.

(PS: Its been almost a year since I have had a new pattern in a magazine, but it looks like I am getting a sock pattern published next year! Yeah!)