GAL Knitting

Well, we’re nearly half way through the sale period for this year’s GAL. Many thanks to all of you who have bought my patterns so far!

As for me, I’ve bought 2 patterns from participating designers myself. I bought Eloina purely because they’re beautiful socks and this time of the year makes me crave cables like I crave chocolate.

Then, after a particularly cold run, I remembered the interview I did with Sharon Boswell 2 GALs back. So I’m now the proud owner of Brumby Jill as well. It will be perfect for running in the cold.

Brumby Jill by Sharon Boswell

Then I clicked on over to Knit Picks’ big sale (over now) and ordered the yarn for each. It hasn’t arrived yet, but I’ll be joining the KALs as soon as it does! Hope to see you there!

GAL Starts Tomorrow Night!!!

At 8pm EST tomorrow, the 3rd annual Gift-a-Long officially starts! I’m so excited!!!

There are 335 designers participating this year, including me. That’s absolutely amazing. There are also more prizes than I’ve ever seen before. The GAL hasn’t even officially started yet, and the -along threads are already getting longer by the minute!

I have 15 of my own patterns discounted for the sale period this year, and ALL of my paid patterns are eligible for prizes if you post about them in one of the -along threads.

Of course, I’m already starting to prowl the list of eligible designs for my own holiday knitting purposes. I’m excited about the number of big-time designers participating, but I do think I’ll find some unknown newbie to buy from, just because I like “discovering” new talent.

Are you participating in the GAL? What are you most excited about?

GAL Is Coming!

Only a couple weeks left til GAL 2015! New to the Gift-a-Long? You can find plenty of detailed info here, but basically, GAL is an annual sale on patterns by a huge (and I mean HUGE) group of indie designers, including myself. The sale is followed by 6 weeks of knit- and crochet-alongs and many, many prizes donated by the same designers and usually a number of indie yarnies and other artisans as well. This year’s sale runs Nov. 19-27.

This will be my 3rd year participating. It really is quite fun, even for those of us who aren’t eligible for prizes! It’s also a great way to learn about new designers you might otherwise have missed!

Because of the sheer number of designers now involved, this year we are limiting each designer to 20 patterns to include in the sale. All patterns will still be eligible for knit-along prizes, but for those of us who’ve been designing a while (or prolifically!) it can be tricky to pick just 20 to discount.

So I’m putting the decision in your hands. Which of my indie patterns would you like to get at a steep discount? I have a thread running here to discuss it and make requests or suggestions. Of course, I’d love to hear from you in the comments too!

Updates

So I suppose ya’ll are wondering where I’ve been lately, huh? Well, the biggest part of that answer is…work. Not the fun designing kind, but the (usually also fun, but currently exhausting) kind that pays the bills. I won’t bore you with the details. Instead, here are some more exciting things that have been keeping me busy.

The garden is in full swing, with newly ripe strawberries every day, and plenty of blossoms on the blackberries and peppers. My tomatoes always seem a bit behind the rest of the garden, unfortunately. Last night we had some seriously unseasonable cold (although not frost, thank jeebus) and I had to get quite creative covering the more tender plants, most of which have been in the ground a good two weeks already.

Here also is a peek at an upcoming shawl design I’ve been working on. It’s deliberately smooshed and low quality, but you can probably get a good idea of just how lacy it is. It’s quite an involved little sampler of a project. I’ve also been back and forth a lot lately with the publisher and tech editor of that pattern collection I worked on all last summer and fall. These sort of things take an obscene amount of time compared to self-publishing, but it’s in the final stages now!

Now that test-prep is pretty much done with and it’s really just full on test-mode for the rest of the school year, I’m not bringing home quite as much work and am thinking again about KALs. There hasn’t been much input in the polls thread, so if you’d like to participate in a Feel Good KAL, please chime in! Likewise, if you’re interested in donating a prize I’d love to hear from you too. I have a few possibilities in mind already, but more is never a bad thing!

Spring Fever

I am alive! Spring has arrived and I’ve been a bit distracted by real life lately, so forgive me for not posting much on the blog!

As much as I’ve been doing lately, there’s really not much to talk about! It’s mostly been teacher stuff, which is often time consuming but not really that interesting to hear about. There has been plenty of knitting and pattern writing though. The next pattern in the tie collection is only waiting on photography. Can’t wait to get it out there!

Things are also happening over in my Ravelry group. If you haven’t taken my KAL survey yet, please do! I’m hoping to launch one soon! I’ve also got a test knit starting soon. Want early (and free) access to my upcoming hat pattern? Come test it for me!

Happy GAL Ya’ll!

It’s officially GAL time! Are you as excited as I am? I plan on going on a serious shopping spree this weekend! I’ve been carefully avoiding looking at the Pinterest boards (well, mostly) because they are so, so dangerous. I may have lost a good half-hour on the sweater board already, and I SO don’t have time for another sweater with all the upcoming designs going on. The rest of the boards are totally getting devoured once I have an hour or two to devote to it (and buying) this weekend though.

Which types of patterns do you plan to knit for the holidays? Or for that matter, just because but before the end of the year? I don’t tend to lean towards any particular type of pattern myself, but for the sake of my upcoming design deadlines I’m going to try to limit my GAL knitting to accessories like hats and mittens. Don’t forget that patterns you don’t buy during the sale may also be eligible for some of prizes in the GAL! As long as they’re indie patterns by a participating designer and not free patterns, they totally count.

As a designer I’m also really psyched for the start of the GAL, and not only because the extra exposure for my independently published patterns is nice. It’s actually really fun putting my favorite other designers out there, and I have a pair of really interesting interviews coming up to share on this blog. Keep an eye on my G+ and Twitter for other exciting info on participating designers.

Just as a reminder, you can find all of my discounted patterns here. The discount lasts until next Friday, November 21. I hope you’ll take advantage!

It’s Almost GAL Time!

Thanks for all your empathy and warm wishes this past week; every little bit is truly appreciated. As promised, I have a real post this week.

Did you participate in last year’s Indie Gift-a-Long on Ravelry? Dozens of designers and hundreds of knitters and crocheters did! Sign-ups have begun for this year’s participating designers, and we’re already up to over 250 designers. I seriously can’t wait to see how many makers we get. Just over a week to go!

So those of you who didn’t participate last year are probably wondering what on earth I’m talking about. The Gift-a-Long (GAL) is a huge event on Ravelry that starts in November and ends New Year’s Eve. It’s designed to both provide exposure for indie designers and provide some seriously sweet discounts and prizes for avid knitters and crocheters. For the first week of the event all eligible patterns are 25% off, and we all (even the designers, frequently) go on a shopping spree to get all the patterns we plan to knit for the holidays. This is the “gift”  part of the Gift-a-Long. You can see which designs your favorite designers are including by checking the GAL bundles on their designer page (mine is linked below) or see all the participating patterns on Pinterest.

Once you’ve got your patterns it’s time to join a (few) KAL/CAL(s). Each KAL/CAL gets its own thread in the GAL Ravelry group where we all share progress, cheer each other on, and ask questions as relevant. Thus the “-along” part of the Gift-a-Long. The designers tend to be extra busy during this time as we’re not only frequenting the threads to answer questions and cheerlead, but also often working on projects of our own! Another good reason to be an active participant in these threads is that, every now and then and without warning, a mod will post that the next person to post a WIP photo gets a prize! The prizes range from free patterns to yarn and other fibery goodies.

While only select patterns (by which I mean hundreds) are eligible for the discount and only for a one week period, all independently published patterns by participating designers are welcome in the -alongs. Additionally, all paid (not free) patterns by the designers are eligible for prizes. Some designers save new releases for this period for this reason. There are also periodic games and contests where the winners get still more prizes, and a huge giveaway extravaganza at the New Year’s Eve “party”. For those of you who are not new to Feel Good Knitting, yes, I will be giving away prizes in addition to my usual birthday/New Year’s giveaways.

As you can see, this is a big, big deal. This year’s specifics are below (note that some links will lead to empty pages until the start of the event). I hope to see you in the threads!

Sale Dates– November 13-21, 2014

Event Dates – November 13-December 31, 2014

Ravlery Group – Indie Design Gift-a-Long

Pinterest Boards – List of boards with links

Prizes – Listed here!

GAL FAQ– Here!

Operation Gratitude

Since my last attempt at a nice, mindless project didn’t go so well, and I still have lots of hours of waiting around ahead of me in the next few weeks, I’ve decided to try again. I’m going to make a nice, simple diagonal rib scarf for Operation Gratitude, a charity that sends care packages to deployed U.S. servicemen as well as those wounded in combat. As a veteran’s wife and a knitter, it seemed like a pretty nice way to burn through some stash.

I’m going to host a little KAL/CAL in my Ravelry group if anyone’s interested in joining. All the relevant details can be found here, and donations to servicemen in other (non-US) militaries are also welcome. It’s a great way to use up some stash!