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?

2014 Reflections

It is now after dark and almost time to start thinking about champagne and kisses!

Oh who am I kidding, I’ve been ready for this all day! New Year’s Eve is also for reflecting on the year that’s passed though, and I think this has been a pretty good one. Not a whole lot has happened in my personal life, although the trip to Norway will certainly make the lifetime highlight reel.

What about my fiber life? I knit and crocheted an even 8200 yards of yarn this year, including some new designs that are not yet published or on Ravelry. Add in the WIPs currently on the needles (I only put completed projects in the calculator), and that puts me about on par with last year.

In spite of all those projects, this year I only released 3 new designs! I spent a large portion of the year working on designs that are not self-published, which is a first for me. Unfortunately, that means slower release times for you guys. It does also mean you’ve got more new patterns to look forward to in 2015 though!

I also made time for spinning this year, although not enough to warrant the spinning widget I talked about last year. Kind of makes me wonder where all my time went. Too many hours spent on that darn bill-paying day job, I’ll bet! I also added a lucky 13 finished projects to my Ravelry notebook, 4 of which are sweaters. While they’re still pretty heavy on the usual blue/green/purple, there are some distinctively different colors represented this year too. Yay me! All in all, a pretty good year I think!

P.S. Today is my birthday, did you get a gift from me? If you have one of my patterns in your Ravelry wishlist, you might have! Log in to find out.

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!

Ravelry Bundles

Has anyone played with the new Ravelry bundles yet? How are you using them? How would you like to see them used? If you haven’t checked them out yet, you can see an example on my designer page. I’ve put together a featured bundle with patterns to match the weather here in the northern hemisphere, but it looks lonely and strange up there by itself.

 

What other sorts of bundles do you figure people will be looking for? What kind of bundles would you find helpful?

Looking Back

In just a few hours, 2013 will officially be over. What did I accomplish this year? Well, there were some big life “things” this year, most notably the new house and new pup.

But this is a crafting blog. What about my crafting accomplishments? This year I knit 9168 yards, plus a few more if you count a WIP and a design sample not currently registered in Ravelry.

I released 10 new designs and made a serious effort to get my name out there more. Although I managed to afford Ravelry advertising for the first time recently (tech and photo editing had previously sucked up pretty much everything I made), I think the Giftalong was actually the best thing I did for sales all year.

 

I finished 5 adult sweaters and one baby sweater. I created a total of 19 knit projects and 3 crochet ones that are publicly viewable on Ravelry. Swept Away got the most favorites of the bunch, but I think September Storms gets the most day to day use.

 

I also got the hang of spindle spinning and acquired a spinning wheel. I still wouldn’t quite say I’m adept at the wheel, but I’m getting better. It is definitely one more thing on the list of fibery addictions. I can’t even begin to estimate what kind of yardage I spun this year, since so much of it will never be knit. Maybe next year I’ll add a spinning widget to the knitting one.

I did not shrink my stash noticeably. I made plenty with it, but it’s pretty much all been replaced with more. I’m still gonna call that one a win.

P.S. Today is my birthday, did you get a gift from me? If you have one of my patterns in your Ravelry wishlist, you might have! Log in to find out.

Interested in a Gift-along?

November is upon us, making it officially “that time of year”. I’m not generally one to knit all (or even many) of my gifts to others. I keep it strictly for those who ask for something specific. However, it’s not unusual for me to still wind up knitting something for my loved ones for one gift occasion or other. In my family, November through mid-January means Thanksgiving, an aunt’s birthday, Christmas, my birthday, New Year’s, and another aunt’s birthday. Gift knitting for all would make me absolutely go grey.

However, if you are either more ambitious or have a smaller family than me, Ravelry is here to help! Several dozen independently-published designers have banded together to provide a massive array of patterns perfect for holiday crafting, as well as the support of your fellow Ravelers and favorite designers while knitting them. We’re talking to full range of indie designers, from newbie first-timers to quietly productive small-timers like myself to big names like Marnie MacLean and Alex Tinsley. Even better…?

All of the included patterns are 25% off, now through November 15. There are also PRIZES for those who tag their projects and participate in the GAL threads. Those prizes also come from the participating indie designers, as well as a few indie dyers and small time craft-tool makers. Are you drooling yet? If not, the pages and pages of photos of participating designs will fix that! I’m having a hard time convincing myself I don’t have time to knit the 200 or so patterns I now want after paging through that thread. I won’t lie that knowing I’d be helping the economy and a small business also helps it feel worth the dollars I really don’t have.

Interested? The Indie Gift-A-Long runs today through the end of December 31, GMT. Even if you don’t buy a participating pattern during the discount period, you’re still welcome to join in the “-along” portion of the even and try for a prize or two! We’d love to have you!

 

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!

Anniversary Sale!

Today is my 2nd wedding anniversary, and I’m feeling mushy and generous. So, today all purchases in my Ravelry store are $2 off! What will you buy?

Hyacinth?

Leonardtown?

Catch?

Or one of my other fabulous patterns?

Messy Memorial Day

Memorial Day is always a bit “messy” in our household because it’s not an abstract holiday for us, but there’s a bit of extra messy going on today. The shawl is coming along,

Unblocked lace is boring.

but I’ve had to order another pack of beads because there seems to be a disproportionate lack of purple beads in this particular pack. Because this part of the shawl has lace on both sides (as opposed to simply purling, or knitting, the WS rows) it’s also been really slow going. Well, that’s the excuse I’m using anyway. 😉

Additionally, another upcoming design is now ready for test-knitting. This one’s a little adventurous compared to many of my patterns, in part because there are so many suggestions for personalizing it. These cabled knee-highs are not a first-sock pattern, but especially if you participated in my calf poll, we’d love to have you!

Sneak peek of the pattern!

Finally, my apartment is incredibly messy today because we are packing! Our offer has been accepted on a very cute rambler much closer to work, so barring any disasters during the inspection, we are going to become homeowners! I’m suddenly very aware of what an absolute disaster my fiber “corner” has become. Might be time to do a “before and after” for future Messy Mondays!

A Few Realizations

I am not participating in this year’s Knit/Crochet Blog Week, but reading all my friends’ posts has lead me to realize a few things about myself:

1. My favorite overall crafting tool is boring – it’s my spreadsheet program. It really does save me SO much time when designing though. Also, does yarn count as a tool? Because then I’m significantly less boring.

I mean seriously. Yum.

2. I am probably going to break down and by a spinning wheel soon. Thanks a lot, All She Wants to Do is Knit. 😉

3. My stash listing on Rav is seriously out of date.

4. I knit a whole lot of different colors, but almost all of the garments I knit are either blue or green.

…or both

5. My projects list is shockingly lacking in colorwork.