It's Gift-A-Long time!

Hey crafting folks! If you plan to knit or crochet Christmas gifts and/or you want to make something special for yourself, there’s something exciting happening. A big group of indie knit and crochet designers have teamed up for the Indie Design Gift-A-Long on Ravelry, which will run from 13 November to 31 December 2014.

If you enjoy taking part in knit/crochet-alongs (KALs/CALs), there will be forum threads for each type of item (hats, shawls, mittens, etc), and heaps of prizes to be won - both physical prizes and pattern downloads. The idea is to kick-start our gift-knitting and have fun along the way.

If you need patterns, there will be a sale during the first week of the Gift-A-Long. The participating designers (all 293 of us) will each have a selection of our patterns discounted at 25% off. The sale period is 13-21 November. You can see my on-sale patterns collected here. 

All the details are over in the Gift-A-Long group.

One of our designers put together this graphic with some stats about the GAL (click to enlarge). Check out the "designers per capita" graph! ;)

Softness

I've been playing around with some really lovely yarns lately, super-soft and luxurious! I thought I'd tell you about them all at once. ;)

Two of the yarns have been knit into swatches for a secret project - a design submission to the knit magazine Twist Collective. It's my first submission to a publication, so it's been pretty exciting (and nerve-wracking)! I can't show you the swatches, but I can show you the fancy yarn: "ethical superfine merino" from Tasmania's White Gum Wool, and the merino/silk blend "Scrumptious" from Fyberspates, both in 4ply/fingering weight. The silk content in the aptly-named Scrumptious gives it a nice sheen, which helps highlight textured stitch patterns like moss stitch and garter stitch.

White Gum Wool 4ply, and Fyberspates Scrumptious 4ply

Next is a brand-new luxury yarn from New Zealand, which I just had to get my hands on: "Vanitas" from Outlaw Yarn. It's a DK-weight blend of alpaca and a little bit of merino. I love the design of the ball-band!

The colours are inspired by European 'vanitas' paintings of the 16th and 17th centuries. A couple of examples (click to enlarge):

Philippe de Champaigne, Still-Life with a Skull, c.1671

Adriaen van Utrecht, Vanitas - Still Life with Bouquet and Skull, c.1642

Johann de Cordua, Vanité au buste, 1665

So you can see why this yarn appealed to me! I chose the colours 'Vanity' and 'Mahogany'. I'll probably turn them into a cowl and a hat. :)

Lastly, I managed to get my hands on some very special yarn through a bit of luck. I entered a contest on Instagram by posting a photo of a past-or-present knitting project using Zealana's yarn. I entered this photo of my 'Bushwalk Beanie' knit in their Kauri 4ply:

And I won! My very generous prize arrived last week - four balls of the cashmere/possum/silk blend Air laceweight, along with a book of patterns.

It's very, very soft and has Zealana's usual subtly-heathered look and slight halo from the possum fur. I think a striped scarf or shawl will really make the most of this yarn. :)

Temptation

I'm about halfway through the Stasis jersey I've been working on in dribs and drabs for months. It will be lovely when it's finished (fingers crossed), but right now it's at the endless-rounds-of-plain-stockingette stage. And true to form, I'm obsessing over what else I want to make soon! I love the choosing colours + yarn + other variables stage of a new project - Mum say it's the fun part, and I totally agree.

Here are a few of the patterns I'm dreaming of while I slog through my slow work-in-progress... :p

A new shawl design, suitable for homesick Wellingtonians (I want to make one in sky-blue):

Oriental Bay by Sue Schreuder

A cute sheepy cardigan (I'm mulling over various neutral shades):

Angry Sheep Cardigan by Pinneguri

A nice practical knitted top (in either golden or red sock yarn):

Park Slope by Laura Aylor

A graphic shawl (I have the perfect vermillion merino/silk yarn):

Antarktis by KallioKnits

And some cute wee bunnies for Easter:

Henry's Bunny by Sara Elizabeth Kellner

Rainbows over Ravelry

Coinciding with the Summer and Winter Olympics, it's a Ravelry tradition to craft something challenging while the games are on. Crafters enter the Ravellenic Games alone or in teams, competing against themselves to finish their project before the end of the closing ceremonies. This year, because the Winter Olympics are being held in Russia, many of us are crafting rainbow-themed projects to raise awareness and as a gentle protest against Russia's new anti-human-rights laws.

My plan is to make a big crocheted blanket, in concentric rounds alternating between rainbow colours and natural white wool. I'll arrange the rainbow colours in a gradient, splicing in each new colour as the previous one runs out:

Colour amounts not to scale!

I'm probably mad to attempt making a whole blanket in two weeks, but this is supposed to be a challenge, right? :)

The rainbow-coloured yarn is Prism Organic DK from Skeinz, mostly leftovers from making Rowan's Tetris scarf. The natural white is Norway 8ply from Morris & Sons.

The pattern I'll be using is the Op-Art Afghan Square, expanded to one giant square. I used the same pattern last year to make a tree-cosy for Yarn Corner's 'Royal Granny Parade' project. Sadly, many of our tree-cosies were removed by dastardly vandals before I could see them myself, including my one. Ah well, that's yarn bombing... I did get to see photos though! They're all on Facebook here and here.

This one's mine - thanks Bali for the photos. I hope my blankie will have better luck...

 

A tardy cardie

Knitting garments is time-consuming. I fall in love with cool new designs, and put them in my Ravelry queue, and ponder what yarn I might use and what colours would maximise the general awesomeness. But they take me so long to actually knit (in between working on smaller projects), I've made a total of two finished garments to date: a Beatnik jersey and my Chickadee cardie.

Therefore it's not really surprising that the Cria cardigan I started in September, in a big burst of knitting productivity at my parents' house, has gained only about a dozen rows since I've been in Australia. Luckily, I seem to have my garment-making gumption back, and I'm chipping away at my green Cria. On Sunday I brought it to Willie's sister's house, and knit a few rows while they played music in the next room. I couldn't resist trying it on the mannequin-on-stilts that looms in a corner of the lounge...

 

I still have the sleeves and most of the body to knit. I'm using 4ply pure wool yarn from Anna Gratton, which I bought at a Wellington market back in May - which illustrates just how long my 'garment cycle' is!

Naturally, I've been scheming about what cardie or jersey to make next, even though this one won't be finished for a while yet. I have two special batches of 4ply yarn in sufficient quantities, and a short-list of patterns for each. The first is Vintage Purls Sock in 'Hotel Magnifique', which is all crazy rainbows! It will need a relatively plain design - I'm considering Billowing, Barnsley, Deco, and Candelia. I'll have to work out which would suit me best, and what I'd most like to wear.

The second batch of hoarded garment-yarn is Skein Top Draw Sock in 'Golden', which looks like faded sunflowers. I think this yarn will be able to take a little more detail in the design. At the moment I'm torn between Praline, Conic, and the others I mentioned above. Because these skeins are underweight 'seconds', I'll need to calculate the necessary yardage carefully - the long-sleeved designs might be pushing it.

The plotting-and-scheming stage of a project is totally my favourite!