Indie Design Gift-A-Long

This year, I'm participating in the Indie Design Gift-A-Long on Ravelry, as both a designer and a participant. I'm so excited about this as it looks like it is going to be a lot of fun.

Here's the basic rundown:

• There are 293 indie designers participating.
• The GAL runs from Thursday, November 13 at 8 PM (EST) through December 31 at 11:59 PM (EST)
• The GAL sale runs from November 13 at 8 PM (EST) through November 21 at 11:59 PM (EST)
• For the sale, all GAL-chosen patterns are 25% off by using the code giftalong2014.
• Each designer has chosen somewhere from 4-20 patterns to include in the sale.
• That means there are 3822 patterns on sale!
• The GAL itself has lots of games and prizes.
• Games include trivia/scavenger hunts
• Prizes are given not just for finishing items but also for posting WIPs and other types of things
• Prizes include electronic coupons for a free pattern from a certain participating designer (1866 of these prizes!!!)
• Prizes also include some really amazing physical prizes
• All paid patterns, not just those are on sale, by participating designers are eligible for prizes

You can get more information (and participate) in the group on Ravelry. I'll also be sharing more information on this blog and through my other social media channels (including interviews with two of the participating designers). And four of my patterns will be on sale during the sale period (all but Criseyde are eligible for GAL prizes):

And you have absolutely got to go here to see the amazing infographic (this link has a countdown; I'm posting the static one below) put together by 80skeins.

I hope you'll join me in participating in the GAL. Even though we have two days before the official start, the group is already quite active with lots of chat and planning, so go join now!

Woolee Winder Fun

I'd been considering getting a Woolee Winder for a long time. On of my reasons not to get it was because of the three wheels that I had, they were all different enough (double drive, single drive, and a Joy) even though they were all Ashfords, that I would have to get three different Woolee Winders. Since that's not really a good budget option, I had to pick one wheel for the Winder and I just couldn't decide.

Then I sold my Traditional. Now with only two wheels, it cut the decision making down a little. But I still wasn't sure I even truly wanted a Woolee Winder. Then one of the women in my knitting group brought in her espinner with a Woolee Winder for someone else to try. After seeing the Winder in action and talking to her about it, I decided to make the plunge and get one, but I still needed to decide which wheel. After reading a bit on the Ashford forum on Ravelry, it seems like with the Joy, the Woolee Winder doesn't fit when it is folded up and in the bag and people carry the Winder separately. Since I do like the sliding hook flyer (and the bobbin size) on my Joy and I don't want to have to carry the Winder separately, I decided to go for one for my Traveller.

I wasn't sure how long it would take to get the Winder. But not too long after I placed my order, I received an email about my order--they wanted to make sure that they got the right one to me so asked a couple of questions about my wheel (in particular the whorl). After we determined which type of Traveller I had, I got a shipping notice. Excitement! I checked several times a day until I saw the expected delivery date. On that day, I listened and listened for the mailman (always come mid to late afternoon) and when I heard him, I waited at the door until he got to my house and then met him halfway up my driveway (I think I surprised him!).

Although I had several editing jobs on my desk, I wanted to take the Woolee Winder for a spin. So I opened the box, pulled out the beautiful piece of equipment, and grabbed my wheel. I took off the flyer and went to put on the Woolee Winder. Oh no! I forgot one important bit: I had ordered the larger size of Woolee Winder but the place where the orifice of the flyer sits on the wheel was set up for a standard size flyer. I quickly jumped to my computer and found the part I needed (just $2.95). Too bad I didn't still have my Traditional as I had a jumbo flyer for it so would have had the right part.

Then it was time to wait for the mail again. Yesterday the part arrived. Once again, I dropped everything and got my wheel out. I added the new part and then tried the Woolee Winder again. It fit perfectly. Well, almost perfectly. The big wooden knob that is used to adjust the tension gets in the way if it is unscrewed too much (and it looked like where I needed the tension set was right where the flyer would hit that knob). I was eventually able to remove the knob part but kept the screw and used a pair of pliers to adjust the tension (I'll have to figure out something else later).

So I started spinning. I had a single that was all ready to be chain plied so that's what I loaded onto my lazy kate. It took a while to get the tension right (and I kept adjusting it quite a few times), but I was spinning. And the Woolee Winder was working just as advertised. But I ran into a snag. Apparently I had overspun the single and there were some really tight corkscrews in there. With the combination of trying to find just the right tension and trying to get those corkscrews out, it was not quite the pleasant spinning experience I wanted. But in the section that weren't overspun, I could finally get into a rhythm and I saw the beauty of the Woolee Winder--once I got into that rhythm, I could just keep going. I didn't have to worry about stopping to move the yarn to another hook and then try to find the rhythm again. I think that if my single had been prepared better, I would have had a lovely time spinning.

But I did get through the single and got yarn:

Overspun in places and definitely not completely balanced, but that was an issue with my original spinning, not the Woolee Winder. I know that I made the right decision in getting it (and getting it for the Traveller as it is in plying that it will be most handy for me), so I'm looking forward to my future plying experiences.

Taking Pictures of Illusion Knitting Is Hard!

Just as the title of the post says, boy, taking pictures of illusion/shadow knitting is hard. By its nature, you have to look at a piece of illusion knitting at an angle in order to see the pattern come out; otherwise, all you see are stripes.

I did an illusion scarf (Doctor Who themed), and taking the pictures of that was challenging. Mostly because I realized after taking a lot of pictures that the edges of the scarf weren't lying straight and they didn't turn out looking very nice, so I had to do it again. But also because it makes the picture itself very long (very tall and very skinny), which is not the best format for displaying the picture. Here's the picture I finally went with for that pattern:

And I'm still not 100% happy with it. Hence the reason I'm so glad I was able to get the "atmospheric" shot to use as the cover photo:

So this morning I set out to take some fairly quick pictures of the matching Don't Blink Illusion Hat so I can have something to show in my call for test knitters. And I realized that taking pictures of flat illusion knitting is infinitely easier than taking pictures of illusion knitting in the round and on a curved surface. I'm going to have to figure out something else for the final shots as these look awful!

Any suggestions? In the meantime, I'll shortly be posting a call for test knitters for this hat pattern and plan to release the pattern before the end of the year.

I'm loving creating and doing illusion knitting, but I'm going to have to figure out a better way of taking pictures of it.

Fiber Festival, Teaching, and Yarn Crawl

It's been a really busy time for me, both as a knitting designer and as an editor. Some days I'm not sure how I'm going to make it through everything and once I have made it past a big event, I'm not sure how I did it. Craziness, but also lots of fun even though I'm exhausted each evening.

The first big event was the Blackland Prairie Artisan and Fibre Faire (BPAFF) in Denison, TX. For this event, since it was a fairly long drive, I chose to stay overnight in a nearby hotel. Not only was it the first time that I was bringing my stuff to a fiber festival, it was also the first time I stayed overnight away from my three-year-old son (two nights even!). It was hard at first (when I dropped him off at my mom's and knew I wouldn't be tucking him into bed that night), but I was so busy and exhausted that I didn't have much time to dwell on missing him. But I was really happy to see him on Sunday!

I got to the location a little later than expected, so I put the other people in my booth a bit behind in setting up since I had the tables (sorry!), but once I got there, it was set-up time. The other ladies in the booth (MAFIA: Mansfield Area Fiber Inspired Artisans) have done this type of thing before, so they were able to get things set up pretty quickly. We did have one scary moment when the grids on the table got a bit top heavy and almost fell forward, but two of us where right there and caught them in time and we managed to figure out a way to secure them so they wouldn't topple over. Whew!

My space included my handspun yarn and earrings and keychains made with my handspun as well as my patterns and the samples. I used waterfall hooks to hang the handspun but found that they weren't great because they then overshadowed the stuff beneath them. I also secured my samples to the grids with zip ties--for the scarves that wasn't the greatest idea in the end because they were held with one tie so both of them stretched out from the weight of hanging. Fortunately, once I got home and reblocked them, they went right back into shape. Another whew!

The worst thing about the festival was the heat. Fortunately it wasn't over 100 degrees outside, but inside felt like it was. We were in a big arena used for livestock shows so no A/C and the giant fans overhead didn't do much. I had brought a small portable fan that we plugged in and aimed into our booth which helped a little but not much. And there was one corner of our booth that was just completely too hot. But the ladies who organized the festival were amazing! They kept bringing around cold bottles of water to the vendors (as soon as I finished one bottle, they were making the rounds again), which was very much appreciated.

I got to meet a lot of neat people who came by the booth and got to learn how to use Square--especially the card reader which didn't want to work for me. Argh.

One of the other things I did at this festival was teach a knitting class on how to work cables without using a cable needle. My class was small (five) and included a range of experience, but I felt that overall it was successful. And it made me realize how much I miss being in a classroom. I so much enjoyed working with the students in the class and helping them learn this new skill and cheering them on when they got it. I'm going to work on developing more knitting classes and sending in proposals to other fiber festivals. I want to get back into the classroom more often. And the best part about teaching a knitting class vs. a college English class? No grading!

----

So the other big event was the DFW Yarn Crawl. MAFIA was a location this year and operated out of the house of the MAFIA organizer. We had some great stuff under her roof (which she had to live with and be tempted by for 10 days!!) and quite a few shopper during the crawl. I was there for a good chunk of time and got to meet a lot of people who were surprised (in a good way) that all of these indie dyers and designers were right there (nearby for some shoppers or across DFW for others).

Once again I set up my space and was unhappy with the waterfall hooks but wasn't sure how to get past that. This time on the samples, though, I used some hangers and put the scarves on the display figures and was able to spread out the shawl on the wall. During the first weekend, the MAFIA host had a great idea for how to display my stuff without using the waterfall hooks.

So much better, I think, although I'm still thinking about ways that I can change this up to have a better display as I'm still not 100% happy with it. I really want the emphasis to be on the patterns rather than the handspun, so I need to brainstorm and experiment a bit more.

I'll get a chance to do that on a limited scale this weekend as Saturday is the Fall Gift Market at Jacob Rewards Farm. Three of us from MAFIA will be there with our wares. If you're in the area, I hope you'll stop by.

After this, we (meaning MAFIA) don't have any big events planned until DFW Fiber Fest in six months. We're considering some other avenues before then since six months (especially during the colder weather when people want to knit!) is a long time. In the meantime, I'm continuing to design (new shawl pattern almost finished testing and another new shawl pattern soon to enter testing) and I have a full editing calendar ahead of me. (I just finished editing a truly wonderful epic medieval fantasy book..) So even if we don't have any events, I'll still be pretty busy.

Value of a Picture

Yesterday I released my new shawl pattern, the Astolat Shawl. When I first released it, I used a close up of the stitch pattern as the main cover photo:

I really like this picture and was extremely happy when I saw it come out of my camera, so that's why I used it. But I'm wondering if it's not quite as "clickable" as I wanted it to be. When I first released the pattern, I did get a few favorites (and sold a copy right away), but for the first few hours, movement was slow, even though I had posted around Ravelry about it. I checked the Patterns page in the "Hot Right Now" order and even after going through 6-7 pages, I didn't see my pattern. I thought perhaps the release was a bit of a bust.

On almost a whim, I decided to change out the cover photo for one of my sister (my model) running with the shawl. I was really happy when I saw this picture because of the movement that her hair shows while still having the shawl mostly in focus.

I thought that it couldn't hurt to try out the new photo. And then it happened. More favorites. I checked Hot Right Now and found Astolat at the top of page 3. The HRN pages update every hour, so I spent the last few hours before bed refreshing. I was thrilled to see it move to page 2. Could it go all the way to page 1? I wondered. Even though I was tired, I stayed up until just past 11:00 so I could check the page once more (worried that it would lose momentum overnight and I might miss it if it did move to the first page). And what did I see? There was Astolat on page 1 in the bottom row. I'll take it! I went to sleep with a smile on my face.

This morning I woke up to find that it had moved up a bit on page 1 and my latest refresh had it moving up two more spots. Wait, it's just past the hour. Refresh time. Woot!! It moved up five more spots. It's now #30 for Hot Right Now patterns. Thank you so much to everyone who has viewed the shawl, favorited it, and bought it. I'm excited to see more versions of the shawl pop up on Ravelry (the test knitters have some lovely ones already!).

I don't know if the picture change truly made a difference. Perhaps it would have still taken off with the original cover photo, but I can't really determine that. I just know that it seemed to have stalled with the original picture and picked up momentum when I changed it. I know that photography is one of the main selling points for patterns, but this experience really highlights how important it just might be to pick the right cover shot!

P.S. The name comes from the story of the Fair Maid of Astolat (aka Lady of Shalott) as told by Sir Thomas Malory. I've summarized the story on the project page and on my website.

Darn Pretty Needles

So I'm a complete convert to DyakCraft's Darn Pretty needles (as well as the Heavy Metals in the smaller sizes). I've placed several orders and have also gotten some through destashes. My goal is to have at least one in every color currently offered. Here's my list so far:

5" interchangeables in Vermont Apple - these were the ones I first received, though a destash. They are quite lovely although at first I thought that I would destash them myself when my other sets arrived. But the more I used them, the more I fell in love, so they're staying with me.


5" interchangeables in Vermont Rosewood - part of my original order. Gods, these are a gorgeous deep dark wood color.

Rosewood

3.5" interchangeables in Emerald - I knew that I wanted a color and some of the pictures of Emerald were a deep but bright green that was just stunning. I was so happy to get mine and fine that same saturated shade. Love.

One pair of 3.5" tips in Positively Pink - I wasn't sure that I wanted a whole set in pink so I thought I'd try one. Yeah, I'd totally do a whole set in pink. Yum!

Positively Pink and Emerald

Set of DPNs in sock sizes in Winter Sky, striped - I wasn't sure whether to order stripes or swirls for the DPNs. I think part of the "danger" with stripes is that depending on how they are cut, they might not show all the possible colors in that colorway. Such is the case with my Winter Sky needles. I'm completely missing the pinkish color of Winter Sky. Not to say that the needles are not pretty, but they don't say "Winter Sky" to me, so I may at some point consider ordering a different set or trying to trade for another set in swirls.

Set of DPNs in larger sizes in Turquoise - beautiful. I do wonder if I had swapped my color choices (turquoise for small sizes and Winter Sky for larger) if I would have seem more color variation for the Winter Sky with the larger circumference.

I wanted the two sets to match, but they almost look exactly the same. You can see some bits of charcoal in the Winter Sky but no pink and from far away like this, they look just like the Turquoise ones.

Just Turquoise

The Winter Sky

One pair of 3.5" tips in Madras - Just got these today. This was not really one of the colors that I felt immediately drawn to, but now that I've seen one in person, I'm so glad that I got it. As you turn the needle, you see different colors shift into prominence or fade into the background.

One pair of 3.5" tips in Malachite - Also received today. In my head, Malachite was one of the solid tones but just looking at the website I see they are listed under the multi tones. And I can now see why. They have very clear (those nicely blended) swirls of blue and green.

One pair of 5" tips in Bubblegum - I almost didn't get these since I have some Bubblegum coming in another order, but I decided to go ahead. Very happy that I did since the order I have is for straights which I probably won't use very often. And Bubblegum is a color that deserves to be used more often, which it will be since it's in a size 8 which is one of my most used sizes.

The three pairs that I got today. From top to bottom: Madras, Bubblegum, Malachite

 

My interchangeable tips collection so far (minus the ones currently in use)

On order are a set of mini straights in Bubblegum and a interchangeable set in the Heaven on Earth mix, which will include Heaven on Earth, Charcoal, Indigo, and Chestnut. Seeing pictures of that mix set has just made me so excited about it, but I just placed the order so it will be at least six months before I see them. I'll just have to wait, but I'm so very much looking forward to it.

P.S. I haven't blogged about it yet, but expect to be hearing a lot about Indie Books Gone Wild in the future as I have joined the editorial team! We devote our editing services specifically to indie authors. It's an amazing group of ladies that I am so proud to be part of! Here's the post where I am introduced!

P.P.S. I got a Ravelry message from a blogger who does a featured indie knitting designer post each week. She wants to feature me in an upcoming post! So exciting! That was definitely a "feeling like a designer" moment. So in another month or so, I'll post here when my profile gets posted over there.

Good things are happening in both of my business worlds!

Finished Scarf and Finished Book

I finished two things yesterday and today, a scarf that has been on my loom for months and a pretty good book.

As for the scarf, it is my second weaving project that I have completed. Weaving doesn't actually take that much time (it's setting it all up that takes the most time--the actual weaving goes quickly) and it took only an hour or two to finish the scarf. The scarf that I started several months ago (I can't remember exactly when). Why has it been sitting unfinished for so long? Because, to be honest, although weaving does have its perks, it's just not my "thing" especially compared to knitting and spinning. I've had my loom for well over a year and have made just two scarves. I've considered selling my loom, but I got such a great deal on it that I fear that one day I might want to get more into weaving and I'll never be able to replace the loom for what I paid for it. So I'll hold onto it for now. (But if any of my local fiber people want to borrow it for a little while, I'm happy to loan it out.)

Anyway, the yarn I used was given to me by a friend who had tried several knitting projects with it and nothing really worked with the colors. I do think that the yarn was made for a weaving project, as it does look quite nice. It's not super soft though (superwash wool and nylon), even after a good washing, so I'm not sure how truly useful it will be to wear around the neck. Anyway, without further ado, here's the finished woven scarf:

So the other thing that I finished this morning was a book I've been reading, Derivatives of Displacement #1: A Pair of Docks by Jennifer Ellis.

I discovered this book through Indie Books Gone Wild; one of the editors there did a proofreading on the book.

It took me a little while to get into the book (part of that could be that I'm a distracted reader these days with the toddler around) and to start to like the main character, Abbey. At first she seems like just a brain walking around in the body, rigidly wanting to sticks to rules, scientific or otherwise. But as the book progresses, she starts to bend a little and by the end of the book, although she hasn't thrown out her belief in science, she comes to realize that the world contains things that can't always be explained through scientific terms. Once she does start opening up, her character becomes much easier to relate to and care about. (Caring about the characters is one of the things I find most important in books I enjoy.)

Because this is the first book in a series and also because the kids themselves are trying to figure out what is going on with these stones and where they are traveling, it does take the reader a while to get any sort of answers to what is going on. But the second half (and especially the last third) of the book really picks up and it was at that point that I found myself wanting to pick up the book more often and leave the toddler to his own devices so I could finish it (sometimes that worked better than other times).

And although some answers are provided in the book, it ends with more questions (especially after what Abbey learns right at the end) which lead directly into the setup for the next book. Although I don't feel the need for the next book RIGHT NOW as I do with some books, I am disappointed to have to wait for the next one instead of being able to go straight to it. So I'll be keeping my eye on this series and picking up the next book when it does come out (according to the author's Amazon page, it will be coming out in October).