Mod Squad Favorites

Lindsay Lewchuk Announcements, Designers, Gift-a-long, Indie Design Gift-a-Long 2015 Leave a Comment

As we prepare to hand out the physical prizes drawing the Indie Design Gift-a-long to a close, I wanted to take a moment to highlight my favorite patterns from the Mod Squad. Without these volunteers the event would not be the fun, engaging, face-paced, adrenaline pumping, crafting event to end all gifting events that it is. In considering how best to thank them for all the hours they put in over the six weeks, I thought what better way than a mod squad pattern round-up. So get your queue buttons ready, you won’t want to miss these gems!!! Not to mention it gives you plenty to craft while you wait for GAL2016. From our fearless leaders – the admins. (Okay …

Squib Hill Hat Pattern Review Indie Design Gift-a-long

Lindsay Lewchuk Announcements, Designers, Gift-a-long, Indie Design Gift-a-Long 2015 Leave a Comment

So great I knit it thrice! The giftee’s prompt, find a hat that completely covers my ear lobes. So I searched and searched and searched. I sent out inquiries on carrier pigeons, looking high and low for a hat that completely covered his earlobes. I was DESPESARTE to find a hat that suited this prompt or be in for another year of humiliation as he wore his fake bear Russian style hat with hidden ear muffs that came down when needed. Thanks to the FO thread in the gift-a-long I happened upon a project where the giftee’s earlobes seemed to be completely covered & I inquired of the knitter about the point exactly. I showed dad (aka giftee) the results …

Twas the Knit Night Before Christmas

Lindsay Lewchuk Announcements, Designers, Gift-a-long, Indie Design Gift-a-Long 2015 9 Comments

An Indie Design Gift-a-long adaptation on the classic Christmas eve story by Clement Clarke Moore (1823). Read it here or in full illustrated form on the Pinterest board here. ‘Twas the knit night before Christmas… and all through my LYS,All the crafters were stitching Indie Design Gift-a-long patterns like Cookie the Mouse…;The Fair Isle Christmas Stockings were hung by the chimney with care,In hopes that St. John’s Wood Nicke’s Hat soon would be there;The children were nestled all Snug in their beds;While visions of Sugar Plum… danced in their heads;And Puddles in his Rian Cowl, and dad in his Squib Hill hat,We’d just settled our Brains for a long Winter Haven nap,When out on the Morning Mist lawn there arose …

Rian Cowl Pattern Review Indie Design Gift-a-long

Lindsay Lewchuk Announcements, Designers, Gift-a-long, Indie Design Gift-a-Long 2015 Leave a Comment

One of the pleasures of the Indie Design Gift-a-long is taking time off from “work” knitting to knit other designers’ creations for my Christmas gifting. My first FO for GAL2015 is Rian Cowl by Loraine Birchall. This super quick knit has an easy to memorize lace pattern, which is worked every other round. Loraine did a great creating the pattern and included both charted and written instructions for your knitting pleasure. Mom selected 100% organic cotton with eco dyes Inca Eco in Sage for her Christmas present after she saw I started to wind some stash organic white :-). The st gauge was off, but it was easy enough to compensate – I just cast on fewer stitches (20 fewer …

#GAL2015 Tour: The Stats

Lindsay Lewchuk Announcements, Designers, Gift-a-long, Indie Design Gift-a-Long 2015 Leave a Comment

THE STATS! Every wonder which designers are from your home country (or in Canada & the US, home Province or State)? Or how many roosters are in the hen house of indie designers this year? Maybe crafter stats are more your thing, like which State has the most gift-a-long FOs? All those questions and more are answered on the GAL2015 Stats thread! The Stats thread is where 80skeins (aka Kimberly Golynskiy) does her thing that makes all us nerdy gerdies cheer with delight. Thanks to the Stats thread, I discovered that North Carolina is represented by 6 designers, which makes North Carolina 22nd on the US designer’s per capita list. 80skeins also shares cool information about the crafters involved in the …

#GAL2015 Tour: The Prizes

Lindsay Lewchuk Announcements, Gift-a-long, Indie Design Gift-a-Long 2015 Leave a Comment

Thanks to some very generous knitting companies and lots of very generous designers, we have a whole slew of fabulous prizes for #giftalong2015! Physical prizes include yarn, notions, accessories, books, kits, and more. The list is SO long, I have to zoom out to 25% to get it all in one screen shot! To view in regular size, check out the link: http://www.ravelry.com/discuss/indie-design-gift-a-long/3319557/Then take a stroll through the eye candy collages of some of our prizes here in the prize thread. Here’s just a little taste of what you’ll see: On a personal note, I’m thrilled to announce a few eco options in this year’s prize list – including prizes from The Unique Sheep, Three Irish Girls Yarn, Tattysquawk, JUL …

#GAL2015 Tour: The Games

Lindsay Lewchuk Announcements, Designers, Gift-a-long, Indie Design Gift-a-Long 2015 Leave a Comment

If chatting with friends and designers while knitting and crocheting incredible indie designs isn’t fun enough, we like to amp up the excitement with brain stretching games during the gift-a-long as well! This year we are pleased to present four different games and one ultimate challenge, which run six weeks of the gift-a-long. Designer’s Alphabet SoupGAL2015’s newest game, Designer’s Alphabet Soup anagrams either the designer’s personal name or business name of each of our 335 indie designers. Your task is to unscramble the anagram to discover which designer it is! This game is run by our Stat Queen, 80skeins, and yours truly! We’ve been creating some humdingers of anagrams, if I do say so myself. The full rules, how to …

#GAL2015 Tour: Patterns

Lindsay Lewchuk Announcements, Gift-a-long, Indie Design Gift-a-Long 2015 Leave a Comment

From 80skeins‘s lovely stat’s page, you’ll see GAL 2015 has 15,915+ KAL/ CAL thread eligible patterns! Of which, 5,065 patterns are part of the initial gift-a-long kick off sale!All patterns by all participating designers (over 15,000) are eligible for the KAL/CALs and all for sale (not free) patterns by participating designers are eligible to win prizes. So how’s a KAL/CAL-er supposed to find the patterns that they love best? This blog walks you through a few of the options: The Participating Designer’s Thread This resource was addressed in a previous blog, but to recap, each of our 335 designers are listed in this thread with a preview image of some of the delights from their shop. Scroll through and find one …

#GAL2015 Tour: KAL/ CAL Threads

Lindsay Lewchuk Announcements, Designers, Gift-a-long, Indie Design Gift-a-Long 2015 1 Comment

Welcome back to the Indie Design Gift-a-long virtual tour! Today we’re exploring the KAL/ CAL Threads. We have 8 KAL/CAL Threads this year: GAL2015 KAL/ CAL Cowls, Scarves, & Other Neck ThingsGAL2015 KAL/ CAL Foot & Leg ThingsGAL2015 KAL/ CAL Hat & Other Head ThingsGAL2015 KAL/ CAL Hand & Arm ThingsGAL2015 KAL/ CAL Kids & Baby Things (except toys)GAL2015 KAL/ CAL Shawls & StolesGAL2015 KAL/ CAL Sweaters & Other GarmentsGAL2015 KAL/ CAL Toys, Home, & Other Miscellaneous Things What happens in the KAL/ CAL Threads:The KAL/ CAL Threads are where the crafting fun happens! Once you’ve picked a category, jump in and say what you are planning on making. For instance, I jumped into the GAL2015 KAL/CAL Cowls, Scarves, & …

#GAL2015 Tour: The Designers

Lindsay Lewchuk Announcements, Designers, Gift-a-long, Indie Design Gift-a-Long 2015 1 Comment

Over the next few days I’ll be taking you on a virtual tour of #giftalong2015!  To begin, let’s start with the incredible 335 independent designers who signed up for the event this year. The Participating Designer ThreadGrab a peppermint mocha latte, sit back and enjoy scrolling through the 14 pages of stunning beauty.  Each designer created a stunning collage highlighting some of their favorite gift-able patterns, so it is a fiber feast for the eyes to be sure!  When you happen upon one that makes your heart sign, simply click on the hyperlinked designer name in the post to be redirected to their shop page.  So let’s breakdown one that I caught my eye, the homey warmth pictured in post number …