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
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
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
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
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
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
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 …
It’s Almost Time!
Yes, I know I’ve been as quiet as a church mouse lately, but for good reason. The third annual Indie Design Gift-a-long begins in just 2 days! What is Gift-A-Long? It’s a multi-designer promotion to help you kick your holiday gift-making into high gear! The Indie Design Gift-A-Long is a 6 week long KAL/CAL of holiday gifts made from patterns designed by a rather extensive list of independent designers. This year we have 335 participating indie designers! Starting this Thursday, November 19th at 8:00 pm US EST – Friday, November 27, 2015 at 11:59 pm US EST our 2015 indie designers will be discounting between 5 – 20 of their patterns 25% for this event. Once you’ve got your Gift-A-Long patterns, we encourage you …
Shawl Pin Shawl Style Guide
With the Shawl Pin Shawl MKAL coming to an end, it’s time for the final blog in the event series, the style blog. The versatility of the design results both from the unique shape as well as the simplicity of the stitch work. Intended as an artistic canvas to highlight your favorite shawl pin accessories, there are several ways to wear this design. Here are just a few of my favorites. Scarf Meets Pin StylesWrapped around your neck like a scarf, the “Scarf Meets Pin” style highlights the pin while the shawl keeps your neck warm! Whether a long stick pin, like Bonnie Bishoff’s Dash pin, on an equilateral or perpendicular angle or a broche style pin, like JUL Designs’ …
Hunter Game Review
Curious about the clues from the Shawl Pin Shawl MKAL hunter game? Here’s your chance to take a stab at them and get a sneak peek preview of the Shawl Pin Shawl MKAL’s exclusive FO prize! We had 3 amazing prize donors for the Hunter Game for this MKAL: Black Mountain Yarn Shop JUL Designs Bonnie Bishoff Shawl Pins Each donor became a clue in the game as well as participated in an interview! The rules were simple: clues (some visual and some textual) will be posted at random during the duration of the MKAL. After the clue is posted you have 48 hours to post the correct answer. All correct posts will be entered into a random draw for …