A self professed “solopreneur,” the Underground Crafter (Marie Segares) is the genius behind the vastly educational yarn focused podcast, the Creative Yarn Entrepreneur Show. After the privilege of being interviewed by her twice – once for Indie-Design Gift-a-long 2014 with the other admins (Nina Machlin Dayton, Alex Tinsley, Simone Kereit) & then again last week – I got to wondering about this creative & what she is about. Marie graciously agreed to allow me to interview her. She shared many purls of wisdom for designers fo all levels – Enjoy! You have taken entrepreneurship to the stratosphere with your crafting “solopreneurship” & all the diversity it entails. Tell us about your entrepreneur offerings & how you balance your time between each individual venture.I started out my …
Indie Design GAL – “So You Want to be a Knitting Designer” book review
Alex Tinsley’s “So You Want to be a Knitting Designer” ebook is a primer on the ins and outs of being a knitting designer. Her easy writing style, comical antidotes, and no holds bar advice from experience gives a full purview of the career. A must read for all budding designers! After a short introduction, Alex dives into the essence of the job – writing patterns: what goes into a pattern, how are they formatted, how much information to include, what peripherals might be needed, etc. You might have 1001 fabulous pattern ideas, but it is essential to the career to be able to convey those ideas in a manner in which other knitters to reproduce the intended FO (finished …
Ravelry Highlight: Nin Designs
The budding designer’s group on Ravelry is a great place for meeting other budding designers & finding cool offers. This one, from Nin Leavitt, was just too good to let pass: an offer for tech editing by a budding tech editor! Nin Leavitt (KeswickArtsCrafts) was gracious enough to give a second set of eyes to Cable Berry Cowl. She was thorough in her examination and found several “whoops” before publication. She checked the front matter, written directions, charted directions, and most importantly that the written directions matched the charted directions. So if you are a designer with a non-sweater challenge that will help her grow, take Nin up on her offer! You won’t be disappointed. Nin’s done her homework, taken several …
Indie Design GAL – Eco Pattern Highlights
Eco crafters, welcome to the Indie Design Gift-a-long on Ravelry! With over 11,000 eligible patterns, I thought I’d highlight a sampling of some of the many eco patterns in today’s blog post. For Her:Tangent, a quirky tank, by Melissa Lemmon (knitterleigh) knit in (my favorite) Blue Sky Alpaca’s Skinny Cotton – 100% organic cotton sport weight yarn & accented with Be Sweet Bamboo – 100% bamboo yarn. Yeats, a quick shawlette, by Corrina Ferguson (picnicknits) knit in Our Humble Castle Soy Beautiful – 100% soy light fingering yarn. For Kids:Ryker, a textured vest for play or church, by Katya Frankel (bingeknitter) knit in Knit Picks Simply Cotton Organic Worsted – 100% organic cotton yarn. Evie, a cute overtop, by Justine …
Indie Design GAL Pattern Reviews – Hats
Last week: “Well I’m up a creek without a paddle, but thanks to Ravelry, I now have a paddle! It just started snowing & my two nephews are coming up Saturday from Texas without cold weather gear. This is EMERGENCY knitting. All other projects are put aside until I get hats for my precious nephews! So thankful for the Indie Design Gift-a-long and scoring this great pattern! After sending me my nephews’ head sizes, I got a PM from my sister, ‘and just in case you are wondering, my head is 21.5 inches. So all total 3 hats to knit in 1 week!” Now that my precious boys are gone & I’ve caught my breath (and the 2646 posts in …
Indie Design GAL Designer Highlight – Jenise Reid
One of my favorite parts of the Indie Design Gift-a-long is getting to know other designers. My first designer highlight of GAL 2014 is the estimable Jenise Reid – femininebydesign. Prolific hardly does Jenise justice, with her portfolio of 108 designs, 30 of which are 2014 new releases! So grab your organic tea, it’s time to dive into Jenise’s interview! If you could only knit/crochet one item type of item, what would it be?Sweaters. As much as I enjoy a quick accessory, I tend to think of them as things to be made between sweaters… Which of your patterns make for really great gift knitting?The bootcuffs, or the headbands, depending on where you live. They are fast, don’t use a ton …
WordPress Ravelry Designs Widget – A Review
Shellbot created an awesome new WordPress widget that filled a much needed hole on my site – Knit Eco Chic’s Previous Publications page. Her Ravelry Design Widget, available through wordpress, Shell’s website, or her Ravelry group (Giddy Knitters), populates your Ravelry patterns on your WordPress site! I used a custom short code for the Previous Publications page. Here’s the page at regular zoom I also added the widget to display on the side bar of my blog. I opted to preview 3 patterns to keep it short and sweet. The widget interface is extremely user-friendly! Even the novice wordpress writer shouldn’t have any problems with the selection of options. The custom short code took a little more finagling. However, it’s …
Ravelry’s Bundling: Uncage the O
There is a side of me that I keep buried deep, deep, deep down. I inherited it from my mother. When it rears its ugly head, my life of perfect creative clutter gets wiped clean and I can’t find a thing. The nastiness is known as “organization” to many, but “death to creativity” to me. The “dreaded O” is forced upon my office twice annually, but remains well-tamed the rest of the time. Unless, that is, something wonderful causes it to break free of the cage. Last week, Ravelry released a tool that unlocked the monster. The “dreaded O” appeared in full furry, gobbling up the “bundling” code. Yes, I had plans for my Saturday, but the new bundling tool …