The Girl Who Crafted

Now that I'm crafting professionally (by some definition of the word) I thought I'd start a blog where I could talk about my projects, my works in progress, the ideas in my head, and what's generally exciting me about yarn and other fibre crafting lately. For more on my knitting or to purchase any of the items you see here, visit me on Etsy

[drizzitknits]

Many apologies for Sari being half out of the video frame on this one. We’re a bit rusty and our camera doesn’t have a convenient way for us to view what’s on the screen while it’s recording, so we have to guess and hope we’ve hit the right spots on the sofa. Clearly we haven’t. I hope it’s not too distracting.

After a year long hiatus, Sari and Jonas return, thanks in large part to some wonderful people they met while selling at markets in May and June. Updates on most recent and current knits (lots of socks and first time cables). The World Cup is mentioned, but we keep our fannishness in check. We share recaps from Shepherd’s Harvest and Zombie Knitpocalypse 2018 and try to get everyone excited for Cloud 9 knitting retreat and market. We show off new yarn colors! Also, we generally apologize for disappearing for a year and promise to try and do better for the rest of this one.

What we’re knitting:

Jonas

Fingerless mitts in the Dashing pattern from Cheryl Niamath using “Gentleman of Leisure” colorway from The Girl Who Crafted’s Outlander Season 3 yarn club. (First cable project ever!)

A hat (that was still quite damp) using the Caligo pattern from Marie Petra using “Lord John Grey” colorway from The Girl Who Crafted’s Outlander Season 3 yarn club. (Second cable project ever!)

Swatching for Cobblestone Pullover using Malabrigo worsted in the “Pearl Ten” colorway.

Sari

Waterlily sweater by Meghan Fernandes in the Santo Domingo colorway, part of the Outlander Season 3 yarn club from The Girl Who Crafted.

OMG Heel sock in “Glory, Glory” self striping color way from The Girl Who Crafted.

London Skies sock by Clare Devine in the My Head is Aching in GMT colorway from The Girl Who Crafted.

In May we were selling at Shepherd’s Harvest Sheep and Wool Festival. It was a super great two-day experience. The first day was cold, but we learned valuable life lessons about yarn in hoodie pockets and the shoe penetrating coldness of concrete floors. We got to talk to so many people. It was great. Thanks to everyone who stopped by and talked to us!

In June we were selling at Zombie Knitpocalypse as well as attending the retreat. It was our second year selling. Again, thanks to all who came to visit us. It was great to catch up with friends and meet new people. There might be some exciting future things in the works, but we can’t talk about them yet.

In July, like later this week on the 14th of July, Sari will be at the market for the Cloud9 Knitting Retreat . The market is on Saturday, July 14th from noon to 5pm. The market is open to the public. So, come stop by and visit. It is at the Hyatt Regency by the Mall of America in Bloomington, MN.

Sari shares new yarns!

This Not a Party it’s a Hurricane

Pink Lemonade

Born to Make History

We briefly talk about the World Cup at the end, but also throughout because we are doing a lot of knitting during the World Cup.

We mention again where to find us:

Sari

Ravelry – TheGirlWhoCrafted

Twitter – @girlwhocrafted

Instagram - @thegirlwhocrafted

Email – [email protected]

Jonas

Ravelry – ShopBoyJonas

Twitter - @jonassollers

You can find these videos at:

http://girlwhocrafted.com/blog

YouTube - Glacial Knits Podcast

iTunes - Glacial Knits

[knittystitch]

when i was new to knitting, i remember being too shy to reach out to more experienced knitters bc omg they’re going to see how clueless and new and bad at this i am and look, i know i’m not the best knitter in the world, but if there are any new knitters out there who feel too intimidated to reach out to me for anything (advice, help, show off the thing you’re proud of) please know that i have been where you are, and am here now as your super supportive knitting elder who will be so happy to see how far you’ve come, or to help you figure out what’s not working, or to give advice or encouragement as needed or really anything else i can do for you bc knitting is that wonderful to me and i just really want you to have a good time doing it too!

[drizzitknits]

The rest of the yarn club yarns arrived!

[its-octopodes]

This week I put together some great fall knitting patterns to pair with the free crochet patterns I put up last week! Click the source to see all of them!

[knitting-ace]

Hey fiber artist

Knit a stitch, crochet a row, make just a little progress on your current project. If you don’t have a project find a pattern, even if it’s just to stare at it in longing. Just a little progress every day keeps your project from falling into dust and disinterest. 

[drizzitknits]

Don’t mind, me, just over here making a little Euro2017 inspired yarn.

But seriously. These aren’t in the shop yet (hopefully tomorrow I’ll have time to actually do the photo processing and get them listed), but they are brand new and will be listed soon unless I keep them both because I am in complete and utter love with them. I will post/link when they are listed.

Top: “My Head is Aching in GMT”

Bottom: “Oranje”

[drizzitknits]

So, I just pulled a new colourway out of the dyepot and I'm so excited about it that I had to immediately take a photo and share. Even dripping wet in terrible basement lighting, I am in LOVE. We call it "My Head is Aching in GMT". Hopefully some of it will make it to the shop soon and I won't just decide this whole batch is for me!

[drizzitknits]

Hey there! Friendly reminder that you only have ten more days to sign up for our Outlander season 3 yarn club.

2-months for $65 4-months for $125 (includes shipping in the US. Outside the US we’ll work with you on shipping and keep the cost down!)

Get one skein of yarn inspired by Outlander each month starting in September.

Sign up now and join in the fun (and probably craft alongs!)

https://www.girlwhocrafted.com/product-page/outlander-season-3-yarn-club

[drizzitknits]

Friendly reminder that sign ups close tomorrow!

[drizzitknits]

Glacial Knits Podcast Episode 6: We Did the Thing!

Hey all.

I’ve not mentioned it here before, but Jonas and I have a monthly video podcast called Glacial Knits Podcast. I published our latest episode today.

Come watch us be awkward as we talk about knitting and yarn dyeing and try not to talk about football.

In this episode, we give an update about our retreat and vending experience at Zombie Knitpocalypse 2017 and give an update on the Outlander yarn club. Jonas shows off his purchases and Sari shows off goodies from the gift bags from ZK2017. Finished objects are proudly displayed and WIPs shared. Sair shares new colors for the shop. There is talk about Liv & Maddie and the summer of Football.

Find more at our blog. You can also watch episodes on YouTube and iTunes--search for Glacial Knits Podcast.

[drizzitknits]

Just bought 6m of PVC pipe and a, frankly, ridiculous number of connectors.

It’s self-striping yarn apparatus time.

Watch this space for updates on Jonas and I actually trying to build and then use this thing. Math is required. It should be amusing.

[drizzitknits]

Hey there! Friendly reminder that you only have ten more days to sign up for our Outlander season 3 yarn club.

2-months for $65 4-months for $125 (includes shipping in the US. Outside the US we’ll work with you on shipping and keep the cost down!)

Get one skein of yarn inspired by Outlander each month starting in September.

Sign up now and join in the fun (and probably craft alongs!)

https://www.girlwhocrafted.com/product-page/outlander-season-3-yarn-club

[drizzitknits]

NEW WEBSITE Y’ALL

Hi all,

Fall semester has wrapped so I have a few weeks of time to check back in with you again. Lots has happened over the past months, but I won't take the time to recap them here. If you want to check my Ravelry projects to see what I've been up to, that's cool. If not, also cool.

For now, a quick check in to tell you the exciting news that over the last month I've put in some quality work in what little bits of spare time I could grab creating a new website. It combines the hand-dyed yarns and project bags from my two Etsy sites (girlwhocrafted and 223people) with (eventually) the posts you all see here on my blog. In the future it may also do other things, I have no idea. It was super easy to set up (unsolicited plug for Wix.com) and will hopefully allow me to better manage everything in one space and not pay fees to Etsy for listing and selling items.

For now, the blog posts will also remain on blogger and on Tumblr (until I can figure out a good way to re-direct to the new blog, which likely won't happen until I've got more time) and the two Etsy sites will also remain open for a while as I figure out a way to drive traffic to the new websites. For anyone following me on Twitter, links to new listings will all take you to the new website.

If any of you find any issues with any aspect of the site, please send me a message (there's a contact form on the site, or feel free to leave a comment here) and let me know and I'll see what I can do to fix it.

I'm going to try to resume my 3-days-a-week posting schedule for at least the month I have off school (no promises beyond then, although I'd like to keep it up). There's still crafting going on (LOTS  of project bags!) and I have all sorts of ambitions for the new year. Let's hope these ambitions go better than the last (more on that next week!)

Thanks for those of you who stuck with me through my hiatus and sporadic posting schedule. For those of you just finding the blog, I have ambitions to update regularly, but I'm currently working half-time while getting a masters degree while running a crafting business, so blogging is often the first thing to get pushed to the wayside. At any rate, thanks for being here.

[drizzitknits]

Me during the semester: If only I didn't have all of these classes, I could do all the knitting in the world

Me after my last final: what do I do with my life?? Who am I??

[dduane]

Instructions for knitting Four’s scarf, courtesy of the BBC.

[nylorac15]

Nice! Hey @itsadrizzit, have you seen this before? I know you’ve made these in the past. :3

[drizzitknits]

@nylorac15 yes! These original patterns are super cool. I've never knit with this pattern though. Next one I want to try this one and see how it looks. It's def different than the patterns online.

[drizzitknits]

WIP Wednesday: The Fifth Fourth Doctor Scarf (now with extra scarf!)

Hi all,

A person might think that since I've been on break from school for most of August, I would have found time to post. Not so! 9 hour work days so I can make some money and because I have no vacation and myriad weekend events sort of pre-empted all that. I still had time to buy yarn though...no worries there. Someday I'll round it all up from the two cities it's split between and take photographs of it and actually put it in Ravelry so that it officially exists. But today is not that day.

Today we're here to talk about the fifth scarf.

There are no blog entries about scarves 1 or 2 (although I did get to visit with scarf 2 in the wilds while working on scarf 5), but if you've been reading for a while you may remember the saga that was knitting both scarves 3 and 4 in a 2 month period and the colour issues that came up with scarf 4.

Well...this scarf is for the same recipient of 4, only with new and improved colours, more Shetland, and 1.75 times more scarf!!!!

The buyer is super great to work with and has commissioned me to make him another scarf even though I completely underdelivered on the first one I made him, and generally seems to think I'm pretty great to work with. So IDK, but I'll take it. Glad I'm doing something right despite feeling like I've screwed this up at every available opportunity. He bought all the yarn so he could make sure he was getting the colours he wanted (I don't fault him this at all), and he still wants a sport weight scarf so my good friends at Knit Picks aren't coming through with the colours I need in Wool of the Andes, so it's mostly not my beloved WoTA (although I still coo a bit at how much the green yarn sings off my needles when I get to it). It still has the mixed yarn source challenges of scarf 4, which I don't love since the edges aren't even, but will hopefully work themselves out in blocking at least a little bit. The biggest issue is that the Jamieson's Shetland is a DK and the rest of the yarn (Brown Sheep Nature Spun, Dalegarn Falk, and Knit Picks Wool of the Andes) are all sport weight, so the Jamieson's stitches are a lot tighter on the needles and the edges are a bit wider than the other yarns. Plus that yarn is still scratchy and grabby, which is ok if you drop a stitch, but doesn't let the stitches slide very well. Since I have the most of that yarn I'm knitting on metal needles instead of wood, which means the Brown Sheep slips a bit more. But I'm working it out. I just kind of still dread the Shetland sections. I know I should be one of those people that's like "oh, yay, super authentic Shetland wool!!", but I just don't like that yarn. The colours are right though, and it's not the most terrible thing, but if I had to choose yarn to knit with I don't think I would pick that.

The scarf is half done, in 3 pieces. I learned this AM that I cannot seam it together until I block it because otherwise it will block weird, so I spent 20 minutes whip stitching and then un-whip stitching this morning, but, you know, lessons learned. I've decided to weave in ends every time I finish a part (in the case of the duplicate part I'll just do it at the halfway point) and it's far less frustrating than doing it all together.

So...I have half a scarf. And I still don't mind doing it, but I'll admit that I'm ready to be done. I have so much lovely yarn in my stash waiting for me and I feel bad that I keep acquiring and not actually reducing...plus I've learned that there really are only so many hours a day you can knit this thing. So for the first time I'm not JUST working on the scarf. Instead I'm in never-ending swatch land with some delightful single-ply silk merino that I've had around forever, but that's not worth talking about now. For now, scarf is priority, I have a number of colours/rows to knit per day goal, and when I accomplish that I can do other things. It seems to be working alright.

[drizzitknits]

WIP: Still working on this sweater

But it's getting done faster than it really ought to be. I'm knitting too much, is what's happening. I figured out that I can knit this while reading journal articles (at least, ones where I don't have to take notes or highlight things). Not so much for school because I have to deeply interact with those, but while I'm doing less in-depth reading of articles for the lit review I'm completing for work, I totally knit this sweater. Plus I spent more time than I really should have knitting this weekend. Plus I'm giving myself at least one episode of my re-watch of new Doctor Who each night to knit.

The problem, really, is the knitting while working. I'm really starting to feel it in my right arm and I've got the tiniest bit of a nerve pinch making my fingers occasionally tingly. Will that make me stop? Sadly, no. I keep thinking...but I'm almost done and then I can wear this for class!!!!! So, as I sit here writing a blog post with tingly right fingertips, I have just wound what will (I think) be the final ball of yarn for this project. Really, I need an intervention, but I live alone, so one isn't coming. I'm going to the chiropractor tomorrow and then all will be set right.

Here's the progress I've made in a week. It's a bit shameful considering how little time I actually have. Most of it was done over the weekend or while reading for work.

Not the best photo, I realise, but the back and the sides had been on the towel blocking (I thought blocking as I went along would expedite seaming. Which it will. I could technically start now.) so I just left it all there. Plus there's next to no decent natural light in this apt. Which keeps the temperatures down, but is terrible for photographing anything.

As a reminder, the yarn is Berocco Fiora and the sweater is Louise by Amy Christoffers from the Fiora book that came with the yarn.

If you recall, last week I was here. This is basically knitting at my normal really fast sweater creation rate where I have a real job but not any extra work after it and can just knit post work every day. I suppose maybe now that I can knit while reading it ends up being an equivalent amount of time, but I feel like I'm spending too much time knitting for the amount of work I have to do. It's the multitasking thing. I'll get used to it. Or I won't.

So...back is done. Sides are done. I'm working on sleeve 1 (about halfway done). I have to attend a public meeting tonight for class and I'm debating whether or not to bring this sleeve with me to work on during it (and while I'm waiting an hour after class to head over there) or if I should bring the second bomb pop sock because it won't require any attention at all. At this point, I'm really comfortable with this pattern, but I fear I'll get to the part where I have to shape the cap. I wouldn't really care, but some of my classmates are coming to the meeting with me and I should probably make it look more like I'm paying attention than I would if I were there (nevermind that no matter what, my attention level will be the same). I can tell you one thing...there is no way I'm going to a public meeting on transportation for an hour plus without SOMETHING to knit.

[drizzitknits]

My delightful (Pond-themed!!!!!) swap package arrived last week from knitika. I love it when packages come on Wednesdays, since Wednesdays (at least right now) are the WORST day of classes in my whole week and I’m always exhausted and sometimes angry at everything when I get home and the packages give me such a lift. This was no exception. I was hoping the whole way home that I’d have a box waiting at my door, and then I did! The contents came wrapped in such beautiful paper that I didn’t want to open them (okay…that’s a lie, I totally still wanted to open them). Each has a quote to go with it, and it turned out that they were all perfectly themed. I SO envy the creativity in wrapping this! First… (I got to this part and said…OMG I KNOW WHAT THIS IS!!!!! because I LOVE the packaging this stuff ships in almost as much as I love the product) Digital Nails in the Pandorica colourway. I had to resist just putting it on my nails immediately. Next… It’s a tablet cover out of the amazing Exploding TARDIS fabric that I love SO MUCH. And... My tablet totally fits! I cannot wait to take it to class with me tomorrow. I was SO about to break down and just order a tablet cover because the reality of me having time to make one was quickly becoming an illusion. Then… I have heard such great things about this book and I cannot wait to read it. I’m slating it for first thing in August once school wraps for the summer! And… I admit that I had NO IDEA what this might be. It was a little bit the best surprise that ever happened! I thought it might be cookies. It was WAY BETTER than cookies. It’s an Exploding TARDIS poster. Which will go so very nicely with the Van Gogh prints I bought for my temp apartment. I’m going to head out and get it a frame this weekend and I already have the exact perfect spot! Also… Nerd Girl Yarns in the “Sunflowers” colourway on the sport weight base. I just…I love this yarn. I love it so much. I need to find the exact right thing for it to grow up to be. AND!… HAND KNIT THINGS MADE FROM BROOKLYN TWEED SHELTER. Which is totally as amazing feeling as I hoped it would be (and they smell great!). The colours are so pretty and I love them and I’m a little sad it’s July because I wanted to put these mittens on and not take them off. I tried to take a photo of me with the mittens, but it turns out it’s really hard to take a picture of mittens while you’re wearing mittens because you refuse to remove the mittens. LOVE, LOVE, LOVE!!! Finally… Tea from knitika’s local tea shop (which I’m delighted she managed to turn into still being Pond-related!). I just finished 2 teas and am in dire need of a coffee intervention, so this will be just the incentive I need to switch back to tea! Here’s the whole delightful, delicious, delectable, perfect, Pond-y package! I adore everything and I feel so incredibly spoiled. Knitika did such a great job!!!!!!