Joyarna Knitblog

A crochet blanket that I can wear

2025-01-06T16:30:00.001+00:00

I'm not an accomplished crocheter. I can crochet, but not well. My tension has issues and I can't yet read charts. Overall, I prefer knitted fabric compared to crochet, so I haven't had much motivation to improve.

And yet - two of the most-used handmade objects in my house are my crochet scrap blankets. I have one for the sofa, and one for the office chair, and in the winter I basically always have one or the other draped over my lap or around my shoulders.

They were both made of 'free' (leftover) yarn and were quick and simple to make so I don't feel precious about them getting stained or worn out. And there is something marvelous about items crocheted from fingering-weight yarn - just chunky enough without being too heavy.

For a long time, I've pondered how I can go from 'blanket draped over my shoulders' to 'perfect relaxing-at-home cardigan'. Last year, I gathered some leftover sock yarn in autumnal colours (mostly Drops Fabel along with some others) and started to crochet some oddly shaped rectangles, aiming to make the blanket-igan of my dreams.

At some point, the rectangles got shoved into a box onto the shelf, life moved on, and I forgot about that project but I didn't forget about my dream. Every time I threw my blanket over my shoulders, I knew there had to be a better way.

Enter: Crochet YouTube, and the granny stitch hexagon cardigans that have become ubiquitous.

(It's very strange, returning to crafter social media after several years off. There are designers I've never heard of becoming total juggernauts. There is a stockinette hat at the top of Ravelry's pattern list. Everyone is adding mohair to everything and everything has 10 inches of positive ease. It's a culture shock.)

If you haven't seen these, the idea is simple but ingenious: it's a granny square with an extra side, which allows the wibbly hexagon to fold into an L shape. Make two of these and join them together into a T shape for an easy and quick cardigan or pullover.

People are casting these on in worsted weight yarn and finishing them in a week. Mine was finer but still flew by in about 3 weeks of not-particularly-concentrated work.

It works beautifully with stripes and it looks so very handmade - which is part of the appeal. Crochet is getting trendy, and this is a garment that shouts I made this.

I loved making this. It was easy, it kept my hands busy, and the semi-random stripes of sock yarn were extremely satisfying. And, since this is a cardigan for home, I didn't worry a bit over how it would fit - I only worried about how comfy it would be.

With this simple shape come limits in the amount of customisation. All sides of the hexagon grow at the same rate which assumes a certain proportion for sleeve circumference, sleeve length, and body width & length.

Many talented crocheters have come up with various solutions for these problems - Sarah Maker's version was most helpful to me for exploring the different options. Ultimately, I decided not to taper or lengthen the sleeves, and only added a few rows to the centre back and three rounds of border after I joined the two sides.

I did add cuffs to the sleeves - rather than working crochet ribbing, I picked up the stitches and added k1p1 rib and a tubular bind-off. IMO this is the ideal finishing touch, and I actually love the balloon sleeve effect.

So did I achieve my goals? Well, this cardigan has been living on the back of my office chair ever since I finished it, and I am rarely seen on a Teams call without it! It is my perfect crochet blanket, as a cardigan.

~Joyuna

How to knit a sweater in 10 days

2025-01-01T16:23:00.005+00:00

1. Dive deep into stash. Way deep.

I bought this yarn in 2008. It's been sitting in storage, half-knitted into a cardigan, for well over a decade. It's made a transatlantic move with me.

The cardigan it was originally destined to be - Sylph Cardigan from Interweave Knits - was never going to get finished. Flounces are just not for me anymore. But let's take a moment to admire the eyelet ribbing and the subtle twisted stitch columns - there's a lot to like about this pattern, even though it isn't for me anymore.

I gave it the Marie Kondo "thank you, goodbye" and ripped it all out.

The yarn is Knit Picks Elegance, 70% baby alpaca, 30% silk.

It's been a long time since I knit anything big with alpaca. Alpaca blended with wool, absolutely - I love the softness and warmth it adds. But not on its own. It's too loose, too heavy, too unpredictable. To me, the bounciness of sheep's wool is the perfect pairing to the stretch of knitting. I want my stitches to spring back into shape. Alpaca is soft, fuzzy, lovely... and saggy.

(I have a woven blanket made of 100% alpaca which is one of the most lovely things I own. The weaving has so much structure, letting the alpaca have all the softness and drape it wants without compromising on shape. I do believe some fibres are better for some crafts than others.)

So I would not have bought a new sweater quantity of an alpaca-silk blend. And yet, here I have it. And yes, the sleeves stretched out several inches after blocking, but that makes it even cosier, with the cuffs riding down over my hands.

2. Embrace Betwixtmas.

I didn't take a lot of time off work during the holidays, but I still had plenty of time to myself and a lot of dark evenings. I brought it to Christmas Day and I worked on it continually. Miles of stockinette went down easy. Somehow, the sleeves finished themselves before I could even blink.

3. Find beauty in simplicity.

The pattern is All Day Everyday by Nadia Crétin-Léchenne - a baggy, drop shoulder, straight up and down, simple but very effective design with a few tiny cables down the front for interest.

An open cardigan with no buttons (or button-bands) to worry about - I know I will get plenty of wear out of it, being able to throw it on without thinking.

It's knit all in one piece from the top down, and the cables are crossed every right side row, so there was very little to keep track of and very few ways to mess it up.

4. Fall slightly in love.

Even if the alpaca turns out to have been a mistake, it was gorgeous to knit with. Watching the cushy fabric grow beneath my hands was addictive.

It really feels luxurious to wear - plush and fuzzy, drapey and very warm. The sunny colour - a medium yellow that's not too bright, and light, but not pastel - cheers me on through the winter greys.

5. Follow instructions, but trust your instincts.

I first cast on a size with 5" of ease - and very quickly ripped it out and cast on again two sizes smaller.

The designer recommends 10-20cm (4-8") of positive ease. But I knew, personally, I wouldn't be happy with that.

The alpaca will grow, and I don't feel good in clothes I'm drowning in. I made a few more modifications based on knowing my body and what I like to wear. But I resisted the urge to add shaping to the body or anything else too fancy.

I added my own custom sleeve shaping which I'm very happy with - increasing the armhole height, it just skims my large upper arms, then the decreases ramp up from the elbow while keeping extra ease around the wrists in a way that I think is very flattering.

6. Add some drama.

I really thought I was going to run out of yarn. The pattern called for 1500yds, while I had 1200 of a long-discontinued yarn. By all accounts, I should be 3 full balls short.

But I decided to carry on: The design assumed 10-20cm of positive ease, and alpaca will stretch, and I'll embrace the cropped look if I need to. And I can unravel my swatch.

I didn't need to unravel my swatch. But something about the added pressure, wanting to see how far I could get, urged me on row after row.

I knit the body down to the armholes - then I knit each sleeve - and then, carefully counting each centimeter, I knit as much of the body as I could.

So I finished with 11 balls and 10 days. Knitting more than 50g per day. It's a decent length - I might have added an extra inch or two if I had had the yarn, but it's definitely not cropped!

7. Get excited for the future.

Now that I know I can go from idea to finished garment in two weeks, so many possibilities open up to me.

I have at least 5 sweater quantities of yarn in my stash - I rarely get through them because a sweater in my size feels like a mammoth undertaking. And yet! Ten days. It's possible. I can fill my wardrobe with beautiful sweaters.

(PS: Happy 17th anniversary to the blog.)

~Joyuna

You are the boss of the yarn.

2024-12-15T08:21:00.001+00:00

Remember: You control the yarn, not the other way around.

I bought a ball of self-striping yarn - I can't remember when I picked it up, but it was obviously an impulse purchase. It's Opal Schafpate in the colourway Kate.

Schafpate is a wonderful sock yarn - I've knit a pair of socks in it before and I love them. It's got the sturdiness I expect from a no-nonsense German sock yarn, and just a bit more softness. The wool comes from a German flock and the project is specifically aimed at supporting local shepherds - more on the Schafpate project here.

There have been dozens of colourways of Schafpate - they seem to drop like seasonal fashion, passing quickly in and out of the range. And they're all self-striping 'faux Fair Isle' style, for better or for worse. I happen to like this yarn so much that I would be very happy to have a range of solid colours to supplement the striping ones, but ah well.

So here is the manufacturer image of the yarn I bought:

The purple? Love it. The green? Love it. The gentle, pale gradient between the two? LOVE IT.

...The bitty bits of blue and white speckles? Do not love it.

This ball sat in purgatory in my stash for a long, long time. Why was I so foolish to buy a yarn with a fatal flaw? I knew I could never love socks that interrupted a beautiful colour gradation with those loud, rude speckles.

And then I remembered that this is not buying a whole sock out of a catalogue: This is knitting. I control the yarn, the yarn does not control me.

I started knitting, and when I hit a section with speckles, I simply cut it out. Then I wound a new ball of the colours I wanted.

This had the fun side-effect of parcelling my yarn out into pre-defined repeats, allowing me to pre-wind the balls for the second sock and know exactly how much yarn I'll need.

And now I'm knitting socks that I love. All is as it should be.

~Joyuna

Oh no, I love it

2022-03-07T20:32:00.002+00:00

Do you ever do something in hopes that you'll be proven wrong? That you'll find out that doing things the hard way isn't worth it after all?

I cast on a sweater on 2.5mm needles. I've knit sweaters out of tiny yarn before - I've made a laceweight cardigan, but it was tiny yarn on great big needles for an airy wisp of a sweater. Not this. This is substantial fabric, not a hole in sight.

Tiny, tiny stitches. Delicate little stitches in stockinette and twisted rib. Over 300 stitches per row.

Reader, I'm heartbroken to say that I adore it.

I don't really wear most of my handknits. Even DK feels too chunky most of the time. I overheat, or the thick fabric gets in my way, or it doesn't seem to fit in with the rest of my outfit. Whatever the reason, I just don't wear them that often. (Not never...but not often enough, and not as often as they deserve.)

I'm ashamed to say that most of the knitwear I've been wearing the past few winters has been shop-bought. So thin and versatile!

I had stashed away some seriously beautiful sock yarn. I say sock yarn, but it doesn't have the qualities I like in a sock yarn. It's too soft, gently spun, squishy. The ball begs to be petted. I can't see it as socks, but it's a beautiful yarn nonetheless - the sadly discontinued Regia Angora Merino. The colour is a rich purple, a saturated yet dark aubergine. It's soft and smooth with just a tiny haze of bunny hairs sticking out.

It's the kind of yarn that I am happy to be running through my fingers for a few hundred thousand stitches.

So I have a special yarn, and I have a lovely pattern (simple, elegant, with just enough interest - Oolong by Laura Chau), and I have a light but warm cardigan to look forward to.

Sure, it's a little disheartening to knit for an hour and a half and only have 2cm to show for it... but if I can just sustain my momentum a little while longer, keep admiring the fabric, keep petting the skein, I'll get through it and I'll have a sweater I can actually add to my everyday wardrobe!

~Joyuna

An assessment of WIPs

2022-01-29T17:05:00.000+00:00

On a lark the other day I decided to check if some of my favourite old blogs were still updating. Turns out, the Yarn Harlot is still going strong.

I found this post of hers rather inspiring: An airing of UFOs and taking a good hard look at them.

The beginning of the year brings out a decluttering urge in me. Or if not decluttering, at least surveying my hoard. I'll never be a minimalist (not even close), but sometimes it feels good to let go of things that are burderning you, rediscover lost loves, and just get a sense of where you are with everything.

I keep a lot of things on the needles. I have a short attention span and a fickle heart. I know this about myself and I don't try to restrain myself too much - knitting is my hobby, after all, and in the grand scheme of things, a halfway-finished project isn't a tragedy.

But I lose things, and I forget things, and my body changes shape, and my tastes change, and worst of all, sometimes the moths come. So it feels like a good idea to take out all those projects and get a sense of where they are.

PS: If like me, you haven't been keeping up with Yarn Harlot, I highly recommend this post about the whole family knitting a wedding blanket. It chokes me up a little.

Now, on to the WIPs!

Angostura Vest

I'm surprised to see I only have a few inches done on this, because it felt like I had put a LOT of work into it already. I spent a long time planning it, trying to figure out how gauge works between ribbing and negative ease and a yarn that will stretch.

Its fate: So long as I can find my notes, I'd like to pick it up again, hopefully before next winter. But with the fiddly cables plus the fact that I'll need to seam it, I might not actually finish it this year.

Sheep Heid

Love this in theory, but there are two problems:

1. I didn't check gauge, it's too big, I'm planning to felt it but I'm scared about how that will go.

2. Moths have struck. I took the project off the shelf and one of the little things flew right in my face. Now it isn't as bad as it could be - they only just started to nibble, there are a couple of broken threads but no big holes. It's fixable.

Its fate: I'm putting it away for long enough to get over the moth trauma, and then we'll see what I can do. It's halfway done! It's handspun!

Hexipuffs scrap blanket

This project is stored on a shelf just above my bed, so I see it all the time, just staring at me.

It's a weird one - one of my oldest projects, and every time I re-visit it I think that I'm very close to finishing it, and then something else comes up. I'm running out of stuffing. Or it's not quite big enough and I need to add some extra columns. Or I need to mend it. Etc.

Its fate: Yeah, I'll finish it off one of these days...

Un-puffed Hexipuffs

What kind of monster am I, casting on a second project in the same pattern before I finish the first one? My fickle heart. In a moment of weakness, I hunted down every variety of beautiful honey-coloured yarn I could find, to make this honey-themed honeycomb blanket. I love it, it's my dedicated on-the-go project.

Its fate: I adore it. There's a hole in my life when I don't have hexipuffs to work on.

Kalajoki socks

Picked this up again just recently, after thinking about how much I loved the yarn. This is The Fibre Co Cumbria Fingering, a wool/mohair blend in a very heavy 'fingering' weight which makes a beautiful cushy fabric. And oh, that colour! A bright red-leaning purple with just a hint of heathered dimensionality.

Its fate: Back in the saddle! Nearly finished the first sock.

Garter Stitch Mashup Blanket

This project isn't bad, I just have a glut of blankets in the house at the moment, so there's no urgency. I have two crocheted blankets in the rotation, I received a nice big one for Christmas, I have a really beautiful quality woven alpaca blanket from my mom, and we have one for every chair and sofa space. We're not wanting for blankets. So I'm not compelled to work on this, even though it's reasonably fun.

Its fate: Save for later.

Leighton House mitts

Beautiful. BEAUTIFUL. This pattern, and this yarn, makes me wax poetic. The way the colours shine on Wensleydale. The delicacy of it. The way it's silky, but woolly at the same time. I'm smitten. But I know exactly why I put this down. The colourwork is too much for my tiny brain to handle.

Its fate: I'll keep it in mind for the day when I want more of a challenge.

Dreambird shawl

I've gotta pick this back up sometime. I know why I bounced off it - the instructions are funny, and I made some mods, so each row was a lot of thinking. But if I can get into the swing of it, it could be something really fantastic.

Its fate: Read some other people's project notes and try and make sense of things.

Rainbow Scale Mitts

Wow, how 'bout this one. I made one mitt already! I'm half way through the second! Why did I drop it?

This was intended to be a design. I love this stitch pattern. It won't be worth it to publish this pattern, but I owe it to the mitts to finish them. It would only be the work of an afternoon or two.

Its fate: Pick it back up when I need some instant gratification.

Pink socks

OK, *this* is probably my oldest WIP. Look, it's on double-pointed needles! I haven't knit a sock on DPNs since... I can't recall. I don't love the yarn, I don't love the colour, and I think I was only knitting these to get a chance to re-photograph this pattern (one of my own designs).

Its fate: This one is on notice. I'm not frogging it, yet, mostly because I don't think I could do anything better with the yarn either.

Handspun Romney shawl - Emanuela

I have complicated feelings about my lace projects. My style and identity have evolved since my days of wearing lace shawls. Dang, this is pretty nice though. Handspun Romney, the yarn is thin but strong.

Some of the edge stitches fell off the needles and laddered down, so I have to do some restoration work before I knit this again.

Its fate: Save for later.

Lady Russell shawl

Oh. *Oh*. Hello, beautiful.

(Forget what I just said about lace. This, I would wear every day of my life.)

I didn't get to keep the sample of the original Lady Russell shawl from Jane Austen Knits, so I cast this on pretty soon after finishing that so I could have one of my own. Decadent yarn, big lovely shawl, with a real weight to it. If I remember right the lace pattern is relatively intuitive. I'd like to make this one of my projects this year.

Its fate: Put this one on deck for after I've finished a couple other things.

Icelandic Shawl - Lambton Panes

Good yarn and pattern combo, I just need to get into the headspace for it.

This is Einband yarn that I got in Reykjavik 4 years ago, and now I've since been to Iceland once again. Oops. Well, at least I didn't bring back any yarn this time.

Its fate: I can't see myself working on it at the moment, but I want to finish it eventually.

Peaks Island hooded scarf

It's a scarf. A seed stitch scarf. Dear god.

Its fate: I'm halfway done, so I'll consider picking it up again soon. But if that doesn't stick, then it's off to the frog pond.

Missing in Action

I know I have these projects in the house somewhere, but can't locate them at the moment.

Oolong Sweater (rav link)

How do I lose two finished sleeves and a sweater's worth of yarn? Just Joy things. I would like to pick this up soon if I can find it, as a few miles of stockinette in tiny yarn would do my soul good.

Ten Stitch Blanket (rav link)

Garter stitch blanket of handspun wool samples. It's been hit by moths before and it probably has again, wherever it is. It can stay in its corner until I feel like doing some mending.

Queen Anne's Lace (rav link)

I don't know about this one. It's beautiful, and I mean beautiful. The yarn is gorgeously delicate, and a great colour. But I don't wear my lace at the best of times anymore, and I certainly wouldn't wear a circular shawl. It'd be one of those projects that I cast off, block, look at lovingly, and shove into the back of the wardrobe. Even if I find it, I don't see myself finishing it, at least for now.

I am really glad I took this opportunity to take stock, and I've been inspired to pick up a few of these projects or slot them in later in the year. The temptation to cast on new projects is great, but I was really losing sight of everything I already had!

~Joyuna

The humbling experience of learning to knit all over again

2021-12-12T16:34:00.000+00:00

Someone I know lost half of her index finger. She was an avid knitter and crocheter, and it's been hard for her to have her crafts taken away from her. This Christmas, I'm hoping to help her back into knitting. I ordered two sets of Tunisian Crochet hooks - the extra-long crochet hooks with space to hold extra stitches - and a yarn-tensioning pin.

The technique where the yarn is held in front, flicked with the thumb, and tensioned around the neck or a tensioning pin is commonly known as Portuguese Knitting, though it's used in many places around the world including Peru, Turkey, and Egypt too.

I can't say for sure yet whether this knitting style will be suitable for my friend - but since there are different movements and different muscles involved, it's worth a try.

Before I can show her how to get started, of course, I have to be familiar with this style of knitting myself! I used these instructions by Andrea Wong from Piecework magazine. Andrea also has a wealth of videos, including more advanced stitches, on her Youtube channel.

My personal style of knitting is a little bit idiosyncratic - resting the righthand needle against my body, left hand moves the stitch, right middle finger flicks the yarn. I never learned the proper English 'throwing' style. But I've learned a few other techniques - Contintental knitting, two-handed colourwork, backwards knitting... so picking up a new style should be no big deal, right?

Yes and no! The first few rows were intensely humbling. Where do my fingers go? What do I do with the yarn?! For a moment I was transported back to making my very first garter stitch scarf. But after those first few rows I understood what I needed to do, and a few more rows after that I even got into a rhythm. Having some years of knitting under my belt helped - I could tell at a glance whether the stitch was correct after I'd made it - and my friend has many decades more experience than me, so she should be able to get into the swing of it too.

The hooked needles are a revelation, honestly. I felt like I didn't need as much fine control in my fingertips because the hook was doing the work for me. It's a very pleasant way to purl!

The left-hand hook did get in the way a little bit but I just had to keep it rotated so that the stitches would slide off and not get caught in the hook. (I needed hooks on both sides because I'm knitting flat -- but most of the hooked needles I've seen *meant for this style* are DPNs with the hook on one side, so you're knitting off a smooth needle, and onto a hook. In the round = no turning, no need for a hooked left needle!)

The hooks are not necessary for this type of knitting, but I found it a great help, and I think they would be especially good for anyone with motor issues, RSI, or other issues with their hands.

I'm pleased to have had a short introduction to a new technique, and I look forward to showing it to my friend. Hopefully it will work for her and this will let her start creating again!

~Joyuna

The Ravelry Thing

2021-03-28T13:50:00.000+01:00

Wednesday marks a bitter milestone in the knitting community. Ravelry, which has had its cheery green and red colour scheme since 2007 (the same year I started knitting), is removing its Classic theme and forcing all users over to one of their NuRav themes. The themes that have caused some people eyestrain, migraines, and even seizures.

The Ravelry redesign has been a huge topic in the knitting community, despite Ravelry's attempt to shut it down on all of their platforms. (Noticed the closed comments on Twitter and IG? Noticed how every Facebook post says there are dozens of comments, but only shows a handful? Noticed the strange lack of -any- conversation about this topic on the main Rav forums?) There are many people out there who have been leading the campaign for better accessibility of the site, and many people who can explain the history and situation better than I can.

I am deeply, deeply disappointed in the response that the Ravelry team has provided.

Rav used to be, hands down, my favourite site on the web. The usability, the information inside, the community. How many helpful little features were added to make my life easier or, simply, to delight. It was my home online, for a long time. I never really got involved in any other online fibre communities, because it was all in one place.

I used to sing Ravelry's praises to anyone who would listen (not just knitters - I thought it was a star example of a website, In General). I can no longer in good conscience do that.

Personally, I am fortunate that I merely find the new design ugly and less usable, rather than outright harmful to my health. The information hierarchy is bad, it's hard on the eyes, the icons are too small, but I can grit my teeth and carry on. So I'm not boycotting the site entirely - I think about the other websites I use on a daily basis, and the heartless corporations that own them, and the compromises I make every day to exist in the world we live in. So I won't go so far as to stay off the site for good.

But I will bear in mind that there are many people who can not, or will not, use Ravelry, and I respect them and I intend to include them.

(In terms of my patterns, everything that is on Ravelry is also on LoveKnitting, and my best-selling designs are also in my Etsy shop. It's a crying shame that Rav so strongly dominated PDF pattern sales that, a couple years ago, I could have listed several other shops that now no longer sell patterns.)

The way they have completely shut down any discussion on any of their platforms - on- or off-site - is absolutely infuriating. The way they have belittled actual people's pain and tried to sweep it under the rug is deeply hurtful.

I felt a deep betrayal when I saw the situation unfold. It was like losing a friend - but we should remember, despite the parasocial closeness we may feel, the Ravelry staff are not our friends.

The community spirit was a good business move. We made the site what it is - enriching it with our user-generated content, setting up and managing groups, sharing our knowledge, adding patterns. If no one ever added a project or posted in the forums, Ravelry would not be half the resource that it is today. Ravelry is its community, and that's why they did us so dirty.

~Joyuna

Proof of time passing

2020-04-29T21:34:00.001+01:00

Knitting, like a lot of crafts, is time-intensive. It's no wonder I have come back to it during these strange times. I pour hours into my yarn and needles, and receive something tangible in return. I trade my empty evenings for a woolly sweater.

I've been working in the garden, too. It's so comforting to watch my seeds sprout and my seedlings develop, gaining new leaves and reaching up to the sky. Seeing a row of peas that wasn't there two weeks ago helps to separate one day from the next.

Time seems strangely elastic now. I'm not the first to notice it - plenty of people have talked about this online. At first, when the news never stopped coming, when new measures were being taken each day, everything moved so quickly and yet the last 2 weeks of March felt like a lifetime. Meanwhile, as I settle into isolation, April has passed by in a blink.

But I have proof that time is passing - I have handspun yarn, and I have half of a sweater, each treadle and each stitch counting a second that ticked away here at home.

My partner and I are both fortunate enough to be able to work at home for the most part. My family and friends are all thankfully healthy. I hope wherever you are and whatever your situation is during this, that you and your loved ones are safe.

~Joyuna

Attention: Patternfish is closing

2019-05-04T11:37:00.002+01:00

Patternfish will cease selling patterns on 31 May, 2019.

If you have bought any patterns through Patternfish, now is a good time to check your account and make sure you have downloaded them.

According to their website:
We will continue to make our customers’ stashes accessible to them to the end of 30 June, 2019, in order to provide them with time to save their purchased patterns to their personal hard drives.

However, they do not seem to have communicated thiss via email, so unless you checked the Patternfish website or Ravelry group, you may well have missed it.

I am saddened by this news. Competition within an industry makes it stronger, and in recent years the pattern-selling landscape has shrunk and become less accessible to smaller designers, after a majority of Craftsy pattern shops being closed and the Knitpicks IDP becoming more selective last year.

In addition to that, Patternfish prided itself on hosting many exclusive patterns, and the future of those designs and resources is uncertain. I would hate to think that access to these may be lost. Patternfish hosts some weaving resources, for example, which would not be able to be sold through Ravelry or Loveknitting. I wish all designers the best with the transition to new channels, and I thank the staff at Patternfish for their hard work over the years.

As for myself, I'm sad to see it go, but you will still find my patterns on Ravelry, LoveKnitting, and Etsy.

By the way, if you did buy any of my patterns on Patternfish, and would like them in your Ravelry library, send me an email with proof of purchase (to joyuna at gmail.com) and I'll sort it out. :)

~Joyuna

30 before 30

2019-03-16T12:08:00.000+00:00

Little Grey Stormclouds is my 30th design, according to the Ravelry database. That's not a significant number, except for one thing: I have a birthday coming up next month.

29 felt so expectant. Unfinished. Ever since my knitting mojo returned last year, that big '29 designs' has been staring me in the face, mocking me. What kind of an awkward, incomplete number is 29?

I set myself a goal that was simultaneously modest and unthinkable: release a new pattern before turning 30. Just the one. Just one simple, tiny, insignificant little pattern...

...and hours of knitting and re-knitting...
...and scraps of paper filled with notes and math...
...and a camera refresher course...
...and months of photo editing practice...
...and learning a whole new layout program...
...and getting over my anxiety to coordinate with a tech editor and test knitters...
...and speaking of anxiety, what if no one likes it? What if I make a hundred mistakes? What if this is the moment that will finally reveal how much of a talentless fraud I am?

It was so long since I'd been through this process. And it's still an awful lot of work! But, it's enriching work. I feel very fortunate to have the energy and headspace now to devote to this creative work.

My day job is about 5% satisfying, fulfilling accomplishments, and 95% mindless drudgery. It pays the bills, and it doesn't make me actively miserable. But one week is much like the next week, which is much like the next, and I'll probably spend the next 4 decades caught in this cycle without anything to show for it. If I want to leave something behind, I have to do it on my own time.

I didn't create at all during my darkest mental-health times. I started doing better, and my knitting mojo started to return. And I was very happy to make things only for myself for a while, but the more I sunk into it and experimented, the more I wanted to do the design thing again. To create something I could share with others.

As soon as I committed to designing again, ideas came flooding in. Hell, there are a couple nearly-complete patterns from years ago sitting on my hard drive that I never released. So I'm working on a whole handful of other patterns, and we'll see how many actually see the light of day. I'm working slowly, but enthusiastically, and I'm excited to keep going.

So bring it on, 30, and let's see what you have in store for me.

~Joyuna

New pattern: Little Grey Stormclouds

2019-03-07T10:30:00.000+00:00

These are my Little Grey Stormclouds.

These are my typing gloves, my reading gloves, my knitting gloves, my this-office-is-too-darn-cold gloves.

These were my mojo-rejuvenation project, my startitis project, my instant gratification project.

Easy, lazy knitting, and a well-loved FO. For me, they're the ideal combination of process knitting and product knitting. I loved knitting them and I love wearing them even more.

They're a straightforward knit, with practical touches:

1. Mock cables

I love the look of cables, but I do not like knitting cables. This mock cable is dead simple when you get the hang of it, and I include a photo tutorial in the pattern.

2. Open thumb

No waste yarn, no picking up stitches. Just bind off and leave your thumb free.

3. Short hand length

Again, it's all about keeping your fingers free. Nothing getting in your way, just a little extra warmth around your palm and wrist. And less length means less knitting, so they knit up super-quickly.

4. Tight gauge

Knitting these gloves at a dense gauge makes the stitches really pop, and gives them extra durability. I've been wearing mine since 2015, shoving them in pockets, tossing them in bags, and generally mistreating them - and there's still not a single pill. From a 100% merino yarn!

It's a simple but very effective pattern, and I've graded it for four sizes to fit a range of hands for all genders.

for $5.00

Sizes: 7 [7.75, 8.25, 9]" (18 [20, 21, 23]cm) measured around the hand at the base of the fingers

Yarn: Between 110-165 yards of fingering/4-ply weight yarn (Shown: Shibui Sock, 100% merino). That’s less than 50g of your typical sock yarn.

Needles: US 1.5 / 2.5mm DPNs or circs, or whichever size gives you 8.5 stitches per inch in stockinette in the round

Pattern is fully written (not charted), and includes a photo tutorial for working the mock cable stitch.

~Joyuna

Mending with needle-felting

2019-02-22T17:11:00.000+00:00

When it comes to mending, I darn my handknit socks for a strong, secure, and nearly seamless (with duplicate stitch) finish. However, I've recently learned I could also needle-felt to mend my woollens, and it's been a revelation!

It has advantages and disadvantages:

Quick, easy, mindless. It's fun to stab things.
It can handle irregularly-shaped holes that might be annoying to darn.
It's easier to felt than to darn onto very thin yarns/fabrics, like store-bought knits
You could felt an attractive design over your mended area
I can use my fibre stash. I also bought a needle felting kits with a few grams of 30+ colours for a perfect colour match. You can even blend colours.

But...

The finished patch is fuzzy, which you can see on the right side.
Obviously, the mend doesn't match the surrounding stitches.
The felted patch is less elastic than knit fabric.
I already had some needlefelting supplies lying around, but maybe you don't, and then it's another craft rabbit hole to fall down.

I have darned several of my storebought jumpers in this way. It works great to close up small moth-holes in fine-gauge stockinette, and a snag in this ribbed jumper where I couldn't find a good colour match in my yarn stash.

You can see the fuzz in the mended area if you're looking for it, but it's barely noticeable.

When the original fibre has a bit of halo already, or if the garment has gone fuzzy over time, the mend blends into the fabrics texture. I find the action of the needle will fuzz up your existing yarn a bit, so I would not use this for an intricate stitch pattern or a really 'crisp' yarn.

Thin store-bought merino jumper, right side

Remember not to felt multiple layers of fabric together, and move your foam block periodically so you don't felt your knitting to the foam!

Thin store-bought merino jumper, wrong side

Sometimes I want a really clean finish, and I pull out my darning needle. But sometimes I just want to plug up the hole with some wool, and, (more and more often these days) I want to stab something over and over. So needle-felting is great for that!

~Joyuna

Pinstripes & Chains set - now for sale on Ravelry

2019-02-17T17:01:00.001+00:00

The Pinstripes & Chains mitts and tam patterns, originally published in Knit Now Magazine, are now available as Ravelry downloads.

These quick accessories are easier than they look - the slipped stitches are a clever way to create vertical stripes while only working one colour per round. If you're up for more of a challenge, you can work the cabled "chains", but they're totally optional.

Since you're using two colours, these are a great project for using up the odd balls and scraps that you might have accumulated - and there's lots of room to experiment with colour combinations.

If you make size Small or Medium, you can make both a hat and pair of mitts with one 50g ball of each colour.

If you buy both the hat and the mitts together, you'll get a $3 discount.

Buy the set:
$7.00

Buy the mitts pattern:
$5.00

Buy the hat pattern:
$5.00

~Joyuna

Some housekeeping: Flickr changes

2019-01-19T18:14:00.000+00:00

You may or may not have heard that Flickr is making some changes to their account structure. While previously, free accounts could store up to 1TB of photos on Flickr, they are now reducing this dramatically to 1000 photos. For any accounts that do not upgrade to a paid membership, all but the 1000 most recent photos will be deleted.

I no longer use my Flickr account actively, but like many people a decade ago, I hosted most of my blog photos on Flickr. Ravelry also had Flickr integration which made uploading stash and project photos extremely convenient. As such, I've had to delete over 800 photos on my Flickr account.

Casey over at Ravelry has very thoughtfully already migrated the Flickr photos on Ravelry, so my Rav project photos are covered. And I've tried not to delete any photos I've specifically used in blog posts, but I'm sure I will have made some mistakes here and there. So, if you notice any broken photos on the blog, it would be great if you could leave a comment to let me know, and I can go in and fix it.

I don't begrudge Flickr their attempts to earn money from their service. If I still used Flickr regularly, I would happily fork over the money for a paid account. However, I am disappointed in their decision because it's going to have a massive ripple effect on the web as a whole, and particularly blogging communities from the mid-late 2000s and early 2010s. Personally, I knew these changes were coming to Flickr, and while it's an inconvenience for me, I still have access to my Flickr account and I still maintain this blog, so I can make adjustments. But there are loads of other sites around the web that aren't actively maintained, for any number of reasons, and if they hosted their photos on Flickr... That content will just disappear. I would have liked Flickr to offer some sort of grandfathering for old accounts that passed the 1000 photo limit. Instead, pretty soon, a big chunk of photos on the web are going to get wiped out, which I find extremely unfortunate.

Dear @DonMacAskill, the changes at Flickr make sense but I'm pretty sad about how the cutoff affects accounts from the early days of blogging, say 2004-2010, that relied on Flickr for photo hosting and contain 1000s (but not hundreds of thousands) of relatively low-res photos 😢
— casey forbes (@caseyf) November 2, 2018

~Joyuna

Dusting off some old patterns

2019-01-09T19:08:00.000+00:00

I was still in university when I published some of my first knitting patterns. While I remain proud of all my knitting designs, I've never been a graphic designer, and many of my early PDFs reflected that fact.

In my current day job I've been gaining experience in Photoshop and InDesign, and I've been able to transfer those skills back to designing. One of my projects for the year is to re-format as many of my old patterns as I can, using real layout software (no more layout in OpenOffice!) and the principles I've picked up from web design (white space! balance! nicely edited photos!).

I think you will find the new layouts much clearer, with more logical organisation, and generally more attractive. Plus, the PDF conversion is optimised so that in many cases the file sizes are smaller too.

The first patterns to receive this treatment are the Unbraiding Cables hat, Chain Link Tank, and Dogwood Shawlette.

If you've already bought these patterns on Ravelry, you should already have the update in your library. If you bought them on another platform, contact me at Joyuna at Gmail dot Com and I can send you an updated version.

~Joyuna

My 2:1 stashdown challenge

2019-01-07T16:47:00.000+00:00

I bought a lot of sweater-quantities of yarn last year. I won't say how many, but it is significantly fewer than the number of sweaters that I actually knit during the year.

The problem is, it's much easier to plan a sweater than it is to actually knit a sweater. I get the thrill of finding the perfect yarn for a pattern, I click "buy", and I quickly move on to the next shiny object. It's not a character trait I'm particularly proud of, but there it is.

My last yarn purchase of 2018 - soft and snuggly Blacker Swan

This year, I aim to practice some self-discipline. No more impulse buys, and I will keep my stashing to a net negative: For every 2 yards I knit, I can buy 1 yard of yarn. If I want to buy a 400yd skein of sock yarn, for instance, I need to have already knit 800 yards of yarn.

And if I want to buy a sweater's worth... I need to finish two sweaters. Or the equivalent yardage on other projects.

I think this will be a motivating challenge for me - I'm not going "cold sheep", but I'll still be working down my stash overall. I have to earn my yarny treats.

Here's to a productive 2019!

~Joyuna

Eleven Years.

2019-01-01T15:59:00.000+00:00

I can't believe how time has flown. Eleven years ago I made my first post on this blog.

I had only been knitting for half a year, and I already had taken my first steps in spinning. I never go in just halfway to a new fixation.

In some ways, my approach to my crafts hasn't changed much. I'm still afflicted by startitis and sometimes overly ambitious (I had been spining for about 2 months when I decided to spin a sweater).

Knitting led naturally into designing, as I gained confidence modifying existing patterns and coming up with my own. It's been a long time since I've released anything, but the creative spark hasn't left me.

My first bulky raglan shrug - my latest handspun sweater

Of course, in the meantime I have also gained two degrees, moved countries, and built a career in marketing. I got my first digital marketing job partly thanks to my blogging and my designing - and now, in turn, I am taking a critical eye to my older patterns and using the graphics and layout skills I've gained from my jobs to pay it back.

The time and energy I've had to devote to knitting has waxed and waned over time - currently, I'm in a new upswing.

281 knitting projects. 227 FOs. 77 handspun projects. 29 published designs. (and, while I can't promise any timeline yet... more to come)

Happy new year, everyone.

PS - I'm also practicing my photography. Follow me on Instagram?

~Joyuna

You don't have to make the things you don't want to

2018-12-22T16:08:00.000+00:00

Repeat this affirmation to yourself: I knit because I enjoy it, and I don't have to knit things I don't enjoy.

I've never liked knitting scarves. I bind them off too short, I leave them half-finished, they sit crumpled in a drawer unappreciated.

The prospect of six feet of the same stitches over, and over, and over, without change, just leaves me snoring. Sure, I'll put in a good effort for the first few feet, but I'm bound to lose interest.

Knitted scarves are not for me. I've amassed a collection of beautiful natural fibre woven scarves - thin, warm, and versatile - and the funny thing is, sometimes I've felt guilty about that. I'm a crafter, a little voice in my head says. Shouldn't I be wearing a scarf I made?

The answer is, nah.

I knit for my own pleasure, and just because I can make something, doesn't mean I'm obliged to do so. Why guilt myself into a project I won't enjoy?

So I gave myself permission to not knit scarves anymore.

Over the years I have a lot of stash that has been "earmarked" toward certain projects. And, over the 10+ years I've been knitting, my style and tastes have changed, and I also have a better idea of what I can knit that I will actually wear.

There are yarns and patterns that have sat like an albatross around my neck. I've been feeling like I have to make them because I decided, 5 years ago, that I would. Forget that noise! Why am I letting me pile guilt on myself for my own hobby?

At the beginning of the year, my Ravelry queue was 12 pages long. That's 350 patterns, give or take. Slowly, I whittled it down to 10 pages... and now, it's stabilised at 6. That's still 160 patterns that I want to knit, but it's a much more accurate picture of what I want to make now - not what I wanted to make 10 years ago and never got around to.

Am I ever really going to make a ruffled, beaded knitted evening bag? Amigurumi is cute, but do I enjoy those small fiddly projects? I already have a pair of everyday mittens, what would I do with 5 more? How many lace shawls do I really need in my life?

Karie Westermann's blog has a great series of articles about incorporating your handmade pieces into your wardrobe that covers this in further detail. I took a long hard look at what I enjoy knitting, and the handknits that I enjoy using. Now, it's much more heavily weighted towards sweaters and socks. Less lace, more texture. I haven't totally cut out everything frilly and feminine, but being realistic about my wardrobe, there's a good deal less.

It's all too easy for leisure activities to turn into an obligation - how many times has someone sighed to you about the length of their Netflix list, or the size of their to-read pile? Sometimes it's best to let it go - otherwise it weighs you down.

~Joyuna

Finished: Combospin, Harvest cardigan

2018-12-16T20:21:00.000+00:00

It is finished! I blogged before about casting on my Harvest sweater, and the process of spinning it from various braids of different kinds of fibres.

The pattern is Harvest, a brilliant seamless and free pattern from Tincanknits. This pattern is lovely and straightforward, and there's something very satisfying about how little finishing there is to do at the end - since the buttonband is knit at the same time as the body, once you've bound off, you're done. This also makes it perfect for stripy handspun yarn, since the stripes wrap around the entire garment.

I did do a few mods that I picked up from some other Ravelry projects - one was knitting the sleeve cuffs perpendicular to the sleeves, which gives a nice mock-ribbing effect. Another is adding knit-in pockets - this is my first time using this technique, and I'm really pleased with it. Basically you knit waste yarn over the area you want to place your pocket, then slip the stitches back and re-knit. Then, you have two sets of live stitches - one to knit the ribbing over top of your pocket, and the other to knit the back lining. Then I sewed the lining against the front of the cardigan to finish the pocket.

This was a very quick knit - just over a month from cast off to bind off, and I was working on other projects during that time as well. Stockinette and garter stitch go quickly, even more so when I can't wait to see what stripe will appear next.

I did use one psychological trick to keep me motivated while knitting: after I separated for the sleeves, instead of continuing down the body, I immediately knit the sleeves next. Sleeves are a bugbear of mine: I always underestimate how long they will take, and I find them very tedious. Especially when they're the one thing standing between me and a finished sweater. So, by knitting the sleeves in the middle of the project, it prevented a good deal of frustration and made the project go much more quickly.

The sleeves are the only part of the sweater where I alternated skeins - I knit them in 3-round stripes. This is because I wanted the width of the stripes to roughly match the body, and if I had just knit from one skein the small circumference of the sleeves would have caused much wider stripes. The effect is subtle but I'm very happy with how it turned out.

All in all, I am really happy with this cardigan! I took it out for a test drive yesterday and it was perfectly cosy. I can tell I'll get a lot of wear out of this one.

So, to summarise, I went from this disparate pile of fibre:

To a huge plying ball:

To this yarn:

To this sweater:

Project page on Ravelry

~Joyuna

Bonus: More fun with the 700g yarn ball

2018-11-21T12:35:00.000+00:00

I mentioned in my last post that I wound my latest spinning project into one giant ball for plying.

The great yarnball

I have some extra photos of the massive ball that didn't fit in the last post. Because of course, if I'm going to have a 700g yarn ball, I'm going to have a photo shoot.

Cat for scale

The three plies of yarn

Winding the very, very large plying ball. Yes, this took ages, and yes, my hand was aching by the end.

Was it worth it? Probably not. But it was pretty funny having a basketball-sized ball of yarn.

One sweater-to-be, balanced on my head

~Joyuna

The one-ball sweater | Combospin and embracing chaos

2018-11-20T21:23:00.000+00:00

I've been working on a really interesting project for the past several months - a Combospin. I'm a little late to the boat on this method, but I was so excited when I found out about it, and saw the amazing results of other people on Ravelry.

Combospinning is a way to combine individual braids of hand-dyed fibre into a cohesive yarn for a larger project. If you have a habit of stashing 100g here and there that you never know what to do with, this is an ideal way to turn them into a sweater-quantity of yarn.

The process is very simple: Take all your fibre (in braids, in batts, or any other put-up) and break them up into smaller pieces. Mix them up in a big bag or box, and just spin one piece after another.

So I shopped my stash, and I filled in the gaps with some extra purchases, and found 750g of fibre along the yellow-orange spectrum. It wasn't an exact process, and in fact, having a few braids that don't quite 'fit' added more interest to the project.

This is spinning by embracing chaos. You do not plan out a sequence of stripes, you do not (need to) match up colours or fibres or even drafting styles - you can combine combed top and carded batts, and no one will arrest you. The spinning police aren't coming for you.

The resulting yarn is perfectly "conspicuously handspun". The plies blend together in some parts, toning each other down, while at other spots a stripe of bright colour will pop out when the plies align. It's a similar effect to fractal spinning, on a large scale and more random. Embrace the barber-pole.

This is a sort of polar opposite project to my just-finished handspun sweater. In that project, I was focused on consistency: all the same fibre, all the same spinning technique, all the same thickness. I was, more or less, trying to imitate a factory-produced millspun yarn. In this combospin, I am letting go of consistency and order, and creating something that you couldn't ever buy in a shop.

I spun them up, and the spinning process was addictive - just one more length of fibre, just one more bobbin...

Each one of my three plies nicely filled up my set of 5 bobbins - very satisfying. When I mixed up the bobbins and wound them off, I decided to wind each ply into one continuous ball. Why? Just to keep things organised, really.

And when I finished each ply, I thought I might as well wind them all into one big plying ball...

Why? There isn't a good reason. I just felt like being extra. I wanted to see what it would look like. It was glorious!

Yes, that's nearly 750g of yarn in one ball as big as my head.

Of course, I had to break the yarn into separate skeins when it came to plying. And just like the spinning, the plying process went by very quickly because it was so gratifying to see the colours combine in such interesting ways.

And then I had this yarn: yellow and orange, but also flecked with lengths of red, and brown, and green and even purple. Crunchy downs wool and silky rayon and buttery-soft merino. A fabulous buffet of colours and textures. View my stash details on Rav.

This is my third handspun sweater project. I've enjoyed them all, but I've definitely had the most fun with this one.

I've already cast on. Now, I just have to keep on knitting!

~Joyuna

Spinning for pleasure | Polypay Polar Dip Pullover

2018-11-17T10:07:00.002+00:00

I finished a sweater. It was a long, long time in the making.

Do you remember when I bought the wool?

Since I first spun the Polypay breed, I was enchanted with it. So bouncy, with just the right balance of softness and 'woolliness'.

And the carded roving was a true pleasure to spin long-draw.

Sometimes I feel like the reason I have continued to knit and spin after all these years is not because I particularly love sweaters and hats and socks - it's because I love the sensual aspects of yarn. The colours and textures, the spring in my hand.

This project has certainly been an example of that. All through spinning, and all through knitting, I took immense pleasure in this wool. Every few rows, I would look back at the fabric under my needles and couldn't help but smile. It's soft and elastic and just a little fuzzy.

I'm really happy with the fit, and the sweater overall. I've come a long way since my first handspun sweater!

This yarn is thinner, and more consistent, while still having a 'homespun' character. I love the texture it gives.

The pattern is Polar Dip, a basic top-down raglan with some simple but attractive colorwork at the yoke. It was easy knitting with just a few details to test my skills - I am an expert at the tubular bindoff now! Grafting is always a little bit of a pain, but it does give an excellent clean and elastic finish to the edges.

By the way, Shady Side Farm is still selling their wool roving on Etsy. I can't recommend it enough :) ShadySideFarm on Esty

~Joyuna

Knitting when I'm happier / Happier when I'm knitting

2018-02-22T22:24:00.001+00:00

I wasn't knitting for a long time. I wasn't spinning, either. Or writing, or creating much of anything at all.

There are a lot of reasons. My energy was low, I'd picked up other hobbies, I was having a rough time at work, and the whole world has been having a rough time for the past couple of years. Plus I had a pretty bad moth infestation, so the skeins sitting in my cupboard were less full of exciting possibilities and more full of disappointment.

So I lost my mojo. I lost my drive to create, and I focused on other things. It wasn't all bad - I read a lot books and learned tons. I grew and changed as a person. I think I got a little wiser. But when I'm not making things, I feel less like myself.

I'm not sure which way is the right order: do I knit when I'm happy, or am I happy when I knit? They feed on each other in a seamless circle. Knitting makes me feel better, but I can't create when I have nothing to give. A few years ago, I lost my rhythm and got thrown out of the cycle. And suddenly, last month, I picked up some yarn and I felt the hunger again. I picked up the needles, and by the end of one week, I had made a shawl.

Immediately I made plans for the next one. I let the yarn flow through my hands; I watch the colours splash and meld while the fabric grows from the needles.

I'm feeling like myself again.

~Joyuna

Flax from seed to shuttle

2015-06-07T09:48:00.002+01:00

Since taking up weaving, I've had the opportunity to explore fibres I have never really enjoyed working with as a knitter. I've been using my tahkli and charkha to spin up loads of cotton (fantastic mindless spinning - when you can get in the groove, it's magic) and I've now started to become interested in flax/linen.

It's funny that two different plant fibres can be so dramatically different - where cotton is short, flax is incredibly long. Where cotton is soft and insubstantial, flax is unbreakably strong (really, it will cut your fingers before it will break). And while the cotton plant flourishes in hot sunny weather, flax is comfortable in the cool and cloudy climes of northern Europe.
This last point is what inspired me to order a flax starter kit from Flaxland. I tried to grow cotton last year, but it didn't work very well in always-overcast England. The Flaxland kit allows me to try out every stage of turning flax to linen, from growing to processing to yarn.

The kit really has everything - it is an excellent value! It contained:
- A packet of fibre flax seeds
- A booklet on the history of flax
- Some scutched fibre ready to be hackled/combed, enough to last me quite some time
- A 'breaker/hackle' - essentially a block of wood with teeth carved on one end :) a simple tool but effective!
- A metal comb for finer combing after hackling
- A face mask, as processing flax gets dusty
- A spindle - kind of a boat anchor, but it has these charming markings noting the traditional direction for spinning wool (clockwise / Z twist) vs flax (counterclockwise / S twist)
- A set of spools and a kind of mini-lazy-kate to ply off of
- Even some ribbon for dressing a distaff!

I tossed down some of the seeds in an empty patch in my garden (densely, so that the plants will compete with each other for the sun and grow nice and tall). They are doing well so far:

Who knows if they will make it to the end of the season, and if they do, if I will be able to successfully complete the long and involved process of turning it into fibre - but either way, I am having a fun time of it!

As for the linen I've spun? I warped up some cotton on the loom and am weaving some small towels in a mix of cotton and linen threads. I'll let you have a look when I've finished.

~Joyuna

Offer!: Free pass to Creativebug

2015-05-28T22:26:00.001+01:00

Creativebug is a platform for video craft classes, kind of like Craftsy. However, instead of buying single classes a la carte, they operate on a Netflix-style subscription model, giving you access to all the classes at once for a period of time. I feel spoilt for choice, having gotten a free month's access - there are knitting and crochet classes, along with a ton of other crafts including sewing, jewelry making, vegetable canning and more!

For your own free pass, click below and enter the promo code SUMMER2015. You'll then get free access to Creativebug until June 30, as well as any one class to keep permanently.

I'm looking forward to diving in to their classes on double knitting, a skill I've never had the chance to pick up. Plus all their beginner sewing videos are of interest to me - since taking up weaving, I now have the ability to turn my copious yarn/fiber stash into fabric...

~Joyuna