Crochet designer, Robin Chachula of Crochet by Faye brought up a lovely idea in her blog today. She is suggesting we all honor the brilliant and hard working designers we love by ‘adopting’ them this month. Read her blog post here about it. The long and short of it though is that designers work pretty much non-stop to bring the world wonderful patterns and projects but as much as they/we love the job it doesn’t pay much or offer much in the way of financial incentives. So take a few minutes to buy a pattern from someone you admire, or talk them up to your friends, maybe even send them a quick note to tell them how beautiful, witty and brilliant they are. They like that.

While I am a designer I also want to make sure I’m doing my part to support those other designers that constantly inspire and amaze me so I’ll be doing my best for the rest of this month (and forever) to point out designers I think deserve some attention.

One of the designers that I am constantly amazed with who definitely deserves more attention is Jessamyn Leib of JeshKnits (Ravelry pattern store link). She is young and yet her designs reflect both a modern and very classic aesthetic that I just adore. Her Quill cowl pattern has been sitting in my queue for nearly two months and although I haven’t had time to knit it I stare at it often and have even picked out the yarn I’d like to use for it. In addition to being a brilliant designer she also makes absolutely stunning hand crafted drop spindles and recently added fiber to her product line. You can check her shop out here. I bought one of her spindles several months ago as a gift for my bestie, Christina Marie so I can absolutely attest to their quality. Also, in addition to being ridiculously talented, Jesh is freaking hilarious and her blog posts, cat pictures, forum postings and Plurk/Twitter updates often have me giggling.

I hope you take a moment to check Jesh out, but I also hope you take a few more moments to reflect on the designers and crafty people in your life that you find inspiring. As always, if you have anyone that you think is absolutely awesome please let me know! I love finding new designers and artisans. Leave me a comment with your favorite designer, I’d love to check them out.

I am by no means a ‘brilliant’ or ‘experienced’ designer or pattern writer. I’m still pretty new at it but I have done it for a few years now and before I did it for myself I worked for another knit wear designer turning her beautiful and often complex creations into patterns for mass consumption. I like to think I’m a pretty decent pattern writer. However the thing about writing a pattern, or a recipe/tutorial/explanation of anything really, is that it is probably not going to be perfectly understandable to everyone all of the time.

Designers and pattern writers have a difficult task of trying to explain what they have done to create a thing in a way that will make the most sense to the most people. What may make sense to me may not be as clear to someone else. While there are generally accepted guidelines for pattern writing and a set of abbreviations commonly used, terminology and the like there are no hard and fast rules when it comes to writing a pattern. This is actually one of the things I like about having access to so many different designs and designers through the internet. If I find a pattern that I love and I buy the pattern and it doesn’t make sense to me, chances are there is probably another designer somewhere that has done a similar technique or pattern and their directions may make more sense to me.

This brings me to the topic of errata. Errata, or corrections to errors in a pattern, happen to even the most experienced designers. There is no such thing as a ‘perfect’ pattern. Even the simplest most straight forward pattern may let a teeny error slip through, it could be as simple as typing ‘k2’ when you meant ‘k3’, or it could be as complex as leaving out an entire section of the directions. I have seen both of these things happen to small self publishing designers as well as larger designers who had the benefit of professional test knitters, tech editors and a team of publication staff at their disposal. Errata happens. It’s frustrating no doubt, but it happens.

Personally, as a designer/pattern writer, I am super embarrassed when someone finds an error in one of my patterns. And rightfully so! I’ve put this thing out into the universe for general consumption with the understanding that I had made it clear enough for other people to understand. I try to keep the instances of errors and misunderstandings to a minimum by taking advantage of test knitters. Test knitters are people who volunteer (in my case for free, in some cases for pay) to knit or crochet a pattern before it is released to the general public. They work the pattern as it is written and point out any inconsistencies, errors or areas that could be clarified to make better sense. I have several test knitters that I use regularly and I am very blessed that they are both talented and outspoken when it comes to pointing out problems. Once a pattern has gone to the test knitters and been returned with all their suggestions and corrections, I make the necessary corrections to the pattern, usually knit it once more myself to make sure it still does what I wanted it to do in the first place and then it either gets sent to my tech editor (a very nice woman who is not unafraid to wield her red ink liberally) or gets the once over from the person I am designing the pattern for. This depends on the pattern. For any given pattern, even small simple ones, no less than 5-10 pairs of eyes see the pattern before it is ever published. And I’m small potatoes! Consider how many eyes see a professional designers pattern! Even with all those eyes on the thing before it ever hits the open market, errors still wiggle their way through.

I’ve thought long and hard on how this could possibly happen and I’ve come up with some possible theories:

1) The mind is capable of making incredible intuitive leaps. For example, say a pattern employs a simple lace design that is so simple most intermediate to experienced knitters can memorize the pattern and know where to put their yo’s and k2tog’s without really reading the pattern. If then there is a mistake in the lace pattern or in the chart that goes with it, a test knitter may overlook it because they understand where the pattern is going.

2) What makes sense to me, may make sense to you, but not to your friend. If I write a pattern and the tester who is knitting it has no problems following my directions he or she will come up with a finished object that looks exactly like mine. Wonderful! The pattern is a success! All is well in the world and it’s time to release it for everyone to enjoy! HAPPY DAY! Then, a 3rd person buys/downloads the pattern and begins knitting. The same directions that were perfectly clear to the designer and test knitter are now misunderstood or not understood at all to knitter #3. Knitter #3 now ends up with a finished object that looks nothing like it was supposed to and is very disappointed. But there was no actual error in the pattern, only a lack of understanding on the part of Knitter #3. Now is that Knitter #3’s fault? No! Of course not! Is that my fault as the designer? No, not really. Is it the test knitters fault? Absolutely not.

So what’s the solution? Well the solution to both of these things is to use as many test knitters as possible, read over the pattern as often as possible to catch your own mistakes and have as many people look at it before its released to judge clarity. But what happens when we do all of that and someone still has a problem with the pattern?

I believe it’s the designers responsibility to either handle answering questions themselves personally or delegate a person to handle questions and offer support to the knitter when there is a problem. Ravelry has made offering pattern support very simple, a designer can set up a group for people knitting their designs so that they can answer questions all in one place where everyone can see the issue/answer and other knitters who have made it through the pattern without issue can help others as well. Offering an email address, a blog site with a comments section, chat times, etc. are other great ways to help your customers get through tricky bits of a pattern. 

But what is the responsibility of the knitter? Be patient. Errors happen to the best of us, I’m sure even you as a knitter has made a mistake before that needed fixing. Allow for the fact that the people writing these patterns are human beings. Ask questions clearly and without being accusatory. Wait a reasonable amount of time for a response to a problem before giving up on the designer altogether. By ‘a reasonable amount of time’ I mean at least 24 hours. If after a day you’ve received no response, then I understand getting upset or indignant. Join knit-alongs for a project that may be a bit beyond your skill level! Knit alongs are a great way to work through a project with other people and to ask questions and get answers near instantly! Even if you don’t join the KAL, look for the KAL threads online for a project you’re having difficulty with. Chances are if there was a problem with the pattern or someone else didn’t understand it the question has been answered already and there’s no reason to message the designer personally. Ask questions! Lots and lots of questions! A good designer will hopefully relish the opportunity to help you work their pattern. The reason they published it was so people would make it.

On an upcoming episode of the Craft Culture podcast I’ll be speaking with an established and professionally published designer and we’ll be discussing some of these same issues so if you have a question for a more established designer than I about what it’s like to publish a pattern or the process it goes through to reach completion feel free to pose the question here in the comments or over on the Craft Culture Ravelry board.

The Proposal Beret KAL is in full swing and there is even one person already finished! It looks lovely in the yarn from Desert Garden Farm and I am so happy to have hooked up with such a talented and fun dyer for this project!

Speaking of which, we’ve decided to do another KAL next month as well. We’re doing a felted bag that can be used as WIP or KIP bag or any kind of little carry-along tote. It’s inspired by Mother Earth and will feature a bright one of a kind colorway and super simple knitting techniques that make it perfect for a beginning knitter or an experienced knitter who just wants an instant gratification project.

You can get your Mother Earth KAL kit here. Kits ship mid March.

We’ll be doing more of these single and/or two skein project KAL’s for the next several months. We like the quick ones that are relatively inexpensive so anyone can knit along with us.

In other news Episode 3 of the Craft Culture podcast is available on the Craft Culture blog and on iTunes.

I’ve got some news about other projects in the works as well, but I’m going to be late for class so that will have to wait!

I have just been a terrible blogger lately! I’ve been tearing my hair out trying to learn the ins and outs of podcasting though and I had a few bumps in the road the last week but the good news is I’ve recorded Episode 2 of Craft Culture. Episode 2 (or ‘The Thing About Laura…’) features one of my favorite people and besties Laura Marie. In this episode we talk mostly about fan knitting, specifically Laura’s experiences knitting with and for the Harry Potter fans. Its up on iTunes and on the Craft Culture blog as well.

Tomorrow I’ll be recording Episode 3. In which I grill my boyfriend Mike on what it’s like living with someone who is craft obsessed. I’m asking for input from you guys as well on the Craft Culture blog.

So, what have I been doing you may ask? Well I’ve been mixing up teas like crazy, knitting/designing as much as possible and going to class 4 days a week. Life is busy but good. Since my last update there are several new tea blends in the Goddess Tea Shop as well as some hand roasted coffee beans! I’m very excited to be able to add the beans. I absolutely adore hand roasting the coffee and its so much fun to see the beans go from pale green to that rich dark brown in less than 15 minutes.

Pretty right!?! I think so. 

On the knitting/designing front I’ve been working on projects for a few indie dyers so everything has been pretty hush hush until the patterns are released. However I am doing the Proposal Beret KAL with fellow Phattie and super awesome fiber artist/dyer/farmer Jennifer Green of Desert Garden Farm. That pattern is now available to the people who purchased the KAL kit, and will be available to purchase to the general public in about a month. But I can share pictures!

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I’m also working on some more designs for the Unique Sheep because I adore their yarn and it has over taken my stash. It must be knit! I’m also working on some sock patterns for the new Nightfall yarns from Fibro Fibers. (Heads up, there are a few of these left in her shop right now from the update earlier today, they go quick so snag some while you can!)

I’m also taking new members for the Choose Your Own Adventure Club again so if you’re interested sign up in the next few days and get in for the March package. The club is growing a bit and I can only take about 20 members, so if you want to get in now’s the time. As soon as I get to 20, I’m closing sign ups again. Last month we did Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band for the sock rockers and a bouquet of colors for the nature clubbers.

                                            (Sgt. Pepper)

In January the sock rockers got yarn inspired by the Pixies album ‘Bossonova’. I la la love this one. (HA! I’m so witty. Pixies joke.)

In the meantime if you’re looking for Dyed by DaniDo yarns look no further than the Phat Fiber shop. I recently sent off a batch of hand dyed sock yarns to Jessie to put in the shop. They’re all inspired by Goddesses and come with a sample of Goddess Tea.

That’s all for now, new podcast up this weekend. Go buy some tea!

So despite the overwhelming votes for the name ‘SocioCraft’ for a podcast, I decided to go with Craft Culture. Here’s why: while I enjoy the similarity to ‘sociopath’ and the connation it brings, it might turn some people off. Since this podcast is a look at the culture and community surrounding crafting I wanted something that would be more indicative of the content. That said, I totally have plans for a project using ‘SocioCraft’.

So! Let me tell you about the podcast! I am super excited about it. Here’s what I envision it as being (eventually.): a place to discuss the sociological, anthropological and cultural implications of the art of handcrafting. Major themes I’m looking at include

• how specific crafts benefit society as a whole or at the very least the person doing them.
• subgenres or trends within a given craft and how that impacts the craft at large
• concepts and misconceptions that shape public opinion of people who craft (example: The Granny Knitter Theory)
• the importance of crafting in general but also in specific crafts

It’s not just a knitting podcast. I want to talk about all kinds different crafts. I want to interview people who do those crafts, sell those crafts (or supplies for them), write about them, dream about them, however they’re involved I want to talk to them. Just listening to me talk the whole time will get pretty boring pretty quick so I want to have an ‘exploding co-host’ where someone new co-hosts with me and we talk about topics related to the craft they participate in. In addition to the Exploding Co-host, I will also be posing questions each podcast to the listeners and you can comment by sending me an email (if you want it to be private) to craftculturepodcast@gmail.com or by posting a comment on the podcast blog: http://craftculture.podbean.com/.

I posted the first podcast last night as a test run, which you can listen to online at the link above. I’ve set up an iTunes feed for it and it’s currently being reviewed so as soon as it’s available that way I’ll let you guys know. The audio on this one isn’t fantastic because I was doing it all by myself and I couldn’t get my mic to work on my good computer so I had to use a different computer and the audio settings were wonky and blah blah blah. Long story short; there’s some fuzz and static in the background and I apologize. The good news is I think I know why it did that and how to fix it AND next time I’ll have Mike, the love of my life and the smartest boy on the planet, help me get everything situated properly.

If you want to talk to me about what it is you do, please please please let me know and we’ll get something coordinated to be able to do that. I’m going to try to figure out how to record conversations in Skype so that we can do the rotating interviews/co-host thing via Skype and make it pretty easy (and free hopefully). If you already know how to do this AND you want to be on my podcast, even better! Get in touch with me ASAP and tell me how to do that! You can email the podcast directly at craftculturepodcast@gmail.com or get in touch with me in the usual way; daniella@danido.com.

Here’s the podcast in case you guys want to listen to it without opening another window:

I’ll explain better in depth later but the long and short of things is that I’m starting a podcast. I’d like you all to help me pick a name for it. Leave a comment with your favorite please!

1) SocioCraft
2) Society of Craft
3) Crafting Society
4) Craft Culture
5) Crafting Culture

I’ll explain what this podcast will be about and when I plan to launch later today. Thanks!

As you might notice I’ve changed the entire look of the website. Over the 3 years that I’ve had this domain name the blog (and my business) has grown. As things grew I just kept adding stuff on. Pages, links, ads, shops, etc. until all of a sudden last week we hit critical mass and I just flat ran out of space. When I ran out of space I noticed that the whole thing was looking pretty slapped together. Kind of like a house that starts out as a two room cottage but over several generations of ownership turns into a sprawling estate. Rooms get added on willy nilly and before you know it; you have a compound instead of a house. Not cute, not cute at all.

So it was time to just level This Old House and start from fresh. If you’ve visited the site in the last 48 hours you may have seen any number of themes in various stages of tinkering. The look now is pretty much how things will stay for the foreseeable future barring of course another addition.

Now, since the site has a fresh new face let me tell you about some other changes that are going on at House of DaniDo! First of all I’ve made the decision to focus my attentions primarily on designing and my tea/coffee business. This means that my retail shop (www.buydanido.com) is going to be dissolved. I have moved all of my for sale patterns to the ‘Patterns for Sale’ page. Just like with the shop you can buy them through this website and once your payment is complete you will receive an immediate link to download the PDF. Nothing has changed other than the location where you purchase them!

However, as for the other things in the shop, those will be discontinued. I will no longer be stocking the shop with Dyed by DaniDo yarns. I will however still be continuing to fulfill the Choose Your Own Adventure Club memberships, I am no longer taking new members for the club because I have just the right amount of members for it to stay fun and high quality on my end. Of course if you feel you will suffer negative consequences if you don’t get in the club you can always email me and throw yourself on my mercy, I am very open to flattery. All my existing members will continue to get hand painted yarns and fiber each month and a selection of goodies as well.

What this means: well, first and foremost all the yarns that are in the shop right now are on sale. Prices are already discounted so there’s no waiting for a PayPal refund or entering codes. Except I am going to offer a special discount code each day on a specific sale item until they are all gone and out of my craft room! I want these babies to go to good homes, I will gladly keep anything that doesn’t sell but I myself am already approaching a stash that will most likely outlive me and I hardly need anymore hand painted sock yarn.

So today the super special discounted item is this hank of my Luxury Sock yarn (cashmere/silk/merino blend, ridiculously soft):

To take this off my hands use code ‘takeit’ at checkout for another 10% off the discounted price listed.

I’ll be running this sale through February 15th. Anything that doesn’t sell I guess I’ll have to keep for myself. (Like I mind!) Seriously though, if you want it, take it, I need to make room for more tea supplies!

After all of these are gone you will only have one place left to find Dyed by DaniDo yarns; the Phat Fiber Etsy Shop. I have just finished dyeing up a batch of one of a kind hand painted sock yarns to head out to Phat Fiber later this week. I will continue to supply Phat Fiber with hand painted yarns but they will be my sole distributor from here on out, so keep an eye on that shop for not just my yarns, but also great limited edition runs from other fiber artists. (Check out the Cult Classics yarn and fiber series Jennifer from Desert Garden Farm has in there! I love love love the Rocky Horror handspun.)

That brings me to my next announcement; I am collaborating on a very special project with Jennifer/Desert Garden Farm! We are doing a knit along together in February. In honor of the Phat Fiber box theme ‘Master Painters’ we’ve chosen the painting ‘The Proposal’ to inspire us for this knit along. Jennifer will be dyeing up hanks of worsted weight merino in a limited edition colorway and I am working up a beret/slouchy hat pattern to accompany it. You can read more about the KAL and get info on where to get your KAL kit here. I am super excited by the response we’ve gotten from this idea and I can see many more collaborations in our futures together. I absolutely adore Jennifer and love working with her so I am excited to be doing this project with her. We have an idea in the works for a ‘From Fiber to Finished Object’ kit as well that will let you spin your own yarn and then knit it up into a pattern. I am super excited about that one because it’s something I’ve wanted to do since I learned to spin!

I have more stuff up my sleeve but I’ll save that for the next blog post. Let me know what you guys think of the new blog design! Oh, and GO BUY SOME YARN!

(A real quick plug for my other business; Goddess Tea I’ve just announced a Tea of the Month Club and mixed up some new blends! Check out the blog for more info!)

Winners have been chosen and notified (or sent their patterns in some cases.) I want to thank everyone who entered the contest. It is so wonderful reading about the incredible women who inspire and support you all. It made my little heart all aflutter to read these comments about the awesome people we have in our lives.

Speaking of how awesome people are, I’m sure most of you have heard about the devastating earth quake that hit Haiti this week and basically destroyed the small island. The outpouring of support from the human race has really just touched me. Everyone I know is doing something they can to help, even if it’s just spreading the word about fundraising efforts and such. Lots of people in the knitting community have stepped up and started auctions, fundraisers and donation pools to raise money to send to the Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders and other relief organizations. The Yarn Harlot threw up the Knit-Signal  and one of my favorite groups on Ravelry the Completely Pointless and Arbitrary Group group (yes, I meant to type group group.) who is usually seriously dedicated to being whacky and random has pulled together and shown an awful lot of pointedness to put together an auction to raise money, if you’re on Ravelry you can view the auction thread here. Jesh who makes the most lovely spindles on the planet and has recently begun selling fiber as well (she also designs beautifully too.) is donating a portion of her profits and she has a donor who is matching any donations she collects as well. There are countless other knitters, spinners, dyers, designers and otherwise crafty folk who are either donating proceeds of sales or an actual specific dollar amount too, just look around and I bet you can find some of your favorite fiber folk doing something similar.

In the world outside of knitting this is going on too, my friend Pj Perez of Bleeding Neon is not only a talented journalist, drummer, party planner and all around swell guy, but he also draws these nifty comics too! You can buy his upcoming comic anthology right now and 100% of the sale will go to the Save the Children Foundation’s emergency efforts in Haiti.

www.chroniclebooks.com is donating 20% of their sales from their website to disaster relief and it looks like their also hosting a bake sale in San Francisco too.

For my small part I’m donating the money from every sale I make of either of my sock patterns; Polaris Sock or Chopstick Sock , from now until next Wednesday. So far I’ve raised just over $20 from sock pattern sales this way, which is not a whole lot but I’d like to remind everyone that every tiny bit helps. Even the $3 you spend on a sock pattern can do some good in the world and if enough people donate $5, 10, 20 it adds up to quite a bit. It all counts.

I’m making my donations through the Red Cross but you can donate to a whole bunch of different organizations that will help get the money to exactly where it needs to be. I do recommend donating through a reputable organization though. I recommend the Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders, Heifer International (they’re doing a special fundraising push right now for Haitian relief) or The Clinton Foundation.

If you can’t afford to spare any money right now towards the relief effort, worry not! You can still do something; tell other people about ways they can donate! Tweet, Plurk, email, Facebook, MySpace, carrier pigeon, smoke signals, just do it! Tell other people and remind people, there is a history of moving on from tragedy like this and putting it behind us awfully quickly. Donating today is great, but Haiti is going to need continued donations for a long time coming to get back on their feet and rebuild their towns and lives.

Also I hope you all take a moment to reflect on the things you have in your life that are a blessing. I know whenever something like this happens I am struck dumb by how lucky I am to have my health, my  home, my family and my friends. I cannot imagine going through something that horrifying and painful and while I may not have much in life, I do have a lot to be thankful for.

I guess we’ll just jump right into the stuff I have to share. The first thing, which I am most excited about is that my tea blends have been doing so well in the www.buydanido.com shop that I have decided to roll them over to their own brand and shop. On Wednesday I announced the grand opening of Goddess Tea. Goddess Tea features the same blends that were previously available at DaniDo Crafty but they have been renamed (each listing has the old name as well so if you’re looking for an old favorite you can still find them in the new shop.) Each of the teas are now named after a Goddess. You can read more about how I decided to use this theme on the Goddess Tea Blog. I also introduced a few new blends in the shop this week, the most popular so far has been the Hestia Chai Kit which is a kit I’ve put together for people who enjoy the chai concentrates you can get at the grocery store or chai lattes you get in coffee houses. This kit gives you the tea and spices you need to make your own concentrate as well as directions for making the concentrate itself and 4 recipes for how to serve it. I love this kit so much, I keep a jug of the concentrate on hand all the time in my house. I drink chai year round; hot in the winter and over ice or blended in the summer time. In my opinion it’s the perfect beverage.

As I was trying to figure out how to rebrand these teas and what my new labels and logo should look like, my own personal Goddess of Photoshop swooped in and saved me from my own subpar design skills. Miss Violet (of Lime & Violet , Recaffeinated Bath Works and Oak River Township fame. She also has many other homes on the internet but I won’t link them all.) bailed me out in my time of need by procuring this MOST AWESOME logo for me to use. She’s fabulous in so many ways they’re almost as hard to enumerate as her many blogs/shops/websites.

Tada!

HOW FREAKING GORGEOUS IS THAT?!? SERIOUSLY?!?

Excuse me, freak out over now. I’m sorry for the outburst. I’m just super in love with that logo. 

So, as with any new obsession I have been up to my eyebrows in Goddesses, tea, packing slips and all things Goddess Tea related. I’ve also been blessed with many hours spent standing over a bowl in my kitchen thinking up new blends and sipping hot tester teas in deep introspection. This introspection has led me to realize that I am surrounded by my own Personal Goddesses. (And a few Gods as well.) I want to tell you all about some of my favorite ladies and then I’m going to give you incentive to tell me about your Personal Goddess.

We’ll start with the one closest to my heart and person: Goddess of Listening, Moral Support and Holding Me Accountable Christina Marie. She is my bestest bestie and she listens to more pathetic whiney self depreciating ‘ZOMG I can’t do this I suck at everything!’ crap than any other person on the planet and does it all with grace and only occasionally tells me off. I am endlessly grateful for her and I don’t think I would be half as sane or competent as I am without her.

I also have a wonderful group of Goddesses of Business Brainstorming and Good Ideas who include but are not limited to Amy, Chelsea, Lori (couldn’t find a blog but here’s her Twitter!) and of course Laura and Kelly of the Unique Sheep. These gals are constantly giving me feedback on my various business endeavors, moral support and cheerleading, and of course they buy my stuff too! Which is always nice.

Lastly there is my Goddess of Silliness and LOUD Laura Marie who constantly keeps me in good spirits, reminds me to not take things too seriously and that there is always time for singing, dancing, making noise and fan girl-ing out about whatever makes you feel good. She is my little ray of sunshine and without her I’m sure I would be dreadfully boring.

My other goddesses include Donna Lee (Goddess of Being Supportive), Mary Catherine Black (Goddess of OMG CAN YOU KNIT THIS NOW?!?), Tamsie (Goddess of Please Be My Mom), Teri (Goddess of How Do You Do It?) and many more.

These are just some of the incredible women I am lucky enough to have in my life. There are lots more I haven’t mentioned who deserve to have their praises yelled from rooftops, unfortunately naming them all here would take weeks.

Now the fun bit! I want to hear about your Personal Goddesses! Tell me about a special lady in your life and why they are your own personal Goddess and you could win a prize.

What is the prize you ask? Well, one lucky winner will get next months Choose Your Own Adventure Club package! This will include a hank of hand dyed sock yarn in the ‘Nature’ theme and the goodie that the rest of the club will be getting (it’s a good one!). 2 other winners will get copies of my Flounce Neckwarmer pattern which is a perfect Spring time knitting project.

This contest will run from today through January 15th (next Friday). All you need to do is leave a comment on this blog post with who your Goddess is and why. Make sure you leave some way for me to get in touch with you email address or Ravelry ID works. The grand prize winner will be chosen based on how much detail they give and how happy and/or weepy their story makes me. The other 2 winners will be drawn at random from all of the comments. Bonus points for creative Goddess titles. (Goddess of Underwater Basket Weaving, Play Doh Sculptures & Puppy Juggling for example.)

So it’s nearly over. The year, the decade. A lot of people are doing decade wrap up posts but unfortunately for me I can barely remember most of this decade. I will go over some high lights though and then we’ll talk about how interesting 2009 has been for me.

In 2000 I was watching my friends graduate high school when I should have been. I dropped out in 1999 a year before I would have finished, early and with honors if I’d just have stuck it out my last year. I needed a math credit, some gym credits and a single science credit and I would have been done. However I made the wonderfully brilliant decision to move out on my own, quit school, get engaged (to a man I did not actually end up marrying, obviously) and start my life as an adult WAY before I should have. My friends graduated. Some of them went to college. I lived in a shitty apartment off of Jewel Lake in Anchorage, AK where I could barely afford to keep the lights on and worked nights doing merchandising at the Gap to keep myself in Ramen noodles. Clearly dropping out of school was a good idea.

This pattern of bad decisions and grievous missteps continued all the way through the early part of 2003 when I decided, two weeks shy of my 21st birthday to move out of Alaska. I moved in with my aunt and uncle on McChord AFB outside of Tacoma, WA. I spent 6 months in Washington and had a really lovely time actually. It was there that I finally decided to break off a horribly inappropriate and destructive relationship I had been carrying on for the better part of two years. My best friend Shannon moved down to Tacoma and we had many good and interesting times wandering all over the Western side of the state doing things like getting so drunk I couldn’t feel my face and suffering through truly wretched shows in cramped coffee houses in Olympia for the benefit of our musician friends. After 6 months however I was ready to move on. I met a boy on the internet, talked to him for a few days on the phone, convinced myself he was my soul mate and when he told me on the 4th day of non stop phone calls that he had a date…well, I made a drastic decision. And I moved to Las Vegas, NV.

I took a train from Tacoma to Portland, OR to spend a few days with my cousin Scarlett. I hadn’t seen her in nearly 10 years and it was a joy to get to see her and spend time with her. (Even if most of that time was spent drinking and falling off of bar stools.) Then I got on a bus in Portland and spent the next 36 hours riding a Greyhound down through the middle of California in the hot August heat with about 65 of my new closest buds who didn’t speak English. I got my hoodie stolen from me at the bus station in LA, the a/c on our bus went out outside of Modesto so we rode for almost 100 miles with no air and then finally the last leg of the ride from Barstow to Vegas was spent trying to ward off the advances of a group of military guys who had been stuck on some God forsaken post out in the middle of the desert for who knows how long and I was looking mighty attractive. (Which is saying something since I’d been on a bus for 2 days without air or a shower or sleep.) I got into Vegas at about 2 a.m., met Mike at the Fiesta Casino at 3 a.m. and the rest, as they say, is history.

I’ve been in Vegas ever since and I’ve been with Mike ever since. I enrolled at the Art Institute for a program in Interior Design, spent two quarters there getting straight A’s before I realized the school was unaccredited and I wouldn’t be able to apply for a commercial design license when I was done with my degree. I left the Art Institute and with my dreams a little bit crushed enrolled at the community college for business. I worked in coffee houses, a temp agency, a tech support company, a gay bar and finally a knit wear designers’ home office and then ultimately the yarn shop all while attending the College of Southern Nevada. I changed my major many times finally settling on Sociology somewhere in 2008.

That brings us to 2009:

This year has been a ride for sure. A lot of really awesome stuff happened, a few not so awesome things as well. Over all though I can look back on 2009 fondly I think. It hasn’t been that bad of a year to me. Weird, to be sure, but not bad.

Some of my favorite things that happened this year:

• I graduated from CSN in May. I got an Associates of Arts and graduated with a 3.45 GPA. I immediately enrolled at UNLV as a junior in their Sociology degree program.
• My Grandma Linda and my Great Aunt Emmy came over for our graduation which was wonderful, I hadn’t seen my Grandma in nearly 2 years and I had never met my Great Aunt Emmy. Aunt Emmy is in her 90’s and is the twin sister of my late Great Grandma Pearl. Aunt Emmy made both Mike and I quilts for our graduation present. My quilt is keeping my feet warm as I type this. I am blessed to be from a family of such vivacious, creative and determined women. I am constantly awed by them.
• My youngest sister Christina gave birth to my beautiful niece Erin Marie (who I call EM or Emmy) and I spent the better part of my summer knitting for her.
• My baby brother Jonny graduated from high school and joined our brother Jim at college in Ft. Valley, GA. They are both there on full ride academic scholarships that they worked their asses off for all through high school. They are two of the smartest, wittiest, most handsomest brothers a girl could ask for. I am so proud of them. I
• My other sister Katrina has decided to go back to school as well and last I heard will be attending UAA (University of Alaska Anchorage) next semester.
• My other brother (older), Eric got engaged.
• Mike was on Who Wants to be a Millionaire and won some money and finally got to put his lifetime of weird trivia knowledge to good use
• 2009 is the first full year that I have been able to support myself financially entirely from knitting. I worked at Knit Las Vegas for most of the year and also supplemented my income there by selling yarn, fiber and patterns through my online shop www.buydanido.com.
• I launched my first yarn club; Rock Your Socks Off and my 2nd yarn club the Choose Your Own Adventure Club
• I begin my association with the Phat Fiber sampler box and made a whole bunch of super awesome friends and associations with wildly talented fiber artists.
• I learned to spin and bought not one but two spinning wheels this year. And a drum carder. And about 100 lbs of fiber.
• I opened my first wholesale account for yarn.
• I was a Maid of Honor in a friends wedding (congrats Josh & Sylvia for getting hitched this year!), this was the first time I’ve ever been asked to be in someone’s wedding.
• I took several little road trips with my best friend(s), Christina Marie and Laura Marie.
• I started blogs galore; including Mouthy Maries, Loud and Mouthy and Sock Yarn: Debunked.
• I wrote (briefly) in a professional capacity for HandMadeNews.org 

I could go over some of the not so awesome aspects of 2009, but for the sake of posterity I’d like to look back and only remember the awesome. Yucky stuff happened too, of course, but nothing so grievous that it needs to be documented here. I will remember 2009 as the year of accomplishments, not only my own but of the people I love and admire as well.

I met some awesome people this year, made some startling revelations about myself and where my life is headed. I hope 2010 is a year of fulfilling hopes, dreams and ambitions. Or at the very least of getting a little closer to some of them.

Happy New Year everyone!

(p.s. I have no idea where this week went or how I managed to completely fail to post a new Knit Tips video. There will be new ones soon, and also information on new patterns, a new project I’m launching for up and coming designers and lots of other stuff. Let’s just survive New Years Eve in Las Vegas first.)