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.)

So Christmas is over, 2009 is almost over and we’re about to start a fresh shiny new year. I love the changing of the years. I always feel so optimistic and excited about what the new year will hold. Every year has it’s ups and downs but it’s always so exciting not to know what is coming.

Now as an independent business owner I feel especially excited for the coming year. Will this be the year I get a big break? Will I get a pattern published? Will I be able to open my own brick and mortar boutique? Will someone famous buy a hank of my hand painted yarn and design an instant success pattern with it? (Hey, Cookie A., do you need a discount on some sweet sock yarn?) The possibilities are endless. You never know what the new year will hold.

What I do know is I always go through this phase during the last week of December where I want to get rid of any trace of the current year. I always want to start as fresh as possible in the new year, so I do things like delete a bunch of emails and throw away papers I don’t need. Sometimes I even go so far as to give away things that are cluttering up my house so that they’re no longer in my possession by the time the ball drops on the 31st. This year I’m having a sale in my shop, I’m offering 10% off anything in my BuyDaniDo shop between now and Monday (December 28th). Use the code ‘old’ for the discount to be applied immediately at checkout. Buy during this sale and your items will ship first thing Monday so that they are out of my house and to you by the New Year. Then we both win! You get some new stuff to start off your new year and I get rid of old stuff that is taking up space in my inventory. Then I can buy more supplies to make more awesome new stuff to put in my shop! See how that works? Awesomeness all around.

On Monday there will be a new Knit Tips video posted and I’ll be announcing a little contest I’ll be having as well in the next week. I really want to start 2010 out strong because I am hoping this is the year that my little crafting empire turns into a slightly bigger crafting empire. There are big exciting things on the horizon and I want to start the new year with the right foot forward, which means doing my best to give you guys awesome stuff. Including free stuff! Free stuff for you means good karma for me.

Until Monday, get shopping and I’ll be back in a few days with the video and a new contest. I hope everyone had a nice holiday and that we’re all looking forward to the new year and new possibilities.

This one is for Jennifer at Desert Garden Farm who asked me to make a video for this technique for as she put it ‘the knitting impaired’ I don’t believe for a minute she’s knitting impaired, but Jennifer this one is for you!

No suppliers/vendors mentioned in this video but for more information about the magic loop technique check out this Knit Wiki page.

Things to remember about working the magic loop technique:

- You need a needle with a long cable. I generally recommend a cable length that is double what the circumference of the project is. (24” inch hat? Use a 40+” cable)

- Make sure you have TWO loops. Hence the magic loops in the name.

- You’re working in rounds so make sure you get all the way back to the beginning of the round. Use a marker or your cast on tail to mark the beginning of your round.

- Knit you first stitch of the round as tight as you can to avoid ‘ladders’ or holes in your knitting.

You can modify just about any circular knit project to use magic loop instead of double pointed needles or a smaller circular. The advantage of knitting magic loop is that if you’re decreasing you don’t need to switch to a shorter needle or DPN’s to close up the top of a hat. You can also use the magic loop technique to knit two socks at once. That video is forthcoming and will be available on in my Ning community as a class in late January.

In other news, the Flounce Neckwarmer is now available directly through the Unique Sheep! Now you can get the yarn and the pattern all in the same place.

So this is a topic that has come up several times this week for me. First my friend Suz who is an avid crocheter is progressing along nicely in her adventures in knitting, even tackling a beautiful lace shawl pattern (out of some of my hand dyed lace weight yarn, which makes me all warm and fuzzy inside) and she was having some difficultly deciphering the chart in her pattern. Now thankfully we have the power of Google Wave and Blackberry Messenger and I’ve been able to help her out when she gets to a sticky spot. Then Sally, a yarnie friend and fellow Phat Fiber contributor (also super awesome gal from my hometown!) left a comment asking for some clarification on chart reading as well. So it was destined. I did a little video on some of the basic terms/symbols and the really quick version of how to read a lace chart. I plan to do one for cable charts as well. As a follow up to this video if there is any specific question having to do with lace charts that I didn’t go over in this video please leave a comment asking about them and I will do a follow up video.

Knit Tips Episode 4 – Lace Charts

Featured in the video this week:

Pattern Magnets from Slipped Stitch Studios

Mentioned knit wear designer Ysolda Teague, see her patterns here

Chart shown is from my Polaris Sock pattern.

Also a quick overview of what I went over as it pertains to lace charts:

1. Have some way to keep track of what row of the chart you are on, you can use a sticky note that can be moved up as you work the rows or pattern tamers/magnets which is what I recommend because they don’t waste trees like sticky notes do.

2. Read the key that accompanies the chart, familiarize yourself with the symbols and what they are asking you to do

3. Note whether your chart gives you directions only for the lace rows (excluding rest rows) or if the chart gives you the rest rows as well.)

4. Note how many stitches across your lace pattern is and how many rows tall it is. Be sure to note if this is a repeating lace pattern or if it’s a motif that is used only once.

5. Yarn overs (yo) are usually paired with a decrease of some kind if you are working in a pattern that is not using the yarn overs as increases (like shawls, raglan sleeves, etc.) Make sure you’re aware of what comes after (or before) the yarn over so that you work it correctly.

In addition to those things I mentioned in the video other things to consider when following a lace chart:

1. When you’re working a chart that is for a triangle or circular shawl you may have several charts that you are working and some of the directions for those charts are probably included in the pattern as well. (Example: For chart 1 work according to chart for one repeat, then work k1 (center stitch) and repeat Chart 1 again.) Triangle shawls often have a center stitch and the charts given show how to work one half of the chart, then you work the center stitch and repeat the chart again.

2. When you are first working with lace charts I would recommend knitting something that is fairly simple and doesn’t use the lace as shaping as well, an excellent example of beginner lace projects include straight scarves, simple hats or sweaters with lace inserts. My Polaris Sock pattern is an easy beginner lace pattern (if you’re comfortable knitting toe up socks) or I recommend the Abby cowl which is free from Knitty.com and features a super simple lace pattern and a tiny little chart that is a great way to get used to following a chart.

Chart knitting is probably something we’ll revisit again however so if you have more questions feel free to let me know!

From now on I’m going to try to link anything I talk about in the video (shops, designers, etc.) in the blog post about the video so you have a handy guide. I haven’t done this with the first two videos, but if you need anything from those videos please just leave me a message on the blog and I’ll send you any links or further info you need.

Today’s video goes over yarns with ‘halos’ and how that can affect gauge. I also talk about knitting for people who say they have wool allergies. Please do not misunderstand me: wool allergies are real and are just as dangerous as any other allergy and should be treated as such. However there is a bit of a tendency towards claiming to have a wool allergy from people who just don’t like certain types of wool. Namely scratchy itchy wool. I don’t blame them! I don’t like scratchy itchy wools either! The video today isn’t so much a tutorial as it is a little chat. Also keep in mind that my opinions on wool intolerances are just that; an opinion. Feel free to disregard them as just that, I mean no ill will towards people with legitimate allergies. I have a bevy of allergies to everything from over the counter cosmetics to traditional perfume so I understand allergies. I also have a pretty long list of intolerances though as well (synthetic fibers being at the top of that list) and I recognize them as that; not true allergies but things I am just really not fond of.

Anyways, there are no products or people mentioned in this video but I did find one link that may be helpful to people wondering about wool allergies. Here is an article in which an allergy nurse discusses wool allergies and wool irritations that I found interesting.

Here is today’s video:

I also have a finished project to show off! I finally finished the sample knit for that beautiful FibroFibers handspun that Jen sent me. The pattern is currently in testing and tech editing mode and should be available shortly.

More tomorrow!