Lee Does Stuff

Adventure Knitting: now completely complete!

Okay this is finally the final Adventure Knitting blog post – I got my final draft of the print book in the mail today, so the print book is now officially available and everything is complete! But before I get into the print book info, let me tell you the whole deal about the ebook. I made a video!

The first few minutes of that video (on youtube here) are an introduction to Adventure Knitting, so that’s a quick way to hear about what it is, and then there are the in-depth (aka long) tutorials for folding and binding the DIY books. Oh yes, DIY books!

So, the pdf includes the whole Adventure Knitting: A Day in the Woods book as an ebook, readable on your computer/tablet/etc, or even on your phone screen (everything is easily readable with some zooming!):

And then the entire book is also included in the printable, foldable, bindable DIY book format! To make the book, you’ll only need to print out 8 or 10 pages (depending on whether you want the optional chart pages), plus 1 more for the cover, to make a 64 or 80 page covered book!

The pdf cover page tells you exactly what’s what, and which pages to print, depending on whether you want to print just the DIY book (and read the extra notes, view the sample photos, etc, on your screen), or print everything you need – the notes, stitch patterns, samples, etc are all on condensed printable pages so that you can print everything out with minimal paper/ink usage. So, read that cover page and you’ll know how to print only what you need out of the 44 page pdf.

That’s the pdf form… and now the whole thing is also in actual print book form (above)! That’s a few bucks more (18 vs 14), but it’s everything (written, charts, stitch patterns, samples, diagrams, techniques, etc…) in a nicely full-color printed 32 page book, no DIY-ing necessary. It’s a paperback book, perfect-bound (not staple-bound like my smaller booklets), approx 8.5×5.5 inches – about the size of a piece of letter paper folded in half, perfect for slipping into your project bag.

You may be seeing it at your local yarn shop (if you think they’d be into it, let them know about it!) or you can buy it directly from me online, through MagCloud. If you buy it online, you’ll have to pay shipping but you get an excellent bonus – the book version as a pdf! So you can get started right away and always have the digital backup copy. (It’s not the same pdf as the ebook format, and it won’t go into your ravelry library, it’s just the print book version as a downloadable pdf.)

(The cover is complete with discolored background to make it look like a well-loved paperback book, and the spine is green!)

So that’s that! Adventure Knitting, now actually complete and I’ve said all I can say… Oh in case you’re new here, check out my previous post for all the adventure sample knit items!

And a final note, to any LYS people reading this: The print book is available wholesale through Deep South, and the pdf ebook is available in-store through ravelry for digital-friendly customers (of course, you wouldn’t want to print out the whole 44 page pdf). Also, I’ve updated my leethalknits wholesale page and I now have a line sheet for all my wholesale patterns!

And now I’m going to get through some deadline projects that have gotten scarily behind schedule due to Adventure Knitting craziness taking over! Worth it though! 🙂

Woodsy knits! My Adventure Knitting sample pieces!

Adventure Knitting: A Day in the Woods is now released in its entirety! In pdf form (which includes the DIY bound book!); in a few days, it will also be available in print book form, so I’ll post one final time about it then. For now, I want to share with you all my sample adventure knits!

I made two of each of the four items, in varying weights and color combinations. First up: Orange Trail (hat), in chunky Louet Riverstone solids, three colors total:

First I climbed the birch trees in blue and green, then I played in the river, with blue as the main color and green as contrasting, and then added red as a second contrasting color in the second half of the section. I used the solid blue to climb the flat peaks for the crown.

The brim was closed with a sewn seam (seen here), and the size is slouchy. When I stopped the first section (brim) it measured approximately 19 inches, unstretched, and I stopped the body second section at approximately 7 inches.

For my second Orange Trail sample, I made a fitted hat with a buttoning brim:

In worsted weight, I climbed the basket tree with 5 colors, then I used one solid (Quince & Co Lark) to swing on vines for the second section. Since this was a leftover-busting hat, I ran out of the green towards the top of the vines and switched over to the brown (Knit Picks Wool of the Andes), which then blended into the crown, in the color rows pattern, with orange as the main color, and the contrasting brown switched to greenish beige, then to dark green at the tip. All finished off with a yellow button to close the brim.

For the brim, with the 5 colors, I used this locking in technique to carry all 5 strands along the back side (locking 4 strands into a stitch together, as if they were 1 strand), instead of breaking them, to avoid having to weave in a million ends. It’s pretty bulky along the brim, with the 5 strands of worsted, and it was a huge pain to keep the 5 balls detangled while knitting, but it works! I striped in rotating color order (color A, B, C, D, E, repeat), with 2 rows, 4 rows, 6 rows, rotating throughout the brim.

This hat was originally totally different. I knit the whole thing, using this recycled tweedy greenish yarn as the main color, with a very different vines cable design. After it was finished, I decided to redesign the cables, frog the hat down to the brim, and reknit it in a different main color.

I used the stone hilltop crown pattern in this first hat, switching between the 5 colors, which I really love. But since I was able to use this first crown as the stitch pattern sample, I used the other crown pattern in the reknit hat, to test out all the patterns; I am sad to have had to frog this colorful crown though, love it!

I’m really glad I decided to redesign the cables, I like the vines pattern much better now!

Moving on to the first Green Byway sample – mitts in 2 slightly different natural sheep colors of handspun (around sport-DK ish weight):

Even though you can barely make out the first two stitch patterns, I really love these mitts! I started out climbing the giant redwoods in the darker yarn, then I played in the river with the dark as the main and the lighter as the contrasting. I finished along the diamond path (with 2 pattern repeats) in the lighter yarn, with the buttoning hand closure.

The way the mitts pattern works, with the button closure, you can button the hands closed however you like, with bigger or smaller thumb holes; so the mitts are up higher on the hands, or down lower on the wrists, or even upside down! Above, you can see with only some top buttons closed, and below with a couple on the bottom and a few on the top closed:

And then, with all the buttons fastened to make them wrist-warmers instead.

For my other mitts sample, I used aran weight Imperial Yarn Columbia, all in the solid color, with buttoning wrists and sewn closed hands:

I started out up the bristlecone pine trees, then tried out the footpath, before ending along the chain-lined trail (with just one pattern repeat).

With the hand sewn closed, you can customize it to your liking, sewing more or less, to fit your hands and have a taller or shorter top part; you can also sew it up from the bottom of the third section if you want the thumbhole positioned differently. With the size and shape of these particular mitts, it worked out perfectly to sew them closed along the cables, so the plain stockinette parts are where the thumbholes are.

On the Aqua Passage, I made this squishy, bulky, colorful cowl! I busted through a bunch of leftover bits here, a couple different colors (brown and yellow) of Brown Sheep Lanaloft Bulky, an unknown similar bulky yarn (red), and an aran weight blue held double.

I started (at the top) with the giant redwood in brown, then I had fun at camp, starting with the red as main and brown as contrasting, and adding the yellow as a main in the third repeat, and blue as main in the fourth repeat. I finished it off along the dipping track, using red until it ran out, then yellow until that ran out, then blue at the end. You may prefer a more planned color design, but I like the colorful, scrappy look!

This is such a comfy, cozy cowl, in the smaller loop size with the body knit to 8 inches, so squishy in the bulky with the slipped+twisted stitch pattern; I can’t wait to wear it in the fall!

For my second cowl, I made the long loop size, so it wraps around twice, with the button closures on both first and last sections.

Using a solid purple Louet Riverstone worsted, and a self-striping Knit Picks Chroma, I started up the birch trees (with works excellently with a solid + gradually striping together!), then I used the Chroma to hike along the footpath for the second section. Because of the loooong rounds, the Chroma stripes changed colors quickly instead of gradually, so that you can’t see the stitch pattern too well, but the stripes do look cool and textured, so I’m happy with the result. I switched back to the solid purple for the last few rounds of the second section, then used that for awhile in the third section, trekking along the hilly pathway:

Then I switched to a solid bright yellow-green Malabrigo Merino Worsted for about three quarters of the last section, for an extra pop of contrast! I’m really happy with the look of the final piece! I chose the pink buttons to make that single row of pink in the center pop a bit. I’m really looking forward to wearing this one, as well; love it!

And then there’s the Gold Route – the quick knit option, a coffee cup sleeve. I made this one in sock yarns – starting (at the top) with Black Trillium variegated Merilon yarn (crazy colorful Hazel colorway), climbing the basket tree.

Then I added some plain grey Knit Picks Palette for the second section contrasting color, to have fun at camp for awhile. I used the solid grey for the third section, to finish along the hilly pathway; and both first and last sections are closed with buttons for some extra fun!

I really love this sleeve! Fun, colorful, buttony, and practical – so many good things!

My final sample, a solid (well, hand-dyed semi-solid) coffee cup sleeve, in all cable patterns, was made with lovely Knitted Wit Superwash Merino Worsted green yarn.

I started up the bristlecone pine, then swung on some vines, and ended on the twisty road, for cabley goodness in all three sections. These ends were grafted closed. The cables make for great squishy bulk for a useful coffee cup sleeve:

In case you can’t tell, I really love all my adventure samples! This project has been SO MUCH FUN to design, write, knit, organize, and follow along with knit-a-longers. So much fun. This will not be our last adventure! I think adventure knitting is the perfect summer knitting activity, so I’m planning to hopefully, probably, almost-for-sure, make this a summer tradition! At least for a few years until the next fun thing takes its place, who knows what the future will bring!

For now, you can still have woods adventures, of course, and if you have any feedback I can consider to make next summer’s adventure even more fun, let me know in the feedback thread. Thanks! Adventure on!

Adventure Knit-a-long: final section release!

The adventure knit-a-long is winding around its woodsy paths and coming to an end this week, as the final knitting section pdf was released last Friday. Now adventurers have everything needed to make this book:

And, of course, to knit all the projects inside! There are lots of projects with photos up in ravelry, if you’d like to peruse them, and you can see all my sample photos now on flickr, and in my rav projects pages.

But, I’m going to leave the spoiler photos out of this post (except for this glimpse below) because my release schedule has changed a bit while I’ve been doing some assessing the last few days. Instead of this week, the final pdf release, with everything all together in one place and photos and all that, will come next week.

I’ve decided to add charts to all the patterns (that’s 20 charts), and also to make a print book version! These things are all in progress and actually pretty close to done, but I want to make sure everything is thoroughly edited before putting it out there for you, and I also am going to make an entirely new video to go with the full Adventure Knitting release.

So, all that is coming next week. And, with all that new content, the final final price will raise from the current 12 to 14. I say final final because the final pattern section is already out now, so you can pay 12 now and get everything, then you’ll automatically get the final complete pdf next week. I’ll be sending out the charts to all KALers this week, before the complete pdf is done.

So, what exactly comes in this final KAL section file? Well, it’s a big one! Each of the four items (color paths) gets its own booklet, as all the items are finished differently, with their own stitch patterns, constructions, etc.

And then there’s a fifth booklet of finishing and notes, with technique and construction help and how to finish all the items. So that’s eight booklets (64 pages) total now (before the charts are added, which can be optional for your booklet).

Which can all be bound together into a book! The pdf includes a written how-to for binding them, and there’s also a video up (but it’s a bit longer than I like, so I’m planning on redoing the binding how-to video for next week’s release).

You can bind all the booklets together with just a sewing needle and thread; it’s surprisingly easy to do once you get started and get the pattern of it down.

And then, also included in this pdf is a foldable cover! (The inner cover pictured here is the final book cover, not the Knit-a-long cover.)

The way the book fits into the cover, you can lay it flat and it can stay open to any page for easy pattern following.

The printable folding cover:

Now that the KAL is finishing up, I think I can confidently say that it has gone really well and everyone had lots of fun on their adventures! Hooray!!

And now, for KAL participants, it’s time to get those photos up in your project pages because when the week is over there will be some major giveaways! I’ll draw the winners next Monday, so you have till then, and I’ll be doing three separate giveaway drawings. You can read all the details in the giveaway ravelry forum, but in short: the amazing donated yarn prizes listed below will go to winners with finished item photos up in their rav projects; another batch of winners will be chosen from ALL project pages with photos, so this will include still in-progress knits, to win $15 coupon codes for my patterns/ebooks; a third set of winners will be drawn from KALers who posted feedback in the feedback thread, to win $10 coupons for my patterns.

You can only win once (if your name gets chosen for two of the drawings, you’ll get the better prize), but the more projects you have up in your rav projects, the better chance you’ll have at winning. And now, the prizes! There are some seriously awesome prize donations!! (Read the giveaway thread for a little bit more detail about each yarn company.)

One extremely lucky winner will get a Paintbox Kit of their color choices by Infinite Twist:

Someone will win this fabulous Party Cake by Art-by-Ana – so cool!

Eat Agar is generously donating one winner’s choice of a handspun skein of Sukoshi or Summer People yarn, mmmmm handspun goodness:

And one of my favorites (I’m biased since she’s a Portland local!), Knitted Wit, is giving away a skein of Shine fingering weight yarn in this rad Haute Pink colorway:

Even if you haven’t adventured along at all yet, you can still enter to win the prizes by jumping into adventure knitting right now and getting some project photos up before Monday! You can do it!

Again, if you want to see some examples of adventure knit items, check out my flickr here. (But remember, you can mix and match the stitch patterns and use any kinds of yarn you want, so your adventure knitting could look nothing like mine and be perfectly customized to your knitting preferences!)

Oh hey, an off-topic note to pacific northwesters! I’ll be at Knit Fit! in Seattle again this year, November 2-3, and registration opens Thursday (Aug 1st). I’ll be teaching recycled yarn making (my first time teaching that, I’m excited about it!) and hosting a Game Knitting night again, which was SUPER fun last year. We’ll be playing along to Singles this year, kind of the ultimate Seattle movie. It’s all going to be superfuntimes so register asap! Yay!

The Adventure Knit-a-long continues: Onward we go!

The second section of adventure knitting along is now in progress! The new part went out to adventurers last Thursday night and lots of knitters are well on their ways through these new explorations, so check out the spoilers forum if you want to see their beautiful work!

This section of adventure knitting lets you choose between having fun at camp, playing in a river, swinging from vines, or trying out a footpath. It’s all worked in the round so the construction is very straight-forward; some options are best for a single solid color, while others are meant for 2 or more colors. This section adds one more booklet to the adventure book – the four pattern options here are the same regardless of what path you’re on (so it doesn’t matter if you’re making the neck accessory, head accessory, etc).

This blog post is short and basic since I don’t want to give out spoilers here yet, but you can check out my ravelry projects to see all my samples up through this section, or you can scroll through my adventure knits flickr set to see all my sample spoiler photos in one place! Next week, when the KAL is over and the complete collection is released, I’ll blog about all my samples.

I do have one for-a-limited-time-only announcement right now! For any of you who have been following along, hesitant to join while things were still so mysterious, but maybe now you’ve seen enough spoilers and information that you want to have some adventures… I’ve made a coupon code, valid just now through Thursday at midnight when the final section is released, to knock the price back down to the original pre-order price of $8!

Enter coupon code JoinTheAdventure (either in your ravelry cart or on my website) to take $3 off the current price.

If you have adventurous knitting buddies who might be interested, spread the word! Now’s the time to join in and catch up with the KAL while you still can! The accessories can be pretty darn quick knits, so you can join today and be caught up for the final section by this weekend to adventure along with us!

I’ve been perfecting a couple different options for binding all the booklets together to make a complete adventure knitting book, once all the parts are out. I’m pretty happy with how the binding is looking – I’ll be making a how-to video to go up on Friday when the final section is out, so you can bind up all your booklets! Here is a peak at a bound book, with the cover page of this current section showing:

Also, just so you know, I’ll be doing some adventure KAL participant giveaways next week – drawings for everyone with photos up in their ravelry project pages, and maybe some other prizes, we’ll see. So be sure to check in with the forums to stay up to date with the KAL fun, and to show off your adventure knits in the spoilers thread and all that good stuff! Yay!

Adventure Knit-a-long, Go!

The adventure knitting has begun! After the get ready… get set… period finished up, last Thursday at midnight was GO! time. The first actual pattern was released, again in the foldable booklet format (either color or black & white, along with the screen-reading format as well). I printed one out for myself in b&w and colored the cover with markers:

For the first section of knitting adventures, you get to climb a tree! The cover reads: “We start our summer feats in a weird woods area, where we look around to all sides and see different kinds of trees and other things that normally wouldn’t be found in the same space… Cool! Let’s get our adventure on!”

There are four kinds of trees, which are code names for the four different stitch pattern options for this section. The four trees have no relation to the four paths that you pick from at the beginning, which are the different item options, so you can pick any stitch pattern to go with any item.

There are two stitch patterns meant for a solid or semi-solid yarn, one meant for striping between 2 yarns, and one meant for either striping between 2 or more yarns, or using a variegated yarn with short color sections.

The designs came first, the tree code names second, so don’t expect the stitch patterns to look like the trees; but I did choose the tree names to symbolize elements of the stitch patterns. I had fun finding the right tree choices! There are: bristlecone pine tree, giant redwood, birch trees, and the basket tree, which all are very cool looking trees! (Click the links for photos, much better to see what they look like than my silly drawings!)

I won’t show spoiler photos here, but I will link you over to my ravelry projects to see/read details for all eight of my projects, and I’ll link you over to flickr photos of each section 1 spoiler photo (click the path links).

I’m climbing the bristlecone pine tree in each of the two yarns below – orange Imperial Yarn Columbia on the Green Byway (hands accessory), and green Knitted Wit Merino Worsted on the Gold Route (mystery non-accessory item):

Climbing up the giant redwood with the below handspun yarn along the Green Byway (hands accessory); also climbing a giant redwood with some bulky yarn I didn’t photograph, along the Aqua Passage (neck accessory):

I’m climbing up the birch trees with some Louet Riverstone Chunky yarn (seems like aran weight to me, but it’s labeled as bulky, and it’s discontinued now anyway, so whatevs) on the Orange Trail (head accessory), and with this Knit Picks Chroma self-striping and Louet Riverstone worsted along the Aqua Passage (neck accessory):

And finally, up the basket trees I go with this collection of worsted weight leftovers, along the Orange Trail (head accessory), and also with some contrasty variegated Black Trillium sock yarn on the Gold Route (non-accessory item):

Furthermore, if you want to see spoiler photos of mystery knit-a-long-ers’ projects, there are lots going up in the rav forums. You can also read about how it’s all going spoiler-free in the section 1 discussion thread. Everyone is having lots of fun! You can totally still join us now and catch up easily by the time the next section goes up on Friday (and it’s 2 bucks cheaper now than it will be when the KAL is over)!

I’m really happy with how this experimental adventure is going so far; if you’re knitting along, I hope you’re happy too! Yay summer adventure fun times!

Obligatory TNNA summer 2013 recap post!

The weekend before last I spent 5 days in Columbus, Ohio for the industry trade show of the year for all things fibery and needley. We had a time.

I roomed with the fabulous Andrea Rangel (who is pictured above and is the best at colors – check out this palette she rocked one day.) And I booth-shared with the awesome Alexa of Tin Can Knits; we had tons of fun:

Our booth was in the Deep South Fibers cluster, so we were booth-neighbors with lots of great people, yay! Like Hilary Smith Callis (pictured below, adorably giggling about posing with the issue of Knitscene in which she was the featured designer!) and Carina Spencer, posing with me below, and lots more lovely people I don’t have photos of, like Carrie Sullivan of Irish Girlie Knits (my birthday twin!), Juju at Loop, Olga Buraya-Kefelian (one of my all time favorite designers of ever), Woolly Wormhead… the list would go on but I’ll stop there because that’s who was immediately next to us… It’s great being around all these other designers once in awhile, since they are kind of like my co-workers but we all work alone in our homes with only twitter to connect us (basically, usually).

So, my booth! I started out with the hanging spray-painted frames on the back wall:

Then I hung lots of photos along the side wall, with mini-clothespins (closeup):

Then I built a ceiling! I ran wire from bar to bar across the top, then more and more wire from wire to bar and wire to wire, and so on, until I had a spiderweb-esque mesh ceiling. The photo to the left there is after I’d already started taking it apart a little at the end, but you get the idea. Then, from the ceiling, I hung trays:

And I put things on the trays, using them as mini-tables, instead of having a big table. And I hung lots of samples along the tops of the side and back walls.

So my business cards, postcards, buttons, and lots of smaller sample knits, were all on the tray tables. It was a bit unwieldy, functionally-speaking… people were afraid if they walked into the booth and bumped into the trays everything would fall; but that wasn’t true, I made sure they were very stable. Overall, it didn’t turn out perfectly, but I was pretty happy with the booth setup 🙂

Here’s me standing in it, photo by Stacey Trock of Fresh Stitches!

Here is our whole booth, with Tin Can Knits on the right:

Besides the actual trade show booth stuff, TNNA weekend also involved lots of eating (not just ice cream), a bit of drinking (Columbus has some good local beers!), and tons of talking! Alexa and I were pretty darn into our truffle mac n cheese at Barley’s!

Click to enlarge the photo to the right below to read all the amazing flavor options at Jeni’s! My personal favorite out of the EIGHT flavors I tried throughout the weekend (that’s only 4 servings – my favorite thing about Jeni’s is that you get 2 flavors in a small size) was Queen City Cayenne, yum!

Much fun was had at the Grass Skirt tiki room with the ravelry crew (where I took this photo of Mary-Heather, Jess, and Ysolda being supercute). And, after all the mac n cheese and ice cream, I was happy to fill up on veggies (and a local beer, of course) at a pretty good greek place. Good job, Columbus, I like you!

I also hung out with lots of other designers and yarn-type people I didn’t photograph – some people I met last year at TNNA, and I met loads of new people. Yarny people are the greatest! Everyone is the best!

So then on Monday I broke down my booth and packed it all back into the suitcase it came in, but it was much harder to close this time!

I brought home all the yarn I could possible fit! There’s some secret hidden yarn I can’t show you yet, and lots of glorious Anzula!! Enough Cricket and Squishy to make into two shawls (one 2-color and one 3-color) – these yarns will eventually become the samples of the colorwork shawl in the Betiko collection!

And then lots of bits of awesome yarns for future use – Imperial Yarn, Fibre Company, Sincere Sheep, and Cestari are pictured below, all so lovely! There were a few others I talked to but have nothing to show now (notably Phydeaux, Space Cadet, Sweet Georgia, Cephalopod, Briggs and Little) – yummmm yarrrrrn. And I didn’t even walk the entire floor or spend much time seeking out yarn, since I was focused on my own booth. It’s overwhelming how much there is to see!

Lastly, I treated myself to some new clothes for TNNA – I really love this dress (found at Village Merchants, my most favorite secondhand shop), so yay, because good dresses (for affordable-on-an-indie-designer’s-budget prices) are hard to find, man! I think I scored this for about $12, with the original tag still on, so possibly never worn. Oh how I love a good deal, so I had to share with you 😉 And another shot of me in my booth, to round things out, all covered in knitwear (too much air conditioning works out well when you want to show off your wooly samples).

That’s TNNA! Good times!

leethal Adventure Knit-a-long! Get ready… get set…

It’s now beginning, the leethal Adventure Knit-a-long! (on rav) I was vague and cryptic before, but now I can tell you more details! The pattern collection is inspired by Choose Your Own Adventure books, and each part is delivered as a printable, foldable 8-page booklet:

(Each part is also in a screen-reading friendly format in the pdf file, so you don’t have to print it if you don’t want to. Also, the printable booklet comes in both color and black & white versions.) The booklet pages are numbered, and each new part will start where the last one left off, so that they can all combine into a choose your own knitting adventure book when the knit-a-long is over.

The whole thing is adventure-in-the-woods themed, so you’ll be given options like what tree would you like to climb? Then you’ll be told which page to flip to for your chosen option. Of course, if you want to make sure to choose the knitting option that you’ll like best, you can just read through the booklets and see what kinds of stitch patterns there are to make informed decisions. The titles of all the options (like the tree names, in that example) are just like code names, so the stitch patterns aren’t trying to look like what they’re called. It’s all just for the fun of the adventure!

For this first booklet, you’ll just choose your path, which is the type of item you want to make (each with a color code name – there’s the Aqua Passage, the Orange Trail, the Green Byway, and the Gold Route), pick your yarn, and you can cast on to be ready for knitting to start next week. (I copied all the path info into the ravelry pattern page if you want to know more about the items before committing to the knit-a-long.) You’ll also be given all the abbreviations that will be used in multiple parts throughout the sections.

On next Friday, July 12th, the second booklet will go out, pages 9-16, with the first section of knitting. (A reminder: right now, the whole adventure collection is $9; when each knitting section goes out, it’ll go up $1, ending at $12 when the KAL is over.)

I made this video to introduce you to the Adventure KAL (on youtube here), and to show you how to make the booklet (there is also a photo tutorial below, if you learn better with photos/text than with video). Watch how silly I am as I constantly move my hands!

So, if you have the pdf and are ready to make your first booklet, here’s how! It’s very simple, but it is important to be precise with your folding and cutting, as sloppy folds/cuts can become exaggerated in the booklet and make for an uneven, messy looking book. So just take your time, use a table, and match up those edges when you fold.

Edit 7/03: I’ve added some new how-to notes on the webpage for if you are printing something different from centered on letter size paper (so mainly for if you’re in Europe and using A4 paper, and/or if your printer printed the page super off-center). Basically, you’ll need to trim excess white space from the edges as needed to make the folds line up with the booklet pages, but check out the webpage for photos and details (down on the right side, below the drawings).

All you need are your printed page and scissors (and a flat table-like surface). For all the initial folds, do not crease hard yet – these folds may need slight adjustment in the final booklet, so it’s best to leave them kind of loose. Just fold with your fingers and don’t crease hard yet. First fold lengthwise, which may or may not be right along the printed line – the important thing is for it to be exactly straight across your paper, so as long as that’s true, it’s okay if it doesn’t line up with the printed line.

Now fold in half widthwise:

And then fold each of the outer edges up to that widthwise fold line, dividing the page in quarters (or eighths because of the lengthwise line):

Now your page should look like this:

Keep it folded in half widthwise, and carefully cut from the fold along the lengthwise fold line, up to the next fold line. This should be approximately along the printed line, but again, the important thing is for it to be exactly along your fold lines, since your printer might print slightly off-center. So, this cut will make a slice across the center of your page…

…so when you open it up it looks like this. After cutting, fold it back along the lengthwise fold, so the centers will be folded outwards from the folds you’ve already made:

Now find the cover page, and fold the whole thing around so that the cover is in front (the abbreviations on back, for this first booklet). Push and pinch all the pages into place, lining them up as neatly as possible, then hold them in place and crease everything now. Use your surface and fingernails or something hard (I use the handle of my scissors, since my scissors are right there) to really crease the inner and outer edges into place.

So when you’re done, your booklet should look like this! The tutorial might make it seem hard or complicated, but it’s really simple; I’m just sharing the tips I’ve learned from making several sloppy looking books first before figuring out how to neaten them up! Once you’ve made a couple, it should be quick and easy for you!

So that’s the booklet; as for the knitting – that’s still a mystery for now! I am making 8 different samples, to test everything out well and show lots of different versions. I’m making solid-color samples, multi-colored samples, leftover scrap-busting samples, two samples along each path. I’ve put most of them in my ravelry projects, with photos of the yarns I’m using, and notes saying which path each is along – as the adventure continues, I’ll update with more photos and I’ll say which options I used for each one.

I’m really excited about everything I’m seeing so far in the forums, and just about the general fun adventurous mood of the whole thing! I had this idea a few months ago, have been hard at work ever since, with kind of tunnel-vision on all the stitch patterns and stuff, so it’s awesome to be starting the social part and seeing it more for the fun project I envisioned in the first place (if that even makes sense)… Basically, yay adventure knitting, and I hope you are excited too!

Oh yeah, side note that has nothing to do with the KAL… Were you into Choose Your Own Adventure books as a kid? My brother Matt was really into them, and I liked them too, although I didn’t read that many because I felt like most of them were for boys and I cared too much about gender crap when I was a kid, I guess. Looking at them now online, they totally don’t seem gender-specific, but I would look at Matt’s books and think they were, I dunno, I was a silly kid. But I do remember my favorite one – it was Magic Master, about a magician! Nerdy! In trying to find that book online, I discovered that there are tons of fake Choose Your Own Adventure covers out there, like this Cabin in the Woods one! I wish it was a real book, I would read that so hard! So that’s fun. Okay that’s all 🙂

Off to TNNA!

So, if you follow knit designers, you surely have at least heard of TNNA – it’s the biggest industry convention trade show thing of the year, every June in Columbus, Ohio (though I think that’s changing next year; oh how the ice cream will be missed by the knitters). Last year I went for the first time, as a designer wandering aimlessly, pretty much; this year, I’m going to have a booth for the first time! I’m excited, and very very nervous.

Because it’s a big deal, and big deals call for sales (right? maybe?), I’m having a sale this weekend! And since I’m leaving on a red-eye flight around midnight tonight (Wednesday night / Thursday am), I’ll start the sale then, and it’ll run until Monday night, since that’s when I’ll get back. So, Thursday-Monday, enter coupon code TNNA2013 to get 35% off any orders totaling at least $18. This works out to be approximately buy 2 normal patterns, get 1 free, but this way it’ll work with collections as well – so you can use it on multiple normal patterns, or on the Short Stripes Trio or the Betiko collection plus one more normal pattern (you’ll save more than the price of a single pattern), or Remixed by itself (or plus more to save more). The code will work on my website or on ravelry.

If you follow me on twitter/instagram, you’ve been seeing some peeks at my booth preparation – I’ve been spray painting picture frames, printing coupons and labels and tags, making buttons, organizing samples, and planning out my booth space. I have some display details I’ve left secret, which I’m pretty excited about. I’m nervous things aren’t going to come together exactly as planned, since it’s my first booth, but overall, I think it’ll be a pretty cool space… Oh, and I’m sharing the booth with Tin Can Knits, so that’s awesome too! (If you’re going, we’ll be grouped together in the area with all the Deep South designers.)

Another TNNA prep thing I spent the last couple weeks working on is 8 new print patterns, now available wholesale to shops (through Deep South), and a new wholesale webpage on my site, which gives preview pdfs of every print pattern! Click the preview link to see the first page, and sometimes more, of each pattern. These are the print versions of the patterns, different from the pdf download versions – but, I am in the process of getting all my digital patterns up for preview as well!

For all my patterns which are in my new pdf format (I changed my pdf format this year, so most patterns still need to be updated), there are now preview pdfs of the first 3 pages (usually). Currently, these previews exist for Robin (above), Maurice, Barry, plus that ebook, Betiko, Biratu, Haka, Skoodlet, and Shapeshifter (those are the only 2 older patterns I’ve updated so far). So click those links to find the previews (orange links below the you need sections). Eventually, I hope all my pattern pdfs will have preview links on my site, but it’s a long process…

I think that’s all for now. My mind is very fluffy lately, with all the tnna prep and stress and excitement… Oh, I’m working on the Adventure KAL between everything else – if you see me knitting in Columbus this weekend, you’ll get a little bit spoiled if you want to 😉

leethal Adventure Knit-a-long!

Summer is almost here and it’s time for some adventure! So in July will begin the leethal Adventure Knit-a-long!

A knit-a-long like no other, you will be led on adventures each week as you make choices about your knitting project. You’ll be able to choose between four different items – three accessories, or one smaller gifty item – and then all the items will have many different specific design options to choose from. Nothing will be that hard; there will be lots of different techniques used (like short rows, cables, slip-stitches, twisted sts…) but not more than a couple at the same time, and if you don’t like how one option is looking you can just pick another one! Any yarn weight can be used; most items will need about 1-2 skeins of yarn (normal accessory amounts), in one or more colors.

Most details will remain a mystery for now, during this get ready… phase, and then we’ll get set… on Monday July 1st. That’s when more details about the adventure knit-a-long itself, and about the different items, etc, will be revealed. Finally, we’ll go! on Friday, July 12th, when actual project knitting begins, with the second part going out the following Friday, and the final pattern section released Friday, July 26th.

If you pre-order now, you’ll just get an intro page, and you’ll get a discount for early pre-ordering – only $8 now.

The whole adventure collection of patterns can potentially make well over a hundred different specific items (with the four different item types and all the options involved), so when all is revealed and the knit-a-long is over, the collection price will be $12. But, since it’s all mysterious right now, and a new kind of knit-a-long I’ve never done before, I’m starting things out majorly discounted, then raising the price by $1 with each section’s release. So when the first official pdf goes out on July 1st, it’ll be $9, then up to 10 with the first section of knitting, 11 on the second week of knitting, and 12 at the end.

I’ve been planning this for a couple months now, and continue to work out all the details and knit up my sample items during this pre-order time, but I have enough done to tell you I am loving how the items are looking, and I am extreeeemely excited for this to begin!! I can’t wait to reveal more of the general details in a few weeks, because the way everything is going to be presented is special in and of itself. I’m just really happy with how it’s all coming together, so I wanted to get the ball rolling with the pre-order phase, because I just couldn’t stand waiting any longer!

To celebrate summer and adventures and the beginning of this project and everything else fun, I’m going to give away three knit-a-longs today (Monday June 10th)! Either comment here on the blog or tweet @leethal and tell me one adventurous thing you plan to do this summer (it can be anything from climb a mountain to stay up all night to play a new board game to watch a scary movie – your definition of adventure can be as broad as you want it to be!); if you enter on twitter, use #adventureKAL! I’ll pick three winners at the end of the day, randomly from all the adventure comments.

Edit: Winners have been chosen! I picked from both the comments here and on twitter, but random number generator chose numbers kind of close together, all in the blog group, sorry twitterers. The winners are misstlog, Nicole Reister, and Cindy Manzanares! Yay! Thanks everyone for playing – so many awesome adventures planned!!

Okay I hope you’re excited too! There are adventure placeholder pictures on the webpage that you can use for ravelry project pictures for now, and feel free to ask me any questions in the leethal group forums! I might not be able to answer them yet, but I’ll say what I can for now 😉 Happy almost-summer!

I’m in Knitscene Accessories 2013!

Hey you guys, I have a pattern in a magazine! Woo!

That’s a montage from their webpage of just a few of the 33 patterns in Knitscene’s new Accessories 2013 issue, and there’s my pattern!

It’s called Pink Squish Hat, and it’s a bulky cabled hat knit modularly in four sections, all connected with short rows, no seaming or picked up stitches! It starts with the sideways cabled brim, then the body is knit in the round, then it switches directions again for the top sideways cable, then back to round to close up the crown. Both sideways cables are closed up with buttons, tah dah!

It’s pretty neat to have a pattern in a real knitting magazine. Not something I’d pursued before, but I read the submission call for this issue, with words like modular, bulky, and cables, and it was calling to me! I brainstormed this up, put together my very first official magazine submission, and was accepted! Exciting!

I love the photos of my hat in the magazine, and the issue as a whole is fabulous!! So many great designs! I’m tempted to list my favorites, but the list would be too long, so check out all the patterns if you haven’t already. Some great interesting modular pieces, lots of variety, excellent stuff.

The official sample is in Quince & co Puffin bulky yarn, which I LOVE. After I finished knitting up that hat, it was such a super quick and fun knit that I went stash diving and knit up another one for myself to keep!

This brown version is in Brown Sheep Lanaloft Bulky, which doesn’t show the cables quite as well as the Puffin, but it worked in a pinch.

Sorry about the quickie phone photos here. I was actually preparing to leave town for eleven days in about an hour, when I found out this issue was released for pre-order, which is why I didn’t blog about it sooner. I had knit this second sample months ago, but hadn’t sewn on buttons yet, so I threw it in my suitcase and found these buttons while traveling in Bellingham, Washington (at NW Handspun Yarns), sewed them on in the hotel room so I could wear the hat… planned to get some photos of it in Bellingham, but rain and forgetfulness prevented that from happening, sigh. So I just snapped these real quick so I could blog it… anyway, you get the idea. It’s the same hat as in the good photos above, in brown 😉

So yeah, things have been hectic – that trip was to Rochester, New York, for a 3-day long family thing, then from there to Bellingham for a week, where I did some working in coffee shops, lots of walking around and not working… I have yet to edit all the photos I took, but I did post instagrams all throughout the trip – here are a few. Above, PDX airport on my way out, and a view of Bellingham from the train on my way back home. Below, the Canadian coast out the train window just after crossing the border (on a day trip from Bellingham to Vancouver, BC) – those birds in the sky are bald eagles! – and our fave dinner spot of the trip, Boundary Bay Brewing co.

And if you’d like to see a glimpse at how much of my Bellingham time was spent, goofing off with Pete’s co-workers (Pete was there for a work trip, I was tagging along), here is a video for you to enjoy.

Okay, back to work for me! I’m hoping to post again in a couple days with a superfun announcement about a project I’ve been working on!!