Lee Does Stuff

Happy Spring Sale!

Ok so… I continue to be ridiculously busy and I’ve been pretty absent over here and on twitter too. So, to thank you for bearing with me and continuing to follow me through these months of lacking content, I’m having a spring sale on my patterns!

Enter the code spring into your shopping cart coupon code box, now through Monday, either in ravelry or on my website, to get 20% off any and all of my knitting patterns and ebooks! Just so you know I didn’t forget about you! Happy spring!

Well, this is what spring looks like here in Portland most days…

I don’t have much to show you, as most of what I’ve been busy with is either secret or just not photographic; I hosted trivia again last night! But no pictures of that… I finished a huge design project last week that I’m super happy with… I’ve been slowly doing bits of yard work here and there when I have a chance, but nothing to show you yet with that… anyway, those above and this one below are just some random pictures from the last couple weeks. This is in the Ace Hotel, where I found myself killing some time waiting for a photoshoot to happen:

I spun some yarn the other day – birthday yarn for my buddy Caitlin!

And I did a brand new photoshoot for my old free pattern Waving Chevron Scarf. Have yet to redo the pdf, with my new pattern format and the new photos…

This weekend I’ll be hard at work on my second-to-last quick knits club ebook! You can still grab a 3-month subscription for just 10 bucks (and you can enter that coupon code to make it 8!), which will get you April’s music themed ebook, May’s book on Monday (hopefully, maybe Tuesday), and then June’s which is the last one. Follow my twitter to maybe see some peeks at the club designs as I’m working on them!

Keeping busy over here!

Oh hi! I have been busybusy, and obviously not with blogging, but hey, let me tell you what’s up! Well, first though, I want to make sure you know that if you’re in Portland, you can take a class with me on Thursday to learn how to self-publish patterns! Head to Twisted’s class schedule (click the pdf link on that page) for details – the class is on 4/21 5-8pm and costs $30. Sign up now if you want to join us!! (It’s mostly just on digital self-publishing, but my print patterns are much more photogenic.)

I have been working on a bunch of designs, but some are supersecret so I can’t show you yet… I can show you a couple though… this is my first example of a pattern I’m working on for self-publishing through me and through Knit Picks (which is why it’s in KP yarn) – it looks super simple, but it’s a squishy reversible fabric which will look crazy cool when striping between 2 yarns (several more samples will be knit before release)… plus, it’s any gauge and can be worn a ton of different ways:

And then… I have my first little bit to show you from my upcoming ebook that I’ve been working on a little here and there whenever I can squeeze it in. The ebook will be on how to make different kinds of recycled yarns, and patterns to go with them – below is the first thing I’ve knit up for a book design from recycled spun yarn! I’m working on a couple other designs, and have many more sketched out… Once I have a bit more to show you, and you can see some actual finished items, I plan to start selling pre-orders for the book, probably with some kind of bonus extra something since the release date will be uncertain and probably not till late this year. Anyway, I’m so happy to finally show you something at least!

What else has been taking up all my time, you may wonder? I’ve been busy with some fun freelance product photography gigs! I shot 13 of these incredible felt scarves by LeBrie of PenFelt:

It’s the best when I get to shoot items that I love; doesn’t even feel like work! Aren’t these scarves gorgeous?

These are just a small assortment of my favorite shots… head to PenFelt’s etsy shop to find what’s for sale at the moment.

There are also a few more of my choice shots in my product photography set on flickr…

And then, just before that bunch, I shot a huge batch of product photos for Trillium, which meant tons of different products by all kinds of different crafters and artists, all made from mostly recycled materials! These tops were probably my most favorite items to shoot, made from reclaimed skateboards! By Board Games:

Again, these are just a few of my favorite shots, out of 64 items total…

Of course I have to include this one!

So, if you want to check out Trillium products, there’s the etsy shop, but the Ebay World of Good shop has even more items and is a little more up to date.

Of course, if you happen to be in Portland, I highly recommend stopping by the brick+mortar shop! It’s a bit out there if you live close-in, or North/NE/West (it’s actually super close to me) – it’s on SE Foster at 91st, right near the 205 freeway, worth a stop if you’re in the area. Tons (like, maybe literally tons!) of super cheap recycled fabric pieces! (Upholstery fabric sample squares and stuff like that, $1 per pound if I’m remembering correctly.)

Fun stuff!

So that’s what I’ve been up to… lots of shooting and knitting – and movie-watching while knitting, of course! I’m doing well on my 365 movies in 2011 project so far! (Watched my 121st film last night, on the 107th day of the year.) Which is great, since we’re planning a trip for later in the year, which will mean probably about 2 weeks with few or no movies watched, so yay for being ahead!

April’s ebook: Listen Up!

I’ve finally done a theme I had wanted to do forever – music! I had planned to do a music themed club back in my first generation of the quick knits club, but it never happened, and I hadn’t been able to figure out all the parts until last week, super last minute. I’d actually been planning a different theme, and then I brainstormed this up and was much more excited about it so I went for it, though I put a little too much effort into making the ebook awesome so it was released a couple days late. I think it’s worth it though!

First, Listen Up! includes a pattern for this guitar pick keyring pouch:

It’s a simple little pattern that looks pretty cool when it’s done, but it’s an easy in-the-round construction with nothing but increases and decreases – so it’s good for someone new to DPNs or an adventurous beginner.

The sample was knit in a DK-ish weight, tightly on size US 2 needles, making the pattern written for a gauge of 8 sts/inch, but there are notes on working it in different gauges and it’s very easy to modify if you want to use a different weight.

The second pattern is this CD gift case, which can be made to look like an LP (sort of) when knit in the right colors. I didn’t have time to try it out, but I think it would be awesome to embroider “mix” or “to you” or something on the label (red) part. If you’ve been following my blog for awhile, you know how obsessive I am about my mixes, so a special case for a special mix was a fun thing to design! Especially as I am also extremely into vinyl…

And here’s the back (or front, actually, it could go either way), the tricky part… It was tough to design and make it work, and it’s a wee bit hard to button around the disc until you get the hang of it, but it totally functions and I think it looks pretty cool! Of course, the mix gift will be made better if you take a sharpie (or many in different colors) to the top side of the mix and give it some custom art, which will show – or you could write the track list directly onto the disc so it’s readable while in the case.

For the tutorial, I show you how I made these vintage lace doily covered speakers! All you need is a speaker, a doily, and some yarn:

Here they are in action in my studio:

And then the final extra ebook item… the one that probably took me the most time of all and is my personal favorite part of this ebook… I made 6 album cover artwork connect-the-dots puzzles!

I’ll treat this set how I treat my stitch set puzzles, and I’ll show you one so you can get an idea of how they look, but then you can click over to my spoilers page and scroll to the bottom to find links to see all 6 of the puzzles, along with the art that inspired each one!

This sample is not the best, and definitely not my favorite of the 6, but it is the most recognizable album cover of them all, and one of the easiest to tell what it is in dot puzzle form. The 6 albums range from 1969 to 2009 and are a variety of music types, though all 6 are albums I like. I had a ton of nerdy fun making these, and I hope many of you have tons of fun doing them!

So that’s April’s club ebook. The usual info: head to the club page to subscribe and get this ebook plus the last 2 months ($10 for 3 ebooks), head to the ravelry page to grab this ebook alone, and hey, if you knit any patterns from this set (or any quick knits ebooks, for that matter), it would be very very cool if you added them to your ravelry projects! Just sayin’… Oh yeah, that reminds me, I’ve gotten the quick knits patterns page up to date, so you can see alllll my under-20-yards patterns together there.

Ok that’s all I’ve got. Sorry about the blog absence lately; oh life, it is busy. I’ve finished making some delicious liqueurs, so hopefully you’ll be hearing about those soon! Happy weekend!

March quick knits club: Plug In!

Wow, this is seriously belated, but hey, check it out! March’s quick knits club mini-ebook! The theme is Plug In! and it’s all about tech gadgets and various electronic things…

The highlight is this any-gauge custom-sized pattern for a gadget case, meant specifically for iphones, ipods, ipads, and any other non-i things that have full screens like this. The case is knit starting at the top, across with the sideways-edge cast-on method to fit the gadget width, then worked down from there to the bottom; a second row of stitches is added with increases to start the seed stitch flap. Then the bottom of the fitted part is worked across, with holes being added as needed for plug access – the whole thing is worked modularly so that there’s no seaming and only a few picked up stitches along the way.

To finish it off, yarn is threaded around the edges kind of like a drawstring, to pull the case edges in and hold tightly onto your gadget, without covering the screen. This variegated one was my prototype piece – the bottom of the case (as seen above) is different than the final design, but the rest is pretty much the same:

The second knitting pattern is this simple but functional wrist rest, worked in the round with short rows:

This month’s tutorial is for a phone (and whatever else) charging station, which holds a power strip and takes up minimal space on your counter top:

And the extra bonus is a second brief tutorial for this mp3 player pocket, which can be added to a scarf as pictured, or to a bag, jacket, etc…

So, this ebook is available alone for $5, or you can still sign up for a subscription – there are only 3 more months left of the club, so a 4 month membership (this ebook, then through to the end) is $14, through my site or ravelry.

Orange Milk Liqueur recipe, and experimentation updates!

Want to know how my experimental orange milk liqueurs turned out?!

The orange vanilla liqueur, based on this recipe(ish), turned out really well!! It tastes just like an adult creamsicle in liquid form! So, here’s my recipe (easy to double for a larger batch):

1 cup vodka (flavorless, I use Oregon Springs brand, which is like 1 step up from the cheapest options)
1 cup milk (I used whole for this one, but I think 2% would be fine)
1 cup sugar
4 mandarin oranges, sliced into 4 pieces each (other kinds of oranges should work fine too)
1/2 lemon, sliced into 3 pieces
1 teaspoon vanilla

Mix the milk, vodka, and sugar together in a glass jar, then add the fruit and vanilla. Put the lid on and shake a bunch so it’s well blended. The next day it’ll be separated and look something like this:

Mix it up by shaking the jar once per day, and the separating will be less as the days pass. I made two batches and filtered one after 11 days and the other after 3 weeks, to test how much of a difference it would make… I can taste the difference between the two, but barely. The 3 week liqueur is a wee bit more flavorful, but the 11 day one is superduper delicious too.

So, my conclusion for that is: if you’re in no hurry, let it sit (shaking once per day) for about 3 weeks, but if there’s a reason you want it done sooner (like if it’s a gift), then about 10 days is enough time.

Now comes the filtering – there are a few steps here. First, strain the whole thing through a fine mesh strainer, and/or cheese cloth, to get out all the solids. Next, line a strainer (or a funnel) with a paper coffee filter, and pour the milky liquid in. It’ll take some time to filter through (overnight maybe), and it’ll coat the filter in milk solids, so you’ll need to change filters a few times as needed.

Once all your liqueur has gone through the coffee filters once, I recommend giving it one more run through – now that all the milk solids are filtered out, the second time goes very quickly and only one more coffee filter should be needed. You can run that second filtering through a funnel, directly into your glass bottle, and then you’ll be left with a beautiful golden, delicious liqueur!

Above are the 2 batches of orange vanilla liqueur (center and right) and then my super experimental orange spice liqueur… The orange spice is not ready to share a recipe yet – I learned some huge liqueur-making lessons with that experiment. Well, one huge lesson: don’t make liqueur with ground spices! I think the ground cinnamon was the main problem. Filtering took about 4 days, 3 or 4 times through, and probably about 12 or more coffee filters – not fun! Once all that filtering was finished, it made a totally drinkable liqueur, but man, it has bite! I can’t really taste the orange, just the spice! Good, though!

So, I’m now trying out some updated experimental liqueurs using cinnamon sticks, whole cloves, and some crystalized ginger pieces…

There’s an orange spice, an orange+apricot spice, and a plain dried apricot milk liqueur. I got some liqueur making books, but there’s no mention of milk liqueurs (I think they are a traditional Portuguese thing that’s just starting to be known in the states thanks to this book, but I could be totally wrong and they could have some other origin… anyone know?) – so, I’m using the idea of a dried apricot liqueur from one of the books, and turning it into a milk liqueur. Based on how the orange ones turned out, I think it’ll work well!

Oh, a couple other things I want to share before I go – first, don’t use the kind of jar from Ikea like I used for the spiced liqueur! Major leaking, no good! I later found these jars at The Container Store that are working really well, and the biggest size I found is big enough for a batch with 2 cups each of milk/vodka/sugar, as long as I don’t need to add lots of solids (like orange slices) that take up space.

And one last thing – I used this idea to remove the labels from recycled jars and bottles, and it works really well! Once you use up the vodka for your liqueur, and whatever other glass bottles that have good lids, soak them in water with some shampoo for a few hours – with some kinds of labels, they will literally just fall off the bottle in the water (I think TJ’s blood orange soda was one of these), but others will just become looser and easier to scrape off.

I think that’s all I’ve got for you now. Happy daylight savings day!

New free pattern – Cassady! (plus trivia!)

What a week it’s been! My blog was down for most of yesterday and the first half of today, for some unknown reason, but it’s back now so that’s great! I hosted trivia night for my first time last night and it went really well!! I had so much fun designing all my categories and questions that I’ve thought of a fun way to recycle them… I’ll try it for a few days and if it’s working out well then I’ll keep it up through all 40 of my questions!

Starting tomorrow (Friday) about 10:30am-ish probably (west coast time) I’ll tweet my first trivia question – the first twitterer to reply with the correct answer will win a $2 off coupon code to my knitting pattern shop, or the Bad Movie Bingo pdf, your choice. I’ll put a limit of one win per person, per category – there are 4 categories with 10 questions each.

If it’s tons of fun, I might do 2 questions per day, at different times of the day, so if you aren’t available to play the first question, maybe you’ll be around for the second… I’ll probably do 1 question per day through this weekend, then on Monday I’ll tweet my trivia plans for the week. Sorry to non-twitterers, this is just a fun thing that twitter is the perfect platform for – once all the questions have been tweeted, I’ll throw the whole thing here on the blog.

update 3/14: ok I’m going to try to do 2 questions each day (maybe just one or none on weekend days though) – around 10:30am and 6pm west coast time.

That above is Zach’s Shack, where the trivia night happened last night, by the way… and now I’ll shut up about this trivia nonsense and move on to what you probably care more about!

I have a new free pattern! Cassady! (Once again named by Mary-Heather, who also named my Swerve and Betiko patterns, making her my official naming genius.) It was posted on WhipUp blog a couple days ago, for the guest blogger series – I talked a bit about the sideways edge cast-on I’ve been using, and how it’s kind of hard to grasp without actually doing it. Once you do it, you see how easy it is, so here’s a free and quick way to try it out!

The kerchief is for any-gauge, and custom fit to your head – pick out a pretty self-striping or variegated yarn to show off in the 2 different directions of garter stitch. This example was knit up in Knitted Wit worsted weight merino; I think it will work fabulously in a sock weight yarn.

The way the pattern works, there’s no need for a gauge swatch, as you start with just 1 single cast-on stitch, work out from there (starting with the tip of one side of the ties) and measure as you go, making the sideways stitches to fit perfectly around your head, then working the main part with decreases along the edges to make the triangular body.

Whether or not that made sense to you, trust me, it’s easy and awesome – there’s no swatching, no seaming, no picking up stitches… magic!

I’ve been wearing mine around the house pretty much every day since I made it, like I am in the photo above, to hold my hair back out of my face… you can also wear it around your neck if you like, though that might look better with a more drapey yarn choice:

I also knit up a sample in a bulky self-striping yarn, but I don’t like it as much – while you can technically knit Cassady in any weight yarn, I’d recommend no heavier than worsted… this one functions, but I just don’t like something about the way it fits and the bulk…

So that’s that – knit yourself a Cassady in some leftover yarn (you could even stripe to use up smaller bits of multiple yarns!) and be sure to post the project in ravelry so I can see your version! Yay!

Oh yeah, I also released March’s quick knits club ebook on Monday, but I’ll save that for another blog post sometime soon!

Old patterns made new!

I’m in the process of reformatting all of my patterns so that they all share the same stylesheet (fonts, layout elements, wording of certain parts, etc) – thanks to Knitgrrl’s book for calling my attention to this – and I’ve finished the main 4 that I was most eager to get updated. Skoodlet, Ten 10 yard Cuffs, Mr. Pointy, and Spiraling Stripes Hats are now freshly styled, partially rewritten, and looking much better I think!

I also knit up and included a new example of the Skoodlet – it’s in a bulky yarn (Lamb’s Pride) and an extra large size for a gigantic hood! And I LOVE the vintage buttons I found and how they look against the grey! I also reshot the rainbowy example since I didn’t much like those old photos of that one:

Mr. Pointy and Spiraling Stripes Hats were two of my very earliest patterns – Mr. Pointy is a pretty basic pattern compared to my new stuff, but I still like it, and there are some gorgeous versions knit up in handspun which you can check out on ravelry.

The old version of Spiraling Stripes was actually the first pdf I ever built, and it was kind of terrible so I let it hide away…. But now, with some new photos, a bunch of rewriting, reformatting, etc, I am super happy with the hat set and want to make sure you know about it! 6 different hat patterns, and tons of variation ideas and instructions for different hat styles and ways of striping.

I also did a new photoshoot with some of these old hats – you can see here the slanted brim above, and the straight brim and brimless versions below, as well as different kinds of stripes and fits. I think this hat set coordinations well with my Custom Tritops set – between these 2 pattern sets, you’d be set for unlimited one-of-a-kind hats for a lifetime of knitting!

I also completed a minor redesign of my main patterns page yesterday – not a big deal, but I think it’s a little easier to browse through all my patterns+ebooks now.

Ok that’s all for now… it’s some busy times around here lately… March’s quick knits club will be out on Monday, and I’m doing a crazy thing for the first time ever next week! I’m hosting trivia night at Zach’s Shack here in southeast Portland on Wednesday night! My guy has been a trivia host regularly for over 3 years now, and I’ve always kind of toyed with the idea of trying it sometime… and that time is 5 days from now! I’m totally nervous and super excited at the same time! I’ll probably blog later with how it went and I’ll share some of my favorite questions and/or categories (the way Zach’s trivia works is: 4 categories, 10 questions per category – and I’m really excited about some of my categories!)… Ok that’s all for reals now. Happy Friday!

World of Geekcraft!

I just want to take a minute to tell you how incredibly excited I am about this awesome book that’s coming out in May! I know, that’s awhile away still, but I just have to show you a peek! World of Geekcraft:

Update 6/4: Just a belated note that the book ended up coming out earlier than I’d thought, so it’s been on shelves for a couple months now! My pattern is now listed on ravelry, so add it as a project if you make a geeky sleeve!

My buddy Susan put together the most nerd-tastic amazing collection of geekery inspired craft projects, and I am so lucky to get to be a part of it! I designed this simple coffee cup sleeve knitting pattern that can be customized and embellished to show off whatever geeky obsession you might have:

My three chosen themes are: a Trivial Pursuit sleeve to display my board game geekery…

…a Jayne hat striped sleeve for the Joss Whedon nerd in me, and a Dr. Mario sleeve to show off my most favorite video game:

I got the opportunity to flip through the book a few days ago, and my project’s spread looks so good!!

The book has tons of different types of craft projects represented, and so many awesome contributors – see the list here on the book’s site. Two more super duper exciting things about this book – Pete wrote a page for a Geek Speak segment!

And, my project made it onto the back cover!! Woooo so awesome! Ok, so I’m sorry to tease you with how great this is, and you’ll have to wait to see more projects from it, but now you have it to look forward to! It really is a fabulous book – I would be totally excited about it even if I had nothing to do with it, for reals! So, follow the book’s blog and/or Susan’s blog to stay up-to-date, and I’ll definitely be posting more details about my design and the book in general when it’s released!

Oh, and be sure to check with Susan’s post for ways to pre-order and other book related links!

And yes, that is Oregon Trail cross stitch.

Spinning, knit-a-long, fiber retreat, and what’s to come!

Life has been busy and exciting and I have a bunch of things to show you and tell you about! There is a Betiko knit-a-long about to get started, hosted by awesome spinner Blonde Chicken! She has even spun up a bunch of yarn kits made especially for Betiko shawls! How cool is that?! Of course, you can join in the knit-a-long fun with any yarn you want to use, but handspun is definitely encouraged!

These photos are some of my handspun I’ve made recently… I might have to use one of them for a Betiko once I start seeing all the sure to be gorgeous handspun versions popping up. I love looking through the Betiko projects, because the shawls can all look so different from each other – this stripey one on Michelynntires blog is beautiful! And for this one blogged on OtterWise, she came with her own custom outer edging! Ohdessa Knits also designed her own lacy edging, which she shares on her blog – it’s so pretty!

And in other handspun-related news… I’ve been going through a spinning phase! I hadn’t really spun in the last year or so, just a couple of single skeins here and there. I think it was because I was doing the recycled spun yarn every month for my old club and it made me not want to spin anything besides that (because recycled spinning for the club quantity was really tedious). But then I decided to pick up the wheel again a few weeks ago and have been really into it! Above is some 2-ply spun from Spunky Eclectic‘s BFL wool dyed in the Aspen colorway, love it so much! And below is some bulky art yarn, spun to be fuzzy and full of big slubby bits, striping from all these colors of merino I got from Black Sheep fiber festival a couple years ago. (I haven’t washed/blocked either yet, I was just too excited to photograph them and show you!)

Sort of related to spinning, I took a spontaneous trip on the train last Thursday to Madrona fiber arts retreat in Tacoma!

I found out my buddies Star, Vivian, and Sorren has decided to go on Wednesday night, and I was leaving for the train station at 7am the next morning! It was a whirlwind of fibery goodness, I’m so glad I went for it!

It was at this amazing hotel – Hotel Murano – and while we weren’t there for long, we did find a little time to sit and knit under that Chuck Close in the cozy fireplace area. Such a great location for a fiber retreat, I just wish we were able to be there for the whole weekend instead of one day! (Maybe next year…)

In the overwhelmingly-full-of-cool-stuff marketplace, we got to try out these way too fun hand-built electric spinners, by Hansen Crafts. It was really fun and easy to use and all of us agreed that someday when we win the lottery / sell out / have an extra $700 we just need to get rid of, we are totally getting one! Another highlight was us talking Vivian into getting this best puppet ever! And by the way, Vivian has some more excellent photos of our adventure on her fabulous blog here!

I had a tiny budget for the day, but I did get one braid of spinning fiber since I realized I has never spun Targhee before – this gorgeously dyed wool is from Sweet Grass Wool, in the Arizona colorway. (That reminds me, if you’re a lover of sheep, you must see the documentary Sweetgrass if you haven’t already!)

I also got a small silk hankie – just enough to try out the knitting technique in this blog post that I totally fell in love with (along with just about every knitter in the world!). If I enjoy knitting with this little trial-sized hankie, I’ll go for one of the amazingly beautiful Blue Moon hankies! And, speaking of Blue Moon, for my birthday I got a massive 8 ounces of this handpainted Polwarth roving (another type of wool I’ve never spun before!) in the River Rocked colorway – so huge and squishy and those colors and… yeah, it’s pretty much the best thing ever! (Thanks Pete’s parents!!!!)

Aaaand, also for my birthday (thanks Star!!!!) I got this… ack I feel like I keep saying the words beautiful and gorgeous and amazing too much, but it’s all of those things… Black Trillium merino/bamboo blend in the Too Many Pumpkins colorway. I love it so much!! So, once I get really back into practice with spinning and I trust myself to do these fibers justice, you’ll be seeing yarns made from them!

And, mostly just for more eye candy… this is a yarn I spun a year ago, with Spunky Eclectic hand-dyed shetland, all big and squishy, which I hadn’t gotten around to photographing until now (except for the singles on the bobbins here). Love it!

This one was spun with some various batts from fiber festivals (like these), in long striping sections in a kind of uneven single ply…

…which was then knit into this, yumyum handspun garter stitch!

And that leads me to something else exciting I can tell you about… I am finally starting actual tangible work on my ebook, which I’ve been slowly planning for the last year! It was originally going to be a recycled-yarn-making ebook, with patterns to go with all the different kinds of yarns, including recycled spun, hand-dyed, and more… Well, after months of planning, brainstorming, outlining, I decided that was just an unrealistically huge undertaking and I came up with the idea of splitting it into 2 volumes – the first will be recycled yarns with no dyeing (super detailed on how to recycled sweaters into new yarns, and recycled spun yarns in tons of different styles, etc)…

So, that garter stitch project above is a first prototype of a pattern which isn’t ready to show you yet, and I’ve also started work on a hat pattern for the book. Work on this book will not be a secret, so I’ll show you progress as I go, and once I have a couple actual items to show from it, I’ll start selling book pre-orders. My plan is to release each pattern as it’s ready – so, if you pre-order the ebook, then you’ll get new patterns one at a time until the whole book is finished and released. So that’s that plan. I have a lot of other stuff going on too, so I’m not able to fully focus on it yet, but I’m pretty excited about it!

And I’ll leave you with one more handspun photo, because I love this one so much!

February quick knits ebook: Buttons!

February is a month full of love, and I love buttons… well ok, that’s not why I chose the theme… it just kind of developed… anyway, this month’s club:

Five different button-filled projects! The first, a knitting pattern for Shoggoth, the pin cushion demon!

HP Lovecraft monster that knits up in approximately 20 yards of worsted weight leftovers, gets stuffed and covered in button eyes, then functions as an awesome pin cushion!

One tentacle curls around, with my intent being that you can store your scissors in there… but it’s not really structurally sound enough to stay up without the scissors balancing on the table. The curled tentacle looks cool though, even if it’s not super useful. Also, you could attach googly eyes instead of buttons if you prefer!

The other knitting pattern is called Buttontastic, and it’s a strip of buttons and eyelet holes which can be twisted and worn as a headband, necklace, bracelet, or probably more!

To make it long enough for a headband, you actually need a bit more than 20 yards (I think this one, in Knitted Wit merino yarn, used around 25 yards), but you could totally stripe with different yarn leftovers of the same weight (worsted weight is recommended). The brown example (in Malabrigo worsted) used around 17 yards, and makes for a fun necklace or bracelet:

The linen stitch looks super great in variegated yarns, as you can see…

While making these pieces, I came up with a way to attach the buttons into the knitting as you knit – no sewing on oh-so-many buttons afterwards, yay! The pattern includes instructions for how I did that, but I also plan to do a blog post on it sometime in the near future, for all to see, since it’s an easy process that would be super useful for lots of button-y patterns! (I’m sure it’s something that many have done before, I’d just never seen it – anyone know of an online how-to for putting buttons into your knit fabric as you knit?)

For my tutorial/extras this month, I actually just did 3 short tutorials for different kinds of fun, simple-ish button craft projects. The first is an easy clothing embellishment project, which I did on a thrifted skirt – LOVE the finished look!

And then a home decor project – a button-covered branch light:

It’s a whole different look during the day, and turned on at night!

I am totally in love with how this project turned out, as well! I think it would also look awesome with just the buttons and no lights… I’ll probably be trying that out soon!

And lastly, a simple little jewelry project – pile of buttons pendant. A fun way to use up some coordinating buttons… or you could make it with just one extra special small button framed inside the larger button, to show it off.

There are only 4 months left of the club – you can get a subscription starting with this ebook, lasting through the end of the club, which is 5 months for $17. Or, as usual, you can grab just this ebook alone for $5.

It’s been a weird week, and my computer is in the Apple store getting its fan replaced, so I’m writing this on Pete’s computer… my point being, I haven’t been doing much computery stuff at all this week. Things should be back to normal soon though, and I’ll have some fun blog posts, and hopefully another mystery knit-a-long very soon!

(One extra thing, you may want to check out my twitter, as I might be having a secret-ish sale this week that I’ve been announcing through twitter only, and that ends tomorrow…)