Follow along and discover your next inspiration as we cast on for projects we love, explore new techniques, and dish about the latest and greatest from Knit Picks.
Meet the team »
Kelley chats with designer Nina about a free online design-your-own-sweater class that Nina taught. Kelley also reviews books with great sweater-weather projects.
Books Reviewed
Knitting 24/7 by Veronik Avery
Brave New Knits by Julie Turjoman
3 easy ways to listen…
If you live anywhere near the northwestern United States, you know
that spring has come later than normal this year. Fortunately, over the
past couple of weeks, the sun has decided to shine a little bit and the
flowers have (hesitantly) started to bloom. In honor of these little
breaks from the dreary gray skies, I have decided to share a few spring
pattern ideas with you that will brighten up any day – sunny or not!
The Rachel’s Bag pattern by Cassidy Clark
definitely tops my list of fun, fashionable must-haves this spring.
The bag is fashionable, practical, and adds a certain flair to any
outfit. In other words, it’s the perfect accessory!
Sorry for the delay for this class! We had some technical difficulties – ah, gotta love technology 🙂
And now for some more info about the stitches. Here are some snapshots
that will help closely illustrate some of the concepts I cover in the
video – directional decreasing, yarnovers, and nupps vs. bobbles.
Click to see the the videos and read more!
Read more »
Kim
Guzman is an amazing knit & crochet designer – she’s been
featured in magazines such as Crochet World,
Interweave Crochet and Creative
Knitting and in many booklets – including her new one Learn to Do Tunisian Lace Stitches. She also
won 3 awards at the Crochet Awards! So really it’s not a surprise that
two of her designs are our top selling crochet patterns (that would be Solaris Lace Crochet Shawl and Dreams Lace Crochet Shawl) We are so thrilled to
have her part of of IDP!
Kelley talks about when you’re just not feeling right about a project
and switching to a new pattern.
Books Reviewed
Take Along Knitting
Toe-Up Socks for Every Body by Wendy D. Johnson
3 easy ways to listen…
One of my favorite things about working with the Independent
Designers is finding new projects for myself! So when we started up the
Crochet Along,
I immediatly choose Lauren
Osborne‘s beautiful Adva
for my project, as I’ve been eying it since we recieved it. Lauren
has many beautiful patterns, both knit & crochet and I am so
thrilled she is in IDP.
Pam Daley is one of our most prolific IDP crochet
designers – she has 5 so far in the program with several more on the
way. And all are super cute! We enjoy getting the samples of her
designs & ooing and ahing over them – oh and putting them the KP
babies!
(that’s baby Ella, the newest member of the KP team, wearing Pam’s
Sweet-Heart
Hat)
If
you’ve joined our Crochet Along
group (you haven’t? Why not?), you may have seen Allison
Harding posting some great hints & cheering all of us newbies
on. Allison is one of our Independent Designers and we are so happy to
have her help out with the CAL – she is a wonderful and innovative
designer, both for us and her own website. I recently did an interview
with her so we can all get to know her!
Most of you know me as the Independent Designer Partnership
Coordinator (quite the mouthful of a title isn’t it?) but another
wonderful part of my job is working with local charities. While most
of our yarn stock is in Ohio, we do end up with quite a bit here in
Vancouver – leftovers from projects or photoshoots mostly. Lots of
people ask what we do with all of it – and no, we don’t take it all
home with us. We actually donate all of our discontinued yarns &
colors it to a couple of lovely local places. One of those places is Friends Of The Children,
a nonprofit group in Portland that provides the most at-risk children
with intensive and long-term mentors. We’ve worked with them in the
past and they have a group called “Crafty Friends” that loves playing
with our yarn & teaching children (and mentors!) to knit or crochet.
Since we are discontinuing a bunch of colors right now to make room
for our fall stock, I went down to the small warehouse we have here to
load up a box for our Friends. That box turned into two..
Wool socks are really so much more than a fashion statement or funky
accessory. They are a wonderful year-round garment that will be worth
their weight in gold when you’re caught in the snow, a freak summer
rainstorm, the middle of the desert, or even the mall.
