A Year Of Handmade #6... Blogs That Inspire You

Today's topic in the list of #AYearOfHandmade created by Rebecca of Rebecca Bee Designs is "What blogs inspire you?"

 Kate on her bike.  Image from http://www.theknitter.co.uk

1. katedavisdesigns.com :  I adore Kate.  Her blog is inspirational, intellectually stimulating, funny and full of great knitting tips.  Kate is a Scottish academic that lives with her partner Tom and their furry friend Bruce, the most inquisitive and lavishly doted upon black lab.

 Bruce Copyright KateDaviesDesigns.com

Why do I love her blog so much?  Kate is very real in her online personality.  She shares the good, the bad, and the opinionated in a very candid fashion.  She seems like a great person to sit down with, have a few beers or cups of tea and discuss and just talk.  I have a feeling we'd  either have a rip roaring verbal sparring over contrasting opinions or nearly bust a rib laughing about some great silliness. 
Kate is a scrappy survivor of a stroke.  She worked incredibly hard to regain what others might have accepted as lost for good and had the balls to take her life in a new direction.  The picture of Kate on her trike was a huge influence to me.  I adored long distance biking before my trauma and mourned the loss of it keenly.  Balance is an enormous issue for me, along with anxiety.  But, I got back on a bike last summer and accomplished another goal on my list.  I may be wobbly, but the biking bug is back in full force.

     2.  http://ysolda.com/blog/ ... I really love going through the old posts and reading Ysolda's insights as she rocketed to knitting super-stardom.  She is fun, witty and very smart. 

 

Copyright Vimeo.com

And, like Kate, she is a force to be reckoned with when it comes to sewing!  (I'm still a grasshopper in the sewing circle of life.)  Ysolda is a twenty-something Scot that teaches a mean sweater shaping class and an extraordinary business woman to boot.  It's on my bucket list to attend one of Ysolda's classes in the future.  I must say, as much as I love Ysolda's old blogging, her current entries are few and far between.  But when they come, they are usually excellent.  Ysolda is actually the impetus for me purchasing my beloved Olympus Pen camera.  Her photography is so beautiful! 

      3.  http://www.livelovediy.com ... A non-knitting blog?  Yup.  I love Virginia's spunk and vision.  She got me wielding a paint brush and looking at old furniture with a different eye.   She also got me over the horror of painting wood, LOL! 

 

Copyright "livelovediy.com"

 

Copyright "livelovediy.com" 

Virginia also serves up some sage advise on a verity of subjects and her "how-to" tutorials are excellent.  I also have a more discerning eye when I go thrift shop shopping.  Make the hubby happy too!  :)

     4.  http://www.rebeccabeedesigns.com ... Back to knitting blogs.  Well, mainly.  Rebecca is an awesome Canadian (yeah!) crafter that taught herself to knit, and oh my, she is on fire. 

Copyright http://www.rebeccabeedesigns.com

This young lady (yikes, that makes me sound so old) reminds me of Ysolda Teague, the early years.  Rebecca always has interesting posts and tips that get the creative juices brewing.  I love her Instagram pics.  Her "blog voice" is witty and original, the makings of a very fun read!  Rebecca also started the #YearOfHandmade link up party, which I find really fun to participate in.  Along with being so social media savvy, she has some really cute designs for crochet too.  Sadly, I'm not much of a crocheter, so I can only admire them from the other side of the hook.

     5.  http://www.getyourknittogether.com ... Another life and knitting blog.  I really enjoy seeing the alert pop up in my email that Lesley's got a new post out.  Not only is she a fellow Canadian, but lives in my home Province!  How cool is that?!? 

 Copyright http://www.getyourknittogether.com

And she is laugh-out-loud funny.  Seriously, some posts must not be read with a mouthful of hot beverage, 'cos it'll be spurting out your nose.  Remember, you've been warned!  Currently, she is working on an epic sock yarn scraps blanket.  It is crazy cool, but I don't think I've got the fortitude to take on such a task.  She has a ton of sock yarn with a serious sock yarn fetish.  You can find her patterns over on Ravelry here.

So, these are some of my inspiring blogs in a nutshell.  Hmmm.  I think there is more, but I can't remember them right now.  That's not surprising, considering my short term memory thing.  I think I should make a link list on my site. 

What blogs inspire you?

A Year Of HandMade #5: Favourite Thing You Have Ever Made

Eeeps!  I'm falling behind in my blogging list for the #yearofhandmade link up!  Onwards, and hopefully I'll catch up during April... :)

#5:  What is the favourite thing you have ever made?

That is a tough question.  I craft.  A lot.  Hmmm.

Right now I'm in the throws of dyeing yarn, so... I'd have to say this nifty large tool:

The PVC Skein Winder

Now this is not a picture of mine, but I made it exactly to the plans, so it is virtually identical.

It has a diameter of almost exactly 2 yards.  I can use it upright or lay it flat on the floor, depending which is the easiest choice for my poor shoulder.  It spins like a dream!  (The skein winder, not the shoulder, LOL!)

Here is another one I might make...

I can see this as being very handy for rewinding a dyed skein.

If I choose to dive deeper into the natural dyeing world, I think I'm going to build a foot pedal powered skein winder with an electronic counter.   Something like in the video below...

And I think I'm going to build one of these!  'Cos it looks really handy and fun! 

So how about you?
What is the favourite thing you have ever made?

Year of Handmade: Dream craft products to use...

This is the fourth installment of the "Year of Handmade" link up.  Rebecca of Rebecca Bee Designs asks us to blog about our dream craft product to use...

I am in love with Apple.  I was a PC girl for YEARS, but when I got this set up...

I was converted!  Mind you, mine does not run Windows, but you get the idea.  I adore my huge monitor.  It allows me to have several windows open at once while designing.  LOVE that.  My husband calls me a "power user."  Yes.  Yes I am. 

So if I have that, what more could I want?  Well...

A Macbook Pro with Retinal display.  2016 model of course, because we are dreaming here!  I'd love to take my ability to design where ever I go.  Yes, I do have my sketch book and my knitting graph paper book, but I love to chart my designs on a computer.  I truly missed my Mac when I was away at the IWK with Tress this past summer.  There was a few moments when she was sleeping or watching a movie that I had to myself and I literally ached for my Mac as I was plotting a design on paper.

And speaking of paper and charting...

I want this program soooo bad...  Right now, I'm using OpenOffice Draw to make my vector knitting charts.  It is really great, don't get me wrong.  I can resize a chart and it looks fantastic when dropped into my OpenOffice Writer knitting pattern template.  I was using OpenOffice Calc to chart in, but the charts had a "fuzziness" about them when I'd resize.  Not good.  In Draw, there is none of that.  BUT Draw has a very weird way of not aligning my charting blocks up even though they are on the same vector plains.  So very irritating!!!!  I tried InkScape, but it does not allow me to position blocks by typing in the coordinates.  I need that ability.  Plus, I'm really entertaining the idea of publishing a pattern book.  I think I really need the pro programs to do that effectively. 

Funny how my crafting dreams all revolve around computers.  Huh.  Hmm. 

I think of the two, it will be the program that I get first, IF a dream becomes reality. 

What are your crafty dream products?

A Year Of Handmade! Craft Blog Link Up Fun...

I've just discovered this through Ravelry and I am psyched about it!

So lets start at the beginning...

How did I pick up knitting?

Mum taught me to knit at the ripe age of 5 years old because I kept loosing my mittens. I still remember the thrill of holding those metal miss matched in size needles and acrylic yarn. Catching on fast, I proceeded to mittens and “the good needles.” After much ruthless frogging on my Mum’s part due to my tension being “wrong,” I eventually was able to match my Mum’s machine-like tension(the “right” one, LOL) and make my own mitts. To this day, I can pick up one of her projects and knit without anyone being the wiser!

My first knit from a "real" pattern was an aran sweater by Alice Strathmore.  I'm not sure which one, it was so long ago, but it was wool, cable-ly and warm.  I wore it with pride in high school, nasty seams and all.

Fast forward to University.  I found a french knitting pattern magazine and fell in love with an itty-bitty lace cardigan with short capped sleeves.  Never mind that my french reading skills were vague, that I've never knit lace before, tackled button bands or inset capped sleeves.  It was pretty with a deep scope neck that showed a lot of cleavage.  My future husband loved it too and that was the icing on the cake.  So off to Briggs & Little Woolen Mill in Harvey, NB to pick out some lovely yarn.

 Photo ©Briggs and Little

I chose their sport weight and bought some needles from a very nice staff member there, assuring her that I would "swatch" (huh, what was that? Oh well, nothing important I guess.) before I started.  Again I jumped right in and knit.  I wasn't sure what a "yarn over" was, and this was years before YouTube.  With lots of guessing, I finished my itty-bitty sweater and if fit reasonably well.  A little tight under the arms, the buttons holes were wonky when unbuttoned, and the seams were a tad on the thick and irritating side.  But who cares?  I had my sexy, attention-getting sweater and I adored it.

Fast forward to my second University degree.  Money was tight, I was worried about student loans.  I resolved not to get another loan, and would pay for my education out of pocket. I was living in a rented drafty condo where I couldn't afford the heat bill.

Enter stress.  I got a full time job working at a catalog sales call center from 7pm-3am and a part time job working at a lingerie shop in the Halifax Shopping Center.  While still going to school full time and dodging the business office until pay day when I'd come in with most of my paychecks and make a payment on my tuition.  Learning to sleep at a drop of a hat and scheduling it around school and jobs became an art form.  Enter my "de-stressing blanket."  A huge ball of mostly mystery fibre and plain garter stitch was just the ticket.  It kept me warm while I worked on it and saved my sanity. 

Fast forward several years.  Finished school, got a corporate job, married, had children.  Knitting was forgotten.  Had a horrible auto accident that rendered me unable to work.  In the process for re-learning how to walk straight, use my hands, and read, it was suggested that I pick a hobby to help with the crushing distress of this new me.  I remembered I used to knit, but for the life of me, I couldn't remember how to do it.  Enter YouTube and blessed, blessed yarn.  I found Ravelry and bought Gretal by Ysolda Teague.

 "Gretal" by Ysolda ©Ysolda

As I struggled through, I found myself marveling at the design, and wondering why.  Why did the designer chose this ____?  And that ____?  What if I did this, and that?  I was hooked.

Knitting patterns are like another language and calculus had a baby.  We learn to read, "speak," and think in this wondrous code to shape string into a form of knots to create 3 dimensional objects.  Magic!  I knew I had to be part of it.  The designer in me emerged, and I now dream of designs in luxurious fibres.  The pull of knitting has taken me to other countries in search of knowledge.  It makes me ponder about the knitting history here in my home province.  But more than that, it is filling me with a purpose to create.  And I am happy.