Kettering Hat

It’s finally out! The long awaited Kettering hat is finally released – only about a month after I said it would be, but the best laid plans, and all of that. I am learning that it ALWAYS takes considerably longer than I intend it to for patterns to make it from the finished prototype to release, so hopefully can better predict this in future. Sorry for the delays, and to those who queued it.  Here are some photos:

I really like this design – it looks great on people, and I love the way the pattern weaves over and under itself. And the top of a top down hat always pleases me with that lovely spiral.

Here’s the link to the Kettering Hat pattern page on Ravelry, for those of you who cannot wait to cast on.  I’m giving a lots of these for the holidays.

Coming soon – Faberge Mittens and Dean Street Mitts.  Pics soon, stayed tuned!

Of Dean Street and Ravelry

Somewhere in the middle of last March I decided to enter the Malabrigo March design contest in the Malabrigo Junkies group on Ravelry. The pattern had to be available before the end of the month, so I picked up a skein of Malabrigo, some needles, and out came The Dean Street Hat.

I wish I could say I sweated and struggled over it, but like many of the best designs it emerged with a smoothness that amazed me. The decreases for which I have been praised simply worked magically (or perhaps I should say mathematically, which is almost the same thing). This is not to say I didn’t work hard – it was virtually all I did for the rest of the month, between being my own test knitter for all the sizes (with only two weeks I couldn’t risk doing otherwise), getting the pattern written up, the photographs for the pattern and the photo tutorial taken. But somehow it flowed smoothly – everything about creating this pattern was satisfying; nothing about it was frustrating or needed the usual tweaking.

It didn’t win the contest, which – if I’m going to be really honest here – really disappointed me. Not because I wanted to win so much as I desperately wanted the skein of Malabrigo sock yarn, at that point unreleased, that came as the prize for winning. I had made the mistake of dreaming endlessly about what I would do with it before finally deciding it would be a Flared Smoke Ring Cowl by Jackie Erickson-Schweitzer. So much for the best laid plans…

So now it’s 8 months later, I have a ton of Malabrigo sock yarn (but that’s another post entirely, perhaps called Malabrigo Sock Crack, or something similar), I made a Flared Smoke Ring Cowl out of it, and it turns out I won something much bigger, or at least much more important to me.

I have been lucky enough to have had some small success as a designer and knitting teacher before Ravelry, but nothing had prepared me for how incredible it is to look at photos of this humble little hat that people all over the world are making – not to mention reading their thoughts about making it! And that is the really great thing that Ravelry has given designers: even more than the ability to easily and affordably deliver my patterns to a quarter of a million people all over the world, Ravelry has given me the ability to actually connect with the people who are knitting my patterns directly. It is one thing to sell pattern out of stores – you know they are selling, but they disappear into the ether, never to be heard from again, unless you sell them locally and happen to see someone wearing something you designed. Or maybe if you teach a class using it you see people’s versions that way. If a pattern is published you know people are seeing it but….

But with Ravelry I have the amazing ability to see almost 90 Dean Street Hats that people from California to Finland have made – not to mention read their thoughts on it all. I have been able to see the hundreds and hundreds of people who are favoriting my designs or are queuing it up to make it. I have been accessible to people who want to talk about it with me, whether to tell me they loved it, or ask about something they didn’t understand. I am able to get immediate feedback on my designs and know which things I should more to the top of the design pile, and which can wait a while. And this is one of the many amazing things that Jess and Casey did when they gave us Ravelry. That I can now sell my designs directly to my customers, and interact with them directly about them is an enormous gift to a designer, and for me it all started with my dear little Dean Street Hat – the first pattern I chose to released on Ravelry as a download. It’s a free pattern, so go knit a Dean Street Hat today! As I type this there are 89 Dean Street Hats on Ravelry. I want to do something for the 100^th Dean Street – maybe a contest of some sort? All suggestions gladly listened to!

I’m working on some Dean Street Mitts at the moment (because several people asked me to – see what I mean?) and Dean Street Socks, and several more items in the Faberge beaded series, and about a dozen new hats, several sweaters, and…and…

Off to knit. And to check Ravelry. Back soon!

Hello world!

I know.

I was the last person in the world who was going to have a blog. And I almost made it. But then again, I was also the person who was never going to move out of NYC and we all know how that one went. After spending my first 34 years as a New Yorker born and bred I relocated to the beautiful Pioneer Valley in western Massachusetts, and have lived happily ever since (possible because of the proximity of Webs, but that’s another post entirely).

But the thing of it is, it turns out I am good at explaining knitting things, which is why my students are kind enough to attach words like “Knitting Doctor” and “Lace Guru” to my name, and those titles mean way more to me than any letters I ever got after my name from schools, so I take them seriously.

And then there’s the designing thing. Ravelry has given me (and all other designers) the ability to sell our patterns to the public ourselves, rather than through middlemen like magazines or other publishers. But that means that we need a forum to promote them in, to let people know what’s being worked on, and what’s coming out when.

And then there’s the fact that knitting just somehow calls out to be shared. That those of us who share this addiction to fiber and the things we can create with it seem to feel the need to share our projects with others, and to investigate their ideas and creativity. Which means that I am reading other peoples thoughts on their knitting, and am feeling the need to tell them about mine.

So here I am. Barack Obama was elected as out 44th president, to my utter delight, a few days ago, and with him comes, to me at least, and overwhelming feeling of hope renewed. As if we are not only living through an incredibly significant time in history, but as if all new things are possible. So it seemed the time to take the leap. To ignore my previous insistence that I would never have a blog because “who in the world would want to read about my knitting”. A good time to start something new.

So here I am.

I’m glad to be here.