Plans for 2023

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This post is written already a bit too late but better late then never… So my resolutions for 2023 are:

Further reducing my stash and keep it at a minimum

I have already touched on this one in my last post. My aim this year is to clear all yarns that are heavier than sport weight out of my stash. I realized that I don’t enjoy knitting with needles above 4 mm /US 6. To accomplish this, I started using up yarns starting from the heaviest weight. Let’s see what I have accomplished in January. Clicking on the photos takes you to the Ravelry project page where I usually add more notes to the project.

1. Chunky/bulky

Last year I have already managed to dismiss (almost) all the super bulky yarns, so the heaviest in my current stash was Debbie Bliss Rialto Chunky. I started a sweater for my son hoping that I have enough yarn but I soon realized that I won’t have enough for the cuffs, hem and neck ribbing, so I used a third color there:

The pullover is based on a free pattern from Catherine Seale featuring a very interesting shoulder method she worked out (her pattern on Ravelry: https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/seal-line-shoulder-method-childs-sweater ). Since I worked with a heavier yarn and larger needles, I chose a size smaller than it was intended.

I still had enough yarn for a hat, so I knitted myself one:

The pattern is the Soft + Cushy Hat from Purl Soho (Ravelry link: https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/soft–cushy-hat ). I made a slight change, instead of the k1 under I used k1 stitches to use up less yarn.

2. Aran/worsted

The second heaviest were some leftover Drops Big Merinos Just enough for 2 smaller projects. The one below is an improvised hat pattern, with an octopus intarsia (pattern by Sarah Kelly, Ravelry link: https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/octopus-chart-2 )

Since I still had some leftovers, Daniel came up with the idea of a pair of octopus mittens and when we searched Ravelry, we found a cute one: https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/childs-octopus-mittens . It wasn’t available online, it was only published in 60 Quick Knits, so I searched on WOB for it, and luckily they had a copy, so we immediately ordered it. Soon it arrived and the mittens were ready to be made:

After finishing these projects, my stash of super chunky, chunky and worsted yarns look like this:

I am pretty satisfied with this amount… 🙂

3. DK

I managed to start reducing the DK weight stash too in January, my finished projects in January were:

A scarf for one of teachers in kindergarten (it looks a bit awkward on the photos as I only have a child size mannequin but the scarf is adult size… but is still beautiful):

The pattern is Spinning in Circles by Kim Lundvall (link to Ravelry pattern: https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/spinning-in-circles ).

The second project is a Valentine’s Day gift to my son’s little girlfriend (they are 8 years old, the first love of their lives, they are so so so cute together and my son wanted to gift her something special, so I knitted a scarf with shadow knitting technique, there are two unicorns facing each other at the 2 ends:

It was a really fun project, I hope the new owner will like it, too… 🙂

I still have a few balls of Rialto DK left and I also have some other DK yarns, clearing these yarns from stash will be a lot of work… but it is my aim for February and March (and probably April… I must be ready by May at the latest because by that time we have a ton to do in the garden and I won’t be able to knit anything but socks between May and October).

If I manage to knit a ball a day, which is not much with DK weight to be honest, I can be successful with this project but we’ll see…

Learn a new skill

Last year it was sock knitting, and it came unpurposed. I had to create a few gifts that were quick projects, and I needed quite a few pairs, so it was a perfect time to learn about sock knitting in depth (more about it here). It was such a delightful project that I decided I should do something like that every year. For this year I was struggling to decide between two topics. The first one was to search for traditional Hungarian knitting techniques and patterns. As I was diving deeper in the topic I had to realize that knitting wasn’t at all common in Hungarian history. Though we were quite an acknowledged people for our merino sheep back in the day, the tradition was to rather use the wool for weaving and not knitting. Which is very interesting. Anyway, it seemed that I wouldn’t have any tasks there to occupy myself for a whole year, so I moved on to my other skill-to-learn, which was spinning.

I have ordered some drop spindles and a roving, subscribed to YouTube channels and ordered a few books in the topic. In the meanwhile, I thought that I should buy a spinning wheel, too, but I was thinking of an antique one, as new ones are so expensive that it would be a very painful investment, especially if I decide I don’t like spinning that much by the end of the year. I found a beautiful one in an online antique shop but it was missing the flyer and the paddle so I quickly called my father if he could make a replacement for those. To my great surprise he told me that he actually had an old spinning wheel that he didn’t need… so he is working on reviving that old spinning wheel now. Until he is done, I keep on educating myself from books and videos.

Keep costs under the level of income

I think I am not giving away any top secrets here when I say handknit designers are earning just about nothing for their work. It may seem that 6-8 USD is too much for a pdf compared to the freebies of yarn companies but what no-one is thinking about: Etsy is taking away it’s 1/3 and another 1/3 is taken away by taxes and other payables. So I get ca. 2-2.5 USD per pdf by the end of the day. I am still a beginner designer so I often work for 2-3 months on a pattern, pay for the yarn for the sample and also for tech editing. Which means that about the first 80-100 sold patterns will cover my costs of publishing the pattern (and still not the months of work I have put into it). And from there I start earning anything. In the last 6 years I sold about 300 patterns on Etsy, so unfortunately I can not say this is a fruiting business… it is still a hobby that I keep investing in…

But! This year I decided I will spend less on knitting than I earn with designing. I don’t care if I still don’t get anything to pay myself a wage for my work, but I will definitely cut back buying new things. I will only buy yarn and tools if it is necessary. In the last couple of years I managed to pile up all the tools I need, so unless I break or loose some needles I should be fine. As to yarns, I think I still have enough to choose from if I want to design something this year. The only thing to spend on is education, really.

Finish the TKGA Knitwear Designer Course

I really want to do this one. I thought Module 2 would be easy-peasy but I am working on it since August and I am still not finished… I will take a deep breath and send all materials in by the end of March at the latest, so I can move on to Module 3 and finish it before the end of the year.

An that is all for 2023 :). What are your resolutions for this year?

Happy Knitting!

Mici

Summing up 2022

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I know that there are many people who doesn’t like new year’s resolutions but as for me, they keep me focused on my goals, so I always do a year-in-review post in January. Here is the one to sum up this past year.

I have written about my resolutions for 2022 in details in this post, but here they are in bullet points:

  1. Clear yarn stash
  2. Buy new yarn thoughtfully
  3. Keep consistency in posting content
  4. Keep learning
  5. Publish designs that are half-ready

And this is how I managed:

Clear yarn stash

With this one I was quite successful. I have written a post about it when I started. Since then I progressed, and I even managed to select even more yarn that I would like to clear from my stash – these were all superwash merino yarns and anything heavier than sport weight (my true aim was to eliminate needles 3.75 mm / US 5 and above).

I started with the bulkiest yarn in my stash, which was the leftovers from Drops Andes. Originally I wanted to knit two sweaters for my two kids but then I realized that probably I don’t have enough yarn for two smaller sweaters so I knitted a third Autumn sweater (pattern by Nazilia Zemdikhanova) in my size:

I know that my color choices are not the best but I have had to work with what I had:

… and at least I have cleared every last bit of the leftovers. With this I managed to clear all super bulky yarn from my stash, so I am very happy. I still need to hide yarn ends and wet block this one.

Next ones on my list were the Drops Big Merino leftovers. I separated them by color: I made a group of mostly pinks and another of greens, blues and greys. I chose a free sweater pattern from the Garnstudio website (RAV link to pattern is Little Missy) for the first group in my daughter’s size. I had to make a few modifications to the pattern, but it turned out well:

This one needs the finishing touches, too. I still have to figure it out what to do with the other group of Big Merinos. They are not enough to knit a sweater so I will have to find a suitable hat and/or scarf pattern for them, but I am on it.

I had a ton of Drops Cotton Merinos too, which I wanted to clear, and I decided to knit sweaters for myself with them:

Both of these are La Maison Rililie’s patterns, the first one is La GeKka, the second one is Rhombing Around. I don’t have much to say about these, perfect patterns from Rililie as they usually are, I really enjoyed knitting. As to my own color choices: again, I have had to work with what I had, so if we take this into account, they are fine and I wear them at home really often because they are so comfy (they are too colorful for me to wear them outside of my home – but that is my only concern).

I also used up a bunch of leftovers for my Summer of Socks project, in which I knitted quite a few pairs of socks as farewell gifts for the teachers in my son’s kindergarten.

There was a yarn swap in November in Budapest, organized by Kis Kos Műhely, and I also managed to sell/exchange a few unneeded skeins of yarn there, so that was a success, too.

Buy new yarn thoughtfully

This was a success, too. I have purchased a few skeins of yarns this year, but all of them with a special project in mind, most of them have already been used up:

I purchased sweater quantities of Holst Garn Coast for some Hyggestrik T-shirt patterns, one of them is already finished:

The name of the pattern is Hor11. The pattern and the yarn both are fantastic, but I was swearing quite a lot while knitting. I will never choose a black yarn for such a huge project again (I had to knit the 5XL size to get my size, since the yarn was much lighter than the one used in the pattern originally).

Later I purchased some Rosarios4 Balada for another version of La Maison Rililie’s La GeKka (actually this was the first one, but I liked it so much that I decided to knit another from the Cotton Merino leftovers…).

Then I had to order some Cumbria Fingering from The Fibre Co. to be able to finish my Congrats sweater by Ankestrick. The colorway I was knitting the body was discontinued (of course…) by the time I got to the sleeves, so i had to order a different color but I like it anyways…

I bought a sweater quantity of Retrosaria Mondim yarn, which I haven’t used up yet, but I will need them for my Design #2 project for the second Module of the TKGA Knitwear Designer Course. I should not knit a sample but I have never designed an adult size sweater and I am sure it would be fun to wear my own design, so I think I will knit one for myself as soon as I am ready with the pattern.

I also shouldn’t have knitted a sample for Design #1 -which is a pair of socks for me- but I had the same thoughts, so I ordered some skeins of Filcolana Arwetta and knitted a pair from my own sock pattern:

And at last but not least I have swapped a few skeins of sock and sweater yarns at the yarn swap, and I have already knitted up the sweater quantity yarn:

This one is Smoke by Ankestrick. Again, this was a project that took me a long time because of the black yarn… but it was worth every minute, because I love this sweater. By the way, the yarn is Barka Malom, which is already discontinued.

Now I am now down to 6 small boxes of yarn stash compared to 7 small boxes and 4 large boxes (which are double the size of the small ones – so it was about the size of 15 small boxes altogether) that I was at by the end of 2021. In a year, I managed to reduce my stash almost to its third, which is good, but I will continue stash busting in 2023 because I have further reducing plans – I will share them in the next post.

From the yarn that I exchanged for money at the yarn swap, I purchased a Chiaogoo Twist Interchangeable Small Set, and for Christmas I got a MUUD Stockholm case to hold the interchangeable needles, so all in all I am very proud of myself of not spending a fortune on knitting.

As to the other 3 resolutions (to keep consistency in posting, keep learning and to publish my half-ready designs), I was not at all successful, but that is because of personal reasons. A lot have happened in my personal life in 2022 that turned my life upside down again and again (I had to face that I have ADHD, we had to make a lot of work around the house that we hadn’t been planning on, I got married, I had my first and last name changed officially which is causing me a whole lot of troubles right now and we are in the process of finding a school for our daughter with ASD, which seems to be a much complicated job than I was hoping for…), so I had to put my study and work plans on hold for a while. Hopefully I can deal with them in 2023. Anyways, what I have learned in 2022 was that I shouldn’t be expecting too much of myself and I have to accept that I can’t do designing as a full time job. I am able to publish only 1-2 designs per year.

There is one more thing I would like to share with you in this post, and it is that I have finally earned the “Star Seller” badge on Etsy in December, so I couldn’t be more proud! I would like to thank all of you, who purchased a pattern from me because it is you who made it happen! You mean the world to me and I hope you stay with me here for my future knitwear design adventures as well!

I wish you a wonderful 2023 full of knitting and yarn!

Mici

A summer of socks

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I wasn’t considering myself as a sock-knitter until this summer (I have knitted a few pairs over the years but I gifted them all), honestly, now I don’t know why. It is probably the second sock syndrome, as they call it… but I think I have a more possible explanation.

I am a really anxious person, even the simplest things can make me very nervous (like answering phone calls or going to a hair dresser for a hair cut – and I could continue all day long with the weird things…) but I have a way to overcome these worries: I am overstimulating them until they are gone. For example when I got my first company car, I had a fear about parking in reverse speed. So I decided that I would park in reverse every morning for 30 days (that was so successful, I still park like that anytime I can ever since). This method is obviously not working with all my fears (like the hair cut -thing…) but it is a good way to cope with most of them. And I realized over the years that overstimulating helps not only with my fears but any other things that I don’t particularly like or understand. Practicing, doing things over and over help me obtain a deeper knowledge, a better understanding, which can result in changing my mind about certain topics that I formerly didn’t like.

I believe this could be the case with sock knitting, too. That is why I went from not being a huge fan of hand knitted socks to reading books about them and designing my own sock pattern in 2 months. But let’s not jump that far ahead.

It all started this spring when I realized that my son goes to 1st grade of school in September, and we urgently needed a few special farewell gifts to his teachers in kindergarten. So I thought it would be a great idea to knit a pair of socks for each of them. I considered this as a chance to immerse myself in the world of socks. I was also lucky enough to have a local yarn fair organized in Budapest in May, where I could meet with awesome Hungarian indie dyers and manage to get my hands on a few skeins for my project.

My first project was the “Kávés zokni”, which is a fantastic Hungarian cooperation by Szila (@szilacreativedesign on Instagram) as the designer, and Adri (@yarndreamstextiles on Instagram) the yarn dyer. I really love how these socks turned out:

Then I started to knit another pair designed also by a Hungarian designer, Zsuzsa (@zsuzsanna.orthodoxou on Instagram), called Melissa Socks (available on Ravelry: by clicking here) with using another one of Adri’s yarns.

I soon realized that I may not have enough yarn for 2 pairs of these socks (I wanted to make 2 pairs for some reason) but I really liked how the color changes of the yarn affect the stitch pattern, so I decided to rip it out and revert the pattern to toe-up (the Melissa Socks are originally cuff-down). Now, this challenge meant some exploration in the world of socks… which resulted in me ordering and reading books about sock knitting… :

But at the end it was all worth it, I was very satisfied with the result (yes, they are knitted with different size needles, and one pair is a tiny bit smaller than the other but it was on purpose…):

The next project was very exciting, too, because I have never used self-striping yarn before. I have met Dóri (@dodekadyeworks on Instagram) at the yarn fair in May, too. I wanted to purchase some Lykke circulars from her but as we were talking, my eyes kept on focusing on a skein of yarn dyed by her, because I really liked the colors. So this one came home with me too. The project was quick and simple but very satisfying (I have added some dark brown color as contrast of a leftover Cascade Heritage Sock yarn to the toes, heel and cuff):

Actually I liked these ones so much, I knitted another pair, which became my first pair of socks knitted for myself.

The next 2 pairs were Rye by Tin Can Knits (pattern available from here) and A Good Nights Work by Bitta Mikkelborg (pattern available from here), both knitted with some hand dyed leftover yarn (all three colors are the same sport weight – and discontinued – yarn, which I don’t remember what they are called because I seem to have lost the labels):

And the last ones were the Woodland Walk Socks by Olivia from This Handmade Life (her pattern available here), knitted with some Schoeller+Stahl sock yarn:

My Summer of Socks project would have been over with this one as I now had a pair of socks for each teacher and even one for myself. But it would have been a denial of myself not to try to design a pair of child socks as a closure for this project… so this is what I came up with (the model on the second photo is my 6 year old daughter):

The yarn I used was Cascade Heritage Silk.

Summing up this project: I am really happy that I have created this little challenge for myself, as I learnt a lot about sock knitting and designing. I still don’t think I will be designing socks for GK in the near future, but I have definitely learnt how to love to knit them, and I am sure I will knit some more for myself. Until then, I return to designing garments for children, and by next time I will be able to show you what I am working on right now!

Happy Knitting!

Mici

A rock falling from my shoulders

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Finally I have submitted the material for Module 1 of the TKGA Knitwear Designer Course. It was a hard decision. I was about ready for a while but each time I went through the documents, I found something that I didn’t like, so I had to rewrite and change things over and over. Finally I reached a point where I had to admit to myself that I am running in circles and I need fresh eyes to tell me if things need further improvement or correction… so I took a deep breath and sent all materials in. I didn’t have to wait long until my instructor, Donna Estin reviewed the documents and sent her suggestions back to me.

She is fantastic, by the way. I am quite an introvert person, I hardly ever ask for help and haven’t got any self-confidence, but she made me feel safe all through Module 1 – I hope it makes sense, I try and explain it further. Raising a child with ASD is not easy. Top that with all the madness happening around us nowadays with the pandemic, the war, the collapse of the economy and the constant fear of the future, and you get that designing (and knitting) is my only happy place, where I can return to anytime I need a few hours to get away from the world (and I am sure I am not the only one designer in this shoe…). But this also means that it is very fragile. Every negative comment or critic can hurt (even if they are justifiable). What I like the most about Donna (apart from her high level of knowledge and enthusiasm) is that she corrects me without hurting me. This is why I feel safe to be myself and make mistakes.

I am really glad I started to take this course, I have learnt so many things already, and most of it was about myself. I have a clear vision about where I want to head with GK, now I only have to figure out how I am going to achieve that. It will be a slow process for sure, but I am starting now.

The hardest part was time management and dealing with procrastinating. The research for the material was very interesting but also very time consuming, especially compared to the progress that I visibly made with the material. Sometimes I felt I am working on my research night and day but I am not making any progress, so from time to time I set everything course-related aside to be able to concentrate on other things as well. But obviously this meant that I haven’t made any progress at all during these pauses, and it was really hard to convince myself to return to work on the research later. And the longer I was ignoring my research, the harder it was to pick up the thread again, so I quickly found myself in a vicious circle.

When I got the final letter about passing Module 1, I was relieved and excited at the same time. It is a sign to me that sometimes I have to take the courage and break my own limits. I enrolled immediately in Module 2 before this energy boost goes away and I sink back into self doubt… 🙂

In the meantime, I was working on quite a number of WIPs, too, which I am planning to show you in my next post. Until then:

Happy Knitting!

Mici

The Pomona Sweater is out!

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It has been a long 2 months since my last post and honestly, nothing turned out as I planned :D. I wanted to finish module 1 of the Knitwear Designer Course and release the Pomona Sweater in May and June but the summer vacation hit me too early and I seem to have forgotten that I just can’t get a sentence of work together with my kids at home. In addition we had some urgent projects around the house that we had to finish. So I managed to accomplish nearly nothing GK-wise…

BUT! My fantastic test knitters were working hard in the meantime and finished testing the Pomona Sweater for me a few weeks ago. I managed to get a few hours by myself today (while my husband is taking care of the children… he has taken a day off from his work for me to be able to do this, which is a rare thing, so I am very thankful for him, too). All in all, I could finally release the pattern today! Here are some of the finished projects of the test knitters, I really love their incredible works:

A few words about Pomona: it is a seamless raglan cardigan worked top down. It is knitted in stockinette stitch with diagonal rib stitch pattern at the collar, hem and cuffs. The pattern is written in 7 sizes from which the 4 child sizes come with optional short shaping at the collar, raglan and hem. The pattern offers a short and a long version too for the sleeves. Photo and video tutorials are included.

In case you like this sweater, you can read more about it (like where its name has come from or how long did it take for me to publish the pattern, yarn and needle recommendations, etc.) here, or purchase the pattern through Ravelry, Etsy, or Payhip – and it will be soon available on LoveCrafts, too.

Happy Knitting!

Mici

This week at GK: new tutorial on the website and on YouTube

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I am rather slow at work, because spring has finally arrived to this corner of the Earth, where I live, and we have loads of things to do in the garden. Fortunately there were some rainy days, too, when I could get to my computer and do the most necessary tasks.

One of which was to have an eye on the ongoing test knitting of my Pomona Sweater in my Ravelry Group. Projects are coming together nicely, I am very lucky to have such a great team again! I hope to share some of the test knit projects next time.

I created a short row tutorial for the pattern, both a written and a video version. I really hope they are helpful because this was my most challenging topic yet. The topic of short row shaping is complex enough by itself and my bumbling with my camera didn’t make it easier 🙂 . When I sat down to edit the video I made a few weeks ago, I realized that the camera had been set up incorrectly and there was no way to make corrections with editing, so I had to film the whole thing again. I wasn’t too happy about it, but I could only blame myself, so…

I had been very quiet here on the blog in the past month, and I should be so for another few weeks. I would really love to finish Module 1 of the Knitwear Designer Course, before I create any new content. With all that being said, I am going to grab a cup of coffee and start editing my fiber report!

Happy Knitting!

Mici

New Test knitting opportunity: the Pomona Sweater

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Tech editing of the Pomona Sweater is done, so it is time for test knitting now. There are only 2 sizes that are still available: 18-24 months and 4 years. If you are interested in any of them, please visit the Gynka Knitwear Q&A and Test Knit Group on Ravelry, you may find it by clicking here. All applications are welcome, from all skill levels (this pattern is using some advanced techniques but video tutorials are provided, so no prior experience is needed).

To learn more about test knitting for GK in general, please read this page. For applying to test knit Pomona, please comment in the RAV thread.

Now, a few words about Pomona.

The story behind the sweater

The Pomona Sweater was originally designed by me in 2017, and the first sample was made in the first half of 2018. But this design never made to publication ever since. After moving homes and settling down in another city, I found the sample in one of my boxes, and thought I should deal with it again. I extended the size range from baby to child (up to size 10 y.o.) and added short row shaping options to these sizes for the collar, raglan and hem. The pattern also offers a short and a long version for the sleeves.

This sweater is part of the Fine Lines Collection of 2022 which consists of designs that have various textured knit-purl stitch patterns, playing with geometrical shapes and lines.

The name

Pomona was the Roman Goddess of abundance, and particularly abundance of the cultivated countryside: fruit trees, gardens and orchards. Cultivations are represented by the diagonal lines of the stitch pattern used at the collar, hem and cuffs, and abundance is the plenty variations for short row shaping and sleeves.

The construction

The Pomona Sweater is a raglan sleeved baby/child sweater worked top down. The pattern is written in 7 sizes (6-12, 12-18, 18-24 months and 4, 6, 8, 10 years). All sizes can be done with long or short sleeves and the 4 biggest sizes have the option for short row shaping as well. The pattern includes both written instructions and charts. Video and photo tutorials for the trickiest parts (continental cast on method, grafting, short rows, buttons, buttonholes) are also included. As a bonus, you can watch me wet blocking the sample 🙂 :

The pattern was tech edited by Heather Storta (link to her website: here), and it is being test knitted now (once again, for currently available sizes please visit my RAV thread). I hope you join us!

Happy Knitting!

Mici

Mindig szarik a kutya valamit…

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This is a Hungarian saying that my grandmother used to say all the time. It means “the dog always sh*ts something”. She was a very pessimistic lady, she had a hard life, full of pain and struggles. Sadly she passed away 18 years ago but I still hear her voice saying this when I think of her.

The dog always sh*ts something… We thought 2020 was tough and then came 2021… but I was full of hope because I couldn’t imagine any worse than a pandemic and thought the only way is up from there. I lost all hopes 4 weeks ago. I have no words.

I decided to take a little break from the blog in the last few weeks because it just didn’t feel right to post anything here. After pushing through the first shock of what’s happening, I slowly gather myself back together again, and return to writing, too.

In this month I was mainly focusing on my knitwear design studies, read books, answered questions, examined other knitwear designers’ work and tried to observe my own from outside. It is very interesting to step outside and watch yourself, like you were someone else. I have had quite many revelations, I have found things out about myself that I had never noticed before. Some things that I like and some that I don’t. The good thing is, I can work on my weaknesses now that I am aware of them.

I have created some knitting help videos for the Pomona Sweater and uploaded them to YouTube. I organized them into a playlist, so you can watch them one after the other by clicking here. Pomona is coming together nicely. It is almost ready for tech editing and testing, I only need to write a tutorial for short rows but first I have to figure out a way it could be the most helpful tutorial as possible. Short rows are not hard to understand but it is a huge topic and it is easy to get lost in it. This is what I will work on next week.

Happy Knitting!

Mici

The procrastinating Mici

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Before I forget, let me begin with a friendly reminder that my new pattern, the Tyche Hoodie is still available at a 20% discounted price on Ravelry and Etsy today and tomorrow! The discount is not working in my Payhip store and on LoveCrafts. Sale ends February 20, 2022. Midnight CET.

The Tyche Hoodie

(I hope you notice my new child size mannequin, which my husband bought me after I was cracking up because we have children who are useless for knitwear photography… I am joking, of course 😀 … I love them more than anything. The problem is with my skills of taking good photos, obviously. But my children are useless for knitwear photography, too.)

All that being said, let’s jump onto what happened this week on GK. If I want to put it out there as shortly as I can, it would be one word: NOTHING.

It all happened because I got frustrated by a huge bucket of yarn under my desk (I keep my WIPs there, and they usually take up a space of the size of 2 boxes packed on top of each other, which is fine. I like it that way, because I can always grab one of the projects to work on while I watch a YouTube video on my computer or wait for something to load – oh, how I loooove Windows updates every week or so… – But I also had this bucket full of super bulky yarn there. – You may remember when I wrote about my new year’s resolutions for 2022 in a previous post, I have mentioned a raglan pullover that I knitted from the leftover yarns from a previous project knitted in Phildar Phil Alaska, which was a complete failure and had to be unraveled. Now this was the one), and I just couldn’t sit at my desk without my legs colliding with the bucket all the time. One day I got so annoyed with it that I could throw the whole thing out the window. I thought this is high time it disappeared. I had so many other – more important – things to do…. I should have left it… Now I wish I threw that bucket out the window instead…

First of all, I spent half a day finding a suitable sweater pattern. Soon I have realized that I don’t have the required amount of yarn for that one, so I thought I should be OK with some modification to the original pattern. Of course I ended up with a LOT of modification to the pattern…

Here is what I did:

  1. I used a 6mm/US10 size needle all over. This gave me a completely different gauge but I liked the final fabric that it produced more.
  2. I am usually a size S but cast on and started to knit according to size M/L.
  3. I left out the pockets because of the shortage of yarn. Therefore I knitted the fronts in all stockinette after the hem.
  4. Since my gauge was different, I knew that the fit/ease will be different from the original, too, so I cut the length of the sweater by around X cm.
  5. Point 4. meant that I had to re-calculate the position of decreases at the front necks.
  6. I used 3-needle bind off at the shoulder seams, and seamed the the sides with mattress stitch.
  7. I originally thought it will end up as a vest, since I wouldn’t have enough yarn for the sleeves, but after I got to this point, I still had about 7 balls (which I didn’t want to put back under the table…), so I thought I should give a try to sleeves of some kind.
  8. Instead of knitting the sleeves bottom-up, I knitted them top down. I picked up stitches around the armholes, because I was not sure if I had the right amount of yarn to finish both sleeves.
  9. I picked up 58 stitches around the armholes, and calculated the number and frequency of decreases like it was long-sleeved. Fortunately I could manage to finish both sleeves and I was left with a tiny bit of leftover (as seen on the photos below).
  10. I changed the stripes of color to random here, since I had to use what I got (When I knitted the fronts and the back, I was sparing the white yarn for the collar, but when I finished, I realized, maybe the dark grey will be enough, too, and it would be a better choice. So I used up all dark grey for the collars and I was left with a bunch of white… Anyway, it is not that bad this way…

It turned out like this:

I must admit that I quite like the result, but then I turned the sweater inside out and saw this:

I immediately knew that the rest of the week was busted…

So that is how a week went by and I managed to do absolutely nothing GK-wise or knitwear designer course-wise (though I really wanted to at least finish my fiber report this week…). Bummer.

I really should stop procrastinating. It is sooo unproductive. But at least now I have space for my legs under my desk and a cardigan to keep me warm as I am sitting there typing up the rest of my fiber report and the short row shaping of the hem of my newest design, the Pomona sweater…

I would really love to read about your experiences about procrastinating. Do you procrastinate? If not, how do you avoid it???

I hope to see you next week! Until then…

Happy Knitting!

Mici

Tyche is out!

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I am really excited to announce that Tyche is finally live! This is a big moment in my life, since this is the first complex garment that I am releasing (well, there was Aurora, but that was my very first design, written in only one size, since I knew nothing about grading at that time, and it is a free pattern, so I don’t count that one…).

I have to admit, writing this pattern was adventurous and really tough. When the design of this hoodie emerged in my mind back in 2017, I didn’t have a chart editor software. I was drawing all charts in MS Excel from cell to cell for each size and then writing everything from row to row in my editing app (it took me a whole month of work). I guess I don’t have to tell you how much room there is for errors this way. No surprise, all tech editors rejected to edit it then.

Finally, it went in my desk drawer and later in a box in a storage room because life had happened and our family moved to a new home (that was quite an adventure, too, you can read it here…). But as I was unboxing all my knitting stuff at the new place, I found my notes about Tyche, and thought I should give this design a second try… So I took a deep breath, rewrote the whole pattern, drew all charts again (this time in the chart editor software), created a few tutorial videos, searched for test knitters and boom… 3 months later we are here… 🙂

Now that it is released, I have very mixed feelings about the whole thing… I put a tremendous amount of work in this pattern and I am really relieved that is finally over, so I can move on. On the other hand I am extremely nervous about the welcome of this design. Not about the financial side, because I know my sales will probably never cover my expenses (none of us is designing for the money, I think… I have just seen a report of Ravelry’s January sales from 2019 and 70% of the designers earned less than 200 USD – and 80% still under 250 USD – in that month, which is the busiest month of Ravelry…). My fear is the critics. What if it is not good enough? What if I am not good enough? What if all of us missed an error (…or more…)? I always try to shift my thoughts toward the “we are human, so we all make mistakes” mentality but it is really hard right now, that there is so much effort put into this pattern. And it is not only my hard work any more but the 5 incredible ladies’, who test knitted Tyche for me (and I can’t be thankful enough for their help on this)…

I really feel that Tyche is a huge milestone in my life. A part of GK is closing down with it forever (which I don’t mind at all, to be honest…) and something new begins. I just don’t know what 🙂 …

Now that I have sufficiently scared you with my second thoughts about it, here is Tyche with all its glory, available on Payhip, Ravelry, Etsy and LoveCrafts 🙂 (if not now, these last two should be available in a few hours… I will link them in here, too, as soon as their links are live):

Enjoy 20% off this pattern from now until the end of next week! No coupon codes needed. This sale only applies on Ravelry and Etsy, the discount will not work on Payhip and on LoveCrafts. Sale ends at midnight Sunday, February 20th CET, 2022.

You can find more info on this pattern and about the upcoming ones here.

Do not forget, if you need help with this project, you can find links in the pattern to my tutorials, which you can also find by clicking here, in my knitting help library. I also created a playlist on YouTube just for the tutorial videos for Tyche, you can watch the whole series by clicking here. I really do hope you will like this pattern!

Happy Knitting!

Mici