Category: TKGA

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… ๐Ÿ™‚

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… ๐Ÿ™‚

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 Mลฑhely, 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 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… ๐Ÿ™‚

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