A Little Knitting Business

I’ve been so engrossed in my awesome Drachenfels that I’ve failed to mention a few really important things. So, I will attempt to get caught up now. First off, I’ve toyed with the site a bit and changed some things around to match my aesthetic a little better. As part of this I also changed my blog name to be a little simpler, clearer, and to correspond better with my ravelry handle (alexand). So, welcome to alexand knits! The new URL is alexandknits.wordpress.com. Hopefully the old one will redirect and all will find me. When I started, andalexand was the best iteration of my typical username that I could come up with. I honestly didn’t think it would matter much because I didn’t think anyone would read!

Second, I recently became aware of this awesome group with an awesome mission. They’re called The Yarn MissiOn and they use “yarn to promote Action and Change to eradicate racism, sexism, and other systems of oppression”. I encourage anyone living in the US (particularly) to check them out and see if there are ways you can help out. I think it’s brilliant that this group of fiber enthusiasts and artists has chosen to target racism, in particular. Knitting has brought me both joy and connection to community, so I think it makes sense that it could also bring people acceptance and foster connection between others. Please check them out! They also have a group on ravelry.

Last, um, knitty.com!! Their deep fall 2015 issue is out and it’s breathtaking. I haven’t talked about knitty much on this blog, but that site has played a key role in my development as a knitter. For those who haven’t experienced knitty.com, it’s a free online knitting (and spinning) magazine that comes out at least quarterly. It always has a number of fully developed patterns as well as techniques, knitting and fiber news and articles, and resources to all sorts of things. I think my first project from knitty was a Kureyon Kozy. I made at least three, two of which were given away as gifts. The third? I have it somewhere but not sure where. That pattern served as the starting point for making a number of circular double layer pot holders as well as some Mason jar cozies.

There are a handful of other projects from knitty that I’ve made, and just now I’m contemplating casting on my very own iconic Clapotis. Beyond the patterns, though, knitty has been an amazing resource for various techniques and methods. It also helped connect me to the knitting world in general as it was the first online knitting magazine that I know of. Its publications have always been so imaginative, creative and lighthearted. Its influence on my knitting (and me) has been huge.

So yes, there is a new issue out, and it is awesome.

Don’t worry, I won’t leave you without a Drachenfels update! I put in a little more work on it over the past couple of days. I have phased out the charcoal and am working with the dark grey and spruce now. Soon I will bring in the light blue. Yesterday, I went to the Ply Party at Baltimore’s LovelYarns LYS. It was basically a yarn store party with some local spinners and dyers invited to set up booths. There were also cupcakes. I didn’t end up buying anything, but I did sit and work on my knitting for a bit. While doing so, I noticed a weird stitch a ways back. It looked kind of like I had purled a stitch by accident (the whole thing is garter stitch) or maybe just picked up part of adjacent stitch in a weird way. Not sure, but it wasn’t right and it definitely wasn’t going to block out. So I got out my crochet hook “scalpel” and got to operating.

That’s almost 25 rows down! It always gives me a small heart attack to drop a stitch on purpose, but once I was done knitting it back up you couldn’t even tell. You can see in that pic a little bit of how I decided to handle the color transition. Here’s the rest:

I’m still really happy with it.

Oliver, one of the kitties, was looking particularly picturesque yesterday. He was sleeping in my daughter’s doll cradle:

“What, Mom??? I was sleeping!”

Photo credit for the cat pics goes to the wifey.

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