Timing is interesting: I just finished meeting some knitting deadlines, have a self-published pattern in the works but no specific release date, C and I are about to acquire a short-term roommate, and my sister’s wonderful (but aged and suffering) dog just passed away.

Like planets aligning, all of these things combined to create the perfect condition for me to work on a project that I have had in mind for YEARS: I have time to weave, I want to do something nice for my sister, and I have to return the floor loom to its owner so its room can go back to being a bedroom.

I don’t remember how I first came across Bonnie Tarses and her horoscope weaving - either in Handwoven magazine, or listening to WeaveCast (a podcast about weaving produced by Syne Mitchell)… but I thought the idea was interesting, and I desperately wanted to try converting her horoscope charts to knitting. I got in touch with Bonnie via email and shared my idea, and she kindly offered to create a horoscope chart for me to use in my experiments.

Bonnie uses a person’s birth day, date, time, and the location of their birth to create an astrological horoscope based on the position of the planets and stars in the sky overhead when they were born. She then converts this into a warping plan that tells the weaver what colour goes where as they are preparing the loom for weaving.

(JARGON ALERT: in weaving, the “warp” is the group of threads or yarn that are pre-strung onto a loom during set-up, the “weft” is the threads or yarn that does the over-under-over-under part across the warp during active weaving.)


I wasn’t able to find my own baby book with all of these details, so I got my sister (or maybe my Mom?) to give me hers, and off it went to Bonnie. Once I had the drafting plan back (along with a cool chart of astrological symbols arranged in a sky-circle) I started plotting my project.

12 colours, in a fairly standard rainbow range? We’ve got Cascade 220 at the store that would work…

A pattern that is simple and doesn’t require lots of darning in of tails at the end of a row? Well, a sweater is out (can’t imagine how I’d do the sleeves), and a scarf isn’t big enough… Hm! Maybe a wrap? Something like the Colourflow Wrap would work well, and it means I just need to knit a giant tube and then I can cut it open, knot the fringe, and call it done. Yay!

Not yay.

Rainbow yarns in a worsted weight held together as three strands at a time doesn’t make the subtle eye-fooling colour blends that rainbow yarns in laceweight do… so my wrap was going to be tragically ugly if I didn’t quickly abandon the idea.

Oh wow.. while composing this blog post, I just came up with another idea for working the horoscope into a knitted garment.. woot, I love inspiration! Not sure if it will work, but I like the vision in my head…

Okay, so aside from THAT bit of excitement that just happened, I hadn’t come up with any really GOOD ideas to make this work using the Cascade 220. Next step: change out my yarn! Lunatic Fringe Yarns has cones of teeny cotton in gorgeous bright colours that they promote for their colour gamp projects or for use with Bonnie’s horoscopes. I loved this yarn, but not for knitting, so the design project was put on hold and I’ve been planning (for years!) to just weave a wrap or blanket for my sister and see for myself how the colours will all blend and work together. Bonnie has always assured me that it would be fabulous, I just need to DO it… so here I go!

(JARGON ALERT: a gamp is a weaving pattern where the colour and/or the stitch pattern changes in a specific way as it moves across the warp AND up the weft)

When I dove into the project today, I realized that I would also need some additional yarn as there is a large amount of the horoscope chart that specifies “favourite colour - your choice” and Heather’s chart already ran pretty heavily through the cone of blue that came with the set of 12 from Lunatic Fringe. I remembered that C had bought some royal blue tencel at a fibre fest many years ago and had never used, so I managed to dig it out of the depths of my stash and got permission to use it (with promises to replace it as he still has plans for it).

These are the “after” cones, once I had taken off between 40 and 100 lengths of approximately 4 yards each. The middle photo up there shows bundles of warp threads chained together (crochet with your hands!) to keep them from tangling between the measuring stage and the actual installation/warping stage. I forgot to take a photo during the warp measuring stage, will try to remember if it turns out that I goofed on my counts and have to do more.

So, I am stopping for tonight, because I think it is a good idea for me to go to sleep fairly soon, after a brief look through my Learning To Weave book to see if there are any hints on sleying the reed when I have more warp ends than I do slots in my reed.

(JARGON ALERT: “sleying” = threading the warp threads into the slots on the thingy (”reed”) that keeps them spaced at a particular distance AND helps to press the weft threads into place)

More photos to come tomorrow! I’ve just figured out how to blog from my iPad, photos and all (assuming this works!) so there will be updates over the next few days.. hoping to finish this by Friday!

photo copyright Jane Heller

Candlewick is a knitting pattern that can be purchased via Twist Collective for $7.00.

C fixed my computer for me, and I have now backed up everything I’ve worked on in the last three months AND committed to moving things over to my external harddrive on a regular basis [pausing here to add an Event with reminders to Google Calendar] so now I have access to all the photos I snapped back in December!

This sketch was first submitted to Twist Collective for Fall 2011 (when they chose Boundless and Asher (!!)), resubmitted for Winter 2011 (when they chose Corinth and Thornia (!!!), and then held for Spring 2012 (!!!!!) The mood boards prepared by Kate and her team are always so inspiring that my head is overflowing with ideas. Sometimes I will be sending them just a ton of swatches and sketches, other times it will be photos of a fully-made thing (like my purple Boundless) that fits their theme.


My original design idea was something like, “If a Bond girl wore handknits, what would it look like?” - I think I had been watching Casino Royale while working on another project, and this began drifting around in my head. It would be black, it would be close fitting, it would have a high collar but a plunging neckline, and it would be sexy. I had also been noticing that the lace patterns on Ravelry that were sticking in my head were those with a fair amount of texture to them, made by combining decreases, plain stitches, and yarn overs in ways that created changes in fabric height, not just opacity.





My laptop had been suffering from a cracked case for several months, and just before it was time to start writing up the pattern, the screen decided to die… so my new glam writing space was a table in our living room, with a HUGE old monitor taking up most of the table while I still used the laptop’s keyboard for typing. (my current setup is slightly better, still have the busted laptop in use, but with a flatscreen monitor and external keyboard and mouse hooked up - much more elegant!) The pieces of graph paper you can see here are bits of chart that I had printed and cut apart, so I could figure out the spacing for every size that would keep the main Honeybee motif in the right place while removing or filling in extra stitches for larger or smaller bodies. Sandi Rosner and the tech editing team at Twist Collective deserve special credit for this pattern, as it got a major rehashing of the charts that resulted in each size having its own page, instead of YOU the knitter having to do all the manual cutting and pasting!





Candlewick is written to be worked in pieces, from the bottom up, and then the fronts are joined to the back with a saddle extension from the sleeves. This is what the piece will look like when you get to the blocking stage.





To get the collar to stand up during blocking, I propped it around the lid from a small wicker basket that has been living in my collection of containers for years… see? There’s a reason why I don’t like to get rid of things, they might be useful some day!





Post-blocking, the sleeves are ready to be set in, then seams worked from hem to armpit and cuff to armpit. (do you know that trick? Start at the outer edges because they are most visible, and leave any end-of-seam fudging for the hidden armpit area!)





I love these buttons. I wanted something with a bit of subtle glam, but knew that cut glass would be too heavy for the sweater. These are made from mussel shells, and I found them at the glorious Button Button shop in the Gastown section of Vancouver. The yarn from Elann is wonderful too - I’m making a second version in MY size, using the same Peruvian Baby Silk in the same colour.

Final photos here were taken on the shop mannequin at Three Bags Full (thanks Francesca and Zoe! [best bosses ever]) You can see that the stitches are expanded a fair bit, especially on the upper back.. the mannequin is a 36 bust, the sweater is a 34ish, and the model that Twist Collective used for Jane Heller’s photos was probably a 32! This is the joy of knitting for yourself, getting to choose the size you make based on the amount of ease (positive/extra ease aka bigger than your real chest measurement = looser fitting, zero or negative ease means it will be skimming your body or stretched to show off your curves! The size I am making for myself is the 46″, with short rows in the front to give my 38Es a bit more length but not adding any extra width (I’ve made that mistake too many times before, and have the baggy-busted sweaters to prove it!).. so it will be fairly close-fitting at my bust, and hang from there. Photos can be found on my Ravelry project page whenever I finish it!

Are you thinking of making Candlewick? I’d love to see your projects! Please share your photos on Ravelry (I watch for User Activity on my patterns pretty regularly so I will spot them when you post) or drop me a note in the comments if you are sharing your photos and project notes elsewhere!

(Okay, I wrote this a couple months ago, but forgot to post it, sorry! Another catch-up post about the Bandha Hoodie is on its way too.. but in the meantime, if you want to see the other neat knitting-related thing I’ve been doing lately, check out the video ShopCasts I’ve been shooting for Three Bags Full!)

I’m so happy to announce that I have another pattern up at Twist Collective! This is Lara, from the Winter 2010 issue:

Lara Hood, photo copyright Jane Heller 2010

I have been playing with hood designs for a couple years, both those attached to sweaters and stand-alone versions that in the past hadn’t really worked. When the Mood Boards for this issue were sent out, I was inspired by the skating story to try again, so my submission included a sketch of a hood along with a couple other hat ideas… and the hood was accepted, yay!

When I learned that I would get to work with Unwind Yarns Merlot, I was especially happy – Shannon (the dyer) is from the Vancouver area as well and I have actually met her in person a couple of times at the LYS where I work and at mutual friends’ parties! Her yarns always get rave reviews at the shop, and I love her semi-solid colours. Though I wouldn’t have chosen bright golden orange for ME, I totally understood Kate’s editorial vision of high-impact colours that would really pop against the white background of a skating rink, and the Glow colourway does a great job of showing the stitch patterns!

This is where my design story goes downhill a bit: When the yarn for Lara arrived, I was already working on meeting the deadline for a sweater for another publication (the Bandha hoodie for Knitscene Winter/Spring 2011), so I didn’t jump into working on it right away. I knew that I was going to be flying out to Toronto the weekend before our designs were due, so I thought that if I started it a couple weeks before that, I could have it done and pop it in the mail from Toronto for a quick delivery to Montreal.



Lesson Learned from Lara: don’t leave things until the last minute!

I started swatching… and swatched… and swatched… and swatched… I was struggling with a couple of things: my original idea and sketch had the vines starting at the bottom corners of the hood and growing in both directions (towards centre top and back neck), and I just couldn’t get the vine AND the background to both increase in a satisfactory way… and then I was also having issues with choosing background stitches that would lay flat rather than curl the edges around, but that would also let the delicate vines stand out without being overwhelmed by a lot of extra texture. An email to Kate came back with her approval to move away from the original construction concept, and a suggestion that a simple purl background (like the one used in Red Oak in the Fall issue) would block flat if it was kept in scale to the vine patterning.

More swatching included working on the corner design and general construction, and testing different versions of the leafy vines. So the deadline is now looming.. but I’m still feeling pretty okay because I have the whole day of flying to Toronto, plus the weekend at my in-laws, to finish it up and get it blocked. Great! Only one problem: I’m a perfectionist.

I was still swatching on the flight over, and through the first day of our visit… and then continued knitting like a fiend for the next two days to get it done! (An apology to my niece and the rest of Chris’ family: next time I’ll be more available for hanging out and playing, promise!) I-cord added, leaf tassels done, blocked, charts done and notes written… into the mail it went! Whew!


And then came the email.

I have give Kate a lot of credit: she has excellent taste (I LOVE so many designs in every issue), the drive and skill to get issues of Twist out on a regular schedule, AND the ability to write very clear and straightforward emails when she’s not satisfied with a submitted design!

Lesson Learned from Lara: refer back to the original sketch frequently, and consult early!


Kate pointed out that my hood had morphed to a point of being unrecognizable from my original sketch: it was bigger, the vine pattern was scaled larger in relation to the overall hood, and I had changed the shape of the front bands dramatically to the point where it reminded her of the plastic rain bonnets that our grandmothers used to wear! Whoops, so NOT a good thing! A few more emails back and forth, clarifying sizes and shapes and timeframes, and then I was in a flurry to get the rework done in time to make the original photoshoot deadline.

I had to wait for the original hood to come back so I could frog and reuse the yarn, so in the meantime I started swatching again for smaller vines. You can’t see this from the photos, but the vines on both sides of the face point UP, due to being worked in two pieces and a quick graft at the centre top… I thought this was a decent solution rather than having upside-down leaves on one side of the face! Another construction tweak kept the hood smaller - the point on the first version was a huge thing reminiscent of Lord of the Ring costumes! (The fact that a lot of my friends are into costuming and Faerie World gatherings made this seem like a good thing at first…)

With Kate’s guidance, the second version (what you are now seeing as Lara[Ravelry link]) got finished, and shipped back in time to make the ice rink photoshoot. I agree with her that this smaller version is really cute, and from the response I can track on Ravelry, it is obvious that many knitters think so, too!


Lesson Learned from Lara: an initial rejection is not the end of the world, and the acceptance of critique and feedback can result in the creation of a really cool thing!

These lessons (and a couple others I learned during this project) will serve me well as I continue building my career as a knitwear designer – thanks so much, Kate!

For those of you who will be knitting Lara: there is one technique in the vine charts that I may have invented (or unvented) called a Combine. This came to life after hours of swatching leaf variations, trying to keep the edge of the increasing leaf body clean and crisp, while also managing a decrease somewhere so the stitch count wouldn’t change. The result is a combination of a left-lifted increase worked with an immediate SSK decrease: the Combine!

(Have you seen this technique before? Let me know, I’d love to see how other designers use it!)


Here’s my latest version: knit following the pattern, still using Unwind Yarns Merlot DK but in a yummy green this time. This one hadn’t been blocked yet when I took the photo, so you can see the issue with curling edges that I was worried about..but blocking really does make it go away! (see more photos on Ravelry)

I always enjoy seeing my patterns worked up in different colour combinations and yarns – the variations on Piper and Lallans posted on Ravelry are neat! I really appreciate your support for my designs, and can’t wait to see your Laras!

Whee!

I have such a hard time keeping secrets, but here’s another can’t-tell-until-it-is-live project: Lallans for the Fall 2010 issue of Twist Collective, a fabulous online knitting magazine (but you knew that already, right?)

The picture above is of the prototype - see the Lallans pattern page here or on Twist Collective for photos of the real version (this length of ribbing didn’t work out with the short rows).

The mood boards for this issue included three stories: a woodland shoot, with the words “walk along quiet byways, wander through the woods”; What Would Mary-Heather Wear, a colourful and quirky tribute to the stylish Mary-Heather Cogar who is a knitting designer and Ravelry employee and lover of cute German Shepard dogs (hers is named Charlie); and then a black and white selection of glamourous, edgy, strong rocking women.

I submitted ideas for all three stories, and Lallans was chosen - this was the one that had already been fully knit, and perhaps my completed hats are easier to judge than my sketched ideas! (Piper was submitted in the same way, with photos of a completed hat along with drawings of other concepts.) I thought that design would work particularly well for the woodlands idea, as it had a bit more of the kicking-around-in-the-fields flavour and less of Piper’s glam or the playfulness that I’d associate with Mary-Heather!





The design itself was a sideline project that came after I finished my NaKniSweMo hoodie in January. I had used the braiding technique to trim all around the bottom, front, and hood edges before applying the final ribbing band, and I really loved the way it looked! (Note, however, that I did NOT love applying it to the hoodie! Lesson learned: braid is good on small things, like hats or mittens. That much twisted yarn as you work on hundreds of stitches, not so fun.) I wanted to use piping again (yes, I’m still on that kick) and also throw in a bit more texture, so that’s where those garter ridges joined us. The slip stitch pattern was tougher: I consulted a few different stitch dictionaries, but didn’t find anything I liked, so I started playing around. This pattern that resulted is the colourwork equivalent of the textured stitch in Picker’s Delight, balanced for easy shifting between colours and rows, and simple to remember! There’s a bit of fiddly work at the start and end of some of the rounds, but I think it does a good job of helping to minimize the jog.

This hat had the original working title of Hound, since I thought that the slip stitch patterning looked like the weave structure called Houndstooth. In the second or third round of edits, Kate suggested we rename it Lallans, the Scottish word for Lowlands (the region that developed the Houndstooth pattern). I always find naming patterns hard (read about Piper’s process here) but was content with Hound.. but Lallans is a lovely fit! I have a friend visiting Scotland right now, so I’ll be getting coached in the proper pronunciation.

Knitting the two samples was fun, and I loved the colour combinations that Kate chose for me. The Caledon Hills Worsted Wool was delicious to work with, too! One of the things I really enjoy about designing for publications that provide yarn support is that I get to experience a wide range of fibres, not just what the local shops carry..

And finally, I really love the photo shoot with the model digging around under the hood of a vehicle - my sister and I both spent a lot of time in our teen years working on motorcycles or my dad’s truck, as he tried to give us some good mechanical basics. It obviously stuck with my sister (she’s an electrician, working towards becoming a millwright in a sawmill in the middle of BC), but didn’t have as much of a lasting effect on me. I’m happy that Chris is a handyman and will help me out in that area when needed! As pretty as it looks on the Twist Collective models, I’m planning to get some photos of men wearing the straight ribbing version as I think this pattern can be pretty masculine or unisex too!

Bandit is the third asymmetrical hat that I have designed in the past three years.

The first hat hasn’t made it online yet, though one version (in Malabrigo Worsted) has seen a season of snowboarding under my helmet, and another version (in Green Mountain Spinnery’s Alpaca Elegance) went home with Zoe of Three Bags Full because she loved its flattering fit.

The second hat has turned out to be popular: Piper, published online in the Fall 2009 issue of Twist Collective.

And this, the third? Well… I have high hopes that it will do as well as, or even surpass, Piper.

Piper IS pretty cool (okay, I’m secretly THRILLED at how many people like Piper…) but it is also a fairly girly, dress-up-ish hat, with a strong vintage flavour. Bandit is also cool, but in a more daily-wearable way: the saucy styling will go well with a sporty outfit when knit in something tweedy (as shown) or you could choose a smoother yarn in a glam colour and knit a sleek hat for dressier occasions!

Bandit is also flexible in the way it can be worn, and I wish I had thought to take a picture when Francesca of Three Bags Full popped it on her head with the narrow part forward. Again with the comparison: if you did this with Piper, the turban effect would be pretty powerful. With Bandit, it is a much subtler flavour: is it a turban reference? Or does it suggest the bandanna of Rosie The Riveter? Or something rockabilly?

I’m looking forward to seeing the photos that will be appearing on Ravelry soon, from all of my test knitters. This round of pattern production saw two hats and a hooded scarf all ready to go in early September, and I made use of Ravelry’s Testing Pool, Hats Hats Hats, and Just A Scarf groups to find testers. 24hours after I posted a request for testers, I had 20+ responses! A couple of testers haven’t returned my emails since the initial pattern sendout, but the rest have come through with questions, comments, suggestions, red and blue and green ink, and a glorious amount of support for my designwork.

I can’t tell you how much I appreciate the work these people have done on my behalf, and just for the love of knitting (and as many of my patterns as they’d like…), the challenge of working through a possibly-glitchy pattern, and the desire to mark up other people’s writing with red ink all over the place! Bandit in particular was suffering from some small holes near the top of the band, where I had failed to write down the correct type of short-row wrap, and both hats had issues related to lazy cut-and-pasting - when I start writing up a new pattern, I’ll often begin with an older pattern of mine and just replace the instructions - in these cases, some uncorrected issues included confusiong statements about which size of needles to use (even though the hats only use one size) and how to use the cast-on tail to do something that it really really can’t.

I feel like my brain is overflowing with design ideas.. and I’m glad to have brought this one to life! I hope you enjoy

Visit Bandit’s pattern page for more details on the project, and for the link to purchase and download through Ravelry.

The 2010 Winter Olympics are coming to Vancouver, and I’m stoked!

1 - I have auditioned for the Opening Ceremonies as a hoop dancer, and blogged about it over on my hoop site.

2 - Lauren, aka Lolly, and her husband will be staying with us! I read her post on Ravelry asking about Vancouver accommodations (since all of the hotels have been completely booked by the organizers already), so I did a bit of research to find out what the city bylaws said regarding part-time B&B status.. and it turns out that they’ve recently been amended to allow people like us to rent out one room to a maximum of two people during the Olympics. Woot! There are more knitters in the 2010 Olympics group on Ravelry looking for places to stay, so if you’re in the greater Vancouver area and have a suitable space, go get connected!

3 - Dale of Norway has apparently gotten the go-ahead to do an official sweater design for the 2010 event. I’m not sure if I’m likely to knit their design, but it will definitely be inspiration for the stranded colourwork sweater I AM planning to get done for this winter!

In non-Olympic knitting land, I’m planning to take my microphone to work with me today, so I can finish recording Episode 9 of Christa Knits inbetween classes.

I have also completed my Laminaria-inspired top, and am in the final stages of finishing a ponchette for summer, knit in the indigo-dyed slubby silk I brought back from Japan last summer. Pics of that to come, but here’s the Laminiaria top:

Thanks to Francesca of Three Bags Full for taking the photo. I was modelling a shawl knit in Indigo Moon’s yummy laceweight silk, and I’ve never felt so glamourous!

Click on the Laminaria tag below to see all of my posts on this project!

“Christa Knits - fresh patterns for delightful knitting” is the phrase I have been using in my ads that have been appearing on Ravelry.

(Assuming that you’ve seen one of the ads) hopefully this made you curious: Who is Christa? Let me see some of these so-called “fresh” patterns! How do they make knitting “delightful” anyway?

I’ll address some of those questions further down the post. First, I want to share the story of getting into Ravelry advertising, how I came to create this tagline, and then provide any of you who are emerging designers with a tool for developing your own.

Oh, you’re not a designer? Just a knitter interested in buying patterns? Well, if you’re like me, then perhaps you’ll find this look-behind-the-scenes intriguing. I always enjoy reading the beautiful, glossy books in the design section of my favourite bookstores, and checking out the section where they show the first concept sketches and talk about the original vision and pitch to the client, then share the in-progress tweaks and final version.

Back to our story:

In December or January, I was toying with the idea of designing a hat that would be suitable for Valentine’s Day gifting. February 14th is still chilly enough in most parts of Canada that the gift of a new knitted hat would be appreciated. I didn’t want to cover it with red hearts though, because I thought that might limit its everyday wearability.

Heartbeat was the answer that finally came up: a simple beanie shaped hat, with beading or duplicate stitch in the classic rhythmic wave that we always see in TV shows on the little beeping machine hooked up to hospital patients. A bit of research in the medical sites online helped me get the chart right, and soon the knitting was done.

Next step: let people know about it!

I was looking at the Advertisers Caboodle group on Ravelry, checking out the pages with all the information on deadlines, pricing, and image requirements. Featured Pattern ads were listed for a half-month for $40, and one was available starting in mid-January. $40 for two weeks of exposure? That’s just eight patterns at $5.00 each to break even. I can do this! (A side note: I’m not really sure how I lucked into snagging that one so easily… I was more recently trying to get a Featured Pattern ad for April 1, and between getting in and out of the bathtub one morning, they had opened for sale and then sold out!)

Writing the copy (words that go in an ad) was easy for the Featured Pattern ad: Ravelry’s design guidelines stated that it could only contain the name of the designer, and the name of the pattern. “Christa Giles. Heartbeat.” Done.

Designing the layout (arranging the words and pictures within the given ad space) took longer. Ravelry supplied the required size (225×175 pixels), so I created a blank canvas in Photoshop and started playing. Out came the photos that my sweetie had snapped of me wearing the hat, cropping and colour tweaking occurred, and a picture was selected.

The words needed to be plugged in next, and colour and font selection were easy, too: I love Mixage, a font that I purchased a few years ago when I was getting started in my self-employment as a hooping instructor. It has good readability and still looks interesting when blown up to a larger size for titles. The words for this ad would be red, to match the hat in the photo and to reference Valentine’s Day.

Layout? The photo I selected has a bit of a ‘peeking’ effect: my head is tilted forward to show off most of the hat, and I had cropped out most of my body. I placed the photo so that its bottom edge was at the bottom of the ad (no floating half-bodies for me!) and aligned it to the right side of the space. Aside: did you know that when people view paintings (or ads), their eyes tend to travel in a clockwise direction as they take in the details? Second aside: does anyone know if this is still true in places where people read from right to left? The photo placement then dictated where my words could live: I wanted to leave a lot of white space for a clean look, and I wanted the shape of the words to relate to the shape of the image. The name of the pattern was most important (I don’t have much name recognition yet) so I made it the right size to fit the space, then made my name small enough to line up the first letters and still tuck into the space without overlapping the image.

Finished product:





End result? As of today, it has been favourited by 182 people, queued by 51, and there are 9 projects in the works. 12 people have bought the pattern so far, and I had more sales of other patterns while the ad was up than in an average month. Does the $20 profit cover the amount of time it spent putting the ad together? Not quite. Will those other 30+ people with it queued come back to purchase it? Hopefully, yes. Will I place more ads? You betcha!

Next up was something cheaper: $5 Marketplace ads that would go up in the Ravelry shop area for a whole month. The twist? There were less restrictions on what the ad could contain! I didn’t want to go overboard with “Sale!” “New!” “Check me out!”, but I did want to add something beyond the picture that would tell people what I was about, and what they could expect to find if they followed the link.





I needed help, in the form of a giant list of words that might be suitable. Something called “The Happiness Show” turned out to be an amazing resource: it offers an enormous list of positive adjectives! Click that link, then scroll down to check it out. See any words that resonate with you?

“Delightful” came out of that list, and I started playing around with ‘delightful patterns’… but it didn’t feel right, so I kept looking around for a better fit. “Fresh” may actually have come out of one of the many Project Runway shows that I watch while knitting - I can picture Rita Silvan, one of the judges on PR Canada, using it to describe one of the designers’ pieces. So, wording now in hand, I tried it on: Do I feel comfortable saying that my patterns are fresh? I don’t see a lot of ‘classic’ or ‘inspired by history’ in my work, and when I look at my designs I do see clean, modern styling that is in line with current knitting trends, so yes, ‘fresh’ fits.

What about ‘delightful’? This one was easier to answer, as I continually get feedback from my customers about how much they enjoy following my patterns, how pleased they are with the finished result, and that they really were tickled by a new technique that they learned while working through the project. “Fresh patterns for delightful knitting” worked.

(That Marketplace Ad? 1,767 people saw it, and 67 clicked through to visit my site!)

There is my latest, a finished Forum Banner ad, a bit smaller than real life to fit into a centre-column blog page instead of a full-width Ravelry page, but you get the idea. For $10 a month, it will rotate with others into the space at the bottom of each page when members read the forums in the top 6 boards. Some of the discussion in the Advertisers Caboodle group seems to say that these ads get a great response, as do the Notebook ads (I’m doing one of those in April, too), better than the Featured Pattern. Since I wasn’t able to get a Featured Pattern this time, I thought I’d spread the same $40 budget around into other ads, and see what winds up being the most effective way of bringing knitters to my patterns, and to this website.

Advertising through Ravelry feels good for a number of reasons: this is the place where my target market goes pattern shopping, the ad rates are good, the statistics they provide in terms of sales and clickthroughs vs impressions are helpful, AND I get to support Casey and Jess and the rest of the Ravelry gang so they can continue providing this amazing service without having to hold down other full-time jobs to cover their costs.

Interested in design and layout for producing your own ads? (and patterns, for that matter?) The reference book that I read years ago, and stuck with me, is The Non-Designer’s Design Book: Design and Typographic Principles for the Visual Novice by Robin Williams (I’m guessing NOT the comedian). I dug out my copy when I was making the latest batch of ads, to see how well I was doing at following her basic guidelines. While I’m still not fully happy with my designs (better photos would go a long way), I think they do look decent, and are hopefully eye-catching enough to garner a second look.

Do you have feedback for me about my design and layout of these ads? I’d love to hear it! Questions about some specific details about their production? Bring it on! First-hand experience with successful ad campaigns? Please share! I would particularly be interested to hear from those of you who are NOT on the seller’s side of things: as a consumer, what sort of advertising do you want to see? What will attract your interest, and earn a few moments of your time for a second look or a click? Thanks in advance for your input, I really appreciate hearing from you!

Along with finishing the bottom portion of my Laminaria top-to-be (photos are coming), I have been spending the weekend setting up my new loom, and building gear for it.

Saturday was going to be Measure Warp Using Upside Down Kitchen Chairs day, but instead Chris suggested that it wouldn’t take long to put together a proper warping board.

The two books and various magazines I checked all showed similar designs, but didn’t appear to have any hard and fast rules about the sizing, so we set about figuring out what parameters we’d use.

1 - I wanted to be able to wind a warp long enough to do a bedspread, so at least 7 feet plus loom waste (yes, I think in Imperial measurements for many things)

2 - I wanted to be able to wind the warp standing up, possibly with the board attached to a door (since the doors are some of the few areas that don’t get things piled on them, much)

3 - I didn’t want to bash my knuckles as I passed through the pegs (my recently-dislocated finger is still a bit swollen and doesn’t like getting knocked)

Scribbling, measuring of doors, and placing mugs a few inches apart to figure out minimum hand clearance requirements all led to the successful design, with fabrication to follow, of my new warping board. During production, I learned how to use a stationary belt sander to round off the edges of the pegs, and revisited the drill press to half-hollow places for the pegs to sit.

(It just occurred to me that in the way that other people murder knitting lingo when they try to describe something they don’t really know enough about, I’ve probably just done the same to woodworking language. Sorry.)

Glueing up and clamping done, the board rested overnight and then I started warping this morning.

Things I learned about warping:

1 - Do crosses at both ends so if you figure out a better way to warp without having to tie extra knots, you can implement it without having to rechain all of your warps.

2 - As a beginner warper, mohair is not your friend.

3 - You know that part in the books where they remind you to pull the back apron up over the back beam before you start lashing on? Yup, they mean it.

4 - If you’re going to ask your partner to help you wind on the warp, have all of the various warp threads under control BEFORE giving him the 5-minute call. Also, be prepared to spend some time discussing the wisdom of the method you are following.

5 - Venetian blinds appear to make great lease sticks for popping inbetween warp layers to keep them from imbedding in each other. They may, however, not be needed at every 1/4 crank.

In total, I think measuring the warp and warping the loom took around three hours. Cast On, Its a Purl Man and Lime n Violet’s podcast all kept me company during the process. Chris came back to help out during the heddle-threading and tieing to the front beam, and it was so much easier to have a second set of hands - one could seperate the yarn from its neighbors, and the other could do the threading or sleying.

First impressions on weaving with the floor loom? (A Leclerc, made in Canada! I was tickled when I found the maker’s mark.)

1 - Whoa. Totally cool having my hands free to just manage the shuttle instead of holding the rigid heddle up or down.

2 - Crazy! I was making weft-faced fabric without trying - the beater is a crusher if I don’t hold it back a bit!

3 - Sweet: Chris was having a turn at the loom, weaving twill, and just as I said, ‘I wonder if you can switch…”, he was about to try reversing the treadling directions to make the twill slant the other way. This synchronized thinking happens fairly often

Old knitting needles make great lease stitcks to work a quick header.

I'm not sure how pedals are normally tied up. These cords came attached to the upper thingys (though some weren't in the right place for plain weasve), so I used some split rings to attach them to the treadles.

Hot Man Weaving Action Shot!

I'm ignoring the fact they look like aliens

I love the K3tog-and-get-9 blossom gentres!

Dad made me the cone holder back when I worked at Knitwear Architects, where we sold chunky cotton on cones.

Transition-to-blossom and two repeats of the Blossom chart complete! Next I need to dig out my favourite-fitting knitted summer top and check the length from bust-shaping downwards so I will be able to figure out how many blossom repeats I’ll need to do before switching to the edging charts.

I also did some spinning! Those are braids that I picked up at the Sweet Georgia studio opening, and they’ve been sitting at my side asking to be spun for a while… (next up: the Yummy Yarns braids that are draped over the side of my desk/shelf support, that I’ve been collecting for a year-and-a-bit, to eventually be spun and knit into a sweater or coat)

Soon it will be time to go back to pattern designing… deadlines are looming (especially if I want to avoid crazy rush-shipping-to-the-US charges) and I have goals yet to be met.. but this has felt like a much-needed break, and I’m glad that I am taking it!

When the Spring 2008 issue of Knitty with Laminaria appeared, I fell in love with the lace edging of this shawl. I tried swatching it, using some fingering weight hemp. It didn’t go well. (I’m sure you are surprised.)

I did have other yarn possibilities in my stash, of course, but nothing that was the same teal-green as the hemp… and the whole seaweed-like look of the shawl was what I found so appealing. So, this project didn’t really get off the ground.

Last night I was browsing Ravelry, looking at patterns for tank tops and camisoles (and having a good laugh at the other projects in the ‘Naughty’ catagory). A few caught my eye, but I realized that I would probably have to strike out on my own path to make the lacy summer top I was searching for: large, graphic motifs with an interesting border. Hm. Sound like a shawl we know?

Today wound up being a vacation day for me: no work, no commitments (”no, honey, you go buy seeds for the garden.. I’m going to stay in bed and read until I feel like getting up!”), just doing whatever amount of puttering through chores I felt like (which means the studio is much closer to done, but not done, and the living room hasn’t fully recovered from the Triple C craft night on Thursday), and making stuff for ME! (okay, I admit that the spinning has had more photos of it taken than usual, while I ponder whether I want to write something for Knittyspin, and I swapped a few emails about pool work back and forth with my supervisor, but that was it)

The result? I’ve got a generous swatch of the blossom and border charts knit up on 4mm needles in SeaSilk (in a off-white, cream and pale gold mix, possibly destined for overdyeing) and now blocking overnight. The last few rows seemed to take forever, but the pattern looks awesome, and I’m looking forward to plotting my summer top.

Veronique? Well, she got a few more inches done during the Triple C, but I’m a bit fed up with having to pay attention while I knit. Knitting, all knit stitches, I can usually do without looking. The lovely boucle yarn is unfortunately too easy to snag, so I would catch a loop instead of a stitch if I dared look away, so… it may become a second-string project for a while. Then again, watching knit stitches is still easier than reading a chart line-by-line, so it may not be fully doomed after all.

I guess we’ll see! Oh, PS: new episode of the ChristaKnits podcast is out - check iTunes (it has been so long, I wouldn’t blame you if you had unsubscribed) or visit the Podcast page for the link!