January & February Roundup

It’s hard to believe we’re already at the end of February!

January

One of my first projects was knitting my first handspun-by-me project, a pair of convertible mittens. I tried to do these two-at-a-time at first, but I ended up ripping one out and just knitting one after the other — and I think the colors turned out better this way. I love the way they match but also don’t match, and the way this yarn plied up into that slow color change that I love so much.

I also spun my first project on my new Kromski Minstrel, using some Malabrigo Nube. I have many more colors of Nube in my growing fiber stash, so you’ll see lots more coming up, too.

I finally finished (1.5 years later) my tweedy, cabley, wonderful sweater out of the most perfect pumpkin orange from the Farmer’s Daughter Fibers. Do I have pictures of this one yet? Nope, in fact I haven’t even blocked it yet, because no one can tell on Zoom that the bottom edge of this sweater is kind of squirrely. For those of you keeping track, this was the sweater I had to put on hold when my wrist started acting up, and I finally decided that I could handle picking it back up, slowly — and I could. I probably won’t ever knit another seed stitch sweater, though!

And I also made a Bubble Cowl out of a combination of Canon Hand Dyes (peacock gradient minis), Local Color Farm and Fiber Finnsheep, and Magpie Fibers. I love the way the texture of the yarn combines with the texture of the stitches, and this cowl is sooo warm and cozy.

February

One of my February spins used some Hipstrings that my brother bought me for Christmas, and I’m really pleased with the way it turned out. I’m not sure what I’m going to make out of it yet or whether I’ll combine it with something else, but this was a really fun spin and I find that I really enjoy spinning on a treadle machine, because it uses both my hands AND my feet.

A friend of mine posted a Musselburgh hat she had made, and I immediately knew I needed to make one, so I pulled out a skein of La Bien Aimée (that some friends brought back for me from France!) and knit this very strange-looking tube that morphed into a very nice-looking and comfortable hat.

I also spun up some more Malabrigo, this time combining two different colorways into what I’m calling Razzleberry Pie (thanks to a name from a friend who talked me through color choices). I’m currently spinning the rest of the purple to ply with a much brighter pink, and then I’ll experiment with my remainders to see what I can turn those into.

And lastly, I’m almost done knitting a Sizzle Pop out of yarn I indigo-dyed myself. This pattern is really intuitive and is definitely not as intimidating as it looked to start with, and I already know I’m going to make more of these. I love the subtle difference between the two blue shades.

I haven’t really sewn anything since I forced myself to make masks in March or April of last year, but I have been thinking (just thinking!) about pulling out some of my quilt pieces, or finally getting back to some garment sewing. We’ll see.

Time Doesn't Matter, Knitting Does

Well, it has been an amount of time (is this what I write every time I get around to writing a new blog post? Probably). I was thinking this morning about how, once I’ve missed a month of blogging, it’s so much easier to miss the next month, and then the next, and so on. In my defense, we had an election, some extra weird holidays, an insurrection, and a new president between now and the last time I posted. Also, I don’t write blog posts for you! (no offense. I write them for me.) I do enjoy a vaguely time-bound summary of activities that’s worded in ways other people might understand, though, and this helps me do that, so I’m going to catch up — probably in stages.

October

I enjoyed knitting the Sharon Show so much that I went straight into knitting the Secret Handshake. Have I blocked it since finishing it, now four months later? No. Did I still enjoy knitting this one? Absolutely.

October’s socks were the Asali Socks, by Dawn Landix, a pattern I knew I would love. I missed up one (1) row, but no one will notice but me so it doesn’t matter, and they’re so waffly and comfortable.

I also cross-stitched a mini Vintage Cabin by Junebug and Darlin. Did it take me another 4-6 weeks to do the backstitching? You bet it did. Did I put it in a frame and hang it on my wall immediately after finishing the backstitching? Yes I did.

November

I knit a Bandit sweater by Jacqueline Cieslak! I blocked it pretty much immediately, and then it waited for buttons for three months. Of course I still wore it — no one on Zoom knows that I didn’t trim my ends and that those things that might have been buttons were actually stitch markers — but I haven’t officially taken official photos for the official Instagram yet. I used some stash Madelinetosh that I already had but I also still preordered some of that Sugar Maple colorway from Little Skein in the Big Wool, because I have capital-P Plans to make a Plover Cardigan, so it’ll still be a Little Skein / Jacqueline Cieslak collab, just a little different.

My November socks were these excellent slippers, which I have probably worn the most out of all the socks I made this year — mostly because it’s still winter and my toes get cold.

I also spun yarn! I couldn’t resist getting this Extremely Fall Braid from Knitcraft & Knittery, and I spun it up pretty immediately. I also (spoiler alert) knit my very first project from my handspun out of this, and I love it.

December

I finished my twelfth pair of socks, one per month, for the entire year. This month I made up my own pattern again, and I’m pretty happy with the result. I am not holding myself to one-pair-of-socks-a-month in 2021 because I don’t feel like it, but I’ll probably knit a few pairs here and there.

I knit my brother a hat, once I remembered to ask him if he wanted one! I used a pattern I’ve knit before — Andrea Mowry’s Harlow Hat — and also managed to use leftover yarn, which means I can reward myself with buying more yarn, right? …right?

And I picked back up where I left on my Seven Wonders pullover, which I finished in January. I stopped knitting it near the end of 2019 because my wrist started bothering me (seed stitch is not my friend), and I very carefully decided it was time to keep going on this one. Sleeve Island with seed stitch and wonky wrists is rough, y’all.

The other thing I did in December was beat my all-time-high books-read-in-a-year-since-I-started-keeping-track record, which had been set at 104 in the year 2010. 2020’s count came in just over the top at 105, and I focused a little more on reading once I figured out I could actually beat that record. Do I remember everything I read? Absolutely not, my brain is too busy just trying to survive a global pandemic. But did I enjoy reading that many books, most of them lighthearted and relatively conflict-free, usually in bed? Yes I absolutely did. I haven’t set a specific goal for 2021 yet, but I’m not planning on beating that record anytime soon. 2021 is (maybe) for digging in to much meatier books, that take me weeks instead of days to finish.

I have more updates, especially spinning updates, but I’ll write about those later. Thanks for sticking around, friends.

September Roundup

Well, time continues to be a strange beast, but I’m somewhat reassured by having written a blog for August already, so I suppose it hasn’t been as long (and somehow still short) as I thought.

I spent most of the month finishing up my Sharon Show shawl, which I’m really pleased with and which was a really consistent bright point in my knitting. It was my first mystery knitalong, and while I usually opt out of MKALs because what if I don’t like how it turns out?, I’m super happy I made this one. It felt like I could just knit forever, and it was the perfect combination of mindless-yet-interesting-enough knitting.

I also knit my September Sock Squad socks, which I made up as I went along, and which I am very pleased with.

And at the beginning of the month, I also knit a Wave of Change Jacket by Denise Bayron using Earl Grey Fiber Co. As usual, I have not even blocked it yet, but someday I’ll get around to it and when that happens I will definitely post pictures.

I also spun up more Neighborhood Fiber Co and am absolutely, totally smitten with it. Still learning how to spin consistently, but this is so soft and the colors are so good, and I can’t wait to figure out what I’m going to make with it.

And…that’s all, folks. It’s been a weird month. It’s probably going to get weirder.

July & August Roundups (Rounds up?)

I realized I never posted about my July projects because I got distracted by Ravelry’s shenanigans and time continues to be a black hole with no end, so here’s my summary of my last couple months of crafting.

July

I cross-stitched this Books Sweet Books from Junebug and Darlin for a friend’s birthday. It was really fun, and I love taking pictures of the backs of my cross-stitch too. I recently bought her Maker kit but am very intimidated by it, so I haven’t started any cross-stitch projects since I finished this one, although I finally soaked and framed my Be Bold project.

For July’s socks, I made the Red Robin Socks by Helen Stewart/Curious Handmade.

I also test-knit the delightful Audacity Shawl from Transmutation Knits out of this silk-linen-alpaca blend that is just dreamy. Liam’s patterns are always really satisfying to make and have such great stories behind them, and this one was no exception.

August

I started my first mystery knit-a-long, The Sharon Show by Casapinka (er, I mean, by Sharon, of course). I’m trying to knit more from my stash, so for this one I went stash diving and came up with a pretty good combo. For a first-time MKAL, it’s been very enjoyable, even though I haven’t been participating online and am just knitting along quietly by myself.

For August’s socks, I didn’t use my FDF yarn (yet!), because I really wanted to knit up this self-striping rainbow yarn from Valkyrie Fibers. Like I said on Instagram, I’m not always a self-striping person but I might just be a convert for Lauren’s colors. I made this one up myself by cobbling together a bunch of different patterns that I liked.

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I also spun up this Wensleydale/Lincoln blend and plied it together. I had some left over after plying, so I used up the remainder of a previous spin for a little contrast skein. I think I can squeeze a pair of socks out of these, so it’s going into my eternal knitting queue.

Other than that, the world is still very weird and mostly terrible. I’m still trying to find joy in smaller things and not let myself get overwhelmed. I’m still trying to make a difference, one day at a time.

How I'm Using Airtable to Track My Knitting and Sewing Projects

Like I said in my last post: if you know me, you probably know that I love Airtable. Since a lot of people aren’t familiar with it, I thought I would write up some details about how I made my Making Database Template (which you can copy for free!), which I’m using as a replacement for Ravelry as well as a new place to combine information about my different crafting projects into one location.

I’m going to use some Airtable lingo in this post, so I’ll also link you to Airtable’s Guide to the Basic Field Types for explanation in their own words. Airtable has pretty robust documentation, and I’ve found that once you get the hang of linking records to each other across tabs, it’s pretty easy to get the hang of.

One of my favorite things about Airtable is the ability to link records together across tabs. When I do that, tt creates a two-way link between the records and the tabs. For example, when I link my Knitting Make to a particular Knitting Pattern from the Makes tab, it also creates a corresponding link from the Patterns tab back to the Make as well, and both of those links and associated lookups and formulas are updated when a record changes.

My second favorite thing about Airtable is the lookup function: once I’ve linked one record to another, I can pull in information from that other record into the tab I’m looking at (or, I can lookup that information). For example, when I’ve linked my Knitting Make to a Knitting Pattern, if I want to display the designer of the pattern on my project record, I can just add a lookup field that pulls the designer’s name in from the Knitting Pattern record, and doesn’t force me to duplicate that information.

How To Use This Blog Post

This post turned out super long, so please feel free to jump around, use control+F, or just look at the pretty pictures. For each section, I pulled out the fields that I did the most with, or which require some explanation — the ones that link to other records, the formulas, the lookups, the complicated stuff — and am assuming that you’re all familiar with the concept of text fields, date fields, and drop-down lists. And just to reiterate, I customized this for me and the types of projects I do — this is by no means a full template or an exact set of rules! Take what is useful out of this for your own Airtable, change whatever you want about it, and feel free to delete what you don’t want. For example, I don’t mention crochet that much in this post because I don’t crochet, but I included crochet as an project type option in my Knitting tabs and you can use it the same way you would for a knitting project. Similarly, if you’re not a spinner or sewist, you can just delete those tabs.

Sewing

There are three tabs in the Sewing section — Sewing Makes, Sewing Patterns, and Fabric. Sewing Makes is where I keep track of my projects, Patterns where I track the patterns I use or want to use, and then Fabric to store all the info about the fabric I have. In Sewing Makes, I link to both the project and fabric I used.

Sewing Makes

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• Status (single select)
  I use the following: Planning, Queued, In Progress, and Completed. I switch a project from Planning to Queued when I have the materials and pattern picked out and am ready to start it, but you may have a different way you think about that separation.

• Fabric (links to Fabric Stash tab)
  This pulls in the fabric name (and associated information) from the Fabric Stash tab, and can link to multiple records if I used different fabrics in this project.

• Pattern (links to Sewing Patterns tab)
  This pulls in the pattern name (and associated information) and usually links to only one sewing pattern, unless I’ve decided to combine 2+ patterns into the project I’m making.

• Combined (links to the Combined view)
  I’ll explain about the Combined view below.

Sewing Patterns

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• Company (link to Pattern Makers tab)
  This pulls in the maker’s name and associated information. There’s more information on how I set up the Pattern Makers tab below.

• Sewing Makes (links to the Sewing Makes tab)
  If I’ve already linked my sewing project to a specific pattern, it’ll show up here automatically.

• Size Range: (multi-select)
  I added this as a multi-select because I wanted to be able to filter more easily on patterns that have an inclusive size range. I think someday I’ll color-code these options so they’re easier to scan, but I haven’t done that yet.

Fabric

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• Yardage (text field)
  While I can’t do math this way, I can identify yardage, fat quarters, scrap bundles, and other “amounts” of fabric, which for me is more useful.

• Brand (single select)
  You’ll notice in this example I have a lot of blanks and a lot of “unknown”s. Most of this is because I haven’t made the time to go through and figure out the brands for my fabric stash, and others are because I got fabric as a gift or from a thrift store.

• Store (links to Yarn and Fabric Stores tab)
  This links to the store name, which I explain a bit more about below.

• Content (multi-select)
  This is a multi-select so that I can choose several options for a wool/silk blend, for instance, or so I can clarify when something has a different material in it. This is similar to the setup for yarn, but as you’ll see below I added percentages to my yarn stash, where I haven’t done that here.

• Sewing Makes (links to the Sewing Makes tab)

  If I’ve already linked my sewing project to a specific piece of fabric, it’ll show up here automatically.

Knitting

This is the most fleshed out section, because I imported a lot of stuff from Ravelry and because I want to keep better track of how much yarn I’ve used in a project so that I can see what I have left over. Unlike the Sewing section, I actually have four tabs here — Knitting Makes, Yarn Per Project, Yarn Stash, and Knitting Patterns. The important step for being able to calculate yardage used in a project and remaining yardage in my stash is the middle-step of the Yarn Per Project tab between the knitting project and the full skeins in my stash: this makes a record for the yarn (amount) that I’ve specifically used for this project, and then does calculations based on the yardage I used to tell me how much I have left in my stash. So here, I link to Knitting Patterns and Yarn Per Project in the Knitting Makes tab, and then link to my Yarn Stash through the Yarn Per Project tab. What’s awesome about Airtable is that once you’ve linked one record (tab) to another, you can also pull in information automatically, which means you don’t have to repeat the information you’ve already collected in the other tabs. So if I wanted, I could pull information about the yarn in my stash into either the Yarn Per Project or the Knitting Makes tab, but would only need to update that information in one place.

Knitting Makes

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• Pattern Used (links to Knitting Patterns tab)

• Yarn Used (links to Yarn Per Project tab)

• Status (single select)
  I use the same options as I do in the Sewing Makes tab: Planning, Queued, In Progress, and Completed.

• Needles Used (multi-select)
  I considered linking this to my Needles Inventory, but decided against it because what I wanted to keep track of here was just the size used, not necessarily the specific needles I used. I might change my mind later.

• Tags (multi-select)
  This is a holdover from Ravelry, and while I used it occasionally there, I feel like I might use it more often here.

• Total Yards (calculation from Yarn Per Project tab)
  This is one of the things I spent a lot of time figuring, because I really appreciate this about Ravelry, and wanted to be able to do something similar in whatever I came up with. This takes the sum of the yardage from all the yarn records I’m using in a project and adds them up, so I can see my total yardage per project.

• Combined (links to the Combined view)
  I’ll explain this more below.

Yarn Per Project

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• Name (formula combining Stashed Yarn Name + Knitting Make)
  I made this a formula because since it’s really a middle-step between the knitting project and the yarn, I don’t necessarily need to make up anything fancy for the name. So the most important pieces of information — what I’m making and what I’m using — are in there for me to search for easily.

• Yarn Stashed (links to Yarn Stash)
  This links to the record for the full skein of yarn I’m using. If I only use part of it, I’ll keep track of how much I did use for this project on this tab, which I can then use in calculations later.

• Knitting Makes (links to Knitting Makes)
  This links to my knitting project, and while on this end there should only be one record for each yarn type/colorway, on the Knitting Makes side I can link to multiple records (if I’m using multiple yarns or colors).

• Grams Used (number)
  This field is very important because it’s what all of the yarn used calculations are based on.

• Yards Used (formula based on total yardage & grams used)

• Lookup Fields:

  • Yards Per Skein (lookup from Yarn Stash)

  • Total Yards (lookup from Yarn Stash)

  • Total Grams (lookup from Yarn Stash)

  • Project Finish (lookup from Knitting Makes)

  • Project Start (lookup from Knitting Makes)

  These lookup fields are important because they make the math work. Luckily, since I already set this up, you can pretty much ignore these fields, unless you want to change the formula.

Yarn Stash

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• Name (formula combining Brand, Yarn Name, and Colorway)
  Again, this is a formula because I’m already keeping track of all the pieces I would use to identify the particular yarn I want to use — namely the brand and yarn name, but I added colorway in because I have a lot of yarn that’s the same brand/yarn type and is only differentiated by color, and I wanted to be able to see that in the record name.

• Knitting Makes (lookup to Knitting Makes via Yarn Per Project)
  This is a lookup field: because my yarn stash isn’t directly linked to my project, when I want to see what projects I used a certain yarn for, I can do that because they’re both linked to the Yarn Per Project tab, and I can pull information in either direction from that tab.

• Yarn per Project (links to Yarn Per Project tab)
  This is the active link to the record for yarn used in a particular knitting project.

• Yarn Amount:

  • Grams Per Skein (number)

  • Yards Per Skein (number)

  • Total Skeins (number)

  These are important because a) of course you want to know how much yarn you have, and b) they’re used to calculate how much yarn is used per project and, later, how much yarn is remaining in the skein(s).

• Formulas:

  • Total Yards (formula multiplying yards x skeins)

  • Total Grams (formula multiplying grams x skeins)

  • Yards Per Gram (formula calculating yards per gram)

  • Grams Used (sum/rollup of how much of this yarn has been used via Yarn Per Project tab)

  • Remaining Yards (formula calculating remaining yardage based on Yarn Per Project tab and yards per gram)

  • Remaining Grams (formula calculating remaining grams based on grams used in Yarn Per Project)

• Spinning Makes (links to Spinning Makes tab)
  This one is only just beginning to be used, and isn’t used all the time — it’s to link my spinning projects to their finished yarn records, so I can then link those yarn records to projects (when I eventually start knitting my handspun).
  

Knitting Patterns

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This one is pretty straightforward, if you’ve been reading through — we have two linked columns: one to the designer and one to the knitting projects — and the rest of the fields are single or multi-select, URLs, and notes fields.

Spinning

This has a lot less in it because I have only just started spinning, but I put in fields for information that I want to keep track of. As I keep learning and spinning more I may add more features, but I might also find that this does the job perfectly well.

Spinning Makes

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• Twist Direction (multi-select)
  I put four options in here — two for singles (S or Z) and two for plied (also S or Z). This may be something I’ll change as I keep learning to spin and using this to keep track of it.

• Finished Yarn (links to Yarn Stash tab)
  This is the rarely-used Spinning Makes field that links the fiber I spun to the yarn that I could actually use for the project.

Fiber

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• Name (formula combining Brand + Fiber Name)
  As with my Yarn tab, I made this a formula that combined the most common things I would search for. If my fiber stash gets too out of hand, I’ll probably add in the option for colorway as well, to help me differentiate between all the Neighborhood Fiber Co. I will continue to buy.

• Used Up? (checkbox)
  I opted to add this checkbox because so far, I’ve been spinning the entire amount of my fiber into one final yarn product. If that changes, I might update this to function more like the yarn stash with weights/amounts rather than an all-or-nothing field.

• Spinning Makes (links to Spinning makes tab)

The Combined View

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This is where it all comes together: all of my projects, in one place, with start/finish dates and pictures. There’s probably some more work I’ll do here — I haven’t decided exactly how much else I want to pull in, but I’ve started with project type, date started, date finished, and photos. This has almost no original data — the Cover Photo is the only field, and that’s only because photos don’t have the same rollup/formula capability that text and date fields have, so I created an original photo field and just copy-paste over from the lookups. My favorite view on this one is the Gallery view (above), where I can see pictures of everything and a couple details.

NOTE: Because everything here is a formula, I usually create this record from the associated project page: in Knitting Makes, I click the plus icon to link to a record in Combined, and then just choose “create new record”. Based on the formulas, it automatically fills in everything else on this tab.

• Name (formula)
  This pulls in the project Name from the sewing, knitting, or spinning record. The way this formula (and most in this tab) works is: if there’s text in the Sewing Makes column, display that; otherwise, if there’s text in the Knitting Makes column, display that; otherwise, if there’s text in the Spinning Makes column, display that.

• Cover Photo (photo)
  Because it’s easier, I usually just copy the pictures from the lookup fields for each project type and paste them over into this one. And then, because this is my “finished projects” view, I usually delete my WIP pictures, but of course you can do whatever you want to with your pictures.

• Project Type (formula)
  This formula is similar to the Name formula above: if there’s text in the Sewing Type lookup column (which pulled in the sewing project type), display that; otherwise, if there’s text in the Knitting Type column (which pulled in the knitting project type), display that; otherwise, it’s a spinning project (assumed because the other two will always have an identified type).

• Sewing, Knitting, Spinning Photo fields (lookup)
  Again, I already did all the work here, so once you link a record it will fill in the appropriate fields automatically

• Date Started (formula)
  The formula pulls in the date from whichever lookup column is filled out (sewing, knitting, or spinning).

• Date Finished (formula)

  The formula pulls in the date from whichever lookup column is filled out (sewing, knitting, or spinning).

• Finished? (formula based on Date Finished)
  I made this primarily so I can create a filter on finished: yes or finished: no, rather than trying to mess with filtering on dates and empty fields.

• Links to Projects/Makes tabs:

  • Sewing Makes (link to Sewing Makes tab)

  • Knitting Makes (link to Knitting Makes tab)

  • Spinning Makes (link to Spinning Makes tab)

  These are also technically “original” records because you do have to add the data yourself, but if you’ve done it from your project record it’s already filled in on this end, so I consider them more automatic than not.

Other Tabs

Since this blog post is already a novel, I’m going to go less in-depth on these, but hopefully by now you’re familiar with the way Airtable works in general and the way I’ve set up this template.

Pattern Makers

I decided to use only one tab for pattern makers — both sewing and knitting — because the information collected about these individuals or companies is essentially the same: name, website, types of patterns made (this will also useful for knit+crochet designers), and links to the projects.

Yarn and Fabric Stores

Again, I decided to use one tab for all stores, because several stores I buy from stock fabric, yarn, and fiber, so it doesn’t make sense to separate these. I created a column for whether I’m buying from an individual vendor (usually indie dyer) or a store; whether they sell yarn, fabric, or both; where they’re located; and URLs to their online shops.

People & Measurements

These are two separate tabs, but I’ll talk about them at the same time. The People tab is fairly straightforward — who have I made things for? What’s nice about having these as linked records is that I can add a rollup (sum) of how many knitting or sewing projects I’ve made for a particular person (spoiler: not many). The Measurements tab will be useful for me to keep track of my own measurements but also to make sure that if/when I do make garments or sized things for my friends and family, that I have their measurements as well.

Needle Inventory

I’m going to be honest here: I never liked Ravelry’s needle inventory, because I always wanted to be able to do more with it. In typical Jane fashion, I might have made this more complicated than it needs to be, but it works for me and that’s really what counts here. I’m keeping track of my interchangeable needles (brand + length are key differentiators), but also how many interchangeable cords I have of which length and what needles they’ll fit. I’m hoping it saves me rooting around in eight different bags just to see if I have another 24” cord or not.

And there you have it!

Hopefully this was somewhat useful and helped explain a bit more about Airtable, the template I created, and how I’ve been using it. Again, the Airtable template can be found here, you can sign up for a free account forever, and if I missed anything or you’d like to know more, please let me know.

On Ravelry

It’s my birthday, and I’m celebrating by taking the day off, treating myself to some cake, and…writing about how terribly Ravelry has mishandled (and continues to mishandle) their new website interface.

This post has been a while coming, but now that I have some time to sit down and think (and, because Ravelry has continued to ignore the problem and have now escalated to gaslighting users and lying about people who have spoken up about this) I’m collecting my thoughts.

First: I know there’s a lot of other stuff going on. We’re still in a pandemic, we’re still fighting for Black lives, we’re still protesting injustice and trying to stop our country from becoming a fascist state. These have not gone away, and I have not forgotten about them.

I learned how to knit several times before it stuck. I learned in middle school, and was such a tight knitter my mom gave up because I couldn’t even get the stitches off the needle. I learned again in high school, knitting these absurd scarves out of one color yarn held with a different color of fun fur, and luckily since these were knit on size 17s or so I did a little better with the tension. I learned again after college, when a friend decided to knit a Ravenclaw scarf and I decided I wanted to knit one too.

And then, I had just moved to Boston and my mom and aunt came out to visit, and we drove down the cape to Provincetown and on the way back stopped at a yarn store on a whim. I found some yarn I liked (it had sparkles in it), and had many beginner-questions for the shopkeeper like “If I want to make it this wide how much yarn should I buy?” and “what needles should I use?”. She said “have you heard about Ravelry?” and wrote the website down for me on a piece of paper, and a couple days later I remembered that she’d mentioned this mystery website and signed up for an account.

And that was that. Since 2011, Ravelry has been one of the most regular sites I use. It’s got yarn, it’s got patterns, it’s got fancy math behind the scenes, it’s got one of my favorite faceted searches ever (yes I am a nerd), and it had people I could go to for help with anything knitting or yarn-related. I found new yarns on Ravelry. I found new designers on Ravelry. I participated in KALs on Ravelry. I got testers for my knitting designs on Ravelry. I bought almost every knitting pattern I’ve ever used on Ravelry. I told everyone I knew who crafted that Ravelry was the best thing out there for knitters and crocheters.

And now, I can’t use Ravelry (and I’m far from the only one), and Ravelry…doesn’t care. It’s been a month, and it’s becoming increasingly clear that Ravelry is not going to fix this problem, that Ravelry doesn’t believe its users when they say this new website is harming them, that Ravelry is going to deny that anything is happening at all. That instead of saying “we’re sorry, we’ll switch back to the old site so that we don’t give people seizures and headaches anymore, did we mention we’re sorry”, they’re buckling down, giving us all the middle finger, and cutting off any way to get in touch with them so that they don’t have to admit they made a mistake.

I think it’s accurate to say that I’m heartbroken about this. I thought Ravelry was here for us. I thought Ravelry was an inclusive website. I thought Ravelry cared about their users. Obviously I was wrong. So, I’m not using Ravelry anymore. I’m supporting projects like fiber.club, who will actually listen to what users need, and I’m moving my entire knitting project and yarn database to Airtable.

If you know me, it’s no secret that I love Airtable. I use it for everything I possibly can — tracking the books I read, keeping an eye on my expenses, storing info about my wardrobe and outfits — so it isn’t too surprising that I’ve moved all my crafting data there too. I’d been thinking for a while about learning how to API so that I could get my knitting projects from Ravelry and my sewing & quilting projects from Textillia (which I have absolutely not kept up with) all in the same place and have a more comprehensive view of what I make, how long it takes me, and what else I worked on at the same time. If I’m not using Ravelry anymore, I don’t really need to learn how to connect it to an API now, do I.

If you don’t know anything about Airtable, the easiest way I’ve found to describe it is either “it’s like Excel on steroids” or “it’s a baby relational database”, depending on how you like to think about things. I’ve set mine up with different sections for sewing/cross-stitching/quilting (“things I do with needles and fabric and thread”), knitting/crocheting (“things I do with yarn”), and spinning (which does turn in to yarn but is itself different from a knitting project). Then, I’ve pulled everything into one combined table so I can see that comprehensive overview while still being able to track different craft-specific information and materials used.

I’m still working on putting all of the information I want into this Airtable (I’m adding needles and pattern information next), and I still haven’t decided how much of this I want to make public-public. I also think I’ll make another post that goes more in-depth on which pieces connect to each other, but if you’re interested in trying this out for yourself or poking around Airtable, I made a template and published it on Airtable Universe so that you can copy a shell of what I did and fill in your own information.

One thing I can’t re-create is the links to other projects, the extensive pattern search, the yarn database, and the community. That’ll have to wait for fiber.club.

2020 Plans

I know right now that I’m not going to get everything done in 2020 that I want to make, but I want to collect it all here so that I can keep track of it somewhere. In 2020, I want to sew/knit down my stash, because I acquired a lot of stuff in 2019. There are definitely things I’m going to buy — I want to make a Clare Coat and my parents bought me some lovely wool melton for Christmas, but I still need to buy the lining — but I want the majority of my projects to use materials I already have.

Sewing

• Clare Coat

  • Like I said, I have some wool melton from my parents (although they only had 2 yards in stock when they ordered), and I just need to pick a lining, order more wool (and cross my fingers), and get started.

• Wiksten Shift tops:

  • I have fabric that Arounna from Bookhou designed

  • My parents got me this lovely linen/wool doublegauze that I want to try piecing a top out of, to get the most of the double-sided-ness

  • I have some octopus print fabric that will likely turn into this top too

• Wiksten Shift Dress

  • I have fabric with metallic gold skulls on it that will, eventually, become a dress. I also have leftover mustard twill that may also turn into a Wiksten dress

• Kelly Anorak

  • Yes, this has been in my queue for at least a year, maybe two. I think I’ve finally decided that I want to line this, so I’m going to get the lining expansion and some lining, and then I’ll actually make it.

• Wool Estuary Skirt

  • I have some mystery wool from my grandmother that I think should be enough to make this. This should be higher on my list because I’d like to make it while I can still wear it this winter, so that means soon.

• Rainbow Estuary Skirt

  • I bought some delightful rainbow linen over the summer but haven’t made anything yet, and how fortuitous for me that I got distracted, because it will make the most amazing Estuary skirt.

• Several varieties of Sew Liberated’s new Lichen Duster

  • Obviously I need this in a super-luxurious silk or velvet to lounge around the house in, and I’d love to make this out of a twill or similar to wear out and about.

Knitting

• Dusk Light (in progress) using Valkyrie Fibers yarn in the most luminous purple

• I’d like to finish my Seven Wonders sweater

• Kia Socks using Farmer’s Daughter Fibers January Sock Squad yarn

  • On the socks note, I signed up for FDF’s Sock Squad, and I have a (very tentative) goal of making one pair of socks per month? On the one hand, it may be easy because I can knit on the bus. On the other hand, I may get nothing else made and might re-prioritize in a couple months.

• Ursa Sweater using Earl Grey Fiber Co’s English Breakfast Bulky in Moth Wings

• Sizzle Pop using two of my own indigo-dyed skeins of yarn

• Brontë Sister Shawl using three of Junkyarn’s Little Women colors

• Indira using (hopefully) some Ocean by the Sea yarn that I ordered

• A scarf I’m going to design that marls neon and greyscale speckled yarn from Black Cat Fibers

• Cozy Classic Raglan using yarn I haven’t decided on yet

• Lizzie or Brioche Tiles (I still can’t decide!) using a TréLiz kit that I couldn’t resist

• Shifty using House of A La Mode in neon colors

• Ember using a variety of yarn I keep changing my mind about

Weaving

Oh, I weave? Have I had the same project on my rigid heddle loom for approximately 1.5 years? Yes, and yes. I’d like to finish that project, because I have at least two plans for more woven scarves, perhaps even using something other than plain weave — but we’ll see about that part. I have two skeins of silk/merino from Sweet Georgia that I got at Knit City, and two skeins of yak/bamboo from Bijou Basin Ranch that I got at last year’s Taos Wool and Fiber Festival.

What Else Could I Possibly Have Ideas About?

I’m so glad you asked. I have a few damaged Ace & Jig pieces that I’d like to piece into a variety of things — pants into a top, a dress into a half-square-triangle block, lots of scraps that I can make scrappy things out of. I also have some indigo scraps that I’d like to piece together to make something. I still have my hand-dyed quilt top that I dyed a backing for but have not yet quilted together, because I want to hand quilt it and that still feels intimidating. I want to keep cross-stitching. I want to keep dyeing yarn and fabric. And we all know I’ll probably find another new hobby in 2020 that I won’t be able to resist.

Whatever Happened to January?

Well it’s February now, and somehow January disappeared in a flash. And no wonder, too — a lot has happened. I got a new job, which has been more of an adjustment than I anticipated; I went to Vancouver; I finally succumbed to the cold that’s been looming for weeks; and I’m trying two-at-a-time sweaters, which has been a learning experience.

I want to take some space to talk about a few things that have been happening in the knitting and sewing community over the last month. If you’ve been following me on instagram you’ve seen some posts and stories about it. I’ve also seen conversations like this in other spaces — the library community, the IA community, and in my non-knitterly friend groups.

Folks, it was eye-opening for me. I always considered myself against racism, and I even though I knew that we (as a society) were not “over racism”, I thought that we were still making strides. But seeing some of the vitriol that came out of these conversations and the white defensiveness on display, I can see that we have a lot farther to go. I also realized that there were a number of things that I wasn’t doing, or that I could be doing better.

I wasn’t seeking out diversity in my instagram feed. Like every other well-intentioned white person, I figured the algorithm would do my work for me, when we all know that’s completely untrue. I also wasn’t speaking up. I’m normally a quiet person — I don’t post much, I don’t talk much, and even this blogging thing seems like a lot sometimes. But when an indie dyer spouts neo-nazi sentiments and tries to back it up by saying the ‘silent majority’ agrees with her, or a clothing company actively promotes racist comments and deletes others, silence is definitely not an option. And finally, I have not been doing enough for myself to unpack my biases — because I still have plenty, even with all my good intentions. So I downloaded the Me and White Supremacy Workbook by Layla F. Saad (and became a backer of her Patreon), I bought White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo, and I’ve started speaking up more.

I also diversified the heck out of my instagram feed, and I am so much richer for it. I’ve found some amazing new people to follow, and I’m ashamed that I didn’t seek them out earlier. But I know that I’m going to do better, and this feels like a good first step.

Lastly (but not actually lastly, because it’s an unending list), I’m going to participate as best I can in the #buyfrombipoc challenge in 2019, which focuses on buying fashion purchases exclusively from Black and Indigenous People of Color. I’m still working out what my fashion is and what I’m going to buy vs. make, but when and where possible I am going to seek out makers of Color and support them with my wallet.

I want to thank everyone who spoke up, because it was not and has never been easy to do that. I also know that you’ve been speaking up for a long time, and the fact that we (white knitters) are just now noticing is a reflection of how much work we still have to do. In particular, I want to thank su.krita, ocean_bythesea, astitchtowear, little_kotos_closet, transitory, tina.say.knits, and booksandcables for their engagement (and their wonderful instagram feeds!). And fellow white people, this is up to us to work on. Don’t ask PoC to educate you — educate yourself, and support PoC: buy them coffee, buy their products, buy and knit their patterns, sign up for their Patreons. Don’t take their work for granted, or for free.

And finally, I want to say: I don’t have a giant community of people following me and I don’t have a business to worry about. But this space is mine, and I will always, always work to make & keep it an inclusive space that is safe for everyone. Hate has absolutely no place here and I will always remove hateful content from my space, so don’t bring it here. And please, please call me out if I’m doing something harmful — I have so much to learn, and I’m trying, and I will always appreciate you reaching out.

Slow Fashion October: In Summary

This was my first time participating in (well, attempting) Slow Fashion October, and like I said earlier, it coincided nicely with my desire to actually take a look at what I wear and what I want to wear.

There were two great things I did for myself this month, fashion-wise. The first is that I packed more handmade clothes than I’ve ever packed and took them on a trip where I knew I would be forced to wear them. I brought my Tegna Sweater, my Farrow Dress, and my Dress No. 2 in Magic Tulips (all pictured below).

Usually I bring one item that I’ve made, and then I save it for a “special occasion”, which doesn’t always happen. This time, 3 out of the 5 outfits I brought were something I made myself and I felt a lot more intentional about planning them, which is something I haven’t done often with the clothes I wear.

The second thing I did was start a Wardrobe Airtable (based on this template and inspired by Karen Templer’s blog post How to make a visual closet inventory), cataloged almost all of my clothes this month, and started keeping track of what I wore every day (almost). I made myself a couple rules: track everything, even if it’s the pajamas you didn’t change out of all day, and don’t feel obligated to wear anything.

A few years ago I had a secret blog called “What the fuck did I wear today” because I was so terrible at remembering what I wore and was also anxious about somehow repeating my outfits in a way someone would notice. The house I was living in at the time had a great long mirror setup and it was easy to take a picture of myself every day before I left for work. When I moved to Seattle, the mirrors weren’t as long and the lighting was less good, and I stopped doing it so often. And then I started wearing leggings and t-shirts to the office anyway, so who needed to track that?! The people I work with already know what I look like — I don’t need to try to impress them.

But after a while, leggings and t-shirts get boring (though no less comfortable). And taking time to care about your (my) fashion isn’t about impressing anyone else — it’s about impressing yourself, and making choices that you (I) enjoy. I’ve been working on this for a while, figuring out for myself what is enough effort, what I enjoy wearing, and why I wear (and make) the clothes I do. For me, I don’t want it to be how I am perceived by the world. I want it to be more about how I feel in the clothes that I wear and whether I can (and want to) take pride in that.

Anyway, if you got all the way to the bottom of this: thank you, and tell me how you feel! Are you in the same boat as I am?

P.S. If you haven’t heard of 99 Percent Invisible and the new podcast series they just did on Articles of Interest, I highly recommend checking it out. I keep trying to pick a favorite episode, and I can’t!

Slow Fashion October

Over at Fringe Association, Karen Templer is heading up Slow Fashion October, a chance to examine our wardrobes, where we buy from, and how we take care of our clothes. It comes at a good time, because I’ve been thinking for a while that I want to re-examine what kinds of clothes I have, how they work for me, and what I want my wardrobe to actually look like.

Our week 1 exercise is figuring out our look, which I am still figuring out (unless jeans/leggings and plain shirts is a look). Part of why I don’t think I have a “look” is because I’m often uncomfortable in my body, and shopping makes me anxious - so I tend to buy the first thing that looks halfway decent and then deal with it, even though 85% of the time it’s not perfect for me. And then I wear it, and I keep wearing it, because it’s in my closet. What I should do is get rid of the pieces that don’t work for me, so they won’t even be available for my weak morning-brain.

I’ve been making things my entire life, but I haven’t always been making them with intentionality, making them to complement other pieces in my closet, making them to last years. In high school and college, I would pick a pattern, find some leftover fabric in my mother’s stash, and make something that I’d wear for a couple months and then forget about. In grad school, I didn’t sew much but I picked up knitting, which for the first five years or so included only things that didn’t need sizing (mostly scarves and shawls).

The other part of it is that I’m scared - what if the sweater I’m knitting doesn’t fit right? What if I misjudged the dress size I’m making? What happens when I mess up a dart and the whole thing is ruined? But that’s also part of the excitement, and I’m getting better at leaning into that - learning how to adjust on the fly, making test muslins and swatches (swatching! my least favorite thing!), and always, always, trying it on as I go.

The other part that’s scary (for me, at least) is then wearing the things I’ve made. Am I confident enough to pull it off? Will people think it’s strange that I make my own clothes? Will I have to talk about it all day at work? What happens if I ruin the piece, and all my hard work is wasted? Again, this is something I’m still figuring out how to lean into. I made this thing, dammit, and I should wear it!

On Thursday I leave for a trip that’s half-fun and half-work, and I’ve spent the last two weeks trying to figure out what I should take with me. How many outfits do I need? What will I be comfortable in? But maybe most importantly, what do I want my look to be?

I was going to start October off with a bang by attempting to make a Wiksten Kimono in one evening. But then I got derailed by a giant box of free pomegranates at work and misplacing my sewing scissors (don’t worry, I remembered where I put them at midnight while I was trying to sleep!). So I’m going to wait until I get back from my trip, and focus on taking the time to make a versatile piece and enjoy the process. And then, I’m going to figure out how to wear more of the pieces in my closet that I love.