February/March Newsletter

I’ve realized that, rather than strictly holding myself to writing about what has happened last month, I want to do a bit of look back and a bit of look forward. Still don’t know what I’m going to start titling these, but for now just going to title it with last month and this month. Anyway, on with what I’ve done that’s noteworthy last month:

YouTube:

Starting with February’s YouTube tutorial: Crocheted Button Flower Pins. It’s a rather simple pattern, so if you prefer a less than 1 minute run through, I also made a short version. Thank you to everyone who has watched so far.

Charity Project:

February’s pattern for my Knit the Rainbow donation project was the Simple Convertible Hat-Cowl by Rachel Sandler, and I managed to make # of them in the 28 days of February (plus a few days in January, but who’s counting).

Ko-Fi:

Finally, I added several capybaras, tapirs, and button flower pins (and a one of a kind hippo) to my shop this month. I think I’m going to go with a single monthly drop from now on, currently planned for the first Tuesday of the month (tomorrow if you are reading this the day it posts).

Which brings me to what’s coming up in March:

YouTube Tutorial: Fruit Slice Keychains
I’ve been planning to make a tutorial video and release a full pattern for a while and just haven’t. But now I’ve got a good filming setup and the experience of creating a simpler tutorial and I know what I’m going to do about it. The tutorial will be the general pattern for the shape, and then I will also release a paid PDF pattern with detailed instructions for the watermelon, citrus, and apple slices.

Charity Project:
I’ve picked (with my mom’s help in deciding) the Rainbow Waves Headband by Melanie Shovelski as the pattern for March. I’m alternating knit and crochet patterns each month just to give myself a good variety in what I’m doing.

Ko-Fi:
The cross stitched roses from my Tri-Color Rose pattern testing will be going up in the shop update on March 4. The PDF pattern for the Fruit Slice Keychains will go up with the YouTube tutorial, as well as going up on LoveCrafts and Ribblr.

That’s it for this month! If you want to get this delivered to your inbox, sign up in the sidebar. I promise these will only be once a month, so it won’t clog your inbox. If you want to follow me elsewhere, I’m most often on Bluesky, plus Ko-Fi and YouTube.

January 2025 Wrap-up

Hello again!

I’ve decided that I’m going to use this platform as my newsletter of sorts. It didn’t really make sense to cross post everything from Ko-Fi, especially because I often forget to come back and post them in any sort of timely manner. Plus, I am planning to do a lot of things this year and I feel like taking the time to go back through everything I’ve done in the month will help me stay on track with a few of those plans.

What do I mean? Well, let’s start with the first project I’ve already gotten started on: How many things can I make to donate to Knit the Rainbow in November? I’ve explained the whole project, along with a roundup of the finished items in this Ko-Fi post, but basically I’m focusing on one pattern a month and seeing how many of that item I can make. January saw the creation of 27 “Crafting Change Wristers” by Melanie Shovelski.

A white square with rainbow colored semicircles in all four corners, trimmed out photos of blue, pink, and rainbow colored wrist warmers, and a rounded gray rectangle at the top with the words “January Charity Roundup” in black letters.

I’ve also started uploading to YouTube shorts, and am planning to start adding one full video per month. Here’s my favorite short of the month:

I also want to be better about adding finished items to my Ko-Fi shop (like the dinos featured in that short above), but I’m not sure if I want to just add as I go or do larger “drops” and gather everything for the end of the month. But as of right now there are finished items and patterns available, including some free knit, crochet, and cross stitch patterns, and more to be added in the coming weeks (like some cute little crocheted capybaras and tapirs).

That’s it for this month! If you want to get this delivered to your inbox, sign up in the sidebar. I promise these will only be once a month, so it won’t clog your inbox. If you want to follow me elsewhere, I’m most often on Bluesky, plus Ko-Fi and YouTube.

Six knit hats laid out in two rows of three. From top left: light blue body with triangles of textured stitches and a ribbed brim in shades of purple, a plain hat with puddles of green and blue, a brown and black striped ribbed beanie with blue stripes in the brim, a bubble-stitch teal hat with black and neon blue, purple, green, and pink striped brim, another green and blue hat from the same yarn as the one above it, and a sparkled black hat with short teal brim.

September Hat Roundup

(Image description: Six knit hats laid out in two rows of three. From top left: light blue body with triangles of textured stitches and a ribbed brim in shades of purple, a plain hat with puddles of green and blue, a brown and black striped ribbed beanie with blue stripes in the brim, a bubble-stitch teal hat with black and neon blue, purple, green, and pink striped brim, another green and blue hat from the same yarn as the one above it, and a sparkled black hat with short teal brim.)

September’s official hat count is six. Technically there are a few sitting here next to me that are finished and waiting for ends to be woven, but since they will be coming out of the bath in October, I’m counting those for October. These hats are made from a combination of scraps, reclaimed abandoned projects, and a couple partial skeins I found in the bag with the abandoned projects.

To keep this easy on me, I’m just going to go clockwise from top left in these explanations. We start out in the top left with a combination of a reclaimed baby hat and one of those found skeins. Process: Provisional cast-on 80 stitches with size US 8 needles, knit until I ran out of the purple and green variegated yarn, which pool-striped nicely at this gauge, and then bring the bottom up to create a doubled brim, switching to size US 10 needles and the teal yarn. Then I worked pattern 18 from “Keiko Okamoto’s Japanese Knitting Stitches” (pg. 13) four times around and repeating all 16 rows twice. Then I worked it in a modified manner across the decreases for the crown, but if I do this again I’d just knit the crown instead of carrying the pattern up.

Next we have the green and blue hats, which I’ll explain together because they are literally the same thing. The yarn for these is reclaimed from a C2C pattern I was creating that I ran out of yarn for. I created a magic knot ball and used some of it for the border of my scrap blanket. Then I decided to chain the entire rest of it, and use that to knit as many hats as possible, which turned out to be a large and a small one. I started each at the top with a crocheted magic ring before picking up
the stitches on knitting needles (size US 13, I think) and knitting a fairly basic hat pattern. You can find a reel of bits of the process here.

Last across the top row is the sock-weight scrap hat I’ve been working as my on-the-go project for a while using the helical knitting method to make sure I ran out of all the yarn at the same time and give the nice stripe pattern I ended up with.Below that is another hat in a similar manner to the first hat, but with an extra 8 stitches to make it a large (going for a fairly even mix of medium and large adult sizes
with some small mixed in), and using pattern 11 (pg. 11 / 45).

Our last hat, bottom left, is the same at the previous hat, using pattern 24 (pg. 15), though it may be difficult to see in the sparkly black yarn.

I’ve gotten into another set of reclaimed yarn from a sweater that was entirely too warm for me to wear ever, so I’m hoping to at least make another 6 for October. I’ve got another blanket to take apart, as well.


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