I’m honoring National Craft Month by posting something crafty that catches my eye every weekday. Share your favorite crafty finds in the comments!

I love Crochet By Faye’s idea for celebrating National Craft Month – adopt a designer!

You can read all the details in her post. The general idea is to pick a designer every day for the rest of the month and do something to help them succeed: blog about them, recommend them, buy a pattern!

I love this idea and will be incorporating here my already-planned National Craft Month blogging. I’m also going to spend the month looking for more designers to feature in my bricks+mortar shop, A Novel Yarn.

If you know of a designer (especially one that works with handspun or handdyed yarn), let me know in the comments!

The uber-smart Cosy has the answer to the eternal question: When IS the hat DONE?

It’s in her 2nd post in a super helpful series on knitting hats.

approximate hat heights

0-6 mo. – 5 in. (12.7 cm)
6-18 mo. – 6.25 in. (15.9 cm)
18 mo.-4 yr. – 7.25 in. (18.4 cm)
4 yr.-adult s – 8.25 in. (21 cm)
adult m-l – 9 in. (22.9 cm)

Read her whole post here.

I’m super honored to be interviewed by the fabulous Diane of CraftyPod about teaching crafts (and specifically, knitting). We had a great conversation about the experience of teaching and how to get started teaching.

If you’ve wanted to start teaching your craft, listen to the conversation here.

Diane mentions that my Learn to Knit kit taught her to knit (squee!), you can find the kits here. Even if you know how to knit, these kits are a great way to teach a family member and avoid frustration that comes from not knowing how to describe when-the-loop-does-this-you-do-this.

Have you taught your craft?
Anything you’d add to our conversation?

Today, I want to celebrate the awesome-ness of knitters.

The following knitters each made a fantastic hat-ness from a single skein of handspun.

Hat + Scarf by the darling Marian Firke

Drew’s Hat by AtomKitty

Game Hat by the wonderfully silly Kim Werker.

Remember how last week I got a bit crochet-obsessed?

Yeah, that didn’t fade away.

I’m crocheting a bunch of these hexagons to make a blanket for my bedroom (lots and lots and lots of green scrap yarn).

I start with cute little circles, crochet as many of those as I feel like and then I move onto,

adding the second round. I usually do one round of that and jump right to the last round:

And at this point, I stop and move onto the next hex. Because though it’s not a full hexagon left, I want to join them together as I add the last brown, hex-making round.

Every circle is going to be hex-ed with the same brown yarn (I think it’s an alpaca/wool blend, but a big bag was given to me un-labeled, so I’m just guessing.

Since I want to join them as I make the last round, I’m waiting until I’ve made a LOT of circles, because I’m afraid that if I join them as I go, the colors will be clumped together and we can’t have any color-clumping!

They make me happy!

PS. Also making me happy? The Month of Love Contest entries. Have you entered yet?

Did you know Valentine’s day is a month away?

I’m not a big fan of V-day, but I do LOVE thinking about love and how we change with it and how we change it.
And of course, when I think about something, it seeps into my yarn.

All this love-thinking birthed the Month Of Love series of yarns, 2 years ago.

Month of Love is a month-long yarn-party from 1/15 to 2/14 (Valentine’s Day!); I make a yarn representing a famous pairing or couple (and this year: group) every weekday for the entire month and share it the very next day.

Last year I asked for your suggestions and that post became the MOST popular post on my entire website. I got so many great ideas and awarded so many prizes and the whole thing was SO much fun, that I’ve been dying to do it again this year!

And here it is, the day before the Month of Love!

Let’s get this love-y party started!

I think I said it pretty well last year:

I’m interested in how this interplay of colors and how the addition of a color (or person) to a yarn (or your life) can change a color or at least, the perception of that color. And some couples, they just have a single color to symbolize the pairing (ex. Cheech +  Chong = green). Of course, this applies to more than just romantic couples; it happens with any sort of pairing: PB & J or Bert & Ernie.

(PB&J, from last year’s Month Of Love)

I need help thinking up these couples AND the colors associated with them!

If you suggest a couple + color that I choose to use, you will win 50% off any skein in my shop.

To enter the contest: leave a comment below this post with both a COUPLE and their COLOR(S). You must include your email (no one will see it) so I can let you know if you’ve won. You may suggest as many couples as you like and if any couples are duplicated, the winner will be the first who mentioned both that couple and the colors I use.

For example: Sesame Street: red for Elmo, yellow for Big Bird, blue for Cookie Monster, green for Oscar
(note: I already made that yarn, so don’t suggest it!)

PS. To keep up with Month of Love yarns, you can see them on the blog every Friday and you can getthem in this section of the shop. Last year, the yarns sold out pretty much as soon as I listed them, so I’m thinking they won’t hang around for long!

It’s been a while since I’ve talked about yarn (the New Year brought new projects), but it is still my first love.

Sometimes I forget and wander into the land of launching a yarn store in 12 days or teaching other yarnies…but all it takes is one great pattern to pull me right back to my first love!

This granny square is what drew my fervent adoration this week.
Or maybe it was this entire rainbow-colored blog.

Or maybe it was Mercedes of Kitchen Sink Dyeworks (she’s kitchensinkdye on Twitter), who is crocheting the most amazing granny squares from her handpainted yarn.

(yarn dyed, squares crocheted and photograph taken by Mercedes)

But once I fell into this granny square vortex, I started scarfing up granny square information.

• How to Granny from Meet Me at Mike’s
• How to Granny from Purl Bee

And then I started branching out into hexagons.

And then I fell down and maybe started crocheting a hex a day.

In case you need even MORE reason to start crocheting, check out this and this.

I’m working on a hexagon blanket for my living room AND a giant granny square (out of various handspun) for A Novel Yarn.

I’ll be sharing my pictures as the projects progress, but in the meantime, I’d love to see yours!

What are you crocheting?

What have you crocheted with handspun or handpainted yarn?

I’ll confess, I am not a pattern-follower. And thus, I very rarely buy patterns.

But occaisionally there are patterns so suited to a specific person, so unique, unlike anything I could design on my own and so beautifully photographed that I know purchasing the pattern is the only way to make the great item.

The following patterns meet those standards and would be just the thing to shock your not-knitting gift recipients.
(all of these links are to the Ravelry page, if you’re not on Ravelry, sign up, already! It’s free and fabulous!)

French Press Felted Slippers – I NEED these! Need!

Yarn Harlot’s Pretty Thing – such a pretty lacey cowl.

Smith - Squee! A tiny stuffed hedgehog. Adorableness!

Felted Clogs – Everyone in the world wants warm feet in winter. These clogs are the squooshiest!

What’s your favorite pattern to knit into gifts?

This week is Learn to Knit Week; every day I’ll be sharing tips, ideas or stories of learning to knit.
If you’d like to share your story, leave it in the comments!

In all this making-a-kit-for-new-knitters, I’ve collected a list of tips for new knitters. Instead of keeping it just for the people who buy the kit, I thought I’d offer it for free!

For the past month, I’ve been asking you questions about your “learn to knit” experiences, because I’ve been creating a Learn to Knit kit (available next Tuesday!)

Today I want to answer those questions and suggest that you read the comments ya’ll posted, because there are some sweet, hilarious and amazing answers!  I think they show the multitude of ways people learn and adapt to something as individual as knitting.

And if you don’t knit yet? Sign up for my free Maybe-Knitters e-course to help you decide if knitting might be for you.

How did you Learn to Knit?

I taught myself from Debbie Stollar’s Stitch N Bitch book, after having attempted to teach myself from another, far more dificult book. Debbie’s way of explaining things just made it all easier.

AND that book turned me onto the wonder of Craftster.org and Knitty.com. Any question a new knitter has will be answered in those two places.

What did you find challenging about learning to knit?

The whole “pull new stitch through old stitch” had me stymied for SO long. Once I figured that out, the whole thing just *clicked*.

What was the first project you knit?

Oh, gross. My first project that I started was a mauve and beige striped scarf, knit with horrible acrylic yarn, made for my best friend. I cast on far too many stitches and the thing took me FOREVER. I ended up chucking it into the back of my closet and moved on to skinny-er, similarly disgustingly acrylic scarves. After churning out 5 or 20 scarves in a month, I started a hooded pullover out of the most ridiculously bright teal mohair. I finished the sweater (it fit!) but ended up giving it to my mom (she loves all of my knitted outcasts!)

These experiences have instilled a true love for good fiber! I tell every new knitter that I teach that you simply must start with smooth, simple yarn that feels good in your hand. Organic cotton or  a sturdy, soft wool is best, but I know non-knitters are sometimes afraid of wool (it will itch!, they cry, unfamiliar with the bliss of lofty handspun), so I start them out with soft organic cotton.

What yarn did you start with? What do you recommend new knitters use?

(Not a knitter? Think you might be? Sign up for the Maybe-Knitter e-course (free!) to find out)