Unraveled

BTknits in her Snow Drift pullover

Today’s Eye Candy post was inspired by these high-contrast sweaters, which caught my eye when looking at recently finished projects.

I love the colorblocking that AlajaCaddell added to the sleeves of her crocheted Cobblestone Raglan, and the striking textured stripes of SewPerfectPurls’ beautiful Rusty Tuku.

The shifts in color of the contrasting yarn just pop in thevibrantpixel’s Koivua Test; Bex’s Jailbird Blouse looks perfectly retro, modern, and chic all at once.

melanieripley’s bold Knitorious pays homage to the one and only Ruth Bader Ginsburg and her wonderful collars; MrsCraftsandBeer looks rightfully pleased with her perfectly cozy Black and White Emma Cardigan.

If you have looked for help in the Ravelry forums, there’s a good chance you found it thanks to Joan Schrouder, or schrouderknits. A master teacher, both on- and offline, she has dedicated countless hours to helping people gain confidence in their craft, learn new techniques, and make beautiful things with yarn. She taught for over twenty years at conventions, shops, and guilds and even cruises, and has shared her expertise online since the mid 1990s. 11,910 of her forum posts have been marked as educational by at least one other Raveler (which is a HUGE number). Some of her posts that made many Ravelers click that educational button share tips for making center-pull yarn balls, working slipped-stitch selvedges with stripes, mending family heirloom afghans, and fixing miscrossed cables, just to point out a few of her nearly 70,000 helpful and informative posts!

Ravelers, you have spoken… and you asked to learn more about Joan!

It is no surprise, then, that when we asked for suggestions for who to feature in our Humans of Ravelry column, Joan was our most-requested Raveler to highlight. To share just a couple examples, ifdefelseif’s post sums things up nicely:

“As for a nomination… schrouderknits; definitely needs to be on the list. Not only does she do beautiful work, she’s tireless in sharing her knowledge both through teaching and the forums here. She also makes it a point to know as many people in the community as she can. She’s always a source of encouragement and inspiration and she has a great sense of humor and humility to boot.”

tinkerbellsmom wrote me and expressed what a lot of us feel when reading Joan’s posts, saying,

“I want to be her when I grow up. PS I’m 62 so a joke there except I’m serious about it.”

Other requests I received made it clear: so many of us are grateful for Joan’s helpful presence on Ravelry, and would love to know more about her. We are thankful she agreed to be featured here!

When I wrote Joan to ask if she would like to be a Human of Ravelry, I asked her, “Is there something in particular that motivated you to start helping in our forums in the generous way that you do?” She replied,

“Ever since I got a modem for the internet in ’96 and joined the old KnitList, I’ve enjoyed making suggestions for solving knitting problems. I like the mental stimulation of seeing if I can read between the lines sometimes to figure out what the actual problem is, and then finding a solution and being able to adequately describe it. At first it also helped promote my teaching; I know that a number of gigs I got were as a result of someone being familiar with my posts and thinking I would be a good candidate for giving a workshop in their area.

When I eventually retired from teaching classes I realized that I didn’t really want to retire from the teaching, just the physical toll it was taking. Ravelry was into full bore by then so it was a natural transition to continue answering questions here, on my own schedule.”

Without further ado, here are our five questions for this wonderful Human of Ravelry, schrouderknits Joan!

Joan’s Panel Jacket

How, when, and why did you learn how to knit?

I learned to crochet when I was still six, staying with my grandmother who taught me when one of my brothers was born, and mom farmed the rest of us kids to relatives for that first week she was home. About two years later I was taught to knit at about age eight by a classmate on the bus ride to and from school. Her mother was an Australian war bride so I learned English style first. My friend Marri only know how to do the knit stitch so that’s all I knew until a couple of years later when a childhood friend of my mom’s was visiting and showed me. Somewhere in all of this, a neighbor showed me how to knit continental as I had a death grip on the yarn with my right hand and could barely move stitches. Continental proved more effective for me and also more comfortable, since I had already learned to tension yarn in my left hand from crocheting.

My first stitch pattern I learned was what I later learned was brioche, so it involved YOs. I did them as I had learned in crochet, which was wrapping the opposite way as they’re usually done in knitting. I recognized this, and instead of converting the YO direction, I switched all my knitting and purling stitches to the same clockwise wrap direction to match.

The first full project I knit was a sweater, a cardigan in two-color brioche, or at least my version of brioche, which I designed myself at about age 14. I wore it, and another pullover version of the same stitch throughout high school. I didn’t know how to read patterns then, so I had to design it.

What hobby (or hobbies?) outside of knitting/crochet do you enjoy?

Knitting is pretty much it. I watch TV programs I’ve recorded while knitting (love the British murder mysteries!). I used to read more but eyestrain prevents longer binges for that.

Joan’s notes: Note that the diamond motifs get smaller to taper the sleeves which I had to work out. The neckline shaping is integrated with the diamond motifs and the shoulders were BO and grafted over the BO to give the illusion of being seamless, but with the structure of the BO to help support the sleeve wt.

What’s one way that crafting has changed your life for the better?

OMG, what a life-changer it has been! I found Elizabeth Zimmmermann’s Knitting Without Tears in 1974 and it answered so many questions I had about construction details, so my knitting know-how jumped to warp speed. About five years later I read an article in a knitting magazine written by someone who’d attended her Knitting Camp in Wisconsin, and that did it for me – I HAD to go! I had never flown anywhere by myself and had two young children at home, but DH said, sure, go ahead, and I did! It was the start of attending ~20 Camps over the following years, half of which were while Elizabeth was still teaching them, then the other half where her daughter Meg Swansen took over. Through those yearly jaunts, I continued being more adventuresome in my knitting, inspired by the beautiful things that Elizabeth and Meg did, plus all the wonder projects shown at “show & tell” by fellow Campers. It also began a network of others who were/had gotten into selling designs to magazines and yarn companies. One year the editor and publisher from KNITTERS magazine came, so I got to show them a design and they invited me to submit it for publication. Another attendee kept goading me into submitting teaching proposals to TKGA for their annual conventions, so I finally did that, and was accepted.

One gig led to another and pretty soon I was teaching all across the US and into Canada at major knitting shows and conferences, and from that soon got invitations to teach for guilds and LYSs, and on cruises and even a couple of train trips in the Canadian Rockies, which I did for more than 20 years. I taught my last class in 2012 as I was ready to retire from the hubbub of travel. I miss meeting new people and see old friends, those designers and teachers who also frequented the same teaching circuit. I miss having the opportunity to go to museums and see the beautiful sites around the country and beyond on these trips as many hosts were gracious enough to offer their time as tour guides to their particular cities.

What sustains your enthusiasm for crafting?

Interesting question – I think it’s that there’s always something new to learn or try, that with knitting there’s never an end point at which nothing new will ever happen. People are just so darn creative and inquisitive to find other uses for some of the old stand-byes as well as come up with a totally novel approach.

What is your favorite yarn trick or hack?

I knit a lot from stash of which I have a huge accumulation gathered from all my travels as well as doing my best to support my LYSs. (ed note: LYS = local yarn store) I try to match project to the amount of a particular yarn so that I don’t have a ton left over, but also don’t want to run short, so I’ve figured out a bunch of different approaches to avoid painting myself in a corner. Therefore I often plan out projects to take advance of provisional COs so that I can finish off lengths to use up available yarn. EG I often knit up one skein’s worth in the round for the body to see what the area will be from that one skein and can extrapolate from there to see how much fabric I can get from the remaining yarn. I know the rough calculation for area of a sweater is:

Body = circumference x total height
2 Sleeves = circumference of upper sleeve + circumference of wrist, then multiply that total by the sleeve length.

So this tells me whether my sweater needs to be a shorter length, or if I don’t want to do that, then start thinking about what kind of color patt work to put into the yoke or instead think about a vest if I don’t have enough yarn to make sleeves.

Joan’s Blue Shimmer

Thank you so much, Joan!

We are so fortunate and thankful that schrouderknits Joan has chosen to give so much to our community and hope you all enjoyed learning a bit more about someone who has contributed in such wonderful ways to Ravelry and the yarn world in general. By the way, clicking on any of the photos in this post will take you to project pages with notes that are as detailed and helpful as you could hope for! If you’d like to keep up with Joan, you can add her to your Ravelry friends, and look for updates on the main friends tab. If you have a Ravelry friend or someone you know is doing great things on our site, and you’d like to recommend we feature them here in the future, we’d love to hear!

Margaux, or Raveler tentenknits, has been an active Ravelry user since May of 2007! Fellow Raveler danishlouise suggested we highlight her here, writing:

“Margaux gives people with rare diseases a voice with her #rarestitch. She has a son with a rare disease and came up with an idea highlighting a stitch in her knitting to symbolise a rare disease. You can listen to a podcast featuring Margaux here.”

We are so pleased to reach out to Margaux for this feature and share some of her beautiful Ravelry projects, her other crafty endeavors, and talk about the Rare Stitch project in anticipation of February 28, Rare Disease Day. We hope you enjoy learning more about Margaux!

How/when/why did you start/learn to knit/crochet?

Growing up I was always making things. In those early years it was friendship bracelets or doing a lot of beadwork making earrings or necklaces. My mother and grandmother were expert seamstresses and passed down their creativity. It wasn’t until a class in college that I was finally exposed to knitting. A girl in my public speaking class was demonstrating how to knit. She showed off her hat and I instantly became obsessed!

I was of the Stitch N’ Bitch era and while that maybe wasn’t the exact book I learned to knit from it WAS the first book I owned and worked from. I loved how she explained how to knit, her tone was fun and playful. I could SO knit with Debbie Stoller. I made a tote bag and a few hats before moving on to a sweater and soon I discovered knit blogs!

I don’t know exactly how I came across the blogs but I felt the connection instantly and quickly went out to create a blog of my own. I loved the immediate connection the blogs allowed you AND I loved being able to share the things I made and to help others with making it. Sure enough when Ravelry came around I was quick to sign up!

I’ve gone on to design a few cowls like the 5th Avenue Infinity Scarf and Snow Cowl and sweaters including my favorite called the Gate Pullover in Knitscene.

What hobby (or hobbies?) outside of knitting/crochet do you enjoy?

I love to do calligraphy and paint with watercolor. It’s provided an extra creative outlet and one so different from knitting. Changing gears from knitting to painting or drawing helps keep the creativity flowing. I’ve done wedding calligraphy and custom quotes to house portraits. I’ll rarely say no to a new job. I love the challenge. I’ve also designed tote bags that I’ve spotted people using at Rhinebeck!

I also really enjoy making pompoms and tassels and making things with them especially Pom Pom earrings! They are playful and add that bit of charm that totally embodies my personality. I never take myself too seriously and Pom Pom earrings certainly help. You can find all my work at 1010studio.com.

What’s one way that crafting has changed your life for the better?

The connection to others. How could I have known that after learning how to knit it would be a bridge to so many people. I used my knitting to make friends in towns and cities where I knew literally no one. I’ll never forgot how impressed my brother was when I trudged off to a pub all alone to meet knitters when I went to visit him in London. I know it’s so cliche but I truly love this thread that connects us.

I love my local yarn shops and the people that have come into my life because of them. Knit nights are my favorite and I’ve often spent hours upon hours sitting and hanging at shops.

These are the same people that have been there for me when things have gone sideways.

I also love that knitting has become an important metaphor in my life.

My son was diagnosed with Alternating Hemiplegia of Childhood, a 1 in a million diagnosis, when he turned one. AHC, for short, is a rare neurological disorder that causes muscle weakness and episodes of paralysis. Children with AHC suffer from developmental delays and are often also diagnosed with Autism or Epilepsy. There is no viable treatment for AHC and most persons afflicted are using experimental drugs to help curb their symptoms. Despite all that, James, who turns 6 next month, has continued to thrive and surprise us all with reaching and passing his milestones.

Last year I began a campaign to raise awareness through knitting starting “The Rare Stitch” project. I kept thinking of ways to explain the rarity of his type of disease and thought about all the stitches that have come through my hands.

What if those stitches represented people, and what if ONE of those stitches was different in some way. I asked knitters to add a duplicate stitch of a contrast color to their knitting to represent the odds of rare disease. Soon, people began to share their stitches on social media and were able to share their or James’ story.

I read stories about knitters, their partners, their children who also suffer from a rare disease. I am so grateful to give them a platform in which to share that part of themselves.

Having a rare disease can be very isolating. There isn’t a big company with a sole mission to raise awareness and money for research, it’s just a few families working hard to keep the hope alive for a cure or treatment. We work hard to share stories and awareness in the hopes that those who will find us will be generous enough to donate to our cause.

Right now we are raising money for a new type of gene therapy treatment. It’s called the AAV Project and we are hoping to raise $500,000 just to bring it to the next phase. If you want to learn more about the project or donate please visit CureAHC.org. It’s so fitting to share my story in February as Feb. 28th is Rare Disease Day! It’s a perfect time to add that Rare Stitch and show your support to all those who are afflicted with a rare disease.

Are you a product or a process crafter?

I am very much a product knitter. My eyes are always on making something wearable and I feel a tremendous amount of joy/pride when I finish something. While I do appreciate the mindlessness of stockinette or the challenge of a new stitch pattern, it’s the end result that drives me.

Right now I’m loving the new sweater from Junko Okamoto called Bouquet. I cannot wait to cast on!

What sustains your enthusiasm for crafting?

Definitely seeing my friends being successful and showing off their knits. AND showing up to a shop or cafe and knitting with friends. I am someone who loves connecting with people and literally will do a dance of joy if I know a knit night or fiber weekend is on the calendar.

I am so lucky to know such amazingly talented knitters and designers and to call them my friends.

Thank you so much for having me share my story!

Thank you so much, Margaux! We’ll be back in a few weeks with another Human of Ravelry! If you’d like to keep up with Margaux’s beautiful projects in the future, add her to your Ravelry friends and look for updates on the main friends tab. You can also find her on her website at 1010studio.com, Instagram @1010_studio, and Etsy at 1010studioshop. If you incorporate a Rare Stitch into your work, please be sure to tag your Ravelry project with #therarestitch so that these pieces can all be found in our project search!

If you have a Ravelry friend or someone you know is doing great things on our site, and you’d like to recommend we feature them here in the future, please share with us!

We have a surprise for you!

One thing that we love about the community we have all built together on Ravelry is the friendships that have formed over the years. One way we have celebrated those friendships are the Valentines that we have had on the site on February 14th. I know that in some countries around the world, people do not send Valentines to anyone other than their love interest but we have embraced the Valentine as a simple way to tell someone that you admire or care about them.

These 12 Valentines are made by artists in our community and we couldn’t be more pleased with them. Maybe you will want to send some to spread love to people that you value and appreciate.

To send a Valentine, go to: http://www.ravelry.com/greetings

Valentines are by: CamilleRomano, ekatearcher, amyjpeg, raspberries, mollybrooks, mushroomfeatures, octagonfudge, Sarahsweird, cuttlefish, achelseamorning, taryngee, and oatmealxo. Thank you all so much!

I love looking at projects that Ravelers have made with handspun – there is such a depth and richness to the colors and textures of the yarn! For today’s Eye Candy I wanted to share some of my favorite recently completed handspun projects.

I absolutely love the colors in stebo79’s double gradient, knurl’s The Weekender looks like the perfect cozy sweater, and debby’s sunset windowpane scarf has such a lovely, cheery color combo!

Dentaurus’ Sunwalker glows with warmth against the snow, welfordpurls’ handspun purple weave makes me want to wrap myself up in purples, and eddysknittery’s THE STASHBUSTER! mixes handspun and conventionally spun yarns beautifully.

We’re excited to begin a new series on the Ravelry blog: Humans of Ravelry! Each month, we’re going to share a bit about a Raveler who is doing great things – from making beautiful projects, helping in our forums, spreading yarny love through charitable crafting or teaching others in their local communities, or doing other wonderful things in the name of yarn.

Our first Human of Ravelry feature is Dana, or dwj1978! Dana has appeared on our blog before, having been featured twice in Eye Candy posts with her gorgeous sweaters. You may have also seen her article this week on the Mason Dixon Knitting blog, where she talks about how to translate colorwork sweaters to matching dog sweater patterns! (Yeah, she does that. Yes, it’s awesome.) Dana’s Ravelry project page is sure to make you smile and inspire you, and her blog, Yards of Happiness, was created to spread the joy that she gets from knitting to others.

Thanks to her beautiful projects, adorable dogs, and enthusiasm for sharing her love of yarn, we were excited to ask Dana if she’d be willing to be our first Human of Ravelry featured member, and were thrilled and grateful that she said yes! We asked her five quick questions about crafting and life; something we will do with all of our Humans of Ravelry features (thank you to everyone who submitted question ideas to us via Instagram!). We hope you have fun getting to know Dana!

What’s your yarny origin story: how, when, and why did you learn how to knit?

I’ve always been crafty and curious about knitting but I never knew anyone who really knew how to knit or was a serious knitter. I told my Mom I thought I wanted to take knitting lessons and she told me, ‘You don’t need to learn another thing, don’t you have enough hobbies?’ so I kind of pushed the thought aside. 6 weeks later she sent me a picture of a hat and asked me if I could make it for her, but she had just told me I didn’t need another hobby! LOL I found a Groupon the next day for knitting lessons at a yarn shop and the rest was history, that was in the spring of 2011.

Could you share one way that crafting has changed your life for the better?

Knitting is a very calming and soothing way for me to relieve stress, so I always have a project with me. In 2016 my job was really intense and stressing me out, so I would knit whenever I had a break, before work in the car, on my lunch break, on the commute home. That was the year I knit 27 sweaters, it was what kept me sane and calm.

If you were a yarn, or a fiber, what would you be?

A superwash dk weight wool, specifically a very colorful skein of Miss Babs Yowza. It’s one of my favorites, it’s a workhorse for sweaters, it’s softy and yummy, the skeins are huge and the colors always make me happy.

Did you make any mistakes as a newbie that you laugh at now?

I’m a bit rigid at times and I was so intense when I was learning how to knit I felt like I was going to vomit. I asked my teacher if that was normal and she told me I had to just learn to let it go and the yarn become what it was going to become, mistakes and all.

Aside from knitting, what hobbies or pastimes do you enjoy?

I love road trips with my husband and the dogs. I’ve always been into photography, so I’m always taking pictures. And I’m pretty darn good cook if I do say so myself.

Thank you so much, Dana, for jumping right in with us to start this series. We’ll be back next month with another Human of Ravelry! If you’d like to see more of Dana’s beautiful work in the future, add Dana to your friends and look for updates on the main friends tab.

As always, we love hearing about great things you all are doing on our site, so if you have a Ravelry friend you’d like to recommend we feature feel free to let us know!

At the beginning of 2018 we added a fun new Ravelry feature: the Ravelry Project Challenge. Knowing that many users enjoy setting personal goals about projects they’d like to complete each year, we added a Challenge tab to Ravelry notebooks so that we could track these projects and our progress throughout the year. As of yesterday, over 8,000 Ravelers have completed their 2018 Project Challenges, and the total number of 2018 projects for those Ravelers is a whopping 236,000! For today’s Eye Candy post we are highlighting projects from just a few of the Ravelers who met their 2018 Project Challenge goals. At the end of the post, we have information on how to get set up for the 2019 Project Challenge, if you are interested!

mustaavillaa set a Challenge goal of 15 projects, and completed 18, including these Grey socks! Purlificknitter’s goal was 40 projects, this Mira, Mira On the Wall – Testshawl is one of the 44 projects completed! h-e-l-i finished 43 projects in 2018, blowing right past her goal of 26 projects. This lovely humulus was finished in October.

WolfCrochet set a goal of 8 projects but ended up finishing 26, including this Mandarin Magic cardigan! crochet-hello’s initial goal was 5 completed projects but she ended up making 26 – some of them, like these DRAWSTRING PRODUCE BAGS were multiple items as one Ravelry project! georgievinsun’s Lotta is one of the 20 Ravelry projects (including several dresses) she finished, with a goal of 19.

chalklegs surpassed a goal of 19 projects, with 20 projects – knitting, crochet, and weaving – completed, including this September Weave. NeulistiMNK set a lofty goal of 50 projects for 2018, and ended up finishing 51! This Slanted Stripes cowl is a lovely sample of her work. TheBon made 31 projects in 2019, surpassing her goal of 25, and gaining the approval of her cats with the beautiful Dyed to Shift afghan.

Want to join the Ravelry Project Challenge in 2019?

To set up your Ravelry Project challenge, just go to your Ravelry Notebook and click on the “challenge” tab you’ll see at the top right. (If you are on a mobile device the tab may be hidden behind a button with a picture of 3 dots.) There, you’ll see the 2019 Project Challenge section where you can set a goal for the number of Ravelry projects you’d like to complete in 2019. This is a personal challenge, not a competition, so set a number that seems fun and motivating for you! You can change this number at any time, and there is no deadline to sign up.

After you’ve set your goal, the challenge tab is where you can track your progress, with a list of the projects you have completed in 2019 (once the year begins) and the items in your queue that you’ve given a 2019 deadline. Each time you mark one of your Ravelry projects as finished in 2019 you will get closer to your goal. I’ve been doing the Project Challenge this year and it has been so fun to see my progress as I finish things!

Will you be joining us for the 2019 Ravelry Project Challenge? Here on Team Rav, we are setting our goals – right now, I think I’m going to shoot for completing 12 Ravelry projects, Jess is aiming for 10, Sarah’s goal is to complete eight projects, and Christina wants to do six! We’ll be posting more about the Project Challenge here on the Ravelry blog and on our @hi.ravelry Instagram account throughout the year. If you have questions or want to share your 2019 Ravelry Project Challenge goal, come chat with us in the 2019 Project Challenge thread on For the Love of Ravelry!

Thank you, Ravelers! You’re the best!

Finally, we don’t want to close out 2018 without saying a huge thank you to all of you! With every year that passes we are more grateful for the Ravelry community and everything you all contribute to make the site what it is: useful, friendly, fun, inclusive, and filled with yarny goodness. Everyone here on Team Rav (including someone new who will be starting this month!) is so excited about what 2019 will bring to Ravelry, and we hope you are too. Happy New Year!

heylucy’s A Tiny Flock of Sweaters for Good

Today’s Eye Candy post celebrates projects made to look like some of our most appreciated animal friends: ones who provide fiber for us to use in our knitting, crocheting, spinning, and weaving projects!

maidenbklyn’s Christmas Llama, bszen’s Little cotton rabbits, and kmtrry’s Amigurumi Lamb-sheep.

BlandineWinona’s Liam the Llama, FlamingoStitches’s Sheepie, and YumYarnCreations’ Marcia Alpaca.

I’m grateful in this cold season for all these beautiful animals – and the adorable Ravelry projects made in their honor!

londonleo’s K i t c h e n C o n f i d e n t i a l

Where I live, it’s beginning to feel quite wintery, which makes me want to curl up in my house with cozy woolens. Ravelers all over seem to be having similar vibes, as there are quite a few projects for their homes being made! Here are some of my favorite recently completed ones:

I loved the happy colors and touches in OrangeShooze’s Persian Tile / Eastern Jewels Blanket, cherrybling’s Striped Christmas Tree Pillow, and GlaserNo5’s Letterzed Towels.

These projects are obviously appreciated by the most discerning members of the family: knitsnpurrs’ Moody Blues, ahurley’s Hue shift afghan, and inkypink’s Spicier Life CAL.

You can take a closer look at the home projects that Ravelers are making in our project search!

So far this month, Ravelers have completed more hat projects than any other category – at the time of writing this post, 11,470 hat projects, to be exact! Here are just a few that I loved (it was really hard to narrow this down – if you want more hat inspiration definitely check out our project search!).

I really love the giant, faux-fur pom-poms like those in junepurls’ Two Drifters Fidra, terscher’s Kate’s Tread, and StellaGalla’s Cobblestone Hat. So fluffy!

I loved all of these cozy, creative hats: thekarrianne’s Ombre Cable Hat… 39, IrishElinor’s Hagrid’s Giant Squid Hat, and JanjaD’s Give it a Whirl Hat.

In writing this post, I realized I don’t have a single hat with a pom-pom. Obviously I need to fix my pom-pom deficient situation as soon as possible! If you are working on any hats right now, I hope they turn out perfectly cozy and warm!