As the year — and the Indie Design Gift-A-Long — draw to a close, I’d like to treat you to an interview with a participating designer. Susan Andrews’ collection of designs is carefully curated: each one shows attention to detail and a love of geometry and colour, as well as a great sense of style. In my interview with Susan, I found out why this is.
All photos © Meridith Shepherd, except for Reunited, which is © Susan Andrews. Click each photo to go to that design’s pattern page.
You know that sinking feeling you get when you think you’ve done something quite well and then you find out that actually, you messed up in a pretty big way? Yeah, that’s me right now. You see, as part of the Gift-A-Long that I posted about, I helped to put together the Pinterest boards of sale patterns. I came up with a system. I was pleased with that system. I thought it worked quite well. I may even have been a bit too pleased, because as it turns out, I missed the entire sale pattern bundle of designer Monika Sirna. And that’s a shame, because Monika’s designs are much too good to pass over. (Click each photo to go to its pattern page.)
Being a continuation of yesterday’s post, in which I started to outline my plans for the Gift-A-Long. Again, all photos are copyright the designer unless otherwise noted, and are used here with permission.
Yesterday, I outlined gifty plans for myself, The Niece, myself, and Nephew 2. Today, let’s start with Nephew 1 and move to some backup plans, put in place just in case I’ve become a completely different person and have underestimated how much time is left in the year.
So. Last year, I made the oldest nephew the longest, stripiest, pointiest hat that ever did point. That sucker will be hard to top, but I think I’ve found the way to do it. Mittens. No, really, mittens. You haven’t seen these mittens yet. They’re the Little Hedgehog Mittens by Birch Hollow Cottage. Continue reading
Oh, look! It’s November. Or, as many knitters know it, the frantic season. Now, in the name of sanity and continuing familial affection I have pretty much stopped with the seasonal gift knitting, and am much happier for it. I do make exceptions for the niece and nephews, though, because they’re little, and fun to knit for, and did I mention the littleness? I’m also going to make an exception for myself, since all my knitting time lately has been devoted to work stuff and a cardigan for himself (which is sort of also work stuff), and I’m feeling very virtuous. And cold. And in need of a sweater.
I do, however, need help keeping on track. (Long time readers may remember that when it comes to non-work knitting, I excel at starting projects, not so much with the finishing.) Fortunately, there’s a group for that on Ravelry: the Indie Design Gift-A-Long. From now until the end of the year, the Gift-A-Long group has stitch-alongs for every kind of project in knitting and crochet, with a huge number of prizes (over 1,800, from patterns to needle sets) to keep us motivated. There’s also a giant pattern sale, with 3,822(!) patterns at 25% off until the 21st, using the code giftalong2014. Eighteen of those sale patterns are mine; you can see which ones in my handy Gift-A-Long bundle, and all of the sale patterns on the Giant Pinterest Boards of Shopping Doom.
