Casting on to Knit a Sleepbot 3000
Back when I was finishing up the capybara I made for my friend’s daughter, Owen got hold of the book the pattern was in – Huge and Huggable Mochimochi, by Anna Hrachovec. When he saw the utterly adorbz robot pillow in there, he asked me to make it for him. Disinclined to travel anywhere with a 20”x26” pillow, I ordered worsted weight yarn for it instead of chunky, and Monday night I cast on, using 3.75mm needles instead of the 6.5mm ones called for in the pattern. I want this pillow to be small enough not to be a total pain in the ass to tote around.
I’ve never done intarsia, kids. I’m half excited and half petrified. Got tips? I’d love some.
Starred Review in Library Journal
When the mail arrived yesterday there was happy dancing all around (to the confused, if not horrified, wonder of our new next-door neighbours), for I received a hard copy of the first review of Make It Mighty Ugly. It’s a starred review, man.
Oh, my, so much happy dancing.
I know lots of crafters are librarians by trade, and if you’re one of them, here’s some info I put together on how to host a Mighty Ugly workshop at your branch.
And I know lots of crafters are lovers of their local library. If that’s you, perhaps this review will make it more likely that your branch will order a copy of the book. You can ask them to, if you want to be sure (and you can point them to the July issue of Library Journal if you want to nudge them to see the star next to the review. Or maybe that’s just me. Because holy smokes, you guys, I’m still dancing over here).
My Craftsy Crochet Class Is Live!
I arrived home at 7:30am yesterday on a red-eye flight after my college roommate’s wedding in Honolulu. (Hawaii, I have fallen in love with you. FYI.)
And though I tried hard to tell you that my shiny new Craftsy beginner crochet class went live at 9:30am, I ended up nodding off in front of my computer and had to finally admit to myself that I should stop trying and instead sleep for four hours. Which I did, and then I woke up with the kind of killer headache only jet lag after a red-eye can concoct in a mad conspiracy to try to make you not love Hawaii anymore but it didn’t work because Hawaii is very loveable.
So here I am the next day – my birthday, so this post especially shiny today – to tell you all about it.
(Psst. All the links to the class in this post include a discount. Thank you for being here!)
As you may know, I went to Denver in April to film this class. I got to design the class myself, which means I got to say what I wanted to say (which is not always a given in a crafts-video situation) and include things other people might not consider to be usual topics for a beginner crochet class, like how to read patterns and symbol diagrams.
In the class, we cover not only how to read a pattern in words, but also how to read symbol diagrams.
The fabulous amazing thing about online teaching is that I can cover so much in under four hours. In a three-hour crochet workshop, I can send students home knowing how to make the basic stitches, sure. But in this class, which allows you to do lessons whenever you want and spend as much time as you want on any particular skill, I had the goal of preparing students to finish it having gained enough confidence to go out and try their hand at following a pattern to make whatever they want. I’ll be forever in Craftsy’s debt for giving me that opportunity!
There are two versions of a granny-square blanket pattern included with the class. This is the one I worked up, as it existed the night before we started shooting the class. So many ends to weave in! (Also, nail polish. Obviously.)
The kicker, though, the kicker is that Craftsy also has a simple, robust platform for class participation, so it’s not just that I got to deliver my ideal version of a beginner crochet class, I also get to interact with students and students get to interact with me. Students’ questions are public, so other students can learn from their questions and my and other students’ answers, and everyone can share photos of their work, whether to show a problematic row or a success.
Here’s how the set look while we were staging things for filming. We had a lot of crochet and yarn to wrangle!
I know you may already know how to crochet, so this class may not be for you (but maybe this class is for you). But maybe it’s for some (or, like, several dozen) people you know. If it is (of course it is!), please send them to this post, because all the links in this post lead to a discounted class price. And if you don’t already crochet, well, please use these links for yourself! You deserve it. And you’ll learn something. And we can chat.
This is the other version of the blanket, which our amazing tech editor stitched up.
If you have any questions about the class or about Craftsy, don’t be shy!
Here are a few more pics from filming:
Here’s the view my producer, Laura, had. That’s Tony you see; he was our camera operator the first day of shooting.
Craftsy has an editor in the room during filming, doing live cuts. It’s pretty awesome. By the end of the three days of shooting, our editor Ivana (how adorable is she with her Vespa?!) had a rough cut already done.
And here’s a wee video that I find utterly hilarious.
Win a Seat in My Shiny New Craftsy Crochet Class!
The beginner crochet class I filmed with Craftsy is going to launch on Tuesday, you guys, and you can click here to be entered to win the class. (That’s all there is to it – if you have a Craftsy account already, you’ll be entered automatically. If you don’t have an account, you’ll have to create one to be entered.)
This is the first time I’ve ever done a television or television-like project that I’m proud of. If you or many people you know want to learn how to crochet, I’m confident this class will help you do just that!
My love for Craftsy knows no bounds. They trust their instructors to know their stuff and teach it right, and that means I was actually comfortable staring into a camera for three days straight. There are hours of instruction in this class, man. Like, well over three hours of instruction, beginning with how to make a slip knot, proceeding through all the basic crochet stitches, how to work in rows and in the round, how to read and follow a pattern, culminating in actually following a pattern to make a simple yet delicious gigantic granny-square blanket. This is far more than I ever could teach in a three-hour in-person crochet class, and people can take the class in their pajamas, which is always a win.
My goal in designing the class was to make sure my students would end the class feeling confident to go forth and crochet anything they want, within reason. Students should feel comfortable trying out following patterns on their own, looking up tutorials for how to do stitches beyond the basic ones I demonstrate, and experimenting with yarn and hook combinations to achieve the kind of fabric they want.
Craftsy’s platform, if you’re unfamiliar with it, is pretty awesome. Students can ask questions that are linked to a particular time in a video lesson, and I can answer those questions so the answers are visible to anyone else watching that video. This allows students to learn from each other, and from me, all while keeping their place in the lesson. I’m very excited to chat with my students!
So, enter to win the class, eh?
When the class goes live on Tuesday, I’ll let you know!
Have you taken a Craftsy class? What did you learn?
My Great-Grandma Marian’s Sewing Machine
I mentioned this in my newsletter a few weeks ago, but finally took a photo so wanted to share it here, too. Last month, my cousin Marsha and her wife embarked on a two-month cross-continent road trip, in part to distribute some family heirlooms.
My great-grandma Marian was a tailor, and I was very touched when Marsha told me she wanted me to have her treadle Singer. Marian had bought the machine new, in the early 1920s, and it was her livelihood for much of the ’30s and beyond. (The box on top in the photo is her button box, and it is an incredible treasure. I’ll take photos of its contents soon. And, naturally, there’s a Matchbox car on there, too, for there’s nary a corner of our home uninhabited by toy cars these days.)
The machine has been unused for many a decade, but it should be pretty easy to get it into working order. Singer makes old manuals available online, so I have a copy of it to use for reference. (Singer also will let you know when and where old sewing machines were manufactured. I emailed them the machine’s serial number and they wrote back to tell me it was made November 3, 1920 in Elizabeth, New Jersey.)
Greg is intent on restoring the oak table the machine sits in. In the late ’70s, my great-uncle Abe used some wood paneling he had leftover from a home remodel to cover up the very worn original oak. Greg finds it horrifying but I think it’s a part of the machine’s history, and is therefore quite loveable. But I’m also not at all opposed to repairing the table in a manner more consistent with its original state.
It’s unlikely we’ll do anything with it this summer, but hopefully come winter we’ll start getting the restoration going. I’m really looking forward to learning how to use it!
Got any tips for sewing with a treadle machine?
Index-Card-A-Day: Some Cards
As I mentioned in my last post, I’ve been doing the index-card-a-day challenge. I love the goal of taking something small and inexpensive and making something on it every day. I’ve been using cards I had leftover from writing the book, which is why they’re blue and pink and yellow instead of white. I’d prefer white, but I prefer not buying more index cards more.
My favourite thing about this challenge so far is that it’s finally gotten me to play with collage, which is something I’ve been thinking a great deal about but not doing.
Kate Bingaman-Burt on Rule-based Making
You know of Kate‘s work, right? I’m such a big fan.
A few years ago, she was the first speaker at Portland Creative Mornings, and the talk she gave is a wonderful overview of her work and of how and why constraints can allow us to thrive when it comes to making stuff.
We just need to find the kinds of rules and constraints that work for us, naturally. This year, it’s the relative lack of structure that’s led me to finally succeed in my daily #yearofmaking project (for which my one rule is to make something every day, doesn’t matter what), but my success with that project has also led me to succeed, so far, in doing the index-card-a-day challenge for June and July. That’s certainly more specific than to make anything, and I’ve surprised myself for only missing one day so far – and I intend to make that day up before the end of the project. As surprising to me is that I’m not always counting my index card as my made-thing-of-the-day, which means that some days I’m making even more stuff than I might have otherwise.
Have you done a daily challenge of some sort? What were your rules? How did it go?
PS I interviewed Kate for Make It Mighty Ugly, and I’m so stoked to meet her in person, finally, when she hosts/moderates our book-tour event at Powell’s in October!
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Make It Mighty Ugly will be out in September. Preorder today!
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If you can make sense of French, these look like solid instructions for using huge yarn and hook to make a floor pouf.
