From the looks of this list you might think my crafting world revolves around babies now, but do not be deceived! Unrepresented here are the projects I have not yet finished. Like the Rock Island shawl with lace on both sides that I was nuts enough to start before Owen started sleeping through the night. I’ll pick that one back up in 2012, for sure. And the February Lady Sweater I’ve had on the go for a year and a half – I’ve been making some slow progress on the first sleeve! I will OWN that sweater!

I’ve also been working on my Citron shawl, though as you might imagine I get a little bored with it during the seven rows of doubled stitch count. Four hundred stitches in stockinette = long stretches between knitting bouts.

Here’s what I finished in 2011 (even if I started it in 2010):

• I only knitted the last 20 rows of this baby blanket in 2011, but I’m calling it my first finished project of the year.
  
• Owen needed booties for the party we had to welcome him to the family after the 30-day revocation period passed. So I made him some out of scraps, mostly while he slept on my lap.
  
• Finally made the kid some clothing in March. It’s the Hank Vest from Robyn Chachula‘s book Baby Blueprint Crochet, in Spud & Chloe Sweater (a stupendous yarn for crochet).
  
• One old t-shirt + one tutorial found on Pinterest = a quick crafty project
  
• My new go-to party contribution, clever idea stolen from a friend: Candy skewers
• 
• There was the quick ugly creature I made for CRAFT. That was big fun.
  
• Another sweater for Owen: A no-intarsia Willie Sweater he’s been wearing all season. Made in RYC Cashsoft Aran and some leftover Sirdar Denim.
  
• A newborn-size Hunter hat for our nephew-soon-to-be, in Louisa Harding Kashmir DK. There will be more of these hats in the future, for sure.
  
• Owen’s dinosaur Halloween costume!
  
• The Virtual Planetoid hat.
  
• A mildly slouchy hat for our beloved babysitter, Emily. It’s the Jane hat, by Jane Richmond, in Malabrigo Worsted. They’re faux cables, people. Fastest hat EVER.
  
• For kicks, I’m including the first cake I’ve ever made (I don’t like cake, so I’ve never felt compelled to make any). It was, naturally, for Owen’s first birthday. I ate some, and I didn’t like it. But I’m feeling downright determined to learn to make an amazing cake. I see a lot of baking coming in 2010.
  
• The Celia Circle Scarf
  
• A Puerperium cardigan for Nephew.
  
• And finally, a year and a half after I started it, I finished a mistake-rib scarf for my friend Scott the afternoon of New Year’s Eve. Phew!
  

My 2011, in Crafts is a post from Kim Werker's blog.

Here are my crafts books (most of them). They’re not going to live in this book case forever, but we’re still in the midst of making sense out of our stuff, and books fall into the category of there-are-too-many-and-we-don’t-know-where-to-put-them-all-so-we-postpone-decision-making-indefinitely. I should consider de-stashing, really. But I love them all. Even the ones I that break my heart.

It’s hard for me to choose favourites, so here are simply some notable ones:

1. The Knitter’s Book of Yarn, by Clara Parkes (such good info, with lovely patterns)
2. 200 Crochet Blocks, by Jan Eaton (one of the first books I was sent to review on CrochetMe.com)
3. Quilting for Dummies (bought when we decided to make our chuppah when we got married, and we had never quilted)
4. Weekend Knitting, by Melanie Falick (the first knitting book that made me swoon)
5. Brave New Knits, by Julie Turjoman (I love the profiles of new and established designers and their online presence)
6. Crochet History and Technique, by Lis Paludan (the definitive work)
7. Loop-d-Loop, by Teva Durham (Teva is an inspiring genius)
8. Last-Minute Knitted Gifts, by Joelle Hoverson (a classic, for good reason)
9. Okay, yes, there’s the section where I keep my books (I wrote them, therefore they are notable to me)
10. There’s also the section of Japanese crafts books (these make my heart sing)

Oh man. On any given day this list would look different.

Your turn! Show your crafts books and tell about your favourites.

Crafty Bookworm is a post from Kim Werker's blog.

When I sewed the last felt spot onto Owen’s hat on Monday, I kinda sorta burst into tears. I’d made my kid’s first Halloween costume, dude. I felt like a god.

Granted, I had a lot of help.

Help #1: The pattern for the hat, by Michele Wilcox for Coats & Clark. (It’s intended to be a dragon, but I left off the tail and anyway, he’s a dinosaur, okay?) The pattern is written in one size, for a toddler. My kid has a very, very big head. More crochet details on Ravelry.

Help #2: My friend Samantha who was as excited for Owen’s first Halloween as I was. She offered to keep an eye out for a purple outfit that might go with the hat. (My original plan, see, was just to make the hat and leave it at that.) Last week she phoned me from a thrift store in another city and said, “There’s this purple velour suit,” and I barely let her finish the sentence before I was all, “Get it!” Little did either of us know that it would match the hat almost perfectly.

Help #3: Greg, who said, “Why don’t you just use felt for the spots instead of spending hours crocheting them all?” And though I wanted to crochet them so that the hat and suit would be washable, I admitted he was right. I never would have finished it all if I hadn’t been able to do all the spots in just an hour.

Help #4: My Mighty Ugly stash, which had within it some green felt in the perfect colour.

Et voilà. A comfortable, spotted purple dinosaur costume.

Isn’t he menacing, all reading and everything?

RAWR!

He’s going to wear this hat all season, too.

Attack of the Baby Dinosaur! is a post from Kim Werker's blog.

And to top it off, I finished the first sweater I’ve made for Owen, and he wore it to the park yesterday. (The park was deserted in the middle of a gorgeous Sunday. What on earth were people doing?)

I followed the Willie pattern by Pamela Wynne, sans intarsia wiener dog (best pattern name ever, hey?). It’s a very simple round-yoke project, though next time I’ll set aside more underarm stitches so joining the sleeves and body for the yoke won’t be so painful. (If that’s Greek to you, speak up. I’d never made a round-yoke project before, and had I known the effect of the set-aside underarm stitches, I’d have done things differently. Mad props to my pal Alexa for helping me fight through the beginning of the yoke.)

This project was an adventure in frugality for me. I’d bought the drab-coloured yarn when we were first applying to adopt, having in mind to make a wee baby sweater. But then Owen arrived suddenly, and by the time I had my knitting wits about me again I needed to make a bigger size than my yarn would accommodate. So I dug around my stash till I found the cream yarn in the same weight, and used that for the edgings. And, as you can see, I switched to it when I ran out of drab yarn at the top of the yoke. I think the sweater looks better this way, actually, so I’m glad I was forced to make that decision.

I found the buttons while cleaning out my crafts stuff, so that was further stash-busting serendipity.

As a crafter, I now feel like I’m properly providing for my kid. This is a hard thing to explain, but perhaps you crafty parents know what I mean. Sure, I make his food, but this is different. This is the warmth and comfort of a handmade sweater.

ETA: Project details are all on Ravelry.

Fall is the best season, especially in a handmade sweater. is a post from Kim Werker's blog.

Greg’s started going to a class one or two evenings a week, which is like added crafting magic. I put the baby to bed, eat something, then watch all sorts of vaguely uninteresting television and knit.

Which means I’m actually making progress.

And that’s a very good thing, because there’s a wee fetus out there who will need some handknits for his arrival in a few months. I didn’t have enough notice to make newborn stuff for Owen, but this cousin-to-be of his, oh, he’ll have handknits.

 Starting with a wee toque from my friend Alexa‘s spanking new book, 9 Months of Knitting. (I have it in mind to make the same toque in the adult size for my brother- and sister-in-law, but I won’t get that ambitious till I finish the other things I’m making for the-fetus-otherwise-known-to-me-as-Nephew.)

I love this book. There ain’t an ounce of nauseating baby pastel cheesy saccharine precious bullshit in it. And yet there also ain’t an ounce of manufactured irreverence. The projects are freaking adorable. And practical. And awesome. So. Right. I highly recommend it if you have tiny humans to knit for. (Also, some patterns are totally for adult humans.)

The Details

More on Ravelry
Pattern: Hunter, from 9 Months of Knitting by Alexa Ludeman and Emily Wessel
Size: Newborn
Yarn: Louisa Harding Kashmir Aran, one ball
Needles: 4.5mm dpns
Started: 8 October 2011
Finished: 12 October 2011

Finished: A Wee Toque! is a post from Kim Werker's blog.

With a couple of important yet not universally applicable exceptions¹, you cannot control what others do with your work.

The minute it escapes your possession, your work will be interpreted, judged, manipulated and sometimes downright defiled by people you don’t even know. One day I’ll tell you the story of how Greg reacted when his parents hung one of his stunning mosaics over the toilet².

This is the nature of creative work. Hell, this is the nature of some dude on Twitter overhearing your vacuous conversation on the bus.

And I’ll argue till I’m blue in the face that this isn’t a bad part of creative work. Even if it stings. Even if it offends.

Which is why I think this post by Katrina over at the Salt City Spice blog is bunk. In it she argues that it’s bad behaviour to publicly bookmark (on Pinterest) a product with the intent to make something like it yourself, specifically if it’s a handmade item. That somehow it’s failing to support crafty businesspeople.

But that’s not how it works. The onus is on crafty businesspeople to make products that people will buy.

If your products are constructed very simply and you photograph them well and you market to a crafty audience, you’re going to find that some potential customers will make something similar for themselves instead of buying from you. If you want fewer people to do themselves and more to buy from you, you’re going to have to create some sort of perceived value that convinces them to buy your goods instead of making some on their own. This is totally possible. It happens all the time. Look at how many people turn a profit selling zipper pouches.

Even if your products are complex, people may take inspiration from them for their own projects. So what?

The scope of Katrina’s post is limited to recreational use – she’s not even talking about the far more complicated topic of where the lines get drawn when the parties in question are all selling things³.

There is an insidious undercurrent of rule-following in the crafts world. Did you know there are people out there who think they could get arrested for altering a crochet pattern for their own use? They think making a short-sleeve sweater with long sleeves instead is violating the designer’s copyright.

Their fear of breaking these rules (that don’t exist) hinders their enjoyment of their craft. And then there’s the effect it has on their creative expression, in general.

That’s an extreme example, but as evidenced by Katrina’s post there’s a far more widespread assumption that we need to watch out for people’s feelings when we make creative decisions. And though of course I’m not advocating rampant assholery, I do think our creative business community would benefit from a somewhat tougher attitude. Not an attitude of everyone for himself, but an attitude that as businesspeople, we sometimes need to be headstrong rather than soft-hearted.

Creative work is personal. And so it can really hurt when people behave in ways we wish they wouldn’t when it comes to our work. But the sooner we accept that we can’t control these things, the sooner we accept that the free exchange of ideas is the basis of a healthy society, the sooner we’ll be able to return our focus to creating a sustainable business for ourselves.

A business, I hope, that participates in the exchange of ideas and knowledge in our creative community.

Prying Control from Your Cold, Cramped Hands is a post from Kim Werker's blog.

So I consider it a tremendous triumph that I’m writing this in my studio right now. Not at the desk, which is covered with crap. On the couch, which, I’ve decided, no workspace should ever be without.

My studio now must do double duty, you see, as my work- and crafts-space, and as the guest room. Hence the couch, which hides a bed.

I was going to wait to take photos until things are all organized and pretty, but I’m spurred to show some things off now because Interweave, publisher of two of my books, is having a show-your-stash event to coincide with their first annual Stashbuster sale*. And most of the work I’m doing on this room right now is managing my stash. Today: yarn.

Since Owen was wee, I’ve been saving formula canisters with the plan to follow Lee Meredith’s instructions to mount cans on the wall and use them for decorative yarn storage. As of last weekend, I had 38 large canisters. And a Greg who was eager to get my crap out of the living room and offered to put the canisters up himself. He didn’t follow Lee’s instructions, but the idea is all hers.

In the nine canisters we mounted just below my storage shelves are baby-friendly balls of yarn I’ve been collecting in fairly coordinated colours.

On the opposite wall is what I find myself referring to as the large array. I have it in mind to fill these in a colour spectrum. Someday. Soon, hopefully.

See, I have a lot of stash to organize.

—

* Interweave’s Stashbuster sale is on till the end of next week. Dude. Crochet Me is on sale for $8.78! And both the paper and ebook versions of Crocheted Gifts are on sale, too.

AND, Interweave’s having a contest. Here’s how they explain it over on their Flickr page:

Show us your stash! This September at Interweave we’re kicking off a Stash Bash celebration of the stash and encouraging crafters to upload their photos of their craft collections. All stashes apply: books, magazines, yarn, fabric, fiber, paper, beads, dyeing and paint supplies, brushes, glitter, stamps, you name it! We’d love to see some pretty close-ups of some of your collections too, or interesting photos of how you organize your space.

Plus, there’s a chance to win some very cool prizes! One winner selected at random from all the uploaded entries to this Flickr pool will win his/her choice of 5 NEW BOOKS from Interweave Books’ 2011 collections – choose from among 35+ new books published this year! Five additional winners selected at random will win copies of either INSIDE THE CREATIVE STUDIO: Inspiration and Ideas for Your Art and Craft Space by Cate Coulacos Prato (available in October) or THE CRAFTER’S GUIDE TO TAKING GREAT PHOTOS by Heidi Adnum (available in November). Winners will be selected on September 17, the day after our September Stash Busters Sale.

Stash Bash and a Studio Sneak Peek is a post from Kim Werker's blog.

Maybe this will do it.

Dear crafts,

For the last few months, I’ve felt like I’ve been unfaithful to you. I’ve been thinking of myself as a maker.

I know this comes as a bit of a shock – it’s a bit of a shock to me, too. I don’t even know how to solder.

It’s just, with Maker Faire Vancouver and everything, I’ve met lots of people and it seems these people are my people. Mostly because it doesn’t even matter that we don’t all make the same stuff. Mostly because we do like to think about the bigger picture of how making stuff fits into our lives, our communities, our society.

I still love you, crafts – I’ll always love you – I’m just not in love with you right now, you know what I’m saying?

It’s your focus on the way things look and your disinterest when I want to talk about how things work or what they mean. It’s how you like to stare into shop windows but you’re not excited about ideas.

No, you’re right. Many crafters are interested in the whys and the hows. It’s why I love spending time with other makers who are also crafters, even if they don’t think of themselves as capital-M Makers – I believe crafting is making. The crafters I love spending time with are also interested in craft as ethos, not just craft as activity.

I can see how you may find this confusing.

It’s possible you’ll never really understand, but I know you agree that I need to be happy. I need to have conversations about all sorts of meaty ideas related society, art, technology, education, history, materials, technique, science and aesthetics. I have those conversations with some crafters, absolutely. Crafters I love with all my heart. But as I said, they’re makers, too. Most of the activity surrounding crafts isn’t these kinds of conversations – it’s ogling over cute cats with a bird on top.

I know what you’re thinking – cute cats with a bird on top do, indeed, have a place in our lives and culture. But I’m not that interested in cats or putting a bird on things. Unless you feel like tossing around ideas about why cats and birds and owls and deer are such a huge part of projects and conversation amongst crafters… No? Right. See, that’s my point.

I’ll continue to learn a lot from you, craft. You’re an important part of my life and always will be. I just need to spend more time with makers, now. I’ll teach them how to crochet, don’t you worry. And I’ll learn a lot of things that will almost certainly affect the crafting I do.

I’ll shout from the rooftops about how important you are – to me and to everyone.

What do you think about maybe having an open relationship?

Much love,
Kim

Dear crafts, can we see other people? is a post from Kim Werker's blog.

I’m really psyched to have had the opportunity to write a bit of a guide to making a Mighty Ugly creature for the CRAFT blog. I mean, it’s CRAFT! And I got to sit for an afternoon and make and photograph an ugly creature! Fun times.

So if you’ve been listening to me blather about ugly for a year but have felt timid about giving the challenge a shot, perhaps that post will help you out. At the very least, I hope it helps explain the concept of the project. And kicks, like, every crafter to make something ugly on purpose.

—

In other news, I’m beside myself with excitement to have learned the session I pitched for the Hello Etsy, Portland, one-day small-business conference was accepted! If you’re anywhere near the area, you should check it out – Saturday, September 17th. Oh man. It’s been over a year since I’ve visited Portland. Way. too. long.

New Tutorial on CRAFT: Need a Push to Make Something Ugly? is a post from Kim Werker's blog.

To sum up, Maker Faire blew my mind. It was the most fun I’ve had in a very long time, and I generally have a lot of fun. The vibe of creativity and community was nearly palpable. There was an utter lack of pretentiousness – no matter a maker’s passion, ideas were shared and lessons taught. It was like a creative, educational UTOPIA. I’m not even kidding.

More thoughts in upcoming posts. For now, photos!

A member of the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild* made a the QR code of the guild's URL.

The Guild had a design wall set up where people could mess around with quilt squares. (That's my dad with Guild president Kalin Whyte.)

Paper lanterns in the form of a Dalek and Mr. Spock!

The famed Mondo Spider made regular tours of the grounds.

Disaster Area had this wicked array of torches that was controlled by a kid's piano toy.

Members of the Fraser Valley Knitting Guild taught countless people how to knit (and not only women!).

The place was PACKED.

And of course I was there as a maker! That's what my next post in the series will be about.

People of all ages, boys and girls, men and women, made a lot of ugly creatures. It was AMAZING.

*I’ve told you I joined the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild? I’m very excited about this, even though I can’t attend my first meeting as a member. Still. This is a group with some serious creative energy.

Vancouver Mini Maker Faire is a post from Kim Werker's blog.