DAL Winter 2012 Mood Board

The next round of DAL has started, and although I don't have much time, I think I'm going to participate in this one! There are two themes - Steampunk, and Elements.  I made the steampunk mood board, and really, I like it better than the other.  So that will probably be my focus.

I'm excited to see what everyone thinks up for this round! :)  You can click the image for a larger view.

DAL Summer 2012 Submission!

I have been wracking my brain to think of something for this round of Design Along - it seemed like I had a mental block all month about it, but I sat down today and sketched out all my ideas.  I narrowed it down to three that I really liked:

• A Pandora's box shawlette, with different lace panels representing the different things that Pandora let out into the world - skulls for death, boil-like bobbles, dropped stitches, etc.  I realized that this is a cool and kind of dark idea, but I would never have the time to execute it.  And, who am I kidding? I don't wear any of the shawlettes that I've made.
• A set of fingerless gloves based on Adam and Eve, in a leaf lace pattern that wrapped around the wrist and buttoned up the side. While this would be cool, there's not exactly a shortage of leaf lace fingerless gloves in the world.  I didn't think I was going to bring anything new to that arena.
• Finally, this:

 

It's a set of fingerless gloves based on the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur.  The princess Ariadne gave him a thread to find his way out of the labyrinth, and these gloves have embroidery detail that wraps around the hands in patterns as intricate as the person wants.

Yeah, it's a little simple, but it's different and do-able and I'm going to find the perfect yarn this week and the finished project is going to be pretty, just you wait and see!

DAL Summer 2012 Mood Board!

Whoohoo! This took way longer than I thought it would.  I tried to get as many photos in that I could.  Anyway, you can download it as a desktop background, too, which I think is super cool.  You can click on the file for a larger image or click here for it.

I can't wait to see the mythology-themed ideas and designs!

Summer DAL Mood Board Submissions

Whoa, the past three months have been a blur! It's time for the next round of Design Along, a challenge which asks knit and crochet artists to make up a pattern from theme to finished product.  This round's theme is Mythology, and I have no clue what I'm going to (attempt to) make.  I have some pictures for the board, though.

I picked all my favorite myths :) I will admire someone who can recognize all of them!

Don't go to the forum and cheat before you guess - well, you should click here go to the thread and vote for your favorite submissions, because that makes making the mood board way easier.

You can also submit your own images if you feel inclined - the group is a lot of fun, though most of us haven't been able to make the deadline :X

Unexcused Absence

I know I shouldn't make excuses, but I feel bad about not being around blog-land lately.  I'm going through a kind of rocky breakup with W, and school kicked my butt, and work... well... let's just say there was a temporary meltdown and knitting/blogging/designing/blog reading fell to the wayside.  I'm going to try to blog more in the coming months, because I have designs that are ready to be publishing and photos that I want to take and a whole list of reasons.

For now, I have the DAL Spring Mood Boards to show you!

 
The theme is "Summer Romance" - I'm not sure if I'll participate this round, I have a LOT of WIPs I need to do, but I love the theme SO MUCH... It makes me want to make a skirt.

Not like I've ever knit a wearable...

If you'd like to participate in the DAL, you should check out our Ravelry group! :D

Blarglglarmp.

Yes, I'm aware that the title of this post is not a word.  It is more like an onomatopeia, an expression of the feelings I've been feeling over the past week or two.  My new quarter has started, and I did a really stupid thing and picked 20 credits worth of classes.  Also, I'm driving back and forth between Rochester and work, and putting in between 15 and 20 hours for them each week!

Factor in trying to have a relationship, being president of a club... there is little to no designing going on, and very little crafting! 

But, I have an apartment! It's a different room in my old apartment, so it's nice and familiar.  Also, I got to take all of my junk out of storage, which is always a plus! It's so nice to have a quiet space to study and do work in, and not feel like I'm troubling people all the time by sitting on the couch or at their table, or cooking in their kitchen.

I have been working for the Hooks and Needles craft sale, too! I managed to finish five softies and four hats, which I'm pretty proud of considering I haven't even finished W's puppets... I had a bit of an assembly line going for hedgehogs but I never finished them.  Right now these are sitting on my desk...

With THESE...

Super delicious and colorful felt from Lupin Handmade. My housewarming present to me. :)

On top of all these things, the new DAL mood boards are done! My co-admin of the group made it, so, I'm really grateful.  I seriously don't know what I'd do without her :)

Winter 2011 Mood Board Submissions!

The next round for the Design Along is going to start soon, and mood board submissions are open until this Sunday! The theme is "Birds of a Feather."  And as usual, I'm showing off the images I chose to contribute :)  I actually have a LOT of bird photos, but they're all on my external hard drive, which I forgot to take with me during break.  C'est la vie. So, I dug around the internet looking for photos for the board!

I saw these feathers as a background on a blog, and I bookmarked the image source - but not the blog! So, if you know where this is from, let me know please :)

These cute things were my wallpaper for a while.  From Corby Wallpapers

I've also seen these two cuties on the internet in various places.  Not sure where the original source is.

Then, these birds.

Finally, an awesome feather drawing.  

I'm bummed out that I left my hard-drive in Rochester! If only the submission time was a little longer, I could post up my actual photos... but oh well.

Just like last time, even if you're not interested in submitting a photo, could you please vote in this thread on Ravelry? It helps me put the board together!

My DAL Design (And a little about how I got to it)

Goodness gracious, September went by REALLY fast.  Thankfully, I finally have a design for the DAL, and part of it knit to boot! But I'm going to have to work really fast if I want enough time to have the pattern tested and edited before the November 25th deadline.  I feel like it's going to be down to the wire for me again, but at least I won't be weaseling out of this like last time! :P

This round has been a bit hard for me.  I had a ton of ideas when the theme was announced ("fairytale") - but when I put the mood board together, I got a bit of a blank.  I spent time doodling on this piece of paper that I keep near my desk, and it took a huge beating.  I narrowed it down to three ideas:

There was a Seven Raven's Shawlette, which would have been double knit, reversible, and SO MUCH WORK.  There was the Princess and the Pea socks, which I really liked the idea of, but... they looked oddly familiar to Warren's room mate's socks... which I had never heard of, but am fascinated with! They're called Solmate Socks.  Cool idea, but... why not do something original? 

So, I settled on a gingerbread house inspired cardigan.  Wait.  Freeze.

I've never knit a cardigan before.  In fact, I've never designed a wearable before (unless you count socks, but really... I don't) and, seeing as I've only ever knit one adult-sized article of clothing, maybe I should scale it down in three months?

So, out went the pockets.  Out went the contrasting i-cord trim in white and the multicolored "gumdrop" bobbles that would have transitioned the edging from the stockinette stitch base.  (It looked so good in my head, but the look I got when I explained my idea at Hooks and Needles made me reconsider.  Writing it down now, and reading it, I understand)  I cut it down so that it would seem more like a knit object that babies would wear and less like... well, a gingerbread house costume.  It will have bright red buttons, though! That I will not compromise on.

So, that's where I'm at right now.  I'm not quite sure how I'm going to work the decreases for the yoke (having never worked one before) but I think I can fandangle it! I even did a swatch, although that's been entered into service as a brick... more on that some other time, I think.  I have a lot of projects going on right now, and I feel like I need to finish at least 8 before I can breathe again.

Fall 2010 Mood Boards!

Whoo hoo! Despite the horrible rain cloud that's been hanging over my head since last weekend, I've got the mood boards up for this round of Design Along!  I tried something new this time, and had people vote on images - last round, I had to do a TON of cropping, rotating, and resizing to get each image to fit into the three pages.  This round, I took the images with the most votes and plugged them into the boards with minimal formatting - I just stopped when I ran out of room.  The result is less images in (pretty much any images with less than 5 votes didn't get in) - I'm not sure how much I like them, but it was SO. MUCH. EASIER!

Anyway, the theme for the round was Fairytale.

Click on the images for larger ones - they are quite big :)

 

And now I want to say thanks to everyone that contributed!
sosoclever

yarn about yarn

Tinyknit

Rachael's Knits

The Sculpted Stitch

By Hand, With Heart

Melissa J. Leavitt Designs

soxnshawls

Bakuhatsu no Subarashii

DaneMum

wayfaring knitter

And everyone else who doesn't have a blog that I can stalk ;) If I forgot someone, let me know and I'll add you!

So, hope this inspires you - I can't wait to see the designs that come out of this round!  If you'd like to participate, check out the Design Along group on Ravelry - it's a TON of fun, and the community is really great.

Free Pattern - Sunflower

Originally, this pattern was supposed to be a whole scarf - tons of tiny sunflowers sewn together to make a stole.  But, I gave up on that - other projects got in the way.  I still want to make that stole, some day, maybe... eventually...

Anyway, these flowers would make a cute summer garland, or maybe a headband, or just knit up individually as coasters, brooches... whatever! The uses for knit flowers are seriously limitless.  I know.  I've made around a dozen of these puppies.  For amazing results, pair one with two knit leaves!

Anyway! Hope you enjoy this little pattern - it's more a set of notes than an actual 'pattern' - and if you make something totally inspired, let me know and I'll feature you! :)

Call to Contribute: Fall 2011 DAL Mood Board!

I'm so excited that the Fall 2011 DAL theme has been decided! This round's theme is Fairytale, and the mood board already has a ton of fairytale-themed pictures up on it - I'm hosting mine up on this blog post :)

So, "Why do I care," you ask? If you're a Ravelry member, go to the DAL group and do either of two things:

1. Contribute a photo or image (if you so choose) to the mood board thread.
2. Go to the mood board thread and click "love" underneath the images that you like.

Even if you don't want to participate by designing in the DAL, you can still do either of these two things.  This helps make the group funner for the people that DO participate, so please consider if you have any free time :)

And if you don't care, can you guess which fairytales I'm thinking of?  No checking the thread! :P

Oh - one more really important thing! Submissions for the mood board close August 28th.  So, if you want to contribute or vote, that's when that ends.

WWKIP Day and On (Finally!) Being Moved In.

Yesterday was the WWKIP event in Nashua, and so I went to the park and met lots of lovely knitters from the city - which was great, because I still don't know a terrible amount of people! I also finished two sunflowers for my DAL design - I'm leaning towards the smaller one, I think the larger one will be a good coaster for my tea pot.

Then, I went to Wal*mart to stock up on supplies (like a camera cable!) and buy a carpet that Lilac fell in love with.  I think it might be the texture, but she likes to roll around it, dig at it, and get her paws  up along the side and mark it with her chin!

I don't know if it's the addition of the rug or the fact that we've been here for two (2!) weeks, but I finally feel like I'm in MY apartment, not, say, sleeping in some stranger's guest room.  I'm so happy that I got a studio instead of a one bedroom or a two bedroom (like my last co-op.) I could spend a whole blog post talking about that, but instead I'm going to show you pictures of my aptartment!

Tiny Kitchen

Not many people can pull off the "stuffed animals as throw pillows" look.

Organized chaos.

Lilac doesn't get to go outside, but she likes to listen to kids play in the picnic area.

Anyway, it's exciting to be working full time, and putting together my own furniture. I miss my friends and family (and knitting time) but, the experience so far has been worth it.

Mood Boards for the First Round of DAL

 

 

Click on each photo for a larger image!

Thanks so everyone who participated and gave a photo to add! For those of you who are new to this thing I've been posting about, the idea is that you design an item based on this mood board.   If you post up your sketch on your blog (and email me that you do) or on the Ravelry Group AND have a completely finished design for sale or free by August 25th, 2011.  Each design will be entered into a drawing, and there will be prizes - I should have that all figured out by August 1st.  

Thanks again to everyone that put up a picture! (In no particular order):

Rebecca from The Sculpted Stitch

Linda from Tiny Knit

Melissa from Melissa J Leavitt Designs

Ryan from Joe d'Arc Crochet

Rachael from Rachael's Knits

Meg from Fuzz to Finish

Mary from By Hand, With Heart

Angela from Revelations of A Delusional Knitter

Annette from Knotrune

Jordan from In It To Knit It

Toby from Gizmometer

Sherry from A Written Life

Sarah from Apply Blossom & More

And everyone else who I couldn't stalk find the blog address of!

DAL Mood Board submissions are done tomorrow!

Hey guys! Just a head's up if you want to contribute to Design Along, the mood board submissions are due tomorrow.  You can submit a photo on the thread in the Rav group or by emailing me.  I'm going to post the mood boards up late tonight/early Monday morning, and then the floor is open to submit designs! The design can be for free, for sale, or for submission - the only requirements are that you post up a photo/scan of the sketch, a photo of the FO, and a link to the pattern on Ravelry.  Once you do, you're entered into a prize and I'll put a roundup of all the designs and posts up here :)

To entice you, here are some pictures that have gone up on the group that I find inspiring! 

P.S. - If you post up your design ideas in your blog, leave a comment saying so here and I'll follow you - just make sure to tag your posts "DAL" - in case I get behind :P

A Little Color In Rochester

First off, the theme for the Design Along is Garden! So, get on down to this thread and post a photo for the mood board by next Sunday if you want to contribute - it should be a lot of fun.



And speaking of fun (and gardens) - the Lilac festival is in full bloom (excuse the pun) and yesterday W and I braved the rain to go on a triple date and see some of the gorgeous flowers.  Last year, the festival was kind of a downer because warm weather had brought the flowers weeks before, so all we got to view were the remnants of flowers! But this year, some of the blooms had only just begun to open.  If we can overcome this gloomy, rainy weather then things will be gorgeous - of course, I will have moved out by then :(

But here are some photos anyway :)

Design-a-long!

A while back I had this super cool idea - to have something like a knit-a-long (KAL) but based around design! I started a thread in the Budding Designers Group on Ravelry, and the DAL - Design-A-Long was born!

Here's the premise:  Four times a year, I'll post a theme up here and on Ravelry.  If you want to participate, you sign up here or on Ravelry, and post a picture that is related to the theme that inspires you.  After one week, the pictures are compiled and I'll post up a mood board - from that mood board, participants each design and knit an original piece.

The ultimate goal of this is to give new designers a body of work and get used to the design process, and to flex the creativity of established designers.  Unlike other challenges out there, the timeline is a longer one, which means that your work can be as big as you want.

Anyway, if you're interested, drop me a line and check out the group on Ravelry! I'm trying to figure out how to make a button do-hickey thing... and writing the rules.

Also, you can vote for the upcoming theme in this thread.

I'm going to compile a list of participants and try to figure out prizes, graphics, etc.  If anyone wants to donate prizes let me know!