The Sunlight Shawl for Sad People Re-release!

Wednesday 16 March 2016
The Sunlight Shawl for Sad People 2016 re-release!


Thank you to the amazingly talented Vivienne McMaster from Be Your Own Beloved photography for shooting her beautiful self portraits for this pattern! She is a gorgeous, wonderful, body-positive, and just genuine and kind person (and all around inspiring woman!). I am so grateful that she said yes to taking these photos!
She teaches wonderful self portraiture based e-courses rooted in body positivity and self love. I strongly suggest you take a look at what she has to offer!
This yarn is the lovely ash alberg’s mermaid hair yarn! For a limited time you can get a special pack of ash’s stitch markers if you order a skein of their yarn! You just need to include the word SUNLIGHT in your order! It’s gorgeous single ply yarn that went so perfectly with this project!
You can purchase the yarn here!
I LOVE COLLABORATIONS! These two people are just so awesome!
This shawl is still very very free, and excellent for beginners who are drawn to the idea of shawls, but who may not fully comprehend how shawl-y they can be.  
Hells yeah! I hope you like the new photos and the new PDF! <3 <3 

Another Stockinette PENIS UGH

Monday 29 February 2016
UGH

I recharted the damn thing and everything!

In the words of my beloved parter "Oh wow it looks even more like a dick now".

Thanks Thomas. Thank you verrrry much.

I still can't show you, as much as I'd like to. So instead I'm going to post a few pictures that I've found of knitting that looks like penises... so that I don't feel so bad about my charting skills.



I'm just going to pretend that this hat was an accident because that would make me feel better about my own personal knitted penis accident...


This young fellow looks like he's secure in his manhood. He's got a pink scarf haha... oh wait... 



I need this dress for when I have to deal with all the mansplaining tech industry dudes. Maybe they'll leave me alone if it looks like I systematically cut off the penises of my foe and super glue them to my favourite dress. 

Final hilarious thing for the evening: While I was googling "knitting that looks like penises" two photos of mine came up! I haven't laughed that hard in a long time. The Waiting for Rain shawl on the right and the giant (that's me!) standing next to the normal-sized person in the bottom. Magical. 




Stockinette penises.

Saturday 27 February 2016
Sigh.

Stockinette penises. Only really a problem for designers.

I will spare you the photos (mostly because they shawl-penis showed up on is scheduled for a top-secret launch in October of 2016). But I was happily knitting away on my sample, watching Walking Dead, and I look down after a good solid chunk of knitting and realize that there's, what looks like, a penis in my shawl. 

I sent the picture to a few of my knitting friends... "yes, yup, it looks like a dick"

So then I spent the rest of the night ripping out all the work I did, re-charting the last chart of the shawl so that the penis went away. 

Here's a picture instead of a kitten to make everyone make myself feel better





5 things you might not know about me!

Saturday 6 February 2016
Hey everyone! Since Waiting for Rain has launched I have been getting lots of hits on all my social media! I'm thrilled! I thought I would kind of introduce myself to some of the folks who might not know who I am - and the best way to do that is to write a big ol' list of things that people might not know about me :)

#1 - I used to be a concert photographer / music reviewer. When I was 17 I accidentally got a job reviewing a Metric concert. My friend had landed a job shooting for this blog (which is sadly, but not surprisingly, no longer active) and when the editor had asked if she knew someone who could join her and to write a review she had recommended me. I written in my journal a lot growing up, and loved writing short stories - but honestly, I hadn't even successfully written an essay at that point (see interesting thing #2). I quickly went online and read everything I could find on writing concert reviews. After I went to the concert, wrote my review, and got asked back! Eventually my editor realized I could take pictures as well (cheaper for him to just get me to do both!). I moved from blogs to magazines then back to blogs again. It was a hilarious couple of years. I have many stories from this time... but maybe this blog entry isn't a place to get into them hehe.








#2 - I dropped out of school in Grade 4. I don't have my high school diploma. And I still haven't really ever technically written a proper 5 x 5 paragraph essay. When I was in grade 4 my mum took me out of regular school and dropped me into an alternative school where I never went to any formal classes, although I learned so much while I was there. When I turned 16 I dropped out of that school too and started hanging around a youth centre in my neighbourhood. I took a job placement program and ended up landing a shelving gig when I was 17 at the Vancouver Public Library system. I did eventually go to college, and of course dropped out, but that's a story for another time.

#3 - I'm a giant! Here have some photos of me towering over the general population. (Okay maybe not a giant, but definitely an Amazon. I'm 6 feet tall for those wondering)





















#4 - I'm a regularly published person too, not just knitting patterns. Before I started writing and doing layout and graphic design and taking pictures for knitting patterns I wrote and did layout, graphic design and photography for a bunch of zines! (what are zines? Here, let me link you to the lovely wikipedia article on the topic) I cofounded a zine called RAIN (Radical Art In Nature) with my best friend Carla Bergman (She modelled for my Blanket for Seriously Cold People - she's absolutely wonderful and you should click over to her website to see all the cool stuff she does!), and worked on a few other personal and collaborative zines as well. Alongside the zine making, I also wrote for and curated two chapters of a book called Stay Solid, which was done by a whole pile of cool people. It's a radical handbook for youth!



#5 - I drive a scooter! And I own a pair of socks called my Scooter Socks. The pattern may one day make it's way onto ravelry... but I'm not promising anything.



In summary: I'm a big ol' weirdo.

Thanks for reading! 



Softsweater Games! - This War of Mine game review.

Monday 1 February 2016
Oh hi folks,

So me and my partner play quite a few video games, what's better than sitting next to someone playing an interactive story while you knit! It's like storytelling where you get to direct the story! For the most part at least.

So this game This War Of Mine.



It's set in wartimes. I actually hate war games, usually they're a bunch of dude-voices yelling and guns shelling and it's just a big bummer all around. This game isn't like that, you start off as a group of friends who have all unfortunately been homeless since the war hit. They find an abandoned house, which still has some walls intact and settle in.

The way the game mechanics work is that you have daytime and nighttime. During the day you tend your wounds with bandages, treat your sick friends with medicine and cook the veggies you find or the rats you catch. You can patch up the walls, you can build things to grow food, you can make moonshine. You know, all the ESSENTIALS for surviving a war.

In the evening you choose one of your crew to scavenge. And someone else to guard. The lucky leftover people get to sleep in the rickety beds you have to make during the day.

The first 18 nights we didn't encounter any assholes. Just lovely people who were actually offering up food and things to help us stay alive. A 'neighbour' brought us some veggies from their garden, later one of our crew helped them patch up their house a bit. It was mostly really lovely, eventually we met a homeless guy who needed food, but we hadn't brought any with us so we had to leave him. When we went back a couple of nights later he had passed away due to starvation. That was a bummer - but honest and realistic.

By night 19 we were struggling because one of our buddies had gotten stabbed when someone tried in the night to rob us. We didn't have any bandages and the place we chose to scavenge had an elderly couple in it. They were struggling to survive and the woman was sick.

We walked past them and took some bandages, and they didn't fight us. Because that's realistic. The man followed closely behind and begged us not to steal his wife's medicine.

Rough night, the game got a bit harder after then.

When the character that we were playing returned, everyone turned on him. They were disgusted that we had stolen medical supplies from an elderly couple. It's very honest to real life with everyone's thoughts and opinions coming into play.

And me and Thomas sat rationalizing it, but it made us think. What would we do if it weren't just a game?

We're on day 21 now and I can see that this game has a lot more to offer. The first five hours of gameplay were engaging, full of moral contradictions and lots of contemplation. We'll keep playing.

Well worth the $15.


Oh, and for the knitters, I am working my way through Part 1 of my #waitingforrainKAL! We started today if you're interested in joining pop over to my instagram account or my ravelry page to register!

Waiting for Rain is number one on hot right now!

Sunday 31 January 2016
I'm floored! And humbled! And feel so so grateful! 



Waiting for Rain!

Saturday 30 January 2016
Hey everyone, I'm so happy to release this pattern for the world finally!

Waiting for Rain! 




It's been in development for-fucking-ever. It's a concept I came up with while I was knitting Shine! Back in the early months of 2015. You probably know me enough by now to know that I'm obsessed with lace charts. I was looking at my garter short rows going... "hmm, can I add lace to this?"

I played around for many months trying to figure out what the hell to do to get the lace to fit into the short rows. Eventually I figured out that charting them was the way!


The first version (seen above in Cascade Eco) of this shawl had three different lace charts in it - I only liked the finished version of the one of them - so I just stuck with that one for the published version. But the charts are brilliant, they can incorporate all sorts of different lace. I'm looking forward to trying out some more ideas I have for shawls using this lovely lace ripped-into-garter look.

They're weird charts - they're kind of backwards and yet really quite intuitive. For the published version of Waiting for Rain I also included written instructions for folks who hate charts.

I'm going to call this technique...

softsweater's charted lace short row technique or SCLSRT for short! 


(that's the worst acronym I've ever heard, but I'm rolling with it)

The plan is to perfect it and then teach a couple of classes on it in the near future at a couple of the LYS in Vancouver. SCLSRT ftw! 



Just a little instagram highlight reel

Friday 29 January 2016
Man, sometimes I'm just on point with all my photos. I am loving this little set of behind-the-scenes photos of all the knitting I've been working on!

The shiny yellow one is a re-knit of an old pattern of mine from 2012! The Sunlight Shawl for Sad People. It has a sister-shawl coming soon in some lovely Frida Fuchs yarns so I thought I would work up another of the sunlight shawls to reshoot!

I'm using a skein of Ash from Sunflower Knits Mermaid hair yarn! They'll have more in their shop once the re-release happens and I'll make sure to link here!



The sunlight shawl for sad people!


This is a pile of lovely tiny knitted things (more on this soon)


The sunlight shawl and her sister shawl (coming soon!)


Oh I'm obsessed with this bolga basket. It's just a little one but it fits all my projects! Much love! 


A Sweet Fiber's Canadian Yarn Mini Collection!

Sunday 24 January 2016

A Canadian Yarn Mini Collection!


Me and Nicola have been working on these patterns since we fell in love with Sweet Fiber's new base Canadian at Knit City 2015. The yarn is so gorgeously rustic, and so gorgeously dyed. We fell in love immediately. 

I designed a giant squishy lovely top-down triangle shawl with gorgeous architectural lace and Nicola (Tiny Island Textiles) worked out an ingenious sideways shallow triangle shawl with lovely lace meshing! Hers doubles (triples?) as a shawl, a scarf and a cowl if you tie it right! She's brilliant, definitely a must-knit.


 Make sure that if you're in love, to hit the favourites button (it supports little designers more than you know!)

The yarn is freshly dyed and ready to order over on Melissa's website! Pop over and take a look there too!




Authenticity!



Nicola's Forager's Scarf!








Social Media master

Friday 8 January 2016
Hey everyone! I finally decided to build myself a little facebook group for Softsweater knits! A new era of learning about when I publish patterns is here! You can click the like button if you'd like, or you could just ignore and continue along as you've been doing :)



Oh and if you missed the last post I also have a mailing list now. I'm really moving on up! 


Thanks for stopping on by!
Tuesday 5 January 2016
Lots of exciting things for 2016.

I'm enjoying planning my year. I'm not doing it all at once at the beginning, it's important for me to reevaluate things often, so I like to keep the process long and drawn out. Lots of lists of dreams, and things I need to remember. 2015 was really a wonderful year. I was able to get out of doing some things that weren't working for me and get into doing some really amazing things. I'm pretty darn grateful that I had the support to make the right decisions for me.

Blah blah blah new years blah happy blah blah :P 

A couple of the fun things that I have going for 2016 are top secret, and I'm going to be aching to talk about them to everyone. The worst kind of secrets are the ones that make me so excited that it almost hurts to hold my tongue. Anyone who knows me knows that I'm notoriously bad with these kinds of secrets, so you can guarantee there will be little hints in all my instagram posts... I'll be able to reveal a bit more once I get some ducks in a row...

One of the things I'm feeling really excited about that I can talk to you about is that me and the lovely Nicola Hodges from Tiny Island Textiles have been working with Melissa from Sweet Fiber to design some fun stuff with a new line of yarn she's been dying! We got our hands on a couple of skeins at Knit City 2015 and it's gorgeous stuff! Our launch for the patterns is coming up soon, slotted for some time in mid-Janurary. 

I have been absolutely smitten with my sample of my project. I have been wearing it an embarrassingly large amount. Like, I wear it all the time. It's big and squishy and so so warm. True love in knitting form. 

Oh that all reminds me! I've started a mailing list! Keep track of me and the weird things I do! It will be used to keep you all updated with my pattern releases, special mailing-list only pattern deals, and other fun knitwear related things that I do. 

Subscribe to the Softsweater Knits mailing list




~ Sylvia 
Powered by Blogger.

Followers

Back to Top