Crafty Crafty Editor Says Goodbye

Lauren O’Farrell, probably better known by her monicker Deadly Knitshade, has worked fro the British craft website Crafty Crafty since 2007, but as all good things must end, she’s announced that she will no longer be a part of that publication.

O’Farrell says she will “spread my love of the handmade elsewhere,” and the Crafty Crafty site will be on hiatus as behind-the-scenes changes are made. If you want to keep up with her knitty adventures, you can finer her at Whodunnknit or follow her on Twitter. She’ll also remain active with Stitch London, the largest crafty community in the UK, which she co-runs. She says that site “is pegged to be the next big UK craft news site,” and she’s becoming the editor over there, so that gives you some clue of what her plans are after Crafty Crafty.

You can see more from O’Farrell in her book Stitch London, which I reviewed at About and recently gave away here. It will be interesting to see what happens with these two sites! In the meantime, check out Lauren’s farewell and a look back at some of her favorite posts from the more than 1,200 she’s written for Crafty Crafty.

[Photo by Lauren O’Farrell.]

Next Pattern:

Clean and Crafty: Dishcloth Collection

As I write this, it’s probably time to start thinking about winter knitting if you haven’t already. And it’s definitely time to think about gift knitting if you have any of that you plan to do for the holidays.

The Dreamy Waves Scarf from Knit Picks, designed by Stacey Winklepleck, would be a great project to go in either category.

It uses two different multicolored yarns and a simple repeating wave pattern to make a project that looks a lot more complicated and dramatic than it is. The gradient look happens naturally just by switching which yarn you’re knitting with.

This pattern uses worsted weight yarn so it’s a pretty quick project even though a scarf is large and this one is pretty wide. It measures 8.5 inches (21.5 cm) wide and 63 inches or 120 cm long. Of course you can make it longer or shorter as you like. As written it takes one ball of each color so it’s a pretty economical project, too.

It’s rated for intermediate knitters but if you know how to do various increases and decreases you’ll be all set. The pattern uses knit 2 together, make 1 left and right, centered double decrease and slip slip knit. All of the stitches are explained in a glossary in the pattern so even if you haven’t done all of them it shouldn’t be too hard to figure out.

The pattern also includes tons of options for different colorways in yarn that Knit Picks sells, so you can see how different combinations knit up before you buy the yarn. That’s such a great idea!

Of course if you already have two multicolored yarns with long color runs on hand, you can absolutely use them, too. It might also be fun, but would give you a totally different look, to use a solid color and a bunch of scraps or one multicolored yarn to see how the different colors play together. So many options!

You can grab this free pattern and check out all the color options at Knit Picks.

[Photo: Knit Picks]

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