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emPower People Knitting Pattern

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Have you heard about emPower People? It’s a craftivism effort aimed at sparking engagement and conversation around social justice issues.

The group was co-founded by Diane of Lady Dye Yarns, designer Casapinka, Laverne of BzyPeach, and Ashley of A Jackson Illustrations. They have developed knitting, crochet and sewing patterns for a purple headscarf/cowl, which you can grab at the website linked above.

(The knitting pattern is also on Ravelry if you are OK with Ravelry right now.)

The original was worked in DK weight but you can use two strands of fingering or adjust for other yarn weights depending on what you have (though of course supporting an independent yarn maker in this time would be a great idea, too).

The thought behind the design is that it’s something you can wear when going to gatherings, marching, voting or any other time to spark conversation, engagement and action. The group is committed to embracing humanity and family, embodying community, emphasizing equality and emancipating equity. And it’s a pretty cute accessory, too.

[Photo: Casapinka.]

Specific to knitters, you can join our Knitting Patterns Only group to get, well, knitting patterns, ask questions and gain inspiration for what to knit next.

Check out these books dedicated to Knitted Cowl Patterns still looking for more cowl patterns? Check these out on Etsy.

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Tips for Picking the Right Color Yarn for Your Project

I have never been all that picky about the colors I use in knitting projects. When choosing colors for projects to go in my books, I try to pick colors that go together in individual projects and also to use a variety of colors among the projects in the book, so while I love blue and green I make sure to throw in orange and yellow as well, for example.

When knitting projects for myself I’m usually using stash so whatever I have is good enough. Or if I do happen to be buying yarn for a project, it’s usually more about the texture or fiber content of the yarn first, then choosing a color I like, rather than having a color in mind then finding a yarn with that in its line.

Marie at Olive Knits was looking for the perfect green yarn to replace a store bought sweater, and she found that picking out exactly the right shade was trickier than she expected.

She wrote a blog post full of tips for finding the right yarn when you’re looking for a particular color.

I think the hardest part of this these days is that we tend to do so much online shopping for yarn, either because we don’t have a local yarn store, we can’t get what we want locally or we want to support independent makers who live elsewhere. And if you’ve ever received yarn that isn’t quite the color you were expecting you know what I’m talking about.

One of her tips, then, is to look at a color swatch for the yarn you’re thinking about buying on every monitor or device you have available because it probably will look different on different screens (and maybe different still in person, and under different lighting conditions, or if you use it in a project with other colors…).

Check out her post for more tips on finding the right color for your project.

[Photo: Olive Knits.]

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