Ravelry Highlights Diversity with Humans of Ravelry Series

After the recent discussions about racism in the knitting industry, Ravelry has made a conscious effort to include more diverse designers in its roundups and posts that hit the front page of the site.

They recently introduced a “humans of Ravelry” series, and this month’s feature is about Dana, aka dwj1978 on Ravelry and callmedjw on Instagram and elsewhere. Her blog is Yards of Happiness, and I was already meaning to tell you about her because of this awesome post on Mason-Dixon Knitting all about knitting custom dog sweaters (her dogs are adorable!) using human-sized patterns as inspiration.

I love her bright and colorful style, and am in awe that she once knit 27 sweaters in a year (makes my desire to knit 12 this year seem downright tame). Head to Ravelry to read her knitting origin story, the tale of the 27 sweaters and more!

[Photos via Ravelry.]

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Next Pattern:

Linen stitch is one of my favorite knitting stitch patterns that, every time I use it in a project, I think about how I don’t use it often enough.

It’s an easy stitch to make, with slip stitches done with the yarn held to the front of the work on the right/front side and to the back on the wrong/back side, which makes the strand of yarn a visible part of the pattern.

It also makes a fabric that is thick and looks kind of like a woven fabric.

I recently used linen stitch to make a double-thick pot holder, which I worked in a kind of interesting way. I didn’t want to have to do any sewing on the project, so I started it from a crochet cast on and picked up stitches from the side of the cast on to make the hot pad all in one piece in the round with the edge sealed.

This requires working on two circular needles, which is another technique I don’t use that often and am always reminded how much I like it when I do.

The combination of double thickness and the stitch pattern makes for a hot pad that’s already pretty thick, but I also added a bit of old towel to the inside before I closed up the end to make it super thick and extra protective for your surfaces.

I found the engineering challenge of this construction method to be a lot of fun, but you could also just knit it as a tube (casting on twice as many stitches as I did) and sew up the ends by hand when the knitting is done. Either way you’ve got a useful and pretty addition to your kitchen, whether you work it in a solid color, stripes or as a stash busting project will all your cotton odd balls.

You can grab the pattern over at Our Daily Craft, or check it out on Ravelry.

40+ Hot Pads You Can Sew For The Kitchen [Sewing]

A Cozy Knit to Calm Your Mind

Double Knit an Infinity Scarf

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