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Swatched Aims to Share the Art of Knitting and Crochet

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Have you ever watched the Netflix show “The Chef’s Table”? I find it really fascinating to learn about people who are really good at what they do and really passionate about what they do and who have creative careers and lives. I feel like that’s inspiring to me as a creative person.

Cereal Made is looking to produce a similar show focusing on fiber artists called “Swatched.” They’ve made a brief proof of concept video featuring knitter, weaver and creative spirit Angela Tong.

She talks about growing up near Boston a child of immigrants, going to art school and ultimately learning to knit, which opened the way to her creative career. She talks about the problems that have been coming to light in recent months having to do with diversity in the knitting and fiber arts communities, and her place on the recently formed Vogue Knitting Diversity Advisory Council, where she hopes to have a hand in making the knitting community more welcoming.

The video is well worth watching and the project sounds like a great one. They are currently looking for funding partners to make it an ongoing series that will “delve into the forces that drive these obsessive artists in their quest for creativity and perfection.” Sounds amazing to me.

[Photo: Swatched.]

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Stacking Stars Knitting Pattern

There are so many things I love about the Stacking Stars pattern from Frankie Brown.

First, it looks like a kid’s toy, which it totally could be, though the intent is to stack the stars into a Christmas tree bit of decor.

I love the rainbow gradient, which makes it all the more cheerful, and serves as a reminder that, while you can plan out your colors beautifully, you can also use your stash for your own brilliant hodgepodge of a star tree.

It includes patterns for nine different sizes of stars, from 2 inch to 6 inch, which makes the perfect pile to look like a tree. What’s more, these stars are worked in garter stitch, so it’s a pretty easy pattern, even if you’re new to knitting. And the stars are solid, so not only can you use them to make your own amazing stack of a tree, you can make more to decorate packages, use as Christmas tree ornaments, make a darling garland, or all of the above.

The pattern calls for DK weight yarn but of course you could play with the yarn weight, too, to make stars that are even larger or smaller than the ones shown. And the bigger ones are made by just working more repeats, so you could continue to work as established to make larger ones to suit all your crafty purposes if you like.

Frankie’s patterns are free on Ravelry, but they ask that people who enjoy their patterns send a donation to the Children’s Liver Disease Foundation. Through the years they have raised more that £26,000 for the charity, which helps families of kids with liver disease. You can donate to Frankie’s fundraiser here. They have tons of great holiday projects and other designs you can check out on their designer page on Ravelry.

[Photo: Frankie Brown]

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