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Vickie Howell is Crowdfunding for a Knitting Show

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Vickie Howell seeks crowdfunding for online knitting show.In case you haven’t already heard about this one, Vickie Howell, once host of “Knitty Gritty” and all around champion of the fiber arts in any medium she can think of, has launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund a web series called “The Knit Show with Vickie Howell.”

The series will be the first studio-produced, community-funded episodic knitting program that will be available worldwide through YouTube.

Howell says she receives messages daily from people who miss DIY crafty TV, and she has been working behind-the-scenes for years trying to figure out how to make it work. But networks aren’t that interested in shows that aren’t reality TV or big budget scripted shows of the type that win awards.

“There isn’t currently a place at the table for niche, how-to programming. The cool thing is, though, we can make our own table,” she said in the launch video.

The Kickstarter is seeking to raise $75,000 — and raised more than $10,000 the first day — to produce the first season, though the documentation doesn’t suggest how many episodes that might be. It does say they will be about 30 minutes long and include guests, knitting tutorials, patterns to download and features on the wider knitting world.

Funding levels start at $1 and go all the way up to $5,000 and more. Rewards include free patterns, tote bags, mentions in the show, even on-location shoots for yarn shops or other folk in the industry.

It’s a big ask but I hope that it works out because this is something we as knitters could really use. Shows are great for building community around and a fun way to learn new skills, too.

What do you think? Have you contributed or will you? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

[Photo via Kickstarter.]

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Have you read?

Easy Knit Baskets to Use All Your Stash

For the past few years I’ve taken part in a Christmas in July blog hop that encourages people to get a jump on their making for holiday gifts. 

I love to use yarn I already have for these projects in the hope that people will consider what they already have that they can use to make projects for themselves or to give as gifts. 

This year it was a couple of knit baskets made using partial balls of yarn left in my stash from other projects. 

They use the same basic pattern but the first one is made with two colors of bulky yarn, and the second used two strands of worsted weight yarn held together, which made the gauge about the same, but I cast on fewer stitches to make a smaller version. 

The bottom of the basket is square, though you can make them rectangular if you’d rather. Then I just knit up the sides in rounds until I was about to run out of yarn. This gave both baskets rather short sides — maybe more like a tray than a basket — but you can keep knitting as long as you like to make the sides of your basket as tall as you want. 

They’re worked in seed stitch, which keeps the edges from curling and adds a nice texture to the baskets.

Of course this also allows you to use even more odd balls from your stash. I’d love to make a big one someday combining lots of different yarn. I mean, I’d probably use it to store more yarn, but that’s a fine thing to do. 

As it is, these little trays are great for sitting on your desk or bedside table to hold little things that always seem to appear there. I like to use one to hold the supplies for whatever project I’m working on, things like little scissors, my tape measure, a crochet hook, etc.

And they would make good gifts on their own or as a container to hold some other goodies if you like. 

You can find the free pattern for these stash busting baskets over at Our Daily Craft.