Category: Sewing

Covid-19 Shop Update

Hello to everyone. I hope you and your loved ones are holding up in these trying circumstances. I won’t tell you to be chipper or keep your chin up: I will tell you that I wish you all the best.

Things have been exciting here: I am holed up out of NYC with a dear friend. Since the shop is my only form of income, and most of it is in Brooklyn, I have been scrambling to get ducks in a row. I am safe: I am sheltering in place at home. I have arranged mail pick-up once a week, and I sew in my bedroom, so I am able to keep going for the time being.

Five rectangular cloth DPN cases arranged in a fan against an ironing boardI will be focusing on drawstring bags and DPN cases at first. If you have a particular request, PLEASE tell me. My contact form, Instagram DMs, Twitter DMs and email are all open to you, dear customers. If I have access to the fabric in question, I will be happy to sew up a custom bag at no additional cost. (I do hope you’ll understand that my access to fabric is limited at the moment, due to circumstances beyond my control.)

Because I believe strongly in putting my money where my mouth is, KnitSpinQuilt will continue to donate 15% of item prices to charity. In 2020, I have chosen the Ali Forney Center, a charity that works to alleviate homelessness in LGBTQ youth in New  York City. The Ali Forney Center cannot close under current circumstances, because it provides housing to at-risk youth, and is in need of support now more than ever.A drawstring bag with a black top and a green, yellow and red print of butterflies and tulips sits on an ironing board

Please keep safe, keep indoors, and keep on keeping on. This is going to be hard, but the only way forward is through.

News & Upcoming Shop Hiatus

Thank you to everyone who came by to say hello at Vogue Knitting Live in New York City! It was a whirlwind of a weekend, and great fun, even if it was a bit overwhelming at times. If I was distracted, I apologize: there was an awful lot going on!

It’s been a busy winter here in Brooklyn! I have received funding from my graduate program to go abroad for three months to do research on medieval libraries!

This means that I’m going to have to shut down the shop from February 22 to June 1, 2019 — there’s no way for me to fulfill orders from the archives in London, and as a one-woman operation, I don’t have anyone to do it for me.

If you’ve been on the fence, now is your chance to get something before the shop closes for three months. (While I’m gone, those of you in New York can still find my bags and stitch markers at Knitty City and Woolyn in New York City, and at The Endless Skein in Cold Spring, when it opens!)

Before I go, though, I am excited to have some box bags back in stock. These bags are fully lined in white or low-volume print fabrics, have a handle long enough to loop over your wrist or (my favorite) to attach to a clip and hang from another bag, and use long-pull zippers with broad blunt teeth, the better to not snag your yarn.

There are also a variety of sock-size drawstring bags and shawl/sweater-sized drawstring bags: the medium (sock) bags will hold two skeins of yarn, but are most often used for socks; the larger bags are good for larger projects (though perhaps not your bulky sweater-coat, as they top out at about four skeins of yarn unless you shove).

Two drawstring bags and a box bag on a quilting cutting mat

There are also new rainbow llama stitch markers. Do you love coffee? Tea? Wine? There are stitch markers for those interests too.

Four sets of knitting stitch markers featuring silver charms themed around tea, coffee, llamas, and wine

I’m excited about archival research, and can’t wait to share pictures of England with you on my Instagram while I’m gone: @knitspinquilt

Remember — the last day to place an order before I leave is February 22!

Down to the Wire — in the best way!

I’m prepping up a storm right now, because I’m delighted to announce (belatedly!) that I will be a vendor at the Indie Untangled Trunk Show in (eeek) less than three weeks.

Find me at booth 23 with One Geek To Craft Them All!

I’ll have DPN cases and box bags:

Pile of fabric double pointed needle cases in several prints

Photograph of stacked box bags in a variety of fabrics

I’ll also have a lot of drawstring bags, which I’m still frantically sewing up:

Stack of drawstring bags inside out half-sewn with coral fabric and rotary cutter

Come by and say hi! And watch this space later this week for a very exciting announcement!

Label Review

Today’s blog post is a product review. Dutch Label Shop reached out to me some time ago and offered me the chance to try out their custom woven labels in exchange for a blog post, positive or negative: whatever I had to say, they wanted to know.

I’m delighted to be able to say that I really like these labels.

My previous solution for labels in bags was printable fabric. I’d print out a sheet (pictured below) and cut each label out with a rotary cutter and ruler, then iron them all in half. Definitely less expensive than buying labels, until you factor in time. And, honestly, I don’t think they look nearly as good.

Sheet of printable fabric with KnitSpinQuilt printed repeatedly

Dutch Label Shop worked with me to create custom text labels (they also do images, and stock labels) that suited my needs.

Two woven labels reading KnitSpinQuilt and giving the KSQ shop URL

These labels, which I had made to my desired size, are sturdy, look professional, and can be customized on both sides, which means I can have my shop URL on the tag, saving anyone who wants to look me up the step of googling my name.

The insides of the labels are clean with good floats, and I haven’t had trouble with fraying yet — and I’ve used nearly 250 of them so far.

Image of the inside of a woven fabric label

But of course, a label can look great on the table, and not look so good on a product. I needn’t have worried about that, either – the way these are made, I added a seam allowance to be sewn in, and I think they work really well.

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I think the legibility of the smaller text might be improved upon in future orders, but I also created labels that are a technical challenge for the weight of thread they weave with, so some of that difficulty is on my head.

The process of creating the labels was a cinch: I went to their site, customized what I wanted on a web form, and uploaded the images. Their customer service reps have been responsive, and I’ve been pleased.

I know some bloggers do sponsored posts without telling you they’re sponsored: I never have and never will. One of the things I was very up front about with Dutch Label Shop when they asked me to do this blog post in exchange for a coupon was the fact that if I didn’t like their product, I’d still blog about it, and speak my mind. They were fine with that — and it turns out they were right to have faith in their product.

If you’d like to try out Dutch Label Shop, I’m happy to be able to give you a referral code: knitspinquilt15, which will be good for 60 days from today.

Collaborative Kit Goes Live!

KnitSpinQuilt is branching out into collaborations with yarn dyers!

IMG_2825This very first kit is a project bag, yarn, and pattern collaboration with Yarn Over New York and Gannet Designs. Customize it and make it exactly what you want: you get a project bag, one or two skeins of yarn, a shawl pattern designed for this yarn, and a stitch marker.

IMG_2813The project bag – a medium drawstring project bag sewn by Alisa of KnitSpinQuilt – is made from a fabric whose pattern was designed by Naomi of Gannet Designs. The lovely, lovely yarn is dyed by Jessie of Yarn Over New York.

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You get to customize the kit in several ways. We’re offering it in three different colors (green, blue, and purple) and two different yarns: Times Square Sock (merino/nylon) or Astoria (alpaca/merino). Choose your color, choose your yarn base. Finally, choose whether you want one skein of yarn, or two skeins of yarn.

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The kit comes with a pattern for a brand new shawl: the Semiramis Semicircular Shawl, designed by Alisa of KnitSpinQuilt using Gannet Designs lace patterns. You can make a shawlette with one skein of yarn, or a large shawl with two skeins. You’ll also get a custom matching stitch marker as a little bonus.

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You can pre-order the kit at Yarn Over New York’s new website. Orders will only be open for two weeks, and the kits will ship by August 20. You’ll receive a Ravelry download code for the pattern as part of your purchase — don’t have Ravelry? We’ll print it and mail a physical copy of the pattern to you with the yarn — just make a note in your order.

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Lady Astronaut-Inspired Bags!

One of my favorite authors, Mary Robinette Kowal, is releasing two lovely books in the Lady Astronaut of Mars universe: The Calculating Stars, and The Fated Sky.

I cannot wait to listen to the audiobooks of these books: Mary is an embarrassingly talented writer, and has been tweeting all kinds of amazing details about her research at NASA for the books.

So when I saw this fabric, I knew I had to make bags inspired by the books:

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These bags are available in my Etsy shop, and as always, 30% of the ticket price will be donated to the Hispanic Federation.

 

Summer Critters Update

Summer critters and news about Puerto Rico fundraising.

KnitSpinQuilt is celebrating the incipient summer of 2018 with woodland creatures! Hedgehogs and owls have simply stolen the show for this particular update.

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These prints — especially the hedgehogs — were really popular at the Moms and Makers Market on May 12 in NYC. If you’re a fan, check the shop out ASAP!

Each bag is fully lined with white Kona Cotton fabric, and each color of top is cut and sewn in batches of four (for the medium bags) or two (for the large bags). When each color of these bags is gone, it’s gone until the next batch is sewn up, so grab them before this shop update sells out!

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As always, 30% of the purchase price for everything you buy from KnitSpinQuilt is donated to the Hispanic Federation for Puerto Rico disaster relief efforts, which are still sorely needed even after all this time: The projected deadline for 100% restoration of power in Puerto Rico has passed, and restoration of power has really not been achieved.

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Celebrities such as Lin Manuel Miranda (author and star of Hamilton) have been championing this cause: I figure it’s the least I can do to donate a bit to the cause of helping people get their homes and everyday lives back. I’ll be posting an article about the situation in Puerto Rico later this week: keep your eyes peeled, because it’ll include other ways people can help out, as the next hurricane season approaches all too soon.