Knit-Spin-Quilt

Back & Forward

Hello, all! It’s been a very busy semester in graduate school: I’ve been working on my dissertation proposal, teaching a seminar and working at a library, and it’s been eating most of my time.

That has prompted a little bit of news on this front though: after trying out SquareSpace, I’ve decided it won’t work well for what I need right now: I don’t have the time to market as aggressively as I had planned, so I’m back on Etsy, and you all can find me at: https://www.etsy.com/shop/knitspinquilt again.

This won’t change the % I donate to charity — in 2017, it’s 30% of the listed price to Doctors Without Borders, and if you use a discount code, that doesn’t change the amount I donate.

Watch this space for updates on Monday, the 22nd: I’ll have some new products and some exciting news about this summer.

In the mean time, have a teaser of a product I think some of you might appreciate:

Doctor Who Stitch markers

New Blog & New Shop

Hello, all! I’ve been quiet because keeping up with Etsy orders, school, and work has been keeping me quite busy, but I’ve got some news to share with you!

First of all, in 2017 I’ll be fundraising for Doctors Without Borders. The work they do around the world is sorely needed, and their charity ratings are excellent and overheads are low.

Secondly, I’ve been thinking about moving the shop to a new platform for a while: the fees Etsy charges take more of my fundraising profits than I’d prefer, and so this year I’ve taken the leap to a new site. You can now find the shop at knitspinquilt.com. I’ve done the math, and moving to a Squarespace backed shop will allow me to donate a larger percentage of my prices to charity.

I’ll be transitioning away from Etsy gradually: for now I’m letting listings expire as their time comes, and I’ll be setting up new links on social media to direct traffic to the new site over the next two months. I hope to have everything moved over by the end of April, 2017. New products and exclusives will be released on the new site over the next few weeks and months.

You’ll see when you visit the new site that I’ve changed the percentage I’m donating to 30% of purchase prices. This is because I have had so much more traffic than I ever expected, and I simply can’t afford to donate materials costs and overhead anymore: you have helped me donate $3,000+ to charity since 2015, and I love that so very much, but since materials and overhead are the majority of my expenses, I can’t do that out of pocket anymore. Grad school stipends at my university are generous, but NYC cost of living isn’t low!

I will always be transparent with you about what I’m doing and how I’m doing it, and why. Please comment or email me at info@knitspinquilt.com if you have any questions and I’ll do my best to answer them!

Rhinebeck 2016 in pictures

Kings County Fiber Festival

Join Spin City and Knit Spin Quilt at the Kings County Fiber Festival on October 8!

Do you like knitting, spinning, fiber arts, or Brooklyn history? Well, if you’re in the NYC area and you’re free next Saturday, October 8, you should check out the Kings County Fiber Festival.

kcfflogo

The Kings County Fiber Festival is held at the Old Stone House in Park Slope Brooklyn, and has a huge number of really excellent vendors this year!

In addition, my sheep to shawl team will be practicing for Rhinebeck, and I’ll be selling their shawls (and maybe some stitch markers, earrings or dice bags) to help them break even on the year’s work, prep, and materials.

Interested in meeting other spinners? Check out the Spin City Meetup on October 8!

Hope to see you there! It’s going to be a wonderful time.

Bitty Bags! (or dice bags)

littlebags

I’ve been busy with the start of the semester this fall – I’m teaching modern European history (French Revolution to Brexit) and keeping up with my own research and dissertation deadlines. But I had time to make up a few little bags, which will go up in the Etsy shop soon. For now, have a picture of them hung up at Woolyn, a new (awesome!) yarn store in Brooklyn, which I absolutely adore.

These little bags are just the right size for a tin of stitch markers, a Chibi yarn needle holder, a tape measure, and a few other miscellaneous notions. Or for a couple sets of d20 dice! They’re also great fun to make up.

If you want a bitty bag, you can buy one at my Etsy shop, KnitSpinQuilt, which is how I fundraise for the Flint Child Health Development Fund. I have time and a lot of fabric – other people have money. By making bags, charging a #FairFiberWage and donating my time and materials, I’ve been able to raise more than $1,800 for FlintKids so far this year, which blows my mind.

Linking up with TGIFF:

Scrappy Trip Around The World, take three

Some of you may remember that I made a Scrappy Trip Around the World quilt a few years ago as a wedding present for friends, and another one for a friend’s baby.

The larger quilt was queen size: here it’s being held up by my father (6’4″) who is standing on a chair: N&AHuge

The smaller quilt was for a baby:

Both were made using the Quiltville Scrappy Trip pattern.

I initially thought about doing a pieced back for the large quilt, and I’ve had blocks 12.5″x12.5″ cut for ages with no purpose. Instead I decided to use them for a new, small, scrappy trip around the world quilt.

The newest quilt will be a lap quilt, in differently-formatted blocks: they’re blocks of 4 instead of blocks of six. The colors are a departure for me, and I’m not sure I’m going to want to keep it in the end, but it’s been really soothing to get back to my machine for a quilting project again.

ST3 ST2 ST1

New manatee bags for FlintKids.org

While I was abroad this summer I visited the Wollmeise store in Pfaffenhofen an der Ilm: I’ll post more of a summary of the visit in a week or so when I’ve sorted out all my photographs.

For now, I wanted to post about an exciting fact: we’ve hit $1,500 in the fundraiser for the Flint Child Health Development Fund!

In celebration, and because some friends asked, I’ve added a new product to the shop: manatee drawstring bags.

CoralManatee TealManatee Mustard Manatee

I’ve also added box bags to the shop for the very first time, starting with the manatee print. They’re available lined in mustard, teal, or coral, just like the drawstring bags above.

BoxMustardOpen

I’m delighted to be able to turn my time and fabric into donations, and want to thank those of you who have been along for the ride. I’m exploring getting my stitch markers into shops, and can’t wait to share a couple of non-fundraiser projects with you in the near future.

Spinning in London

I’m fortunate enough to be traveling for research this summer, and doubly-fortunate enough to be staying with friends for much of the trip. I’m doing research for my dissertation and visiting London, Oxford, Paris, and Munich.

Right now, I’m staying with a friend in a rented house in London, with a lovely back garden:

In that picture, you may have noticed my drop spindle. I had to finish spinning that project to clear off my spindle because today, as many of you may know, the Tour de France began – which means that the Tour de Fleece also began. Here’s what I’m starting with:

The rainbow is a 35% mohair/65% silk blend, and the blue is a Polwarth/merino/silk/alpaca/stellina blend. Both are from Hilltop Cloud, because I thought that I should buy fiber from UK suppliers while I’m in London. It turns out that VAT is about the same as shipping to the US, but I’m loving the fiber so very much that I can’t be sorry.