Yarn: Rainbow 8/4 quality 100% cotton from Hobbii Color is 101 but its labeled as a Burnt Orange
Recommended hook size: 4.5 mm
Yarn total used: around 1350 yds
Alterations:
I only did 5 pattern repeats instead of the recommended 10 for the cropped version of the sweater.
Guys I’m obsessed!
I’m obsessed with this pattern. I’m obsessed with this yarn color. I’m so happy it’s fall even if my allergies are determined to put this to the test (hello why am I still having such awful allergies in fall, didn’t I get enough sneezing over the spring and summer?).
This beauty is the Minerva Lace Pullover by Teresa over at @knottymakes. It’s my first pullover long sleeve top I’ve made that isn’t in the round. I thought it’d be hard to do but it was so easy! The Minerva Lace Pullover is lightweight and breathable making it a perfect fall sweater. It features a nice drape with wide sleeves making it easy to pair with jeans, a skirt or over a dress.
The pattern gives you two different sleeve options, three quarter or full length and can be crocheted cropped at the waist or continuing until the sweater reaches mid-hip.
Based on my measurements and my swatch I crocheted the size small with a 4.5 mm hook. I went with the cropped version with ¾ length sleeves, though I ended up blocking them to almost wrist length (oh well, blocking is slightly still an unpredictable adventure for me).I used around 1350 yds of yarn.
Speaking of the yarn… I used Rainbow 8/4 quality 100% cotton yarn from Hobbii, color number is 101 and is labeled as burnt orange. This was my first time ordering yarn from the Hobbii website and I was really impressed. Their prices were very competitive, my order shipped quickly and was packaged nicely. I also ordered the same yarn in a hot pink color way because I couldn’t decide which color I wanted to make the sweater until I saw it in person.
My only alteration from the pattern is that I only did five pattern repeats instead of the recommended ten for the cropped version of the sweater but this is because I am SUPER short.
We’ve finally hit that very brief time where I’m at in Oregon where the air is cold and crisp but the sun is warm and it isn’t pouring rain. To take advantage I whipped up a Halloween mask and ventured out to one of our local pumpkin patches. I thought it’d be the perfect place to get some photos, drink some cider, eat some freshly made donuts and get some pumpkins (of course) for some seasonal decor on our front porch. I was not disappointed. The corn maze there made the perfect backdrop for my sweater and I couldn’t resist taking a photo with a giant version of my arch nemesis …the spider.
If you love this pattern as much as I do you can buy it on Ravelry or Teresa’s Etsy shop. And if you want to see more of my daily projects you can give me a follow over on my Instagram page or my Ravelry.
The Crocheting Community Finds a Home on Instagram
Years ago, if you had asked the fiber community where its online community resided the resounding answer would have reverberated from the mountain tops — Ravelry.
Ravelry was the original free social networking service and website for crafters. It was founded in 2007 and functioned as an organizational tool for multiple fiber arts such as knitting, crocheting, spinning and weaving. The amount of chat rooms and groups a single person could access could be overwhelming at times. Things have changed. The fiber community has branched out since then. You can find them vlogging on YouTube or lamenting their crocheting struggles in Facebook groups, but the place where most crocheters seem to have flourished and found a community is Instagram.
With Instagram’s use of photographs and hashtags it became a naturally accessible and place for the fiber community with its image focused projects to thrive. Users have found a place to chat about their craft, advertise their wares and post pictures of their latest WIPs (works in progress).
I realized I couldn’t comment on the values of the Instagram crafting community without reaching out and getting their opinion on the matter. A community doesn’t exist on the assumptions of one person. It is built, brick by brick, by a collective of voices. I reached out through Instagram stories and a post on my feed where fellow fiber artists could respond publicly or in a private message on what values or assumptions existed for them on Instagram.
The resounding answer was that there was a lot of generosity in the community. Generosity in supporting others over competition, in sharing tips and knowledge, sharing inspiration and providing constant encouragement in other’s creative endeavors. There is a value in shopping small. The false assumption that the fiber arts is an inexpensive hobby only draws attention to the cheapness and lack of value in human skills and labor that exists in fast fashion. The community also values diversity and inclusion for interests, sizing in patterns, even the types of crafts (crochet, knitting, weaving and yarn dying). Another important value in the community is crediting the original artist and using the community to fight against large corporations that copy small artists work and steal their creative content.
A community as large and diverse as the fiber arts community on Instagram will, of course, have some disagreements. With a platform as large as Instagram some of these arguments will happen publicly in comments, some in direct messages and some in videos posted back and forth where names are hinted at, but not directly said. There is a regular debate over whether influencers should use their platforms for voicing their political opinions, or if the community should simply exist as a form of escapism.
There was a huge push to include Black Lives Matter as a constant topic coinciding with posts about crafts. We saw this last year when people wanted to show inclusion in the fiber community and support Black makers. There is a huge lack of diversity in blogs and crafting magazines and people pushed and demanded that more makers of color be represented in the craft. There was overwhelming support over the fiber arts community I’m involved with. It was decided that the maker community needed to engage in bigger issues and couldn’t just exist in a little yarn bubble.
Sadly, the stereotype that only rich, white women can be crafters is one that has been pushed for so many years that many believe it’s true. In reality, people post about their projects from all over the world and from very different economic brackets. There was a social media trend that made its ways across Instagram over the summer which had designers showing their patterns made with cheaper yarns not just expensive indie dyed yarn. They wanted to show that anyone and everyone is welcome in the maker community. Anyone could have success and be embraced wholeheartedly. Personally, this was a really cool movement for me to see as a maker who primarily crochets in acrylic and less expensive yarns while being surrounded by a sea of posts on sweaters made from potentially hundreds of dollars of specially dyed yarn.
Another issue that piggybacks off the last one is whether people should earn money off of political movements. You see this in yarn color names, patterns inspired by the movement etc. When these disagreements happen, people get involved, lines are sometimes drawn and messages are sent back and forth. An unspoken rule to these disagreements is that you don’t say something and then block the person so they’re unable to respond. I find, as a whole, the Instagram community is much less passive aggressive and argumentative than the crafting community that resides on platforms like Facebook or even TikTok.
Tracking the Social Media Experience
It was an enlightening experience tracking my Monday Instagram post interactions over the last couple weeks. Each post did better than the last. This felt like quite the accomplishment. Some received more comments than others or inspired more interaction, but each week the number of likes increased.
My first post was a #meetthemaker post. It followed the #makermonday theme. The picture was a close-up selfie without any crafting projects in the image.
This was my longest post and did the least well. It received about 40 likes on Instagram, 1 comment, 1 share and 0 saves. It created 4 profile visits and a reach of 184 accounts/users – 14% of those accounts reached weren’t already following me. For my impressions (The number of times your content, whether a post or a story, was shown to users. While commonly confused with reach, impressions are the total number of times your content could have been seen) its reach was 195 — 167 of that was from “home,” 26 were from the hashtags I used being searched and 2 were from other.
This was recorded between late Monday night and Wednesday afternoon. It’s not the worst engagement for one of my posts, but it definitely isn’t close to the best. Part of the reason for this is the way Instagram is changing how its engagement works. A lot of people on Instagram have been talking about how it has drastically affected their reach and I have noticed the same issues.
After further analyzation, I decided I had added too much text. Social media seems to do best when there is some text, but not longer than a few sentences. It also does better if it involves a question because that encourages interaction between the poster and the reader. I think the post didn’t get much engagement because it wasn’t very “artsy.”
My second Monday post was an image of a newly finished sweater I made. The picture was taken by a friend and was a full body shot of me in the sweater posing in a corn maze. I kept the text to a few sentences and tagged a few companies and creators in the image hoping to increase where the photo was seen on Instagram.
I received a pretty positive response to my post. I got 63 likes, 8 comments (though some of those were mine responding to people commenting), it inspired 1 profile visit and reached 296 accounts – 50% of those were people who weren’t already following me. The post had 303 impressions (the potential number of times someone could have seen the posts shared with the analyzed Instagram hashtag): 149 of those impressions were from home (people who saw it in their feed), 137 from the hashtags I used 15 from my profile and 2 that were classified as other.
The third image was a flat lay shot taken from above in my living room. It involved an unfinished project laid out on my hard wood floor, with yarn, a crochet hook, two books and a coffee mug that were all in shades of purple, white or gold. I tagged four companies in the image and tagged the pattern designer of the crochet scarf I was working on in the text.
I found that the flat lay image, which I consider the most artistic, did the best. People interacted with it with the most likes, profile visits, comments, sharing and saving the image to their accounts. I received 93 likes, 4 comments, 1 share and 3 saves. This post inspired visits to my profile and a reach of 470, 50% of those 470 accounts weren’t already following me. This led to one of those accounts following me. I had 500 impressions, 246 of that were from my home page, 225 were from hashtags, 20 were from my profile and 9 were labeled “other.”
According to research done by Circa Interactive, a digital marketing agency in higher education, in 2017 there were 2.8 billion social media users worldwide. The platform you’re posting on can make a huge difference in the way conversations are shaped online. I stopped posting in Facebook groups because there were so many unnecessary rules that exist within the groups that don’t on Instagram. On Facebook sometimes a post would get removed because you linked the pattern in the picture instead of the comments or vice versa. The comments are often passive aggressive or argumentative. People try to police your projects if they feel like you are showing too much skin in the picture or the language you used in the text accompanying the image. I feel like there isn’t that much of a fiber arts community on Twitter, at least not in the way there is on Facebook or Instagram.
Instagram invites conversation by expanding who can see your posts and making them easier to search with its use of hashtags. People can discuss posts, commenting publicly or privately through direct messaging. The platform isn’t policed by a few people like the moderators of Facebook groups. I think this forces people to behave better because there is no one to complain or tattle to if they see a post they don’t like. I believe this creates a different kind of power structure within the community than on other platforms. Each person controls the conversations they want to have or allow to be had under their images. They can comment back, block a person or report them to Instagram if the person breaks the Instagram guidelines.
The platform gives you so many ways to create and share content that it’s become easy to tailor the kind of social media experience you want and your commitment to the communities you want to join.
Jillwrren. “This Is How The Instagram Algorithm Works in 2020.” Later Blog, 4 Feb. 2020, later.com/blog/how-instagram-algorithm-works/.
“6 Ways Social Media Changed the Way We Communicate.” Circa Interactive, 2 Sept. 2020, circaedu.com/hemj/how-social-media-changed-the-way-we-communicate/.
This fall I was invited by the wonderful Iesha of @ieshasinspiration (who makes the coolest stuff and creates just fabulous content on Instagram-if you aren’t already following her you should) to be a part a Spooktacular group of crocheters creating fun projects in honor of Halloween.
I love a good theme so of course I couldn’t resist! I decided to go a more costume route than an everyday garment because my work is also having/had (depending on when you’re reading this) a Halloween costume contest where we go in and get our photos taken and customers get to vote on their favorite costume. I never win but that’s okay because I love a good excuse to get dressed up. Two years ago I wore a Captain Marvel costume that I sewed myself. This was before the movie so no one knew who I was and didn’t appreciate the effort of sewing a spandex costume on a non serger sewing machine. Haha. Then last year I was going to be a giant paper mache ball of yarn inspired by the very creative Sam Ushiro of @aww.sam but time got away from me and I sadly didn’t finish my costume in time.
Anyways, this year I was determined to crochet myself a Halloween themed garment. I decided to craft myself a witch and a capelet. I based mine off of Regina of Morale Fiber’s free witch hat pattern. I ended up going off pattern towards the end so my brim is quite a bit floppier and my hat is less pointy. If you’re looking for a witch hat pattern though I really recommend it, Regina’s stuff is really clearly written and beautifully photographed. The capelet ended up turning into more of a collar shoulder piece? I’m not quite sure how to describe it. I love it though!
I used Big Twist Twinkle yarn in the colorway Black on Silver, about one and a half skeins for the two projects combined. I free handed the capelet and didn’t write anything down as I did it so I sadly don’t have any pattern advice for you other than I used a 6 mm crochet hook. The purple yarn is something random and acrylic from my stash.
The earrings were 3D printed and painted by my wonderful husband and the shoes are Dr. Martens I bought a few years ago. Tights are from Amazon.
Check out our Spooktacular video over here! I also posted about it all over my Instagram 🙂
Fun fact about me: there is nothing I love more than a good slouchy beanie.
I pop one of my beanies from my *overflowing* collection on my head the second fall hits. What I’m trying to say is that when Teresa over at Knotty Makes asked if I wanted to test crochet a slouchy beanie pattern, I couldn’t sign up fast enough.
The Ceilidhe’s Beanie is a fabulous slouchy textured beanie with a ribbed brim. This pattern, like many of her others, is completely adjustable. You can alter it to get the amount of slouchiness to suit whatever vibe you’re going for. I personally like to channel artsy, hipster girl so my beanies tend to be pretty slouchy.
This beanie is created seamlessly using single crochet and double crochet while the brim is done in the round using front and back post double crochet stitches.
My yarn weight turned out to be heavier than the recommended yarn for the pattern so I went down quite a bit from the recommended hook size. Teresa used a 4.5 and a 4 mm hooks and I used a 3.5 and 3.25 mm hooks.
I learned I needed to go down that amount after being cocky and not gauging and then frogging the beanie when it turned out much too large for me. Oh well, live and learn and *always* gauge your project.
I would definitely agree with Teresa’s rating that this is an advanced beginner/intermediate pattern. It’s not overly complicated but I also couldn’t watch Netflix and mindlessly crochet either. Each stitch had to be counted and kept on top of to make sure my stitch count/texture looked right.
I love the beanie though and have already worn it out twice despite the weather being a bit too warm still for beanies. I paired it with a pair of my jean shorts and rocked the look regardless.
Guess what guys? I finished my very first sweater!
I had set this as one of my goals when I first started getting serious about crochet and learning how to create crochet garments at the beginning of the year.
When Lo of La Fille Patterns reached out to me a few months ago to see if I wanted to test crochet one of her patterns I, of course, had to say yes! I had been loving her sweater photos on Instagram for a while and couldn’t wait to get my hooks into one of her creations.
I had never crocheted a sweater, let alone a top down sweater, but I felt that her pattern was really well written and worked up quickly. The details at the top add a lot of interest and beauty to what would otherwise be a fairly simple sweater.
The Romantic Aran is worked up in an aran weight yarn with a 5.5 mm hook. It features bobble sections in both the front and back of the sweater and has raglan shaping. The sweater is easy to adjust for the perfect fit and is size inclusive. It is top down, done all in the round, is seamless and features the perfect amount of positive ease.
I crocheted a size medium. For my version of the sweater I skipped the decreases because I wanted something very loose fitting that I could layer for the cold, rainy Oregon winters. I used Lion Brand yarn, something soft and acrylic that could take a bit of wear and tear if I needed it to. I’m picturing wearing this all winter long over dresses, tights and boots. All that is a little hard to imagine right now because it is currently in the high 90’s low hundreds in Oregon right now and I had to wait until midnight to even take these finished product photos in time for the patterns release. So for the moment the sweater is styled with shorts and quite a bit of sweat haha.
The pattern is beautiful with a slight retro vibe. I’m already planning a more form fitted, long sleeve version. I’m thinking of making it in a bright green yarn from my stash. It’ll be perfect for everyday wear and still totally give a Christmas vibe during holidays.
If you love this pattern as much as I did, please go check out Lo’s Ravelry account where she sells this pattern and several others. You can also check on any work in progress projects over on her Instagram!
I have been crocheting up a storm and bought a bunch of cotton yarn so that I could focus on some more summer-ish crochet projects. When Annie, or @mostly.yarn as she’s known on Instagram, put out a call for testers for her first crochet pattern I had to contact her and see if I could be a tester.
The Endless Waves Bag is a small/medium sized cross body bag, featuring the arcade stitch and made completely out of medium weight cotton yarn. It’s the perfect summer book bag. In the photographs I tucked one of my PaperGirls comics into it along with my wallet and phone and was all ready to take on the day. Though with Covid and quarantine…taking on the day meant social distancing in my besties backyard while she took these photos of me.
I used Paintbox Yarn Cotton DK in Raspberry Pink for the bag and it took less than one skein, making it a great stash busting project. It’s a great pattern for a beginner who is looking to venture out beyond their basic knowledge and learn a fun new stitch that looks absolutely gorgeous.
I’m already planning on making this bag a second time but substituting a leather strap instead of a crochet one because I carry a lot of books and tend to weigh down my purses.
Hope everyone’s summer crafting projects are going well and that you’re all staying healthy and safe!
Woah, a blog post? Shocking, I know. I’ve been a busy bee with school and life. The world is a very different place from the last time I posted.
With everything changing, the world needing creativity has remained the same. People using materials to create and center themselves in a chaotic world also remains the same.
I digress though. I fell back in love with crochet!
We’ve had brief dalliances in the past. I’m in the habit of loving and leaving crochet in favor of knitting which I have to just accept doesn’t come as naturally to me as crochet. I’ve since admitted defeat and am throwing myself with abandon back into the world of crochet. Crochet projects, crochet Vloggers and crochet Instagram accounts. I even created my own separate Instagram account (@_yarn.witch_) devoted to my crochet projects which introduced me to many fabulous crocheters. One of these crocheters is Teresa of @knottymakes.
She’s a fabulous crochet designer and yarn dyer. She recently asked me to test crochet one of her new designs, the Ariadne Camisole. Let me tell you, I was so excited and honored to be asked to give input to her designs.
As you can probably guess… since I’m blogging about how honored I was, I absolutely loved the pattern. I can’t recommend it enough and not just because I test crocheted it. The pattern is extremely well written. I consider myself a beginner crocheter who dabbles in intermediate crochet stitches and I could easily follow and understand the pattern. What else is great about the pattern is that it is completely customizable to fit any body, bust measurement or waist size.
I followed the pattern except I skipped a few steps/rows because I ran low on my yarn and really wanted it to be a short length on me (and I’m a short gal haha).
*Yarn used: Scheepies Catona, 100% Mercerized Cotton. I used the pink for the body and teal for the straps etc.
*Hook size: 3.5 mm
I matched my measurements to the pattern and it fit perfectly. My bust fell under category C and I crocheted up the size medium. The body length is around ten inches in length which fell right around my waist for my 4’ 10” frame.
The tank is simple and easy to put together but with enough stitch variation to ensure that you won’t get bored while making it. I’m planning on making another version of it with a much longer length. I’m picturing more of a tunic/short dress length that I can wear with leggings and a cardigan in the fall.
If you have the chance please go to Teresa’s instagram account @knottymakes. Give her a follow and check out her Ravelry and Facebook page (linked in her profile).
It’s been about six months since I discovered Wattpad. At first glance I was completely infatuated and totally obsessed. An app that I can read books from(potentially) up and coming authors for free? Because I hardly ever pay for an app, I decided to do the free version, but there is a monthly paid version of the app that gives you more access to stories. I quickly became obsessed.
So what is Wattpad? “Wattpad’s flagship app is the world’s leading social storytelling platform, home to a community of more than 80 million people who spend over 22 billion minutes a month engaged in original stories.” Writers can get paid for their stories, win awards, make connections in the publishing industry and even have their stories picked up by the entertainment industry and turned into t.v shows or movies. It’s extremely cool and gives authors all over the world an opportunity to have their stories enjoyed by readers anywhere and anytime.
There are a lot of absolutely wonderful stories posted on Wattpad by some very talented authors, some that have been more traditionally published since posting their work on Wattpad. There are also some really terrible pieces, that the author clearly poured their heart and soul into writing these stories but then couldn’t be bothered to read over them and edit their work before publishing. Those are definitely the less good stories.
So what’s my advice for finding the truly wonderful gems of Wattpad?
Well first take the time to read the synopsis. If the blip about the story is riddled with typos and grammatical errors then the story most likely is too. I have read over one hundred and sixty stories on the app in the last six months and trudged through the truly bad stories (mostly because I am absolutely stubborn and won’t not finish a story I’ve started). I’ve learned that this is the first warning sign to a poorly written story.
The next step is to look at not only how many reads the story has but how many votes it has. If it has a lot of people who put it in their library, that just means the stories synopsis is intriguing enough for a person to save it to their account. If someone really loves it they’ll vote for it. It’s important to look at how old the story is too though. A story could have 2 million reads but it’s also over five years old, while a story could have a lower read count but only have been published for a few months.
Now, I only read finished works because I can’t stand to wait for updates or to become invested in a story that the author won’t finish. There are no guarantees on Wattpad and I’ve been burned before. Plus since I read so quickly, by the time I return to an unfinished story I could have read fifteen plus books and I won’t remember what’s going on in the plot anymore.
Don’t let the negatives of Wattpad deter you from reading and taking advantage of the app. Go make an account and get reading. Seek out and find new up and coming authors with amazingly creative stories. Help their work get attention and make their publishing dreams come true.
If you want to see what I’m reading you can follow me on Wattpad and on Goodreads @smosel.
What have I been up to lately because it certainly hasn’t been sewing! I have been writing up a storm! For school mostly. There has been a lot of essay writing but also article writing for my university’s lifestyle magazine, Beaver’s Digest. I’ve been doing a lot of interview articles, a few DIY and recipe articles too. I had two articles published in our local newspaper (one for each term) which was pretty damn cool, I’m gonna be honest. And I wrote for a few other things too.
I wanted to at least link the recipes here because I feel like they’ll be the most interesting to readers on this site…I don’t really expect many people to care about events going on my campus 😉
This was a year of leaving a job, getting a new one, going back to school to finish my degree after taking a few years off, making my wedding dress and having a very DIY wedding (that I have yet to blog about), getting married, so much school work and finally ending the year by traveling to Europe. Woah, even typing that was a lot.
Which I failed horribly at, only making 2/9 of the items and attempting a third unsuccessfully. I realized I don’t like organized sewing and prefer to get inspired by something, do a few sketches of it, either pattern it myself or find a similar pattern and go for it. These set challenges just don’t really work for me, as much as I love browsing Instagram and viewing everyone’s sewing plans for the year.
It wasn’t the best year for sewing, but it was an excellent year for reading. It was the year of graphic novels and urban fantasy and as always, female authors. I reread my favorite author, Ann Aguirre, science fiction and fantasy series.
Favorite science fiction of the year was definitely The Power by Naomi Alderman. The novel is based on a world where women have developed powers and finally have the capacity to fight against the patriarchy crushing them down. If you like Margaret Atwood’s writing style then Alderman is the author for you. I loved so many graphic novels it’s hard to pick a favorite. I loved The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina,Afterlife Archie, Low, Snotgirl, but I think the one that stood out the most (and only has 2 volumes sadly) was Lady Killer. Favorite series was The Hollows Series by Kim Harrison, I started it in 2017 and finished the last 3 books this year and read the first prequel this year. Longest series I read this year was The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher-Oiy, was that a long series and it isn’t close to over.
I can’t wait to see what books the next year will bring and how many books I’ll be able to finish before the year is up.
happyechos 