It was a very busy 2012 for Brandy and I with our new company (www.crowdedcoop.com), but knitting and crocheting has been in full swing the last several months.  I have been a sweater making fool, with two down and another 1/2 done in the past two months (B.O.B., Nati, and the London Tunic) , and Brandy is now officially obsessed with socks, and she also has been plugging away on a Sock Yarn Blanket.  We are also both back to being addicted to Ravelry as well.

We hope you all had a very Happy New Year – do you have any craft related resolutions this year?  I am committed to either running or knitting for at least 30 minutes a day in 2013 and am tracking it here, and Brandy wants to master color work, double sided knitting and read 1 new craft book a month – and of course paint more, which she is incredibly talented at – and she is tracking her efforts here.

We look forward to sharing more knitting and crocheting inspirations on our Rewind site soon!

Alternate Colorways
Right to left below; all are Knit Picks worsted weight yarns. Many thanks to Knit Picks for the free samples!

Chroma “Impressionist” / Reverie “Gemstone”

Chroma “Forest Floor” / Reverie “Chocolate”

Chroma “Gossip” / Reverie “Melon”

Download the pattern by clicking this link and selecting “save link as/save target as/save as” to save the PDF to your computer.

Knitmare on Elm Street Knit your very own Freddy Krueger, voodoo doll, or one of those monkeys with cymbals, you know, the kind that tends to roll along by itself in an empty room. . .	Twisted Stitches This ain’t your mama’s cross stitch. Bugs, skulls, and stab wounds are just some of the awesomely macabre motifs included in this book.
Creepy Cute Crochet Amigurumi gone bad! Patterns range from the traditionally creepy, such as skeletons and aliens, to tongue-in-cheek creatures such as our favorite, “Corporate Zombie.”	Super Scary Crochet All the classic Halloween ghouls are here: witches, zombies, vampires, and the Headless Horseman. Speaking of which, who’s in the mood for a Johnny Depp night, starting with Sleepy Hollow?

Stay tuned: free pattern coming soon! Subscribe now so you get an email the minute we release it.

Craft as art

Michigan-based artist Mark Newport has hand-knit Batman and Captain America costumes. He’s also created his own superheroes, Sweatermen, which have exhibited here in Seattle.

Artist Hine Mizushima creates thought-provoking felt figures and a knitted squid costume of the highest caliber.

Knitted Cuteness For the Kids

The book Wacky Baby Knits features whimsical children’s costume patterns like pointy shoes, a green monster suit, and a pirate.

Outfit your little one in a knitted mermaid tail or Santa costume courtesy of The Miniature Knit Shop.

Affordable Costume Patterns

Here’s a knitted Dr. Zoidberg costume pattern on Instructables.

Chris Wass offers up her knitted Wonder Woman costume pattern for a mere seven bucks on Etsy.

Fig: Nomad via Etsy
Peacock: AtmosphereArts via Etsy
Ochre: DyeForYarn via Etsy

We’d love to see what you’re working on in these shades! Leave a link in the comments and we’ll probably share it on our Pinterest boards.

Here are some of our favorite knitted and crocheted Halloween patterns and decorations. (You may need to log into Ravelry to see some patterns).

Row one: Boo the Bat pattern and Pudgdageist pattern.
Row two: Hocus Pocus Cowl pattern and Zero the Ghost Dog pattern.
Row three: Pumpkin Head pattern and Ghost Octopus by Max Alexander.
Row four: Baby Monster Hat pattern and Ghost with Chains decoration.
Row five: Amigurumi Vampire Bat decoration.

Need a quick project to get in a spooky mood? Try Lion Brand Yarn’s free Halloween Ghost Ornament pattern.

Brandy and I must admit, we have let work get in the way of our crafty endeavors as of late.  We were hoping that MegaMillions jackpot was ours, then we could build a castle to craft in all day long, but no such luck.  That $20 we spent on tickets would have bought some yarn… darn it!  :)

It’s that time again and this month we are excited to bring you a giveaway that truly embodies the knit and crochet community spirit. JennieGee’s designer hand dyed and screen printed ‘Keep Calm and Carry Yarn’ project bags are a must have for any fiber artist. Being product and graphic designers by trade, we were drawn to JennieGee’s story of how these clever craft bags came to be.

” I arrived in Brooklyn in September 2009 for the MFA Design program at the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan. Packed among the few possessions I brought with me were screens I’d made with a design idea: “Keep Calm and Carry Yarn.”

I came up with the idea while working at Home Ec Workshop, a yarn and fabric shop in Iowa City, Iowa. Based on one of my favorite posters, from WWII Britain, it expresses just how much knitting gets me through stressful situations. But with my preparations for graduate school, I didn’t have time to do anything with it.

My academic program discourages working while in school. Sounds financially irresponsible, right? That’s what I thought. But our course load was so heavy, I couldn’t find a job in New York City (especially in the terrible economy) that paid a living wage and was flexible around my class schedule. I hardly had time even to look. After the first semester, it became clear that I wasn’t going to be able to find a living wage job that was flexible around my schedule. So I listed a few of the posters I’d printed on Etsy. My friends spread the word, and the message caught on.

I progressed on to the project bags, which I had the idea for some time, but it proved difficult to find a source for colored cotton bags. In the end, I had to choose between sewing them myself or buying white bags and dyeing them. I chose dyeing them, and they’ve become my most popular item.

My master’s program had a strong entrepreneurial component, and my Etsy shop proved to be an object lesson in a lot of the topics we were learning about, like reaching your audience, marketing, and pricing. I ended up doing my thesis about knitting, and my professors were all amazed at how the knitting and crochet community connects online, supports good design, and cares about how things are made. Whether you knit, crochet, spin or do something else with fiber, I hope “Keep Calm and Carry Yarn” touches you, too.”

When chatting with JennieGee she spoke to how after each move since, it’s been the knitting groups she finds that have helped her re-establish her community.

“It’s been very heartening to be able to make a living making things for a community I feel so strongly about and identify with. My grandmother originally tried to teach me to knit when I was 12. It didn’t take at that point. And though she wasn’t around anymore when I was 22 and decided to try to teach myself, I think those original lessons made it easier to learn from a magazine article. “

1 Random Winners receive: 
1 large “Keep Calm and Carry Yarn” Project Bag – color of their choosing

To Enter:
Buzz over to JennieGee’s Etsy store, and then comment on this post “where this bag would come in handy”. This will enter you into the random drawing. Entries must be received  by March 31st. Simple as that!

SPECIAL DISCOUNT: 
JennieGee has been kind enough to give all Rewind readers a limited time discount. Simply type ‘REWIND’ in the coupon code at check out to receive 15% off anything in her Etsy store.

Spread the Word:
Pay it forward. Feel free to share this giveaway on other blogs, sites or social media!

Please also check out JennieGee’s talent on her graphic design website!

We used black cherry, watermelon-cherry, pink lemon-aid, lemon-lime and ice blue punch to come up deep reds, corals, bright blues and minty greens. The first task was to wind the balls of yarn which was the most time consuming task. The yarns we ended up dying were 100% Fisherman’s Wool in Natural, Stitch Nation ‘Full O Sheep’ in Honeycomb and some other hand-me-down wool yarns.

We took Xandy’s tip and used spoons and tongs to maneuver the yarn balls in the dye bath. Once they had boiled the two rounds in their dye baths, the tongs were lifesavers as we rinsed the yarn balls in the cold water. These suckers get super hot!! Half way through dyeing the yarn we came up with the idea of creating a 2-tone ombre by dyeing the yarn – rinsing it / letting it cool, unwinding, rewinding with the new color in the center and re-dying. What we created was a Christmas-Italian-Watermelon inspired colored yarn. I can’t wait to see how this knits up.  Each one took the dye in a unique way, the most interesting was Stitch Nation yarn. Since it was already Honeycomb we weren’t sure if it would take color but it took the Black Cherry Kool-Aid wonderfully, creating a fiery color combo.

Mary and I highly recommend trying this out. As they say “if we can do it, so can you!” It was a lot of fun and we plan on sharing some finished projects soon!