Friday Finds: Great Yarn Deals

I'm sure that all of you are, at least, passingly familiar with Craftsy - the online community that offers classes in knitting, sewing, and much more.

But did you know that Craftsy sells yarn and fabric? And sometimes at bargain basement prices? HOLY CATS. Look at my recent haul:

This is 20 skeins of Cascade 220 Heather and 2 skeins of Cascade Pure Alpaca (in the most scrumptious colors!) My entire order was $101.55. Seriously. The shipping was free - maybe because I spent over a certain amount, I can't remember. But, regardless, this is insane. My average price per skein was $4.64. For Cascade. And alpaca.

So... you can simply check Craftsy's "shop" tab occassionally for deals or, if you're a Facebook sort of person, you can follow a page called the Knitting Club. They post all the Craftsy deals as they're happening. That's how I found out about the Cascade sale. :)

Have fun shopping!

- Alex

P.S. As of about 3 minutes ago, we are officially PUBLISHED!

Follow Us

Doesn't this post title sound like we are some kind of cult? We should be so lucky!

Alex and I recently realized that over the past 3 years of blogging we have amassed quite a number of free patterns and tutorials. Some of them easily accessible by links in the tabs above, some (unfortunately) a little more hidden. We've come up with a few ideas to make your Mighty Distractible "user experience" a little friendlier...

First we are converting all patterns and tutorials into a pdf format. This way everyone can easily download and store the pdf on their desktop or print out the document on-demand. This is quite a process so keep checking back here as we add more pdfs a bit at a time.

Want to sew a denim maxi? This pdf is for you!

Second, we are making better use of our Mighty Distractible Craftsy and Ravelry accounts. We realize that a lot of our followers are active members on both of those wonderful sites. Follow us on either site to download our patterns and tutorials (more coming every day) and be the first to see new designs as they are released. We are also starting some accounts on other social media outlets for our readers that you will hear about shortly.

Lastly, we are moving things around on our site. Pardon our dust as we do some serious revamping and content shuffling. And we are being faced with the reality that Mighty Distractible is fast outgrowing its current digs. So a move will probably happen at some point soon too. Whew, who knew this blog experience was going to roll into something of a small business?

More patterns, more tutorials, more distractions to come this year. Thanks for being readers, you folks are the reason this whole Mighty Distractible thing is fun for us.

–Cassandra

The Snowball Is Rolling...

As Cassandra mentioned last week, we are thrilled that the release of What (else) Would Madam DeFarge Knit? is on the near horizon because, with this book, we become official, published (and paid!) knitwear designers. This prospect is both exciting and scary. We are going to be in the same book as some of our knitting heroes. Yikes!

That being said, we are exceedingly proud of the pattern we designed and are excited to see other people make it. I've nearly broken my fingers crossing them in hopes that there are no bad mistakes in the pattern. But I will accept all errata with grace and work hard to make sure we "clean up" the pattern as people work it.

The potential exposure that our pattern (and we) will be getting from the book has lit a fire under our collective butts. Cassandra and I have been talking, for a long time, about expanding our little online world and taking advantage of other crafting sites in order to reach more folks. To that end, we set up both Ravelry (DistractedMinds) and Craftsy (Mighty Distractible) pages. Starting immediately, we'll be loading all existing and new patterns to Craftsy (knitting/sewing/embroidery/etc) and all our existing and new knitting patterns to Ravelry. (It might takes us a bit so please be patient.) For those of you who have downloaded links to our Google Docs page for our existing patterns, those links will still be active.

Please visit our new pages and let us know what you think. Since we're still fairly new at this, any feedback will be appreciated. :)

In celebration of our new pages, today we're going to add the actual, final, tested "Hipster Hat" pattern that I started designing a couple of weeks ago. You may have read the original post (where I jumped the gun and posted the pattern before I'd actually finished test knitting the piece) or the update (where I THOUGHT I had a solution but still hadn't finished the second test knit). Well, I finally finished the pattern and I'm really happy with the result. It achieved exactly what I wanted - a loose-fitting hat with a large crown that would accomodate all my hair and not leave hat-marks on my 'do.

Hat pattern #1 resulted in a hat that was too shallow. Even though it had the large crown I wanted, it wasn't long enough and didn't cover my ears. Also, the decrease I used was too severe and, as a result, left big holes in the crown that had to be sewn shut. (annoying). I gave the hat to the smallest-headed person I know - Sara from my knitting group. Here she is, sporting the first test knit:

So, to fix it, I made the "cuff" over 2" long instead of 1" and I changed the decrease to both add some depth and also to close the holes that were created by the earlier severe decrease.

Here's the final hat:

I'm pretty happy with how it turned out! I've been wearing it a lot and have gotten quite a few compliments on it. I used a random, left-over skein of Cascade 220 but I think I'd like to make it again in a more exciting color. :)  Not that there's anything wrong with mushroom brown but...

So, please visit our Craftsy or Ravelry pages to download this new, free hat pattern! Thanks for continuing to read Mighty Distractible and for supporting us as we grow.

- Alex

Friday Finds: Sewing Machine 911

Happy Friday people!

Today's find is a FREE....yes I said FREE...Craftsy online 5-part video class called Sewing Machine 911.

It is a super breakdown of a possibly very intimidating piece of equipment for a new sewer plus a great source for troubleshooting solutions for the experienced sewer. Love it!

Have a great weekend,

Cassandra

Craftsy

The other day Alex and I were turned on to something new. It's called Craftsy. Sort of like Ravelry but multi-disciplined. Along with knitting and crocheting there are projects for quilting, sewing, jewelry making, paper crafts, and more. I know, right! I've also been waiting a long time for this concept to show up on the interwebs.

{As a graphic designer, I will say I'm a fan of their brand. It's retro but not over-done.}

I have set up a free profile for myself but haven't had a chance to add recent projects or patterns in yet. It's going to be fun to have profiles for my quilts, embroidery, etc. There is more to my life than knitting :)

I couldn't find an actual launch date on the site, but some of it is still in Beta so I assume it hasn't been around that long. There are a few areas that I think are sort of weak, but I assume those things will be hammered out in due time. For instance, I want an easy way to search (by name) for my friends who also joined Craftsy and be able to see what projects they have going. You can "follow" crafters once you've found their page, but there is no people-finder search option. I have no idea how to find Alex who is also a member. Marco....

Craftsy project search bar.

The absolute coolest thing is the online class hosting they provide. Wow! If you want to learn how to knit socks, make wire wrapped jewelery, or machine quilt they have a class for that...and more. Each class is priced differently but $29.99 and $59.99 seem to be the norm. There is a preview of the class to give you a taste of what it is like and once you've registered for a class it will always be available for you to replay the lessons. You have access to the instructor and according to Craftsy, they will respond in 1-2 days. I am all over this class thing. As a mom who is often tethered to her house, the ability to sit down and take my class at midnight is really appealing.

Online classes splash page.

On a less-expensive note, their "Workshops" tab is a neat idea. Tutorials on any project under the sun for somewhere between $12-$15. And, like the projects section...users can submit their own tutes for purchase.

Let's face it, no one has a better online experience than Ravelry. User-friendly and seemingly unbreakable. They have us spoiled. But I think I like this Craftsy idea. And kudos to them for trying to find their own way of doing things and not just ripping off Ravelry's format. I'll give them a whirl.

–Cassandra