Author: Kimberlee Shaffir
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Road Trip
Yesterday was Local Yarn Shop Day and I hope, if you’re a crafter, you visited your LYS and gave them some love and support! This past year has been so hard on small businesses. I had plans yesterday so was unable to stop into my LYS, Knits and Pieces, but I’ll be popping in later today to…
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What The Heck is Tech Editing?
It has been a busy week since posting about about my first venture into designing. Thank you for all the love and support! Since last week, I wrote up the pattern using Stitchmastery and Microsoft Word. I’m a self-taught Word user and Stitchmastery, a program for designing knitting charts and instructions, is completely new to me. There was…
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Someday Becomes Now
Years ago, I designed a sweater that actually was awarded an honorable mention in the design competition at that year’s Knitting Guild of America convention. I received a bunch of yarn, needles and other swag to take home along with my dreams of creating more designs. But, life got busy. Ideas of designing became just…
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Taking Scissors to A Knitted Garment
In my last post, I mentioned knitting my first steek. For those not familiar with knitting, when you knit a colorwork pattern, it is much easier to knit in the round because you are only knitting every row and not purling on the wrong side rows as you would if knitting a flat piece. This works great…
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Being A Maker
Earlier this week, I was asked how long I’ve been knitting. The simple answer is for over 35 years. But the story is much more than that. Making things with my hands has always been a part of who I am. I can always remember creating things: drawings, stories or stuff out of fabric scraps or cardboard. My…
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Patience
“I could never do that. I don’t have the patience.” I get that comment a lot when I post pictures of my knits on social media. I usually just smile or respond with “Knitting doesn’t require patience, it teaches it.” I’ve been thinking about that a lot this past week as I’ve worked on my knitting. I generally have…
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Casting on a new beginning
It’s still cold but even with the chill in the air, the light feels different. A light that is vivid and bright. It’s the kind of light that tells you Spring is not far away. I’m am ready for it. I’m ready for warm breezes, Spring flowers and, here in Maryland, the return of ospreys.…
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The Purple Sweater
One Saturday in early December, I realized I needed a purple sweater. I was looking through my closet, trying to figure out what to wear to the small, family only (due to Covid), funeral for my aunt. Aunt Jane, my mom’s older sister and my godmother had passed away that previous Monday at the age of 87. In…
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The Sweater I Didn’t Plan To Make
It started with the yarn. Back in the summer, I decided to treat myself and become a Magpie Fiber Society member. What’s that you ask? Magpie Fibers is a multi-racial, woman owned and ran yarn dyer located in Frederick, Maryland. If you are a fiber artist and you’ve not yet had the pleasure of working with yarn from…
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“New Beginnings and The Voice of Doubt”
“You should write a knitting book or do a blog. That’s an unbelievable and pretty sweater, ” my friend Virginia commented below a picture on social media of my latest FO (that’s Finished Object to all you non-knitters). Thanking her, I responded back that I liked the blog idea. But in reality I was shaking…