I just spotted this on Kickstarter and sat up at attention: www.kickstarter.com/projects/ply... especially once I saw this line in the summary: "celebrate and elevate knitters across the entire spectrum of color, ability, gender, and queerness". Heck yeah!

The countdown is on: the #KWKnittersFair2025 is less than 4 weeks away now! Join us at the Kitchener Aud (that's Kitchener, Ontario, Canada) for two arenas full of yarny goodness. Visit kwkg.ca/fair for more information, including the list of vendors!

This post is being shared over on Mastodon, too; let's see which social network can get there first! Today the Trevor Project has a donor providing a 4x match to our contributions: www.thetrevorproject.org My employer also provides a 2x match.

It's official, friends! The #kwknittersfair2025 is happening on September 13, 9:30 AM-3:30 PM, at the Kitchener Aud. Vendor applications are now open, with a deadline of June 30. Visit linktr.ee/KWKNITTERSGU... to find out more, whether you're a prospective vendor, volunteer, or attendee!

The first flowers of spring! Purple crocus (crocuses? crocusses? croci?) peeking up in our front yard, and snowdrops suddenly filling our neighbour's yard. Isn't it incredible how much hope those little petals hold?

"Nothing stops them from deciding that dissent is a crime. Nothing stops them from sending journalists, activists, and political opponents to disappear behind bars." from the @godpod.bsky.social newsletter. Dissent, I say. (Pattern available from my ravelry store, www.ravelry.com/patterns/lib...) 🧶

File under: reasons not to store your scrap yarn 🧶 on the wall directly above the laundry hamper. 🤦‍♀️ Glad this was a load of mostly towels and none have been dyed pink!

Kitchener-Waterloo folks, please go check out Palmyra Grill and Desserts on Lancaster (nr Ammar Halal). Hard to open a Syrian restaurant during Ramadan, but wow, their food is phenomenal and they are so kind. Details of dishes in the alt text.

Happy International Women's Day, and cast-on day for the #UnfreeMAL! The next several weeks I will post case studies on how we can leave behind subsets of women if we aren't intersectional in our activism. www.unravelingprivilege.com/unfree-mal-k... #journalism #writing #blog

Our March speaker is the amazingly creative Megan Lapp. She began publishing her own digital crochet patterns in 2017 with one small octopus under her business name of Crafty Intentions, and now has over 200 patterns available digitally. Not a member yet? Check out www.kwkg.ca/join-us/ #crochet

I really love protest folk music. Amazing how songs written decades or centuries ago can ring so clear now. www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRWZ...

Lost all ability to cope today, and put myself back to bed at 10 AM. So profoundly discouraged and overwhelmed by so many things right now, my body/the provincial election/geopolitics. Clinging to points of connection: friends doing things for each other, family supporting family, pets snuggling.

Library Card Vest knitting pattern www.etsy.com/uk/listing/1... Long overdue. Thanks @ronmcquade.bsky.social

It's my mom's 75th birthday today, and she took part in the "Coldest Night of the Year" walkathon for the Food Bank. She and her team raised over $4K, their highest level yet! They were a few of over 500 walkers in our small town. So proud and so glad to see people showing up for each other.

BTW for people worried about getting a voter card - if you download the Elections Ontario app (and you’re registered to vote) you can get an electronic copy of your VIC. But you don’t need the card to vote. You can go to any advance poll in your riding tomorrow - take ID with current address.

Advance polls are fantastic. In and out in minutes, despite our voter cards not having arrived yet. Everyone was cheerful, and also there was a service dog so I got to vote WITH A DOG for the first time. #Ontario, please #VOTE YOUR HEARTS OUT. (And vote Doug out!!!)

This is AMAZING. My dachshund mix definitely didn't get the memo, though, she's only interested in racing to bed.

A gang of friends descended on a church basement and ironed an entire car-full of donated quilting fabric tonight, sorting it into piles for different charities. Absolutely the most mundane task ever, made fun and actually really uplifting by doing it together. There's a metaphor here somewhere...

I hope America is as lucky as the delta jet - everyone survives but the right wing explodes

The stunning Indigenous Canada flag created by Kwakwaka'wakw artist Curtis Wilson. His design for the flag is meant to represent First Nations in Canada to the public. In reflection, with gratitude and humility 🙏.

I don’t want to hear about your support of the “LGB community.” That’s not my community. My community includes transgender people, and intersex people, and asexual people, and all the other people you pretend don’t exist. If you don’t support them, you don’t support me.

This whole thread is just so brilliantly nerdy and hilarious. (Much like Gretchen's book!)

The soundtrack for this morning's commute, for sure! (I am the only staff person in the office today, but we have a 3rd party rental group in and someone had to be here... Osti de cris de tabarnak indeed!)

I've already signed up 🤩

Here's the finished #SkyKAL hat, blocking on my taped-up balloon head. This is the Gro Hat by Fiber Tales, knit in WoolDreamers Manchelopis 🧶. It's a bluer shade of teal than it looks here, I swear! (Pro tip: weaving in ends with unspun yarn? Use a crochet hook rather than a darning needle.)

This is a perfectly normal thing to do, right? 🧶 Preparing to block my #SkyKAL knit hat, and trying to get the balloon to be similarly proportioned to my head.

Do you like your old-time stringband music served with a dollop of sweetness and some salt and vinegar for sass? My friends' band Onion Honey is pretty great. onionhoney.com

Just in case anyone needed a gentle reminder… LGBTQ+ people have always existed, and we will always exist. When any part of our community is under attack, we stand together. You are seen, you are loved, and you are not alone. 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️🧶 #KnitWithPride #LGBTQCrafters

Home from a really lovely weekend at my parents'. Had three friends join us today to make a GIANT batch of marmalade, eat hearty stew, play raucous games of crokinole, knit, spoil the dog, and peruse Dad's multi-bookcase library of field guides. (See alt text for marmalade process notes because 🤓.)

It's wild how many people are missing the point on this. THAT THEY ARE COMING FOR ANYONE IS ENOUGH. Whether or not you are safe is not the point. Other people's safety matters. Other people's lives matter. Other people matter. Show up for them.

I think it's time to make some lists here! If you're a current member of our Guild, a past member of our Guild, or have been a vendor at one of our #KWKnittersFair events, please let us know! We'll try to make it easier to find and follow one another here.

I've realized that I'm a bit late for the #showmeyourknits prompt for stripes this week -- which is silly, because the design I'm wearing *in my profile pic* is one of my own stripe designs! knitty.com/ISSUEdf23/PA... is free at @knittymag.bsky.social and it's squishy brioche, easier than it looks.

Whoo! My local knitters' guild is now on Bluesky! (Yeah, okay, it's me, I'm the one posting for the Guild. Which means I'm talking to myself here. Which is... about how this year is going, eh?)

Another of the people I work with, raising more desperate alarm bells. (Wesley's views are his own, mine are my own, we're not posting on behalf of the think tank, yada yada -- but I can vouch that he's someone who knows what he's talking about.)

Ugh, 3rd insulin pump infusion site from the box, 3rd leak of insulin all over my skin on day 2 (after it had been working fine on day 1). Starting to suspect a bad batch here! Works OKAY if I do extended (slow) doses, but not great. C'mon, Tandem! High blood sugar is no fun. #typeonediabetes #t1d

pretty sure President Kamala wouldn't be calling for the expulsion of all Palestinians from Gaza but what the hell do I know

Please share this post so we can connect. All are welcome and will update this pack again tomorrow

Knitty's Winter '24 Surprise is live! knitty.com/ISSUEw24/con... Find the three new patterns on the front page with the little SURPRISE buttons next to their names. As always, these patterns are FREE thanks to the support of our Patrons! We couldn't make Knitty without them. 🧶

A propos of nothing, it's really interesting to see all the Canadian flags all over things now. I feel like between Truth & Reconciliation reckonings and the truckers' protest in Ottawa during COVID, the left (including me) has been uncomfortable with Canadian patriotism for a while.

I've actually had the privilege of working on events with half a dozen of the political leaders and academics on the initial signatory list. People I have the highest admiration for. This is not just any petition (because I know there are many out there to sign); if you sign one, this is a good'un.

If you're not putting mutuals front and centre, at least find yourself something like a #caturday feed or #dogsky or maybe #splootsky or something just silly. Then get off the keys, go #knitting, organize the resistance, feed someone who needs a dinner.

Something gentle for tonight: the soft snores of a sleeping dog. Volume up, and listen/watch as many times through as you need. Sweet dreams, Coco.

I built a feed for #SkyKAL, the ?first? BlueSky makealong, organized by @larkspurknits.bsky.social ! Now you can pin and follow it easily. It captures #SkyKAL and #SkyMAL hashtags. bsky.app/profile/anni...

Following the news right now is not like watching a train crash. It's more like watching an atomic bomb detonate in slow motion. Even outside the immediate blast radius, it's searing, blinding, and there's just enough time as it happens to realize the fallout and radiation still to come.

Janel Comeau, poet of the people, captures the moment perfectly, yet again.

Hrmm. I need to learn how to set up a feed (that someone else hasn't already built) on here. Unless, of course, someone has already built a #SkyKAL feed and I just can't find it?

Just a reminder to join the #SkyKAL hosted by @larkspurknits.bsky.social Grab any blue yarn 🧶 or work on a WIP. Let’s focus on solidarity and garnering peace through the process. Getting into the zone, into the Flow.

Alright, I'll jump into the #SkyKAL too. I have a Gro Hat on the needles, in a tealy-blue-y colour of Wool Dreamers Machelopis (unspun yarn). Right now I'm just working through the ribbing and getting to know the yarn, but a fun stitch pattern is coming up soon! #KnitSky #knit🧶

This reminds me of when I forgot the word “syrup” while making a grocery list late one night. I was soooo confused the next morning when I opened the notes app and saw “waffle sauce”

so the thing is just because someone is not posting about every horror, does not mean they aren't paying attention or being active in opposition, and I do hope people can learn to read for other signs of resistance rather than demand people create a 24/7 feed of screaming it's actually not helpful