Perhaps you are a savvy internet buyer and familiar with all the places independent designers are selling their work. But, many of us makers have relied on one place to browse and buy patterns. Many are asking where are we going now? Well, there is no one place to do all the things a certain site provided. But, there are many sites where we can browse and discover the next project that will help bust our stash - or add to it.

Designers on The Fiber Indy List have chosen different solutions to selling their work. Some have shopping carts on their websites making it easy to visit their site, add to your cart and check out. Some have chosen to utilize Etsy*, Lovecraft* and Payhip. It can feel overwhelming when trying to navigate the wide ocean of the internet. One of the reasons The Fiber Indy List was created was to give a central place to find new, or at least new to you, designers.

Which place to go to when you want to "window shop" the pretty things made with pretty string? Where can you browse a browse a wide variety of future projects? If a designer is on Payhip and Lovecraft which link should you click on? In this blog post I'll discuss the three most common platforms on The Fiber Indy List: Payhip, Etsy, and Lovecrafts.

Lovecrafts does have community pages*.  Members can upload pictures of  finished objects, and when looking at patterns you can see what other makers have created.   Or if you just want to browse other people's FOB's, you can go to the community pages to see all the pretty things.  Unfortunately the community uploads do not provide detailed project information like yarn use, needles etc. But, who doesn't like to look at all the pretty objects?

One other issue with the Community pages is they can be a little tricky to find.  You have to navigate to the menu bar for each craft - Knitting*, Crochet*, etc - and you will find "Community. =

The above are a sample of platforms to find designers, and they all serve their purpose. Personally what I find exciting s is we are not tied to any one place whose interface we may or may not love. We have the freedom to choose the experience we want when it comes to looking for patterns and finding our favorite designers.   My goal with TFIL is to provide a resource to help navigate these new opportunities.  

When grafting you enter into each stitch twice:
1st to Prep as if to Knit or Purl
2nd to Work as if to Knit or Purl

To know how to prep the stitch you first have to understand how you need to work the stitch. 

What distinguishes  a purl stitch from a knit stitch is whether the purl bump is pushed toward you when knitting or away from you:
​
Knit stitches push the purl bump away from you to the back of the fabric
Purl stitches push the purl bump toward you to the front of the fabric.

When live stitches are sitting on the needle they are in a neutral position.  But, knitting into those live stitches, the purl bump gets pushed either to the right side of the fabric or the wrong side of the fabric.  The same is true when grafting.  So, the first question to ask yourself is which side of the fabric will the purl bumps be when I complete the graft?

Remember each stitch is entered into twice.  
1st to Prep as if to Knit or Purl
2nd to Work as if to Knit or Purl

​Step 2 is what will eventually push your purl bump to the side of the fabric you want.  But, before you can work the stitch as if to Purl or Knit and take the stitch off the needle, you need to prep the stitch.  When you prep opposite of what you work.  So it's either

Prep as if to Knit
Work as if to Purl

Work as if to Purl 
Prep as it to Knit

Once you know which of the two you will do for an individual stitch you're ready to start grafting.

Note: When prepping the stitch you leave the stitch on the needle. Stitches come off the needle when working the stitch.

Starting the Graft can look tricky, but if your remember Rule 4 you'll always know how to start.   When starting a Graft there are no prepped stitches. So you will need to prep the first stitch on Needle 1 and Needle 2 to get started. ​

When grafting every stitch will need to be prepped. But, the last stitch on Needle 1 & 2 do not necessarily have to be worked.  It's up to you whether you want to:

- Only prep the last sttich
- Prep and Work 1 stitch while leaving the other stitch only Prepped
- Prep and Work Both stitches

I hope this helps you understand how to think your way through grafting.  If you have any questions please comment either here or on the YouTube Channel.  Or join me every Sunday at 11:00 am Pacific for Knit Tea Live! 

​There was some shenanigans happening on Fiber Twitter, and I cannot believe I have to say this, but it needs to be said clearly: Neo-Nazis, racists, anti-LGBTQ, antisemitism, and other bigotries are not welcome on The Fiber Indy List. 
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Since Raverly has unravelled failing to live up to its own values of inclusivity the question keeps getting asked: where are we all going to go? Some projects have popped up. Most notably on Instagram Fiber.Club has formed.  So far they appear well intentioned, although it will take some time for them to get their site off the ground.  Time will tell if they will be the inclusive alternative to Raverly so many want to see come out of this mess.

Now, this is not the first time people have rushed to create alternatives to Ravelry after a controversy. Last year when Raverly banned MAGA a couple of start ups tried to enter the fray and give a home to Trump supporters who felt called out.  Those efforts  appear to have crashed and burned, and I won't give them air here. Let the MAGA-rly sites be forgotten like Red Heart Sashay.  

But, something happened today that reminds us that we have to be careful as a new crop of Raverly alternatives enter the field. 

On June 28, @ElizabettaCarrarra  tweeted. 

On August 2 Elisabetta tweeted a roadmap for Beta Testing and a name for her site: Yarn Room. 

Based on these two tweets it appears Yarn Room is a legitimate enterprise and well intentioned.

OH NO, OH NO, OH NO. Not the case at all.  This morning we all found out that Yarn Room is just another MAGA-rly looking to make a home for people who were kicked out of Raverly in 2019.

Twitter: Okay...This is one of those statement that on the surface seems okay. But, flags went up and a couple of people asked Elisabetta how she planned to handle harassment on Yarn Room. 

Twitter: Wait, what? Like some patterns are blatantly political.  You wouldn't let patterns with Nazi symbols on them. Like duh. 

What? No. IT'S NAZIS!

BANNING NAZIES IS TIMELESS LIKE SHETLAND LACE!
​IT'S A FOREVER MOOD!

These screenshots are just a sample of Elisabetta defending why inclusivity requires accepting neo-Nazis onto her platform to sell their wares. Rarely have I seen a start up burn down it's brand so quickly.  

 

2020 has taught me many things.  One big lesson is never assume that sharing a passion for knitting means we share anything else. And it does not mean I have to make space for you. And unfortunately this means that we all have to be a little skeptical when new projects launch. People don't always reveal themselves as quickly or blatantly as @ElisabettaCarrarra77.  But, people generally do and taking a wait and see attitude is not a bad thing. 


So, I'm going to say it clearly, so there's no doubt: The Indy Fiber List is not the home for bigotry and Nazis.  I'm human. I will make mistakes along the way.  But, I will do my best to keep my endeavors in line with my values.  I will not include designers on The Fiber Indy List who take part in Yarn Room specifically, but any site that makes space for racism, and does it in the name of inclusivity is not a site I want associated with me.  

Thank you for listening, 
​Happy Health and Happy Knitting

Many fiber crafters are being thrown back to a long forgotten world: life without Ravelry.  In this first few months of Year One in the AR (After Ravelry) many of us are floundering about trying to find new solutions to old problems: tracking our stash, inventorying our tools, keeping notes on our projects, organizing photos... you get the idea. ​  There is in this world people are working to create alternative sites to Raverly, but that will take time.  Meanwhile, there are squishy packages arriving and that yarn ain't going to inventory itself.

​Today's blog post I'm going to give some open source and/or free resources to help you organize your life outside NuRav.  

Check back this blog for updates. I'll be adding to the list as I become aware of new resources.  I have a new option under Notebooks: Trello. 

If you have been following the Unravelling Ravelry Saga you know the once beloved yarnie website monopolized the fiber craft space with it's notebook functions to inventory stash, tools, track projects and of course, the giant pattern database.  But, they released NuRav which has been an utter debacle with reports of it triggering migraines, vertigo, eyestrain, and yes seizures.  

Until this week the most charitable description for Ravelry's response has been .... tepid.  The unvarnished truth it has been gaslighting and ableist.  But, this week the mask has completely fallen with the appearance of form letters from Ravelry:

People are abandoning hope that Ravelry will do the right thing and are either deleting their account, or leaving a skeleton behind as they walk away.  

Thursday, July 20 Jessica, co-founder of Raverly, emerged from the shadows with a statement (this link takes you to the OFFSITE Raverly blog and does not contain NuRav formatting)   I will probably write a separate blog post about it.   Let's just say, your milage may vary and I'm personally taking a wait and see attitude. In the meantime, the list of resources 

I have not used or tried many of these resources. My own organizational systems are a bit more analogue...Unusual for me to be honest. But, I hope for those who need it, you find this helpful.  If you want to skip to different sections I provide a menu at the beginning of each section.

Yes, I know blogs are old fashion.  But, before Raverly many people tracked and shared their projects on personal blogs.  But, maybe it was a mistake giving up control of our knitting life content to Raverly.  And maybe we need to get back to having a network of blogs we delight in.  There are several free ways you can set up your own personal blog.  This is by no means an exhaustive list. But, here it is. 

As always I provide this content as a labor of love. But, it does require time, resources, and coffee.  If you'd like to support my endeavors and show your appreciate you can always "Buy Me a Coffee"  

Also, you can subscribe to my YouTube Channel, sign up for the newsletter and follow me on all my social media.  ​You can find links to all of these things in the details at the bottom of my blog or head on over to the homepage. 

​Ever since I started YouTube and my Blog I've held out the tip jar.  I never truly expected much to come from it, but my feeling was always why not. It could help me fund some of the things I do with YouTube (get those needles I want to review, buy some yarn for the on camera swatches, upgrade my webcam, buy hard drives....).  

Because of my experience on YouTube, I knew at some point "The Indy List" would require a need that that love and effort cannot fulfill.

And, sure enough, it has.  When I started this blog on Weebly it was because I hated Blogger.  In High School I was the Editor in Chief for the school newspaper.  Anyone who reads my tweets knows I didn't earn that position with proofreading.   Nope. My skill was writing and layout. (I want to put text and photos where I want them, damn it!)  Weebly gave me that ability with their free website builder. No coding skills needed.  Perfect.

"The Indy List" is reaching the end of what I can get from Weebly for free, and believe me I will drain every free service I can. I am adding a Google Ad Sense to the site to help cover costs, but that takes time to set up and I do not know how long it will be until it is generating income.

Before AdSense is set up, I will have to commit to upgrading my site to a paid plan.  Switching to a paid plan will not only get a unique domain name, it will help me add better searchability to the "The Indy List."  

Thanks to your generosity,  I am 29% of the way to getting the paid plan fully funded for the year.   I am so incredibly grateful to all of you.  And I am working to live up to the faith you have placed in me to get this done, and get this done well.

If you do not wish to tip me with cups of coffee, I get it. These are tough times and I know I'm one of 100,000's of people holding out the hat.  But, there other ways you can support my efforts. Please consider the following:

• Visit this "Indy Site" regularly for updates to the list and check out the Designers work.  Ultimately I was inspired to star this project to connect Indy Designers and Crafters looking for each other outside of Ravelry.  
• Subscribe to my YouTube Channel.  Currently my videos focus on my love of knitting offering my tips, tricks, opinion and preferences, and every Sunday I Livestream at 11:00 am PDT to talk about ... you guessed it knitting.  
• Subscribe to my Newsletter. The sign up form is at the bottom of every page of the site.  When you do I will send you a free knitting pattern and you will receive occasional updates on what's happening with all things Carrie CraftGeek.
• Favorite and shop my Etsy Shop.  Currently I am selling handmade Fashion Facemasks, but I do want to start offering original handmade jewelry as well.
• Follow me on all my social media: 

This is how it happened: If you've been following the Ravelry NuRav debacle, you know that many Indy fiber artists who have previously relied on Ravelry for their business, are setting up alternative platforms to sell their work. (If you do not know about what's going on with Ravelry please check out my YouTube videos on it) 

And another glass - okay three glasses in - I thought, "You know Carrie, you can't build a NuNuRav, but you can put together a list of sites. You've been talking to designers on Twitter. Why don't you ask them for some links."  And the  The Indy List was born. 

This is a simple directory listing designers, their links, and short blurb by me. My goal is to make this list accessible and help designs and makers find each other outside of Ravelry. No designer is paying me. I am doing this to support designers who are standing with the disability community, often at cost to themselves. It's truly a labor of love. If you would like to leave me a tip to help support this effort, it would be greatly appreciated.  

It started with a tweet. But, it's growing.  If you would like to be added to The Indy List please fill out this form.  I am building this list by myself with whatever free time I have, so be patient as I make my way through.  

I swear I had no intention of writing another blog post about NuRav. But, today Ravelry released a THIRD "Readability" survey about NuRav.  I took it.  I have thoughts.  I did tweet about it but, I'm writing this blog as well to go more in depth describing the survey and to expand some of my thoughts after taking it. 

And if you're wondering why you should care about Ravelry and accessibility please read this tweet thread by Kathleen Sperling, aka @wipinsanity.  Because really accessibility is about all of us. 

Hello Knitting Friends,

It's been quite the ride lately in the Knitting and Crafting world.  But, that's 2020.  (Remember when we thought the biggest Stories of the year would be impeachment, Australian Wild Fires, and Murder Hornets? Ahhh simpler times) 

Sign up for my newsletter and receive a free knitting pattern!

Due the nature of my life and my videos I don't know if that will get up in a timely manner so I want to address some of it here.  

Ravelry has recently posted an update about the NuRav (nickname for the New Ravelry look) and say Ravelry has taken some steps to address their accessibility issues.    I will link to their offsite blog post if you'd like to read it, but be warned it is in the NuRav format.  (Someone put up a link to the update on a google doc. But, I forgot to copy the link.  If I find it I will give an update)

As for the post itself, in my opinion, it leaves a lot to be desired.  I go into detail on this in the upcoming video, but, in short I find it minimizing and ableist.  And believe me it gives me no pleasure to write this about Ravelry.

Although my personal use of Ravelry has always been love/hate, I've always held the site itself and the team behind it in high regard.  Ravelry has played an important, vital role in the Fiber community. There would be a huge void left behind if Ravelry were to go down.  I want Ravelry to succeed.  Truly.   But, in order for it to thrive, Ravelry needs to get over whatever issues are holding them back and fix their problems. 

Again I want Ravelry to succeed.  I want us all to be able to enjoy and use the site. 

Thank you for reading and as Always Happy Knitting!
Carrie CraftGeek
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