Friday, December 28, 2018

10 Years of ChemKnits

10 years ago today, I went on a New Years trip to my friends' cabin in New Hampshire.  We were young and loved to pack this house full of friends to have a fun and low key celebration of the new year.  I decided to stay at the house while everyone else went skiing, and I created ChemKnits.

There are honestly a lot of details that are hard to remember.  I have only gone skiing a few times in my life, so I don't remember if I went one day and was tired, or if I just decided to sit this one out.  What I remember the most is researching ear flap hat knitting patterns.  I was not yet aware of Raverly of Pinterest, so I was googling, checking links, and making a list in word to keep track of the various patterns I found.  I found myself wishing that someone had already made such a list, and decided that I should share it with the world.  ChemKnits was born. 

The search for earflap hat knitting patterns was not my first post - I wanted to work on it a bit more, but it was through this post that a lot of people found me. While I was writing for myself, other people started finding me and through your interest I kept sharing what I was working on. 

10 years.  Through this blog, I challenged myself as a knitter and a fiber artist.  I tackled cables and colorwork, designed my first pattern, designed more patterns, learned to crochet, tried dyeing yarn, and learned to spin. I started ChemKnits to learn about myself and to keep track of my own progress - this has been my lab notebook.

It is amazing that a journey can both be so personal but also so public at the same time.  Through my posts and videos, I have grown, but you have also been able to watch me grow.  When I say that we are learning together, I truly mean that, and I love this community that we have created in our corner of the Internet. 

The internet has changed, and I do not post here nearly as frequently as I did in the past.  ChemKnits has evolved, but it is still such a big piece of my soul.  It is hard to say where ChemKnits stops and Rebecca begins, because ChemKnits was born out of my passions. Maybe I need to change my video introduction... I'm not "Rebecca from ChemKnits," I AM ChemKnits.  I hope that I can look back at ChemKnits after another 10 years and feel like I've continued to challenge myself and grow as a fiber artist. 

Thank you for reading.  Thank you for watching.  Thank you for being on this journey with me. 

Thursday, December 13, 2018

2018 Chanukah Special

Chanukah might be over for the year, but we don't really have to stop celebrating!  At the end of the summer, I decided that I wanted to create a special series for Chanukah.  I thought it would be fun to film 8 new dyeing videos with 8 dyeing techniques on 8 different yarn bases.  I would wind up the yarn in to miniskeins to create some samplers to share.


I underestimated a few aspects of this journey.  I thought it would be a lot of work, which it was, and that it was a lot of fun, which it also was.  I don't think I could have anticipated the positive response we got from all of you!  The holiday was truly filled with joy, laughter, and light, with the whole extended ChemKnits family (yes that includes you!)  

I did not expect it to be so hard to avoid sharing spoilers.  When I try something that works great, or I have a cool in progress shot, I love to share those on Instagram or Facebook. I didn't want to give away ANY hints from this series. I wanted everyone who purchased a sampler to be surprised and excited to open up their gift each night.  I have started sharing some of these in progress photos now, and I am so excited that you can finally see them! 


The ChemKnits 2018 Chanukah Sampler is different from a lot of indie dyer samplers/advent calendars for a few reasons.  A big one is that this set contained a mixture of different yarn bases.  I chose 8 different luxury yarns from KnitPicks:  Paragon, Imagination, Gloss, Andean Treasure, Galileo, Capra, Bare Hare, and Alux.  I wanted to send samples of different dyeing techniques and fiber types so you could swatch them and see how they might knit up differently.  


Each miniskein was wrapped in tissue paper inside a snowflake organza bag.  I used some cardboard labels with dreidel stickers to designate the nights.  On the back of each number label there is the fiber content and care instructions for the yarn.  Surprisingly, none of the yarns in this sampler were superwash.  Well, except for the bonus c


Since it might be hard (but not impossible) to make a complete project from the sampler, I wanted to give people an option to include a full 100 g skein of sock yarn. I picked KnitPicks Felici.  The yarn is similar to the stroll that I use all the time, but the spin is a little tighter and the Merino is softer. 

It took me a few tries to get this "Melted Wax" colorway right.  I attempted to make a speckled version that resulted in the birth of the Evil Faerie yarn.  In my second speckled attempt, I created something closer to the vision in my head, but ultimately I loved the way the primary colors mixed together when I dyed a twisted hank of yarn three different times. 


When I sat down to write this post, I mentioned that there were a few things I didn't expect to come out of this series.  After all, I've done other special weeks in the past. (Sock Blank Special, Cellulose Week, Indigo Week.)  I underestimated the positive challenge this would be to me as an indie dyer and an artist.  I wanted to make sure I created distinct colorways, but many of these yarn bases I had never dyed before, so I didn't always know if things would come out as I imagined in my head.  

Another added bonus - I had to reskein all of the yarn to create the samplers.  This means that we got to see where reskeining made a difference in how yarn looked when compared to the "as dyed" skein of yarn.  

It was an absolute pleasure to plan this series, and I am already starting to think about next years!  


If you missed an episode, don't worry!  There is a full recap of the whole week, but you can also find all of the videos in the following playlist: 


Happy Chanukah, Happy Holidays, and Happy New Year, everyone!  Which yarn is your favorite?  Do you think I should do this again next year? 




This post contains some KnitPicks affiliate links.  I purchased all of the yarn and materials for this sampler myself.  All thoughts and opinions are my own.  

Friday, December 7, 2018

A New ChemKnits Logo and Some New Merch!

I am so pleased to finally share the new ChemKnits Creations logo with all of you!  I wanted to create something that combined Chem-and-Knits but also represented the direction that I've taken with the YouTube channel.  This ball of yarn is sitting in a two neck round bottom flask, a common piece of lab equipment, to represent both the science side and the dyeing experiments that we all love.

This logo was designed by Taryn Johnson is a brilliant graphic designer and artist.  I have been a fan of Taryn's artwork for a long time, so when I reached out to her this fall with my vision I was thrilled that she was able to work with me on this logo.  You should absolute check out her other work!


What was the first thing I did with my logo?  I ran to a few different print-on-demand sites to play around with it on different products.  I wanted to test the scale and quality before offering some merchandise to all of you.  I am so pleased to finally offer some official ChemKnits Merchandise! Right now there are a few mug options (including a jumbo 20 oz mug and a color changing mug that was requested by viewers) plus the ChemKnits "Dyeary" Notebook. 


Stay tuned, because some more merchandise is coming soon! 

To be perfectly honest, I haven't decided how to integrate this logo here into the Blog yet... I still like my hand knit logo a bit. The blog that started everything off, and is about to turn 10 years old in just a few weeks.  I have some plans (plans is a strong word, ideas is likely better) for a new website to center and ground all of the directions that ChemKnits is going... but this blog will never be going anywhere.  The look might change, but ChemKnits.com will always be the blog that started it all.