Author Archives: Amelia Lyon

Holidays at Yarns Untangled

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Holiday Hours

We know that the holidays are a busy time of year for everyone so we’ve extended our hours on Friday and Saturday’s to 7 pm to help you get all your shopping in.

Friday December 9th: 11am – 7pm **Extended hours**
Saturday December 10th: 11am – 7pm **Extended hours**
Friday December 16th: 11am – 7pm **Extended hours**
Saturday December 17th: 11am – 7pm **Extended hours**
Friday December 23rd: 11am – 7pm **Extended hours**
Saturday December 24th: 11am-3pm **Closing early**
Sunday December 25th: CLOSED
Monday December 26th: CLOSED
Saturday December 31st: 11am-3pm **Closing early**
Sunday January 1st: CLOSED

Holiday Stitch Night Potluck!

Our annual holiday potluck will be on Wednesday December 14th beginning at 6pm.

Bring your favourite holiday dish or beverage of choice. We’ll be holding a raffle with all proceeds going to CAMH as well as a skein exchange! To participate in the exchange, please bring a skein of yarn, valued at least at $15 retail and including its original ball band/label. RSVP here to give us an idea of numbers and to let everyone know what snack you’re bringing.

Looking for a gift for the crafter in your life?

We’re full to the brim with yarn from our favourite Canadian indie dyers including The Blue Brick, Lichen and Lace, the Mineville Wool Project, Riverside Studios, Zen Yarn Garden and more! We also have a variety of kits, notions, project bags, and Yarns Untangled swag to round out any present.

Still not sure what to get? We also do gift cards in any amount – one size fits all. 😉 You can even buy a digital gift card through our website right now!

We’ve started an informal gift registry for those of you looking to give your loved ones a nudge in the right direction. Email us at info at yarnsuntangled.com, or send us a message on Facebook telling what you’re hoping to unwrap and we’ll pass the message along when your people come to the store!

As the year winds down, all three of us are super grateful for all of the incredible support you guys have shown us and we are looking forward to celebrating the season with you. Wishing you all a happy, yarn-filled holiday.

Love,

Amelia, Brenna, and Nicole.

**Our holiday decorations pictured in this post were made for us by a few of our beloved and hilarious Knit Night-goers. Thanks for the adorable surprise, you guys!

One Whole Year!

Never has time flown so fast for the two of us than it has over the past 365+ days. We could not be more grateful for all the support and kindness we have received over the past year. Brenna said it best when she wrote:

You helped us find our feet financially and emotionally. You helped us paint, you helped us move and arrange our shelving, you helped us make samples. You attended our knit nights, you supported us by indulging your yarn addictions, you wrote us kind reviews on google, yelp and facebook. You helped us through our rough patches too.

You helped [us] get where we are today, and helped us grow a stable, happy, ethical, independent business.

In an effort to begin to say thank you, we are having a SWEATER SALE on the weekend of October 22nd and 23rd. Throughout the store*, for every 4 skeins you buy, the 5th will be absolutely free (mix-and-matching encouraged)! Further markdowns will be placed on some delicious yarn, notions, and needles including (but not limited to):

NBK
Debbie Bliss
Jawoll Colour
West Yorkshire Spinners
Cascade Magnum Paints
Nancy’s Knit Knacks
Crochet Cotton
YU Stitch Markers

In addition, each and every customer who makes a purchase on the weekend of October 22nd and 23rd will receive a free Yarns Untangled needle gauge as a small thanks from us for supporting our wee business through its first year. They’re super cute you guys, seriously.

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It’s a small gesture that by no means completely expresses our appreciation for our customers, but it’s a start! Join us next weekend and get your yarn on!

*excluding yarns by The Blue Brick

Socks and Shawls and Sweaters, Oh My!

by Nicole Tavares and Amelia Lyon

Ding! Ding! Ding! Our Kate Atherly Knit Along officially came to a close this week. Kate is one of our favourite teachers, and her patterns sparked a great deal of creativity over the past two months. With two hundred and fifty designs to choose from – anything was possible, and at least 30 of you glorious knitters and crocheters jumped in with both feet. We are so pleased and impressed with every WIP and FO we’ve seen throughout this process, so congrats to everyone who participated, regardless of whether you made it past the finish line in time, or not!

Our collected finished projects covered baby sweaters, shawls, mitts, and of course – SOCKS! Kate is very often referred to as “The Sock Guru,” and the name is very very well-earned. Out of all of her published patterns, virtually half of them are for socks, and the variation therein is so inspiring; from the plain ol’ top-down sock, to some of the fanciest colourwork and cablework out there, Kate’s socks are our go-tos whenever it’s time to keep our tootsies warm.

One of the best parts about knit-a-longs is watching crafters expand their skills and this one was no exception. We had a few people attempt their first ever pair of socks, while others went for a new method: two at a time socks. Congrats to Jen C, Karen, Rachel, Ni, Jen H, and Annabel for tackling this tricky challenge this summer, we loved watching your progress.

cuff down socks and two at a time socks

Knit wavedeck pi shawl

The Wavedeck Pi Shawl was a very popular choice. This half pi shawl by Kate paired perfectly with two skeins of our Mineville DK and it’s tiered lace pattern is simpler than it first appears. With Pi shawls the increases aren’t worked every row, instead the stitch count is doubled periodically in order to achieve the circular shape. Don’t worry if math isn’t your thing – the pattern has done it for you!

This pattern is a half pi shawl, meaning it’s a half circle instead of a full one. As Kate herself says in the pattern, “quicker to knit and easier to wear!”

Our sample in the shop offered lots of inspiration for those looking to make their own.

With dozens of gorgeous mineville DK colours to choose from, little Wavedecks started appearing all over the place in blues and greens.

wavedeck-collage

Along with the wavedeck shawls came a parade of socks in all shapes and sizes, from the most basic cuff down patterns to intricate colourwork. Seen here are just a few of the sock FOs that crossed our path this month.

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Still other knitters tackled chart reading, colourwork, brioche and more. In the end, we had more than 25 projects finished (or almost finished…).

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No KAL is complete without a celebration at the end and some prizes. Without further ado, the winners are:

Most Individual Projects Completed

Goes to Rachel for finishing a Wavedeck shawl AND a pair of socks! If you haven’t met Rachel, she started out as a loom knitter and has only recently moved into working with needle-knitting as well. Obviously she’s rocking it! Her prize is a $15 gift card for Yarns Untangled.

Biggest Mess Up/Lesson Learned

Goes to Cheryl for her work on the Asking for Flowers shawl! This pattern was a step up for her since it offers the instructions for the lace in chart form, and there are quite a few short rows used to turn around the centre point of the left-to-right shawl. With a wee bit of help from Brenna, Cheryl was able to turn out this just gorgeous shawl using three skeins of Rhichard Devrieze Peppino she picked up at the summer trunk show, and she is very pleased with it. So are we! Her prize is a coupon for a private lesson with either Brenna or Amelia whenever she wants! Can’t wait to see what she learned next.

Most ingenious pattern alteration:

Goes to Francesca for her work on the circular Wavedeck. This pattern was by far the most popular one throughout this KAL, but Francesca took it up a level when she turned the half-pi into a full-pi! She used two skeins of Riverside Studios in “Midnight;” these pics don’t do it justice, it has to be seen in person to be full appreciated. Way to go Francesca! Her prize is a digital copy of Kate’s amazing book, Pattern Writing for Knitwear Designers.

photo-2016-09-18-1-12-06-pm — Pre-blocking, but slightly more colour-accurate

Of course the Random Draw! The two winners of our draw were awarded a collection of beautiful yarn from Kate’s stash. Lucky lucky knitters! Congratulations to Claire and Vidya who made a Wavedeck and a One-Piece Baby Sweater respectively!

Thanks to everyone who participated, you guys all rock. As we head into the Fall season, we have lots coming up in terms of classes, trunk shows, events, brand new yarns, and a selection of old favourites. Check us out on the social media platform of your choice (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram) or sign up for our mailing list to be kept in the loop. Happy Stitching!

Zen Yarn Garden at last!

We have lost count of how many of you have begged us to carry the beautiful Zen Yarn Garden, and we are so pleased to finally be able to announce that they will be joining our ranks at the end of this month.

In addition to having Zen Yarn on our shelves, the weekend of September 24th and 25th will feature a two-day trunk show on our patio out front (indoors if it rains). Neville and Roxanne will be sending bags and bags of their best yarns in a variety of weights and materials, including a brand new colourway named for, and exclusive to, Yarns Untangled! Check out the trunk show when the colourway will be seen for the first time.

magicaldyepot09_grande If you’ve not encountered any of the spectacular products that come from the Zen Yarn Garden studio, this is your chance to see everything they have in all it’s glory, but in advance of that weekend, we’d like to take this opportunity to introduce you to Neville and Roxanne Yeun, and their team. Located right here in Ontario, the Yeuns are a husband and wife couple who run ZYG full time. Neville, as “Lead Dyer, Production Manager and Color Chemist,” handles the dyeing end of things making sure that each skein is as perfect it can be. His ability to re-create colours is uncanny, which is great for when you inevitably fall in love with one (or more) of the Zen colourways. Co-owner Roxanne as Creative Director is responsible for managing the many relationships between Zen and its many customers as well as developing collaborations with other artists and designers. Along with their team of dyers and account managers, the Yeuns have been making and distributing beautiful yarn for years, and we are lucky to have them represneting some of the best that the Ontario yarn community has to offer.

For the many of you who already know and love Zen Yarn Garden, get your pre-orders to us before September 9th and Neville will do up a sweater quantity (or two!) of your desired base and colourway. In the meantime, whet your appetite for yarn at:
www.zenyarngarden.co
Instagram.com/zenyarngarden
Facebook.com/zenyarngarden

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The Blue Brick yarn, only at Yarns Untangled

We are bursting with excitement to finally be able to announce that we are now carrying Blue Brick ombre yarns!!! Hand-dyed right here in downtown Toronto (15 minutes from us!), these gradients are not to be believed. Each skein seamlessly transitions through at least 3 colours over the course of 437 yards, giving you enough material to make a beautiful shawl.

Dyeing yarn in a slow gradient like these is an incredibly labour-intensive and complicated process, but Shireen and her husband Tito are more than capable of rising to the challenge. Shireen began her colourful career as a photographer, and her work can be seen in a variety of places including National Geographic and in an installation in Toronto’s PATH system. Each of her colourways is in fact inspired by a particular photograph of hers, and she beautifully presents the inspiration and yarn together in one photograph, several of which are seen below. As if that weren’t enough, each skein purchased includes your very own copy of the inspirational photo!

Until today, The Blue Brick yarn was only available via their online store. We are terribly proud to be the only brick and mortar store in the entire world where you can see her yarn in person (for now!). It has been here for about 2 hours and is already leaving the shelves, so get in quick!

all photographs by The Blue Brick

aurora2

ocean fortress

parrot

willow2

daisy 2

Hyacinth 2

rose 3

Cruisin in Rose

Our Next KAL: “KAAL,” a Kate Atherley-A-Long!

After the success of our previous knitalong where each crafter worked with yarn dyed by Megan of Lichen & Lace for a project of their choice, we’ve decided to base this one around another favourite artist of ours, the infinitely wise and wonderfully talented designer Kate Atherley.

In addition to being an extremely accomplished knitwear designer, Kate is in high demand as a knitting teacher throughout the English-speaking knitting community. Just this spring and summer she has been invited to Interweave Yarn Fest in Colorado, Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival, and the Austin Texas Knit & Crochet Guild, to name a few.

As such, we count ourselves as very lucky to be one of few yarn stores that can claim as a regular teacher on our roster. She can be found teaching at Yarns Untangled virtually every Tuesday and Thursday, and we are especially excited to announce that she will be joining us this Wednesday night (July 13th) for stitch night! The puck-drop will be Friday July 15th, so this will be your chance to meet Kate, get some advice on which pattern would be best for you, or to pick her brain on any questions you might have for your chosen design(s), two days in advance of the beginning of the KAL.

Kate has generously set up a discount code on Ravelry. Check the Ravelry thread for the code that gets you 30% off of any of her patterns from today until August 15th. You can peruse through all of her designs on Ravelry here, but we’d like to take this moment to showcase some of our very favourites.

Always a crowd-pleaser, Asking for Flowers is a fingering weight, garter stitch shawl/scarf with a simple lace edging that is knit as-you-go. It’s simpler than it looks, an extremely rewarding knit, and great for anyone looking to try out lace chart reading for the first time.

For those of you into cables, or looking to advance your skills, the Oswin the Impossible mitts are a joy to make. They use one skein of DK weight yarn, suit any gender, and are a great way to show off a truly special hand-dyed yarn.

If you’ve visited the store in the past few months, you might have seen either Amelia’s or Nicole’s Wavedeck projects. Wavedeck is a half-pi shawl that is quite a bit less complicated than it looks, we promise. Pi Shawls are a concept initially developed by knitting pioneer Elizabeth Zimmerman, and although it’s based on the mathematical concept of pi, no math is required to put this together (although if anyone wants to geek out, we are ready and waiting).

And of course, many of you will know that Kate is truly a sock guru. Her sock knitting classes are some of our most popular workshops, and sock patterns make up almost 40% of her published work. These designs range from the most basic (Basic Ribbed Socks)…

…to the most fancy (Lindisfarne).

Stay tuned to our Facebook and Twitter feeds for more spotlights on Kate’s patterns as a countdown to the start of the KAL.

Prizes:

Most individual projects completed (two socks count as one project) – bang out as many things as you can in two months! Single skein projects count, so this is a great way to plow through your queue. Prize will be a $15 gift card for Yarns Untangled!
Biggest Mess Up/Lesson Learned – tell us your pain! Every new project is a learning experience, and it’s always nice to hear about personal growth. 😉 Prize is a coupon for a private lesson with either Brenna or Amelia at Yarns Untangled.
Most ingenious pattern alteration – show us your knit hacks! A little bit of shaping, an extra big shawl, a special sock toe, bonus mitten fingers, or whatever your heart desires, other knitters can always learn from your changes and your experience. Prize is a digital copy of Kate’s book Pattern Writing for Knit Designers.
Special Crochet Prize – Since Kate’s patterns are all written for knitters, we’ll be offering a special prize for anyone who tackles the challenge of transcribing one of her designs into crochet! Prize is a $10 gift card for Yarns Untangled.
Of course the Random Draw, two winners this time! – each will be awarded a collection of beautiful yarn from Kate’s stash (she gets great stuff sent to her in the mail, this is some primo promo yarn!)

The Knitty Gritty, or “The Rules”
(If this happens to be the first you’re hearing of the term “Knitalong” (or knit-a-long, or knit-along or KAL), we refer you to a short write up from our previous undertaking.)

Important Dates: starts July 15th, ends September 15th
Wednesday July 13th – Kate joins us for Stitch Night
As always, our Drop-In Clinic on Sundays is free to anyone participating in the KAL, so if a pattern seems like a bit of a challenge, we are here to help.
Participation: In order to be considered for entry, crafters must either join the Ravelry thread or post on Instagram (#kaal) and announce which pattern and yarn you’ll be using. Once the project(s) is/are finished, you must post at least one picture of it. If you’d rather, come see us in person and we’ll get a snap of it for you and help you to post it on Ravelry.
If you don’t have a Ravelry account, send us a quick email at info @ yarnsuntangled.com announcing your intention to participate. We’ll make sure you’re kept in the loop
Hashtag: #kaal (use this wherever good hashtags are accepted)
Pattern: the project must be following a pattern designed by Kate, alterations and adjustments are of course just fine. All patterns are 30 % off on Ravelry for KAL participants using the code from the Ravelry thread. Code is active as of today until August 15th.
Yarn: Crafters must use yarn purchased from Yarns Untangled, but it doesn’t need to have been purchased during the time of the KAL.
That’s it! If you have any questions, shoot us an email at info @ yarnsuntangled.com, give us a call at (416) 603-2338, or drop in and see us in person!

And just for good measure, we made this:

KAAAAAAAL

YU in the Community: Adopting a Lamb!

by Nicole Tavares

We have exciting news to share with you: Yarns Untangled has adopted a foster lamb through our friends at Topsy Farms!

We’ve dubbed our wobbly little friend “Cardigan” and he’s doing extremely well now. According to the Farm staff, he is the littlest of his group, but feisty and mighty of spirit. We are told he drank a full bottle immediately upon arrival, and then took a long nap.

Cardigan’s vibrant personality is already visible. He’s reported to be a loving, personable creature whose’s made fast friends with another adopted lamb named Purl. He’s also approaching farm staff for food, suggesting that he’s a smart little guy!

While the vast majority of lambs are born perfectly fine and will proceed to nurse and grow into healthy sheep, 1–2% will face dangerous complications. These lambs may born small, weak, injured, or they might be rejected by their mother. Lambs like Cardigan aren’t able to nurse properly, so they require special care in order to survive and thrive. That’s where Topsy’s foster lamb adoption program comes in!

Our donation assists the Farm in providing Cardigan with the extra attention he needs to thrive. He is being bottle-fed by hand in order to get the nutrition he needs and he’ll be cuddled by volunteers that visit the farm. Fortunately, there are lots of generous volunteers for such a task!

Cardigan the lamb being cuddled by a volunteer — Cardigan and his buddy, Purl, having a cuddle with Sally of Topsy Farms.

Once a lamb reaches adulthood they are officially sheep and typically shorn once a year. The fleece that’s produced is then washed and carded. Then, the resulting fibre is spun, dyed and made into the yarns we know and love.

Topsy Farms worsted weight yarn available at Yarns Untangled — A selection of Topsy Farms Worsted Weight available at Yarns Untangled.

Hopefully we’ll be able to take a field trip and visit Cardigan soon. Stay tuned for updates!

Brand New Online Store and Ad Campaign!

We’ve been working on it for months at this point, and we are thrilled to announce that the Yarns Untangled online store is now officially open! While it is still bare bones for now, you are now able to purchase official YU kits and merchandise, all four of Kate Atherley’s books, and a luscious collection of wool washes all from the comfort of your couch at home. Over the next few weeks, we will be adding many of our best and brightest yarns to the collection as well. We expect to be able to have quite a few of them listed before the end of this month. Share it with all your friends living out of town to spread the YU love around!

At the same time as launching the store, we’d also like to present this whimsical image you see here – one that is also including the upcoming Ravelry ad campaign, which you should be able to see any day. The beautiful photos were done by our good friend and collaborator Tru Ferguson of The Tru Portrait. For those that haven’t had the chance to meet her at stitch nights yet, she is a fantastic photographer with infectious passion for wearable art and fashion. She was one of the first people we wanted to collaborate with when we decided to open the business, and since then we have been so privileged to have her dream up some images for our website and social media.

Her striking photo of Brenna and Amelia, with Brenna’s colorwork knitted tea cups, was heavily inspired by Alice in Wonderland. Tru doesn’t believe that knitters should feel limited by anything in their pursuit of creativity – you should dream bold. We couldn’t agree more that knitting is without any constraints or rules! It is not just for winter garments – you can play with color, texture, shape and volume to create any whim you have.

Expect more of her inspiring work to be shown in our posts, and as we continue to publish patterns as Yarns Untangled on Ravelry – she is the photographer behind them! You can find out more about her on her website at www.truferguson.com and her instagram account, @thetruportrait.

The Secret History of Knitting, a documentary

One of my favourite things about working in a yarn shop and knitting in public is how many people will say, “knitting really is becoming popular, isn’t it?” While this is true in part, we know that knitting has been popular on an off for many many years. But how much do we really know about the history of this wonderful activity?

Last November, we were approached by a team who were in the process of filming a documentary about knitting for Makeful, a new channel “celebrating the maker community and the creation of one-of-a-kind, handmade goods.” They had scheduled an interview with the brilliant Kate Atherley, who had suggested using Yarns Untangled as the locale for their chat. After their shoot was over, the film company asked us if they could come and get a som footage of a few hours of the life in a yarn shop, for use as extra material in the knitting takeover of the Makeful channel.

After some back and forth, we landed on a Wednesday afternoon last month for the shoot. The hope was that they would get some candid shots and long-form scenes of basic goings on, in kind of a slow-TV style, and we mean slow! The crew was able to put together a full three hours of gorgeous material, including some lovely shots of our yarn for an experience they’re calling Knit Purl Knit: Three Hours in a Yarn Shop. It aired last Sunday at 4pm on Makeful, in advance of the premier of the feature documentary, The Secret History of Knitting.

The feature documentary itself is a charming tour of the history of one of our very favourite pastimes. The team interviewed some of the knitting world’s most interesting people. We’re especially loving the cheeky Joyce Meader, historical hand knitter and author. She seems like she’d be a great person to sit down and have a long chat with, and she’s just one of a plethora of fascinating artists, authors, and historians featured. Learn about how knitting was used to send codes during World War II, the birth of The Sweater Curse, the relationship between technology and knitting, and the never-ending silliness surrounding knitting and gender.

It’s humbling to learn what a long line of fantastic knitters and traditions of which we are just a tiny part. If you missed seeing The Secret History of Knitting, have no fear! The full piece can now be seen on their website, bemakeful.com/television, or simply press play on the video below. Watch for familiar faces, and leave a comment below telling us which part was your favourite, or tell us your own personal knitting history story. And if you’ve got three hours to spare, stick around and watch Knit, Purl, Knit: Three Hours in a Yarn Shop afterward!

The Making Of: A Cardigan, pt. 4 – Seaming and the FO

Read part three here.
Read part two here.
Read part one here.

Ok folks, it seems we made it all the way to the end. It’s just over two months to the day since I cast on for this sweater, and considering a polished off a few other projects along the way, that’s not a bad finishing time, if I do say so myself!

Picking up where we left off last, the bits and pieces of the sweater had completely dried, with minimal cat hair present. Here they are ready to be seamed.

If any of you have blocked straight edges with pins before, Tempest 16 you may recognize the tell-tale “pooks” on the sides of the pocket lining from where I had the pins in the fabric. This kind of thing is the opposite of a problem if you’re blocking a lace shawl that’s got points all along the
bottom, but when you’re looking for a clean edge,
my experience has led to simply using blocking wires with my pins. I did some quick (real quick and impatient) googling to see if I could find some writing on the topic, or even some pictures, but nothing came up before I got distracted. If you’ve got photos or a favourite tutorial, share it in the comments below! Luckily, the pocket is on the inside and when I sewed it in place, the pooks became a non-issue.

Next begins the seaming. I used to hate this part because it’s usually when my sweater stopped looking awesome and started looking like it was joyfully completed by the first human ancestor to ever discover that she had opposable thumbs. But ever since Brenna properly showed me how to execute a decent mattress stitch, the seaming became the most exciting. Seriously, I’ll do your seaming for you in exchange for hugs and caffeine. Check it:

In the first picture, you see vertical to horizontal seaming, which I find to be the trickiest and am still perfecting. I will say that on this sweater and the last top I did like this, I found there to be two distinct corners on the top of my sleeve cap. It’s not really a look I love, and I did try and go over this to round out the corners a bit, but I didn’t do a great job. In the future, I will run the seam a bit farther down on either corner. Next the mattress stitch runs down toward the armpit and then you see it pulled closed. Click on the video below and watch it happen, live!

Mmmmmm, if that doesn’t send shivers up your spine, then I don’t know what will. My favourite video tutorial for mattress stitch is the KnittingHelp.com video linked above, but a good picture tutorial can also be found on the Purl Soho website. For the vertical-to-horizontal seaming, check out this explanation from knitty.com. Here’s some more seam porn:

All right, that’s enough, pull yourselves together.

Once all my bits and pieces were in place, it was time for the button band. The button band involves picking up a billion stitches from the bottom right corner, round over the back of the neck, and down to the bottom left corner. I did this late at night in bad lighting, so I haven’t got good pictures, but I will say that the pattern had me picking up one stitch for every two rows, and I was rather skeptical. The more usual ratio is two stitches for every three rows, and fewer stitches means a smaller button band and a higher risk of buckling the rest of the fabric. However, usually knitty.com knows what’s up, so I went with it.

The short story is that it was totally fine. You can see here Tempest 24 that it didn’t look super promising at first, but after a good watery steam, the garter band relaxed into place and looked great. Most animal fibres will do this, but it seemed to me that the angora in this yarn responded particularly well to this steam blocking approach. Those scoring at home will notice that the pattern called for a skinnier button band, but I’m not a skinny button band type of gal, whatever that means.

After the button band, I did the hem on the bottom. This pattern calls for a simple four-row rolled hem, but since I had put a more full 10 (or so) row folded hem Tempest 27 - crop on the sleeves, I wanted to mimic that on the bottom of the sweater as well. Since I had some pink leftover from the pocket, I threw some of that in on the turning row, making this sweater a bit more special. I wish this had occurred to me when I did the sleeves because they don’t match, but there ain’t no way I’m going back that far or duplicating the pink on top. It will simply just look like this.

Lastly, buttons. I don’t know about you guys, but I have several sweaters that sat for months (or are still sitting!) without their buttons because I simply couldn’t be bothered. Obviously lining up the buttons with the buttonholes is annoying enough that I will put off wearing my wearing, but since this is a public project, I can’t so much get away with that. Plus choosing buttons gives me anxiety, so I turned to Instagram for help.

Tempest Buttons — The hive mind is often so much better than just mine on my own.

So finally, the buttons are on, the sweater is blocked, and it’s all ready to wear! Of course I don’t have pictures of it on my own self yet because I wasn’t wearing the right undergarments, but you can get an idea of how it would fit with a bit more ease and a bit less arm by having a look at it on Judy the judy.