Knit Crush: Christine Roy

Looking at Christine Roy's patterns is a pleasure for any hat lover. I've picked out a few that really spoke to me.

As always, all pictures in this post are borrowed with permission from their respective Ravelry project pages, by clicking their name, you'll be taken right to them.   

First up is a set that incorporates one of my big loves: Cables!
A Tale of 2 Rivers
A Tale of Two Rivers - Beanie

The second 'pair' I chose to show you is a simple yet interesting knit, 
that illustrates how a cute hat can be even cuter in miniature. 
The Easy Guernsey Hat

Finally, I really like Christine's take on a simple sample hat.
It's a great idea to try out a new stitch or technique and looks lovely.

Simple sample hat


Looking for other knit crushes?
Aimee Alexander
JumperCables Knitting
Knitbot - Hannah Fettig
Yellowcosmo
Tin Can Knits
Veera Välimäki
Helga Isager

All I want for Christmas... + a Christmas gift for you!

It's Christmas! I know, I know... A lot of you won't be unwrapping presents until tomorrow, but today or rather tonight is the big moment we've all been waiting for around here.

Now I wanted to take the time to wish you all a very merry Christmas and let you know what my only wish from all of you is this year, in case you are feeling a little generous...

Wouldn't it be nice to have a great new pattern to cast on during all the festivities tomorrow? And wouldn't it be even nicer to know that with the purchase of said pattern you had made a contribution towards cancer research?

Most of you know what I'm going to wish for, but in the interest of beginning my theme for next year a little early, I'll tell you why I'm wishing for it as well.



I had hoped, that I could send the Danish Cancer Society a big fat check at the end of the year, but right now I've only sold one copy of the Everyday Rockstar and while I'm very thankful for the sale and the money it raised, it doesn't exactly make for a big fat check...

So if you are feeling generous or need a last minute gift for a dear Ravelry friend or just need a hat because you accidentally left your old one on the train on your way home, may I suggest you go with the Everyday Rockstar - together we can beat cancer through research and secure many more merry Christmases for families all over the world. When you spend the 15DKK or ca. $2,5 you'll contribute just over 10DKK/$1.67* to cancer research. *Depending on exchange rate, paypal fee and Ravelry fee. 

There you have it, all I want for Christmas is YOU -
Happy Christmas to all and to all a good night!  

Wait, whaaaat! You really thought I'd leave you hanging without telling you about my very special Christmas gift for you? You should know me better!

Well, I've been working hard on creating an e-book, called Faithful Knitting, for all of you and it will be send out to everyone on my email list tomorrow. If you see this after Christmas then don't worry, if you sign up you'll still receive the gift, but wouldn't it be nice to have a brand new e-book to read on Christmas day about faith and knitting?
Oh, and in case you aren't Christian and think you wouldn't care for the book, I just want to share something on of my proof readers, Cami, told me:

"As someone who was raised Christian, but no longer considers herself a Christian, I would say there is plenty in your book that can/should be considered by a non-Christian audience."


Sign up now to be among the first to receive the e-book tomorrow.

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And The Theme of 2015 is...

The Concept

The idea of choosing a theme for the year instead of setting New Year's resolutions have appealed to me ever since I first heard Jasmine of the Knitmoregirls talk about it. I've toyed with it in the past, but in the interest of full disclosure, I've never really followed through on a theme before. That is what I hope to change in 2015.

Speaking of Full Disclosure

That is exactly what my theme for 2015 will be: Full Disclosure.
As you have probably noticed I took most of December off in the interest of spending some good end of the year pondering. I've been looking back at 2014 and what a year. A number of exciting changes have happened, I've tried out a few things that didn't work and a lot more that did. I feel like I'm slowly finding my voice both with respect to this blog and my patterns, which is a wonderful feeling.

Looking back isn't all I've done though. I've also spent a good amount of time pondering 2015. Do I want to make any change? Which and why? How will I go about it? These questions and more have been floating around in my head and one morning all the answers came together in the words I've decided will be my theme of this year: Full Disclosure.



What does the theme entail? 

You may be left wondering what my theme entails, especially if you aren't acquainted with people such as Jasmine, so let me explain:
I love sharing both the ups and downs of my micro business with you, okay maybe I love sharing the ups most, but I do include the downs because they are as important, if not more important. In 2015 I'll take that a lot further, hopefully for the benefit of both you and me. There are two main aspects of this theme:

  • Tracking and Sharing Work Hours 

Twice each semester the university asks us to tell them how many hours  per week we spend working on each subject we take. It's a guessing game for most of us, but I see the sense in knowing how long you actually spend doing something. If I want to see results from this micro business, then I have to put in the effort and I'm not always sure if I'm actually doing just that. Thus I'll do my best to track the hours I spend each month, divided into the following three broad categories: 
- Blog writing
- Pattern writing
- Marketing

  • Sharing Income Reports
This part of the Full Disclosure theme is what scares me most. I've talked about money before, but I've never actually shown you the precise figures. It scares me because I'm afraid you'll call me out and tell me that this isn't even a micro business, it's a hobby that's costing me a lot more than it's making me. That terrifies me because it's what my inner critic constantly tells me and it's true. Since August I've made the grand total of 11 DKK and all that money is from the sale of one copy of my Everyday Rockstar pattern, so that money doesn't belong to me, but is waiting to be donated!
The lack of sales is a challenge at times, but I know I don't have a lot of patterns yet, so I'm dedicated to power through and create more, hoping the income will come later. I see no need to share a monthly income report as long as almost nothing is happening, but every quarter you'll hear the exciting news of the financial side of Noget Uldent. 

What else will change?

Besides the theme there'll be a few other changes. I'll try to bring you even more reviews and interview as well as keeping the Knit Crushes coming. I'm debating switching my platform from blogger to wordpress and if I decide to go ahead and do so it will inevitably bring along some changes to the look and feel of the blog. In addition to that I'm kicking the idea of using different medias as well. All these things are still not fully decided, so you'll just have to wait and see what happens. 

What is decided is that I'll be valuing quality over quantity. I've been blogging regularly now three times per week. That will change in the new year. I plan to blog twice a week and dedicate the time that leaves me to pattern writing and marketing. You see, I'm not very talented in the marketing area yet and that may be a huge reason why I'm seeing hardly any sales.  I want to dedicate more time to that and make my posts better, but time is limited so I'll be limiting the posts as well.  

On a Final Note

It feels like 2015 will be an awesome year with lots of changes around here, I can't wait to share them with you and I hope you stick around. Merry Christmas and a very happy New Year to you and yours. 


The Knit and Crochet Notebook by Mama's Notebooks - Review

Lets be honest, my design notes are a mess, scribbles on a post it here, notes on a scrap piece of paper there, separate notes on pattern repeats on squared paper... It can be difficult to keep track of it all and while I haven't misplaced anything yet, it is a disaster waiting to happen.

When I discovered the Knit and Crochet Notebook by Mama's Notebooks, I knew I had found a potential solution. I'm so proud to present Mama Heather as a sponsor of Noget Uldent.


Mama Heather is the author of a wide selection of notebooks, from baby to budgets, homeschooling and knitting - Heather offers a notebook to help you keep track of everything.

Now onto the review!

Full disclaimer: the nice Heather sent me my copy for free and I decided to pass it on to my mum, as it was just what she needed! This review is based on both my mum's and my impression of the notebook.

The Knit and Crochet Notebook is not aimed at designers per se, but at every knitter and crocheter and it contains the following segments:
- Project table of contents
- Project pages (enough for 30 projects!)
- Needle and hook tracker
- Gauge tracker
- Project wish list
- How to measure
- Measurement chart
- Standard yarn weight reference
- Notes


Project pages

The amount of project pages is quit generous - 30 projects will last most knitters a year or two, right?!
At the top there are spaces to fill in all the important information and I really liked the 'check when finished' feature at the right hand side of the squared section. It suits my control gene perfectly.
The fact that each project has a full spread, allows for a good amount of space for notes and diagrams, especially if you're not designing from scratch, but making a good deal of moderations, like my mum tend to do.


Needle and hook tracker

We both agree that this feature is great and an important part of a knitting notebook, but frankly neither of us will use it. There's a big disclaimer attached to this statement, we both have highly organised knitting needle bags and don't feel the need to keep further track of our needles, but if they were say in a box or drawer all mixed and jumbled, then this tracker would be a lifesaver!

Gauge tracker

There's only one word that can truly describe this part of the notebook: ingenious! 
We both knit in the same yarns time and again and while we remember our gauges roughly, writing it down is just one of those duh!-moments. 
There's room for 50 items so just get cranking on those gauge swatches and with the dates noted as well, you'll be able to see if you need to do a check-up, since your gauge does change over time.  

Project wishlist

My mum is lucky to be married to Mr. Please-Knit-Me-A-...., needles to say that the wish list will come in handy. If I had kept the notebook I would use this part to record design ideas and inspirations. 
Most of us have Ravelry queues, but there is just something special about a paper list, isn't there?!

How to measure and the measurements chart 

Sometimes, exactly where and how to take a measurement can get confusing, especially if you are trying to explain it to your helpful, but clueless significant other, the chart makes it easy to explain and the measurement charts means you don't have to take a persons measurements every single time you knit them something. This is particularly handy if your recipients live far away. 


Conclusion 

We quite like the notebook, it has a lot of great features and seems very reasonably priced at $20.99 taking into consideration that it will probably last you at least a year if not a couple of years. We couldn't really think of anything we felt were missing and that is always a plus. So if your notes are as disorganised as ours, then getting the Knit and Crochet Notebook will most likely be a good investment.