If you’re anything like me, the amount of knitting that you’ve done since Marchish has dramatically increased. Whether this is because you find yourself on more zoom calls or without the “going out” entertainment that existed pre-pandemic, it’s safe to say that the amount of time available for crafting has increased along with a need to keep stress levels at bay.

While this means that projects are being finished, it also means that more projects are being started. So far this year I’ve used 23,717 yards of yarn in my projects — that’s 10,000 more than last year and there’s still two and a half months left to this year! True, that means that I’ve been chewing through my stash (at one point I had to restock it because I was down to two skeins) and my Ravelry queue, but it also means that I keep finding myself with nothing on my needles.

Over the summer (June, July, and August specifically), I participated in Camp Loopy by the Loopy Ewe. If you haven’t participated in Camp Loopy before, the general idea is that you’re given a challenge a month that fits within the summer’s theme and need to complete a project that meets the challenge’s parameters. In other words, for three months out of this pandemic, I had a vague idea what what I would be knitting and was knitting along side a group of people.

In my mind, the next place that I was going to find inspiration this year was going to be Rhinebeck. I have yet to make it to Rhinebeck. Some of it has come down to money, some of it comes down to being in graduate school and lacking the time, and some of it has come down to wanting company for the long ride and not having enough knitting friends who were available. This year, however, it was 100% because of Covid19 (ok and a little bit that we’re trying not to spend money so that we can rebuild our savings after buying a house). In hindsight, I should have assumed that I wouldn’t be wandering around Rhinebeck’s fairgrounds this year.

Indie Untangled Everywhere popped into my Instagram feed because Scratch, my local yarn store, decided to be one of the sponsors. For $5, it was a low cost way to have access to a game of Bingo with other knitters, a market place filled with dyers attempting to mimic real life shopping and a KAL where I could try to win a prize or two.

Then I caved and signed up for two designer talks: Wool and Pine and Les Garçons.

The brains behind Wool and Pine were a lot of fun to listen to because they were genuinely excited about what they do. Selena (and her beautiful yarn display) has designs in her head that Abby translates into a pattern (and tec edits). Together, they create beautiful patterns with exclusive sizing. The talk was only supposed to take an hour, but I felt so energized when I finished the call just under the two hour mark. As I listened to them discuss their new pattern, Criterion, I found myself googling Downton Abby to view the dress that inspired it all.

I’m not sure that I’ll actually add Broadleaf to my queue (it’s currently available for presale), but the energy in the room surrounding the sweater was catching. Without the joy of attending regular knit nights, I had forgotten how much fun it was to discuss patterns and yarns.

Les Garçons blew my mind because Max learned how to knit a year ago! One year after learning how to knit he started designing beautiful colorwork sweaters, on top of his day job of being a book illustrator (ok ok so the colorwork preference makes sense). Combine that with Delz as a tec editor and we’re starting to have more male representation in the knitting industry.

Unlike Wool and Pine, who met by chance, Max and Delz were designing individually and helping each other out with their designs. Their collaborations push each other to try new things, I’m excited to keep an eye on them as my niece gets older! Not to mention they design things that they want to wear, which means that they’re designs are more unisex than some of the other designs that are out there.

Going virtual is a hard thing to do, but Indie Untangled Everywhere was a lot of fun. I hope that they’ll do it virtual again next year, or that we can take a trip to New York to visit in person.