Happy Friday! So much to tell you …

follow Fringe Association on Pinterest

First, before I forget, I’m at Stitches West today! If you’re there too, send me an email (karen at karentempler) and maybe we can meet up. Or just look for me in the market hall — I’ll wear my purple State Street Cowl. I’ll probably be Instagramming a little bit, and may have a recap for you all next week.

Second, what’s that up top? Well, when I think about what I want to do with Fringe, the central goal is always to help people find the best patterns (and yarns and tools and information) out there. There’s so, so much and most people just don’t have the time (or the stomach) to comb through it all — or even know where to look. So if you’ve been around here for any length of time, you know that’s a key part of what goes on with the blog. But in the back of my mind is always this vision of literally a directory of only the best patterns (as opposed to every pattern in the universe), searchable and sortable by all kinds of criteria. It’s self-serving — I have things saved all over the place. Evernote notes, Ravelry favorites, Pinterest pins, PDFs, print-outs. It’s chaos. It would help me in figuring out what to knit next if I could see all my favorite things at a glance, by category. And I believe it would help others as well. But building that directory on my own site is not going to happen anytime soon. So rather than wait for the ideal implementation, I’ve decided to launch a version of it using Pinterest. That’s right, there’s now an official Fringe Association page at Pinterest, and I hope you’ll want to hit the big Follow button. Note that, to paraphrase somebody or other, I have only just begun to pin. But at the same time, this isn’t meant to be massive amounts of stuff. The whole idea of the pattern collections is that it’s tightly edited. And obviously “best” is subjective — I’ll only be pinning things I personally would want to make and wear, and that I think are worthy of our knitting or crochet time.

In addition to separate boards for different types of patterns (e.g. Best Sweaters, Best Blankets), you’ll find a board for what’s New on Fringe Association, offering you another way to keep up with posts here, along with some other fun and/or useful stuff.

fringe supply co is now open!

Which brings me to my third item, which is that you’ll also find a board called New at Fringe Supply Co. As of last night, now that I’ve got everything set up and ready to go in my new workspace, the webshop is open. I’m calling this a soft relaunch — it’s the same great stuff that was there before. There will be minor changes and new products coming soon, but as with the pinboards vs the pattern directory, I didn’t want big dreams holding up what’s already here and good and possible now. New merchandise will be pinned as it arrives, but there’s also the option to sign up for email alerts, which you’ll find at the top of the store pages. So please!, COME ON IN!

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I’ve already followed a few known Fringe readers from the new Pinterest account, but I want to know who you all are and want your fellow readers to know as well. So please take this opportunity to do what might otherwise be considered spammy — post a comment with a link to your Pinterest profile so we can all find each other. And while you’re at it, why not also include a link to your blog and your Twitter? And if you’re inclined to help get the word out about all of this, please do pin the image(s) from this post. With my huge thanks to anyone who does that.

Forgive the likely delayed response to comments today since, like I said, I’ll be wandering the floor at Stitches West, trying my best to be good.

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33 thoughts on “Happy Friday! So much to tell you …

  1. So exciting! I really enjoy your blog and your style and look forward to following you on Pinterest now too. You can follow my boards at :

    http://pinterest.com/griffincreek/

    Have a wonderful time at Stitches West, I hear such good things about that event. I was at Madrona last weekend and am excited to attend Vogue LIVE in Seattle in April.

  2. Following you on Pinterest! I’m really trying to work on my finishing techniques, so looking forward to seeing pins on the Tips board.

  3. Exciting! If I haven’t already made it clear I just love your aesthetic. I find myself liking almost every knitting-related pin of yours.

  4. Fantastic idea – love it. Your blog posts are amazing – I really look forward to them. I clicked the big Follow button! And – thank you for the offer – here’s my info:

    Pinterest profile:
    http://pinterest.com/busybeebuzz/

    Ravelry profile:
    http://www.ravelry.com/people/ddeangelo

    No blog (yet)
    No Twitter (too much!!) ( I just follow Ai Weiwei…..)

    I agree with Caitlin Newman – you have killer taste!

    Here’s a thought: weaving is the new knitting….

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