crafters unite!

Howdy! Just dropping in for a quick post; I don’t like going so long between posts – I miss having a conversation with you all! Maybe I’ll switch over to doing shorter posts more frequently….. 🙂

Anyway, have you heard about the latest crafter website, Craftsy?

The site went up a few weeks ago and happily, it’s taken the crafting world by storm. Craftsy is unique in that it’s open to crafts of all kinds – not just knitting and crochet, but sewing, quilting, jewelry making, even chocolate making! And even better, they offer deals on craft supplies on a very frequent basis, so you could make a majorly yummy score on some fun new yarn for your stash!

Not only is Craftsy a “craft-inclusive” home on the web, but it also offers an outstanding array of online classes where you can learn a new crafting technique. You can take a crochet class from the famous Vickie Howell, you can learn how to make your knitwear fit better with Stefanie Japel, or you can learn how to make seamless knitted toys with Susan Anderson like the ones pictured below, and on and on! How adorable are these?!?

(photos courtesy of, and copyright of, Susan Anderson)

If a particular project captures your fancy, then you can join a Craftsy Workshop instead, where you can learn to make that project in a tutorial-type environment. Here’s a really cute Lemoyne Star quilted trivet that’s just one example of the available workshops:

(photo courtesy of, and copyright of, Yahaira Ferreira)

As with Ravelry, another really great feature of Craftsy is that independent designers (*cough* that’s me *cough*) can have a pattern store where we can offer our unique designs for sale – and here’s my Craftsy store! You can find me as DanielleChalson as my user name. In this “biz,” I think that it’s always so important to have another avenue to display our designs and reach a new audience (both beginning and experienced crafters alike, especially if they’re branching out to knitting for the first time) so I’m loving this new website not only for its inclusive attitude, but its ability to support indie crafters as well!

And once you’ve finished your latest project, you can share it in Craftsy’s project gallery for everyone to ooh and ahh over; there are already more than 24,000 projects in the gallery!

So if 2012 is the year that you promised to learn a new skill, to broaden your creative horizons, or to just try something new, then Craftsy is definitely the place for you. I’ll see you there!