The Gift-a-long Is Almost Here!

If you were reading my blog last year, then I'm guessing you will remember the Indie Designer Gift-a-long that launched shortly before the holidays. I'm very excited that it's back for a second year! I'll be doing some more designer interviews and giving you some gift knitting suggestions, but I wanted to get a post up today to tell you the important information so you'll be ready!

What is the Gift-a-long?
The Gift-a-long (or GAL) started as a way to celebrate abundance among independent pattern designers, both knit and crochet. This year, as it did last year, the GAL will kick off with a pattern sale by participating designers that will be followed by KALs and CALs grouped by type of item (hats and head things, socks and feet/leg things, kids and baby things, etc.). The whole thing is to encourage you to be social as you're working on your holiday crafting and support independent designers along the way. There are prizes to be won and lots of camaraderie and support to be had on Ravelry.

What's the story with the sale?
All participating designers are required to offer a minimum of four and a maximum of 20 of their self-published paid patterns for a discount during the sale period. During the sale, all eligible patterns will be 25% off when you use the code giftalong2014.

What are the dates for the sale and the GAL?
The GAL officially kicks off tonight at 8 p.m. EST. The sale runs through 11:59 p.m. next Friday, November 21, but the KALs/CALs run through midnight on December 31.

Where do I find out more?
The GAL group on Ravelry is here. There are several pages with important information as well as stickied threads with the key dates and times and whatnot. You'll also see some chatter threads and the threads for the individual KALs and CALs.

All the participating designers are listed on this page in alphabetical order by first name. Each designer's name is followed by two links, one to the designer's Ravelry profile and one to their designer page. All participating designers are required to have a GAL 2014 bundle on their designer page, so you can easily see which patterns are eligible for the sale (note, however, that all paid patterns are eligible for the -alongs, even if they aren't part of the pattern sale). If you're a more visual person, you can scroll through this thread, which has a post for every participating designer with a photo collage and a link to the designer page, or you can click over to the Pinterest boards here.

I am very excited to be a participating designer again this year, and you can see my bundle of sale-eligible patterns here. And, for your viewing pleasure, here's a bit of a preview:

I am looking forward to kicking my holiday knitting in high gear and seeing what everyone else is making this year. I hope to see you over in the Ravelry group!