There are only four days left to reserve your very own copy of the Off the Needles knitting pinup calendar! In case you’ve been waffling, I’ve helpfully assembled a list of 20 reasons you should totally reserve a copy today.

(Okay, I also wanted to distract myself from the fact that my photo shoot is this afternoon and I’m starting to get nervous.)

20. You need a calendar for next year anyway, right?

19. Knitters are awesome.

18. January 

17. Pinups are awesome

16. March

15.  Because you know that knitting really isn’t a boring hobby.

14. May

13.  The more calendars we sell, the more likely we are to continue to bring you sexy pinup calendars.

12. Real women are way hotter than models in magazines.

11. June

10.  You’ll be the envy of all your knitting (and non-knitting) friends

9. July 

8. We’re bringing crafty back.

7. August

6. We still have three photo shoots to go and the pictures just keep getting hotter.

5. September

4. These calendars make great gifts and, hey, the holidays are just around the corner.

3. October

2. November

1. Everyone needs a calendar featuring 15 gorgeous, crafty pinups.

Remember what I said before each month in Off the Needles taking on it’s own character? My original idea for July was more patriotic, but due to my incredible forgetfulness/business, some of the props weren’t available. (IE, I was going to print out a vintage knit your bit poster and ran out of time. I suck.)

But instead, the theme for this really was COLOR. And it was awesome. And way better than what I had thought of originally. Our Miss July is Jasmin of the Knitmore Girls podcast, and she was a fantastic subject. With some fantastic knits, too. I wish we could have photographed all the options she brought.

(Photo by Erin Dean Colcord of the Gray Lady Artist Collective)

Seriously, look at how all the color just pops. It makes me want to go run outside in a sundress and celebrate summer.

Except that we got our two days of summer, and it is now apparently fall.

Never mind.

(Photo by Erin Dean Colcord of the Gray Lady Artist Collective)

Isn’t she gorgeous?

There have been more exciting calendar updates to share! I have to say, one of my favorite things so far is how each month has really developed it’s own character that reflects the month itself, and the model (or models) featured. I LOVE it. There are so many different attitudes and energies, and I love seeing how it all turns out. So often it seems the media really focuses on a very limiting idea of what is sexy or attractive, and it’s easy to forget that there are so many different ways someone can be totally hot.

But enough rambling from me. You want to see Miss September. Right?

(Photo by Erin Dean Colcord of the Gray Lady Artist Collective)

Yes, it’s the lovely Rachael Herron aka yarn-a-go-go! We had a great photo shoot with her. It was so, so much fun to do and I’m loving all the photos. (And y’all, these aren’t even the best ones.  We’re saving those for the calendar. Super secret.)

(Photo by Erin Dean Colcord of the Gray Lady Artist Collective)

Isn’t she just adorable? I love this. And I loved the stack of books, too. How cool is that? (BTW–totally endorse How to Knit a Love Song. I got it and read it in one setting. I wanted to make it last but once I got started there was no way I was putting it down. This coming from someone who rarely reads fiction.)

We have less than two weeks left to finish funding the calendar–so if you want a copy, head over to Off the Needles on Kickstarter to help us out and reserve your copy. If you know anyone else who would be interested, please let them know–and if you’d like to have a blog interview or get some of our promo photos to use to promote it, please email me at knittingivy(at)gmail(dot)com.

I promise this blog won’t become all pinups all the time, but there has been a lot going on with Off the Needles lately! So much that I’ve barely had time to knit.

We recently had a photo shoot with Miss August. She looks lovely and yes, that is corn behind her. Yes, we found corn in the middle of Oakland.

(Photo by Erin Dean Colcord of the Gary Lady Artist Collective)

It was a great session, and as always so much fun. I love watching people start to relax and have fun in front of the camera!

(Photo by Erin Dean Colcord of the Gray Lady Artist Collective)

I’m also still working on my outift–quite a ways to go, but I can’t wait for my photo shoot now so I must hurry up and knit, knit, knit!

It’s been a bit quiet over here in blogland. I haven’t hardly had a minute to write or knit or cook. I’ve been running around from work to photoshoots to trying to squeeze in a row here and there on my calendar outfit!

(Photo by Erin Dean Colcord of the Gray Lady Artist Collective)

Recently, we had a photo session with Branwen, who is Miss January in the calendar. Of course, she was fierce and fabulous, and  I can easily imagine her sitting in her throne with her giant hammer, knitting. All the time.

(Photo by Erin Dean Colcord of the Gray Lady Artist Collective)

It was super fun, and I’m loving all the photos we’ve taken. Everyone looks so fabulous, and each session is totally unique. I can’t wait to put everything together! We just have to get the rest of our funding together in the next 16 days–you can still back the project if you like, by going to the Kickstarter page.

Yes, I’ve been working more on the calendar.  It’s been a busy, busy week and to top it all of, I’m coming down with a summer cold. Ugh. But there’s no time to be sick, so I keep plodding on.

On Sunday, we went to Baker Beach to do a photoshoot. It was not too cold, and Seana Lyn, our knitting pinup Ms. June, was wonderful. She looked adorable in the pink knit bikini top, and the beach was the perfect setting. (Though we did have to photoshop out a few tourists and naked dudes.)

(Photo credit goes to Erin Dean Colcord of the Gray Lady Artist Collective)

Isn’t she just adorable? I’m loving each and every month we do, though I’m starting to have some nail biting moments around funding. Lots of people I talk to love the project, but with 22 days left, we’re only at 47% funding on Kickstarter. Eek!

This morning I worked the early shift which means, among other things, I work from home and am up early enough to catch plenty of morning news. This morning, the Today Show had an interview with Danica McKellar that really caught my attention.

McKellar, as you may know, played Winnie Cooper on The Wonder Years, and also happens to be brilliant at mathematics and the author of a couple of best-selling books that are intended to help girls embrace math.

One of the questions that came up was regarding her recent Maxim photospread. She posed, looking quite hot, in standard Maxim fare–bra and panties, tall boots, etc. The photos, I have to say, are pretty hot.

But what really impressed me was her answer to a pretty judgemental sounding question from Meredith Viera about if there was a conflict between posing for Maxim and writing books intended to get girls excited about math.

McKellar’s answer? Of course not. She made the point that there is nothing with girls seeing a role model who can be smart and sexy, and who still have sex appeal in their 30s. She also pointed out that it’s not about making girls downplay or deny their sexuality, but about teaching them to be smart about it.

This was incredibly refreshing and it really speaks a lot to what I’m trying to do with the calendar. It feel like so often we like to put things in boxes–you’re smart or you’re sexy. You like domesticity, so you aren’t ‘fun.’ I feel like crafting in particular is one of those things that can be easily boxed into cute, quirky, but not really something that the hot girls do. On the other hand, what really makes someone hot? Isn’t it about their mind and imagination and confience as much as anything?

I admit, I had my own reservations about doing this calendar. I worried, a lot, about what people would think. Oh my god, I’m going to pose in my underwear and people will see it. It will be on the internet, and never die. Will people think I’m slutty? Will they think I’m dumb? Or anti-feminism? Then I thought–who cares? I’m not any of those things, and anyone who knows me pretty much at all knows that too.

What are we serving by putting girls and women into these boxes? Do you deny the parts of yourself that don’t fit in your box? Or do you spend your time wishing you were more like other people who seem to fit better? Do you agonize over things you’d like to do but feel you can’t?

Here’s the thing I’m learning: I don’t have to fit in the box. I can be the knitting, baking, sewing, domestic girl who also goes to the office and hangs out online and nerds out over geeky tech things. I can be shy and demure and still be a pinup model. I can be the person who is much happier being alone than dating someone just to be dating and still hope to fall in love someday. Being smart doesn’t mean I can’t be pretty, and wanting to be attractive doesn’t make me any less smart. I don’t have to fit in anyone else’s box.

You know what? Neither do you.

I’ve mentioned that I’m doing a knitting pinup calendar, but there hasn’t been a ton to say on the subject until now. I’m co-producing with my friend Erin, of the Gray Lady Artists Collective, and up until now it’s been a lot of emailing and calendar checking and a bit of frantic knitting.

But last night, we had our very first photoshoot! It was super excited, and Erin got some fantastic photos. In the meantime, I took a few behind-the-scenes snapshots to give you a taste of what it was like on set. There’s no nudity, but photos are somewhat NSFW, so they’re behind the jump.

To order your own copy of Off the Needles, head over to our Kickstarter page–if you pledge $20, you get your own copy of the calendar, and you won’t be charged until we meet our funding goal. Get yours today!

Meet the Mses. March!

[...]

So, among the many things I’ve got simmering away in my mind, one that’s been there for a while is a knitting pinup calendar. Look–let’s face it, kniting hasn’t always been the hobby with the most exciting reputation. Yet I’ve always met some pretty amazing knitters.

I started tossing this idea around a couple of years ago and this year I finally got it together early enogh to actually make it happen. I’m funding the project via Kickstarter, which is a crowdsourced funding for creative projects. It works like this–if you think this sounds like a fun project, sign up to back it. You won’t get charged until the end, and that’s only if we get enough support. If we don’t, nobody gets charged and I move to figuring out plan B.

Here’s the deal:

I’m super excited about this, and if you think it sounds interesting, I’d love it if you’d back the project and share it with your friends. All of the models are real knitters–and real people–of all sizes, and it’s shaping up to be pretty amazing.