As a lot of you might have suspected I have, at last, made the decision to definitely close down Making Stories Magazine after Issue 14, our 2025 Fall & Winter issue. This means we still have two issues to go - Issue 13, coming out in March (Confetti & Rainbows!!), and Issue 14, coming out in September. I wanted to share this decision with you bright and early as I don’t feel like holding this in when we publish our last Spring and then our very last Fall & Winter issue. I want to celebrate those issues, and the work that we have done over the last eight years, and I want to be abl ..read more

About three weeks ago, I had surgery. Nothing major, and it was planned - but it was my first time undergoing general anaesthesia and facing an uncertain recovery period, both of which made me quite nervous. I knew that I was going to be in the hospital for two days, if everything went well, but then it was between one and three weeks of recovering at home, depending on how fast my body was going to heal. Needless to say, I packed knitting for the hospital, but I didn’t feel like picking up my needles until my second day in the hospital. And then I knit. I knit, and knit, and knit. Curiously e ..read more

Let’s wander the streets of Brussels and Paris, searching for the hidden architectural Art Nouveau gems – houses, doors, windows, street lamps. Let’s explore Berlin’s Jugendstil tile art, marvelling at the colors and shapes taking form. Let’s get lost in the work of water color artists, glass blowers, jewellers, embroidery artists, and myriads more, who dive into the shapes and curves of plants and flowers, moving, flowing, mirroring. Our Issue 12 "Art Nouveau" is filled with 12 gorgeous, intricate knitwear designs, 3 essays and 1 poem, all exploring this fascinating time period. In this vide ..read more

Hi lovelies! I am thrilled to dive into the gorgeous, intricate world of Art Nouveau with you in our Fall & Winter 2024 issue: Issue 12. Issue 12 holds 12 stunning, artful, wearable knitwear designs inspired by this unique time period as well as 3 essays and one poem that explore different facets of Art Nouveau. As of July 1, you can preorder Issue 12 through us or one of our fabulous stockists – or you subscribe to the magazine which gives you 15% off Issues 12 and 13! If you do like our Spring 2024 Issue – #11, Seashore – we also still have a few subscription slots for Issues 11 and 12 ..read more

We've seen dramatic changes in the knitting magazine landscape over the past 12 months: Pom Pom Quarterly ceased publication at the end of 2023, Laine sold the majority of their company to one of the biggest Finnish publishers, and Amirisu first pivoted to books, and now to an online-only media outlet. Multicraftual magazines that often included knitting patterns were equally as affected: Making pivoted to a combined app and monthly membership business model, and Taproot first changed to a preorder model, and then very abruptly closed their business (the website is offline, hence no link). Thi ..read more

Hi my lovelies! When we received our latest restock of BC Garn's Semilla Melange (one of my favorite sustainable budget-friendly yarns - 100% wool, non-superwash, GOTS-certified), I couldn't resist: I had to pull out our box of De Rerum Natura Bérénice, the wonderful fluffy silk-mohair-merino yarn, to see if I could find a few color matches. And I did! 12 perfect matches – I couldn't believe it. So naturally, I had to share them with you! The Neutrals Semilla Melange has a gorgeous range of natural sheepy shades – and I was so delightfully surprised to see how many of them had a match with Bér ..read more

Spinning yarn can seem a daunting craft, requiring arcane tools and techniques, but the fundamentals are simple. It is about adding twist to fibre, which gives it the strength to not pull apart. Most preparations of fibre will require drafting – that is, continuously pulling the fibre so fewer strands (or staples) are twisted together to make a thinner yarn. Drafting and adding twist are all that are needed to make yarn. You might hear about woollen and worsted spinning, and the long- and short-draw methods associated with them. While interesting, and good to understand when improving you ..read more

Learning to spin yarn comes with a huge array of new jargon, and a lot of these terms relate to how the fibre is prepared. Whether animal or plant fibre, there is a variety of ways it can be processed from raw material into something you can spin into yarn. We’re going to look at some of the common formats available to hand spinners, what their characteristics are and the kind of spinning techniques they’re suitable for.  Woollen or worsted? First up, we need to talk briefly about woollen and worsted preparation. In fibre prep these terms mostly describe the alignment of the individual fi ..read more

Hi lovelies! Spring has sprung here in Berlin – as I am typing this (mid March), the buds on the chestnut tree out the window are a few days away from bursting, the forsythias are in full bloom, and our strawberry plants have started their comeback as well (leaves so far, but Aurin checks every day for berries :)). So it's no surprise at all that today's blog post is very much inspired by the sun and the warmer days to come! I have put together a sweet roundup of 6 joyful spring knitting patterns, all of which I'd love to have on my needles soon. (If someone can get me an extra day or two per ..read more

Hi lovelies! I kind of completely dropped the ball on putting FO posts out there, but as you all very kindly let me know through our "what do you want to read on the blog" survey, you actually really like them, so we have some catching up to do! We're starting with two FOs that have actually quite recently only been finished – if by recently we mean the end of 2023. They're both from Issue 10, and were both a delight to knit! Crystal Socks by Izabela Grzybek in woollentwine Ovis First up: One of the most fun socks I've knit in quite a while! I knew I wanted a pair of Crystal Socks in my sock ..read more