Hands Occupied – Colorful knitting, crochet, latch hook and macrame from craft book author & designer Heidi Gustad.

2022 Mood Board / What is a mood board in knitting?

February 23, 2022 5 Comments

Hands Occupied's 2022 knitting mood board. | A collage of inspiration for modern knitting, with text reading, "Mood Board Knitting / 2022" — *images via sources below*

One of the coolest things about being a pattern designer, whether in the knitting & crochet world or otherwise, is gathering inspiration. I personally am a huge fan of following blogs and using Pinterest to catalog things I find inspiring (private boards are especially useful for working on secret design projects). Gathering inspiration together like this helps me to zoom out of my anxious everyday brain and find what’s consistently inspiring me. It helps me see the forest instead of the trees… squirrels… leaves…. haunted witchy cottage… you see what I mean.

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Heidi Gustad from Hands Occupied holds up a pair of wooden knitting needles. She's wearing a t-shirt that reads "Midwest Crafter."

Hands Occupied, 11 years on 😳

September 16, 2021

A look back on 11 years of Hands Occupied, and a look ahead at what’s to come.

High Desert Yarn Review & Giveaway

April 21, 2021

New yarn alert! Knit Picks High Desert is available in a range of jewel tone colors & two weights. Take a closer look & enter to win FOUR skeins of this versatile yarn that’s 100% American from sheep to skein.

There’s a new series on the Hands Occupied YouTube channel called Design Diaries. In these videos, I walk you through the process of making original craft project designs from scratch. The first episode features something professional wrestling fans will recognize as a punch needle take on the WWE's Universal Championship title belt.

Yarniversal Championship Belt Design Diary & A New YouTube Series

April 16, 2021

Let’s take a look at how my recent obsession with professional wrestling resulted in a wooly reimagining of the WWE’s Universal Championship title belt, just in time for Wrestlemania. I share how I took this project from a grief-induced grain of inspiration and crafted a fully functional belt combining basic embroidery and punch needle rug hooking.