Alia Luria

About Crypto Knits

I have been knitting since July 2016. I took to knitting immediately and quickly jumped into lace projects, working in the round, working with DPNs, colorwork, cabling, twisted knitting, and even brioche. As an adventurous knitter, there is no technique that I’m not willing to try!

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Crypto Knits is the home for all of my knit designs on the internet. I create designs from inspirations. These inspirations are sometimes people, sometimes concepts, and often my passion for literature. I don't just create patterns around big name celebrity authors, however. We have enough content supporting them. My focus is on indie authors. A good portion of the designs that I will be releasing this year will be in support of Unsolicited Press and the Year of Womxn 2025, which is a year-long project to support womxn writers. I'm honored to have a book in this collection. So, I will be releasing a free hat pattern to support the entire collection of books as well as three patterns based on my own book, Geri o Shimasu: Adventures of a Baka Gaijin, which is my debut nonfiction book. You can check out the entire collection of amazing womxn by clicking ​here​.

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If you're a knitter who's been following my designs, thank you so much for supporting my knitting!

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FAQ:

1. Why do you give your patterns away for FREE? I have adopted the model of offering all of my patterns for free for some period of time before I set them to paid. That time might be one week, one month, or even through a year. I have switched to this way of releasing my patterns, because I know that I'll never be a full-time knit designer. So, instead, I would rather get my patterns into the hands of knitters who will love them, and hopefully, they will stick around to support me in other ways, whether buying a book, an art print, haiku jewelry, shopping from my backlist of patterns, or even just seeing me a tip.
2. Do you or are you going to be selling my contact information to anyone? Absolutely not. My day job is as a privacy lawyer. I will never sell or share your information with any third party without your express consent. I'm currently building my list of knitters who want free patterns and who might have an interest in my other artistic and crafty pursuits, like my memoirs, science fiction novels, paintings, haiku workshops, and more. I don't sell any emails, and the only time I contact you is to give you a free pattern, and at the same time, let you know what is going on with my other creative pursuits.
3. What if I just want the free pattern but don't want to be on your list? I get it. We get a lot of emails. This list is entirely for me to share my free patterns with knitters. The payoff for opening my emails and looking at what I'm up to is always a free pattern. I feel like this is a really fair deal, so please be aware that if you subscribe for the EGILDA WRAP or any other incentive pattern that might be available on my submission form, and you immediately unsubscribe (like within 72 hours), I will block you and keep you from re-subscribing. I've had to do this once already. I don't relish it, but I also don't like to feel used. I'm genuinely here to build a list of knitters that want my patterns and to keep up to date on new FREEBIES and to engage with my content.
4. Do I have to get your patterns from Ravelry when you send out emails? You do not. Not everyone loves Ravelry. It's super useful for searching a lot of patterns at once, but it's not always user friendly, and I know some people steer clear of it intentionally. My patterns will always be available on Ravelry and on my site, Cryptoknits.com. You can grab them from either place. Once they go paid, they will continue to be offered in both places at the same price.
5. Why do you eventually set your older patterns to paid when you say you want to share them with knitters? This is a good question, and the answer is to keep people from just combing my site or my designer page on Ravelry and downloading everything I've ever created. Again, it feels like I'm being used when people do this because other than the in-pattern references to my books and other patterns, I don't have any in-pattern advertising. If I relied advertising, then I would just leave them free like other designers do, but I don't, so here we are.
6. I really love your patterns, and I'm wondering... how can I support you as a writer and artist? First, thank you so much! I really love designing knitwear, but I'm not consistent enough to make it my main thing. My first love has always been writing, and I have a couple of books you can buy if you're so inclined. Compendium, my dystopian sci-fi, is available in print, ebook, and audiobook. The sequel, Ocularum, is releasing next year. My debut memoir in essays about my time living in Japan, Geri o Shimasu: Adventures of a Baka Gaijin, is available for pre-order and releases August 12, 2025. I'm also working on other books, including my second essay collection (Preposterous Bloodshed, Unsolicited Press, 2027), a privacy preparedness guide that combines privacy tabletops with roleplaying games (Let's Roll Initiative: A Game Master's Guide to Privacy Incident Preparedness), and a book of illustrated haiku and practice (The Art of Haiku: Illustrated Verse and Creative Spark). I will for sure be keeping people updated on those future books. Additionally, you can buy art prints of my paintings and jewelry with my haiku on them. Finally, if you just want to shoot me a couple of dollars as a tip, every cup of coffee down my gullet is highly appreciated!