I got a couple of things out this month. I think my most recent one is my new favorite shawl pattern of mine -
I had the beginnings of this idea late last winter while I was working on Fabergé and trying to find a stitch pattern for the bottom edge. I found nothing and ended up coming up with my own idea, but I did find a stitch pattern for 'fluted rib' and thought it would make a nice edge on a textured shawl. I ended up not using that stitch, but the whole idea of a textured shawl with a fluted/ruffled edge had taken root. I have an old cotton sweater (commercial) that I saved simply because I loved the diamond stitch pattern and thought I would use it for the body. I didn't end up using that either, but kept the diamond idea. (Designing is a strange process sometimes.) The biggest challenge was to do a crescent shape without using short rows, which would have made the allover texture pattern impossible. While working on a small prototype for this, I learned that kfb and kbf are NOT mirror images. Kbf actually twists the stitch, resulting in a much tighter edge. I learned this because I had used kbf on one side of my small prototype and kfb on the other, resulting in one side being noticably longer. That caused a bit of head scratching on my part :)
My other October pattern is this colorwork cowl -
This was my inpiration -
Initially I wanted to do reverse stockinette, but found out it is much more difficult than regular stockinette. Here's an early attempt - you can also see the cashmere blend lining that is knitted in:
Now we just need some serious winter weather this year so I can wear them!
