I couldn't help myself

Shortly after designing Sunstruck, I started playing around with a similar idea but in a rectangular stole - a lot of people don't like triangular shawls ("butt pointers" LOL!)  I had hoped to use short rows again to get the nice straight lines but was not able to make them work with the angles I wanted. Using intarsia instead gave me nice straight edges at least :)

 





I am not really much of a blue lover, but madelinetosh may be converting me - I especially love the Ink colorway that I used for the outer border.

Oh, and of course I had to name it 'Moonstruck.'

It's available until the end of June at 40% off.

And the short row idea? I actually have something else sketched out to work on later this summer :)

S U N S T R U C K

Just in time for the first hot day of 2013, my so-called mystery KAL pattern is now available as a regular all-in-one pdf.

We had a ton of fun in the KAL thread on Ravelry and I hope I can think of another shawl pattern that would be a good Mystery KAL :)

New cardi

This is Pebble. Once again I have used the top-down, seamless, simultaneous set-in sleeve method - I just love the fit I get! 

 

Here's a close up of the stitch pattern:

It's called Dot Stitch and I don't know if I've ever come across any patterns that use it. I don't know why not - it's lovely to look at, doesn't bias, doesn't roll, and is so much less tedious than most textured patterns. I love seed stitch and moss stitch but can't really say that I love knitting either of them. This textured stitch is only patterned on the wrong side, the right side is simply knit.

It's on sale for 1 week for 40% off! Happy spring!

Mystery Knit-a-Long!

When I was working on my latest shawl design, I kept thinking that it would be a fun project to do with a group. I've always liked the idea of mystery knit-a-longs, even though the one time I tried to do one in real time I ended up not liking the shawl and frogging it. This one is just a bit different, probably because of my experience. The first clue includes a sketch of the shawl - so you know basically what you're making and you can put your colors where they make you happy.

It's garter stitch. It has different colors. It's a scalene triangle. This one made my inner-geometry lover pretty happy :)  When I showed the sketch to my daughter, she said it was very much 'my style' - whatever that is!

Obviously I can't show any photos what with it being a mystery and all, but here's the place holder on my pattern and project pages:

These are the colors I used at least!

You can find the pattern here - it's half price until April 4 when the first clue comes out!

Baby Boom

When I decided to do a tiny sweater using the top-down, seamless, simultaneous set-in sleeve method, I had no idea how many of my testers were either expecting or knew someone who was. I needed a knitted baby gift myself and was curious about how this method would work with a tiny sweater. I'm really pleased with the results!

It's a great project for trying this method out if you aren't ready to tackle an adult-sized sweater. It isn't easy to come up with a name for baby things - there are SO MANY baby sweater patterns! I settled on Babycakes - a pet name for DD when she was tiny.

In other news - I have several teaching engagements! I can't think of anything more fun than spending a day talking about knitting with a bunch of knitters :)  In April I am teaching a sweater class at a Maryland knitting guild and also 4 (!!) classes at The Yarn Club in Virginia Beach. I'm doing two classes twice at The Yarn Club - a 2 hour class on planning ahead to knit sweaters that actually fit, and a 4 hour workshop on designing and knitting your own All the Shades of Truth/City Block style shawl/wrap/scarf/throw. We will be making miniatures of our creations in class. These are the minis I made when I was designing City Block - color placement is so important in this sort of shawl and this is a quick way to see if you're happy with your choices!

Burn Baby Burn!

I love turtlenecks and mock turtlenecks. When it's cold I'm not comfortable unless my neck is covered. Katharine and Audrey Hepburn liked them too.

"Burn" seemed like a good name for this pullover -

One of my testers knit this in CASHMERE with long sleeves and ribbing instead of the triangle pattern. I think I might need to copy her :)

Oh, and Burn is on sale for 40% off through March 9!

At long last

My latest design has been a long time coming.

I fell in love with a stitch pattern in my Japanese stitch dictionary a couple of years ago. I swatched and sketched and charted and plotted and schemed but just could not figure out exactly what I wanted to do with this stitch pattern - I just knew that I wanted to use it somehow!

I finally gave up on the idea of somehow making a triangular shawl out of it. Eventually I took the main element and charted out the mirror image. Then I added a column of alternating eyelets in between repeats. I took the tiny cable pattern that had been between repeats in the original stitch pattern and used it for an edge stitch.

Choosing the yarn was difficult too. Initially I thought I'd use DK weight - I had swatched in tosh dk and liked it. I had this lovely tosh merino dk and a rich russet color that would be gorgeous.

Unfortunately I discovered that purling two together through the back loops is quite difficult with single ply yarn :P I also considered some beautiful deep orange sport-weight from Yarn Chef and even wound it up.

But this wrap just demanded a luxury blend of fibers, so I finally settled on madelinetosh Pashmina in a lovely golden color.

Once I started working on what had become a rectangular stole, I realized it was going to need fringe.

I'm so pleased with the finished stole!