Blog

WIP Wednesday: Stuff I Can’t Show You Edition

I’ve been hard at work on a secret, very large, commissioned project. Since I can’t actually show you what it is, here’s a teaser pic:

As you can see, it’s got lovely squishy garter stitch and a texture pattern, and it’s in one of the nicest yarns I’ve had the pleasure to work with. I’m sad I have to wait to share it until the pattern is released!

To distract from the lack of actual WIP pictures, I’ll show you the other stuff I’ve been working on: re-blocking samples for TNNA this weekend. Our cross-country move last summer was not kind to my poor sweaters and accessories.

Hats blocking using my preferred balloon-in-a-mug method

My Hipster Stripe and Put Together samples drying on the blocking boards

Pile of blocked sweaters awaiting transport

I’m still nervous about the show, but as you can see, things are coming along nicely. My next post will probably be a TNNA wrap-up, so wish me luck!

Hoosier Hills Fiber Festival

I can’t believe I forgot to post about this! A little over a week ago, my husband and I found ourselves in Franklin, Indiana on one of the days of their annual Hoosier Hills Fiber Festival. We went in on a whim (hey, I’m always up for some yarny shopping), and we really enjoyed it!

The festival was much more extensive than I thought it would be. There were three barns of vendors–LYSes, dyers, spinners, wood crafters, etc. This lacemaking vendor, promoting local lacemaking classes, was one of my favorites:

I got to feel up some bison yarn for the first time:

My husband loves historical gadgets, so this antique sock machine was right up his alley:

Easily my favorite booth at the whole festival was a whole wall of hand-dyed yarn from a local dyer, A Good Yarn. It was the first booth I saw when I came in, and I probably spent more time there than at any of the others combined. I didn’t get a great picture of the booth, but you can see some of her gorgeous skeins in the background of this shot:

And, of course, I couldn’t leave her booth without purchasing something. I made away with two skeins of sportweight superwash in this luminous blue color:

Lucky for me she didn’t carry DK or worsted-weight yarn, or I would have really been in trouble!

My husband did a more extensive blog post (with more pictures, and quite frankly more witticisms than I could ever muster) here, if you’re interested in checking it out: Fiber, Fiber Everywhere OR The Hills are Alive with the Sound of Hoosiers. :-)

FO Friday: Worsted Weight Europos Scarf

I finished my scarf! Here it is blocking:

I learned from the first (DK-weight) sample that this pattern pulls in a lot, since it’s basically 1×1 ribbing with regular increases and decreases thrown in. So I was rather aggressive with the blocking this time, knowing it will spring back a certain amount when it’s unpinned.

Quick specs:

Pattern: My own Europos Scarf

Yarn: Malabrigo Rios, one skein in Vaa. Rios is in the running for my favorite yarn ever. It’s as soft as butter, but fairly hard-wearing thanks to the twist.

Notes: I luurve this pattern. It’s just interesting enough to not be boring, but it’s easily memorized. Perfect travel knitting. It pretty much lived in my purse for the past week. This pattern played really well with the variegated quality of the yarn, too. It was so nice to not have to worry about pooling.

In other news, the Bevin sweater re-knit is nearly completed too! Just a few ends to weave in and blocking left.

Now, maybe you’re wondering why I’m spending all this time and effort reknitting samples when I could be working on new designs. The truth is, I have an exciting month ahead of me. My wonderful print pattern distributor, Stitch Sprouts, offered me the chance to share time in an exhibitor booth at the TNNA summer trade show!

For those of you who don’t know, TNNA is an abbreviation for The National NeedleArts Association. Their annual trade shows are a big deal–loads of knitting and fiber related businesses, yarn store owners, and very well-known designers attend. I’m feeling a little bit out of my depth, to tell the truth, but I’m slowly getting a handle on everything I need to get done in order to have a successful booth.

Stay tuned for more preparations!

FO Friday: Blue Tosh Chunky Hat

I finished a hat this week! (Okay, actually I finished it the week before, but finally got it together to take some pictures this week.)

It’s in Tosh Chunky, just like Dandelion Clock (pattern now available on Ravelry here!). Man, do I ever love this yarn. It’s just like Tosh Vintage, which is probably my favorite yarn ever, except FOs get done even more quickly. This color is Mica–isn’t it pretty?

Usually I have to rip out and reknit the decreases at the top of a new hat design a few times until they look right, but this one made this pretty floral-looking design on the first try! Bonus. :-)

You guys were so helpful with name ideas last time–any thoughts on this one? I’m drawing a complete blank.

WIP Wednesday: Blue and Green Edition

I’m still trucking along on my Bevin re-knit. The back and front are done and sewn together:

Actually, the sleeves are done too since that picture was taken. Now it’s sewing up time (urgh), which means there’s a lot of this action happening:

Sigh. So anyway, I’m taking breaks between sewing up sessions to knit other things. I decided to re-knit the sample for my Europos Scarf as well, using the gorgeous Malabrigo Rios in Vaa I showed off in my last post. It’s coming along nicely!

Seeing a color theme yet? If you’ve been following this blog for a while, you might have noticed I gravitate toward blues and greens (preferably both at once!) above all other colors. I kept trying to make myself branch out, but the truth is that the colors are flattering on me, photograph beautifully, and are fun to knit. I think maybe I should just embrace it.

And just as I was thinking this, the yarn arrived for a secret design for a yarn company.

The pic is intentionally hard to make out (secret, remember?), but it’s dark shades of–you guessed it–green and blue.

I’m in love. :-)

New Pattern Release: Concord Vest!

I got the pattern for my Concord Vest up for sale yesterday!

It’s my first independent pattern release in months, actually. This is thanks to two secret sweaters for a yarn company, and the hibernating gray sweater. So I’m really pleased to release this pattern out into the wild, just in time for summer knitting. It’s designed in DK weight yarn (Cephalopod Yarns Traveller, to be specific) and is available in bust sizes 27 (30.5, 33.5, 36.25, 39.25 / 42.25, 45, 49.5, 53)”, or 68.5 (77.5, 85, 92, 99.5 / 107.5, 114.5, 125.5, 134.5) cm.

My favorite part about this vest is the interesting construction. Because I wanted a pick-up free sweater–that is, one in which there would be no picking up of stitches–I designed it with the armhole and neck edging knit along with the main piece.

But this created a problem: how would I do the typical underarm shaping without being able to bind off stitches at the beginning of rows? The answer was creative decreasing. By working double and single decreases on both sides of the fabric, I was able to mimic the slope of “traditional” bind-off underarm shaping, while leaving the side pattern intact.

Plus this meant it was really fun to knit. :-)

Concord is available for purchase for $5.00 through Ravelry via this link (you do not have to have a Ravelry account to purchase). I hope you all like it as much as I do!

A Very Good Week!

I’m still plodding along on my Bevin re-knit, but I wanted to show off all the neat stuff I’ve managed to acquire this week!

First up, brand-spanking-new business cards. I’ve been wanting to update my cards for a while, but it wasn’t until I found out I’d be attending a big, big knitting event next month (more on that later!) that I took the plunge.

They came in this adorable little case!

As you can see, I decided to make the back side of each card a close-up shot of one of my designs, and then put all the business-y info on the other side. My logo was due for a bit of a refresh, so I went ahead and did that at the same time. I think the cards turned out really well! I used Moo.com like I did for the mini cards I had made last year. Once again, I’m very happy with the results!

Next up: a Ravelry t-shirt!

I’ve wanted some Ravelry gear for ages. After all, if it wasn’t for Ravelry, I wouldn’t be a pattern designer. So when I saw they had shirts back in stock, I jumped at the chance. I got the unisex medium size, and it fits me very well (other than being a little long, which I can live with). And the fabric is soooooft. I want to cuddle with myself when I wear it.

And finally, the yarny portion of my acquisitions this week. I found a new to me local-ish yarn store, Village Yarn Shop in Zionsville, IN. Besides having a friendly and welcoming atmosphere, they had a seriously drool-worthy wall o’ Malabrigo.

I tried to restrict myself to this skein of Malabrigo Rios, for another upcoming sample re-knit:

But then I spotted this AMAZING color of Malabrigo Sock and couldn’t leave without it:

The colorway is Impressionist Sky. Apt, isn’t it?

So all in all, it’s been a pretty good week. :-)

WIP Wednesday: Still Bevin, and Dandelion Clock

I’m still plugging away on my Bevin sweater. I’ve made real progress this week, though. Here’s last week’s shot:

And here’s this week’s!

As you can see, I’ve finished the front and just completed the twisted-stitch motif on the back. I’ve been feeling like it’s going really slowly, but hey–nothing like pictures to show you the objective view of things.

I’ve also been working on the pattern writing for the white hat I showed you on Friday.

I went back and forth on a name several times. Molly of deepbluerenegade suggested Dandelion, which I really liked, but a quick Ravelry search turned up pages and pages of patterns with this name. So in the interest of making the pattern easier to find, I decided to go with… drumroll please…

Dandelion Clock!

If you’re wondering what timekeeping has to do with anything, Dandelion Clock is actually a common name for these things, from a kids’ game where the number of puffs it takes to blow off the seeds is supposed to tell the time:

I think it works rather well. :-)

FO Friday: Nameless Hat

I finished a new hat this week!

It’s a new design, but I’m drawing a blank on a name for it. If you have any ideas, let me know!

The specs:

Pattern: My own (probably will be released this month, depending if I decide the pattern needs testing)

Yarn: Madelinetosh Tosh Chunky in Natural. While the yarn was as squishy and delicious to knit with as ever, it was sort of bizarre to have colorless Madelinetosh. I really love the dyeing, so I think I’ll probably stay away from this shade in the future. I do like the color with my reddish hair, however!

Notes: The lace and cable pattern I decided to use seemed very straightforward… until I tried to convert it to knitting in the round rather than flat. Many swatches later, I figured out that the end of round marker needs to be moved forward one stitch at the end of each pattern repeat. That also gives the hat a neat spiral effect.

I decided to do a cable-cast on instead of my usual long-tail, because it plays more nicely with the garter stitch brim. The cable-cast on hurts my hands, and I find it much more fiddly than the long-tail, but I think the results were worth it. You can see the cast-on edge pretty well in this work-in-progress pic:

I’m participating in Madelinetosh May, an event put on by the Madelinetosh Lovers group on Ravelry, so I’m going to try to get one more Tosh hat design done before the month is up!

WIP Wednesday: Bevin Mark 2

Well, I guess Knitting & Crochet Blog Week must have taken a bit more out of me than I thought, because it’s been over a week since I last posted. Oops.

Anyway, during that time I’ve finished a prototype for a new hat design (more on that Friday!) and started this:

I’m knitting another sample for my own Bevin Pullover pattern, in the called-for Knit Picks CotLin yarn. The first sample was shipped back to me just as I moved across the country, and between a wonky forwarding order and the not-very-conscientious tenants who moved into our apartment after us, the sweater went missing.

I was never totally thrilled with the original pattern pictures anyway, so I’m not too upset. They were taken on a beach in the middle of summer, so I was trying my very best not to sweat profusely the whole time. This is my chance to knit a new version and do a new photoshoot. I’m just lucky Knit Picks got some nice ones, which they graciously allow me to use as I see fit:

Their model looks gorgeous in the white color, but I think the teal is better for me!

It’s pretty bizarre to be knitting from my own pattern. It’s been long enough since I wrote it that I don’t really remember much of the process, so it’s like reading something someone else put together! So far, so good. We’ll see if I manage to get through it without getting frustrated with myself…