Category Archives: pattern design

sakura

Posted on April 15, 2011 | 8 Comments

Sorry for the radio silence; I’ve been knitting! I just finished a little something.

sakura full set

This is Sakura, a cowl and wristlet set. It was inspired by the lovely yarns that Lorajean (Knitted Wit) dyed as a fundraiser for Japan earthquake relief. When I saw the luminous Silky n Single (60/40 wool/silk single ply worsted weight), I knew just what it should be. It took a few tries to get it right, though.

sakura texture 2

Knitting with this yarn is like knitting with a cloud. It’s light, and airy, and sturdy and delicate at the same time. Sturdy to knit with, but it doesn’t particularly like being frogged! So I’ve done all the experimenting with it so you don’t have to. You can knit this set with other worsted weight yarns, but it’s so pretty in this pink, and if you buy this particular yarn from Knitted Wit, $10 from the skein goes to Mercy Corps.

sakura

sakura close

Pattern will be up next week, I think. I’m sending a few copies with Lorajean to the Columbia Gorge Fiber Festival today, along with the sample cowl and wristlets, but I’m waiting for the gorgeous weeping cherry at the school across the street to bloom so I can use it as a backdrop for better photos. We’ll see if the weather cooperates, and if they chase me off the lawn. Crazy knitting lady is out there draping hand-knits in the trees, and taking pictures!

Collaborating with Lorajean is fun, and a pleasure. I have another knit to show you soon…

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ruffles…

Posted on April 7, 2011 | 11 Comments

or not. Remember this?

sakura laptop

I nearly finished it. Do you know that a ruffle formed by decreases, like the one above, won’t match a ruffle formed by increases at the other end of the knitting? At least, mine didn’t. Guess I should have swatched all portions of this project before jumping in head first! It’s all been ripped, and I’ve started over, sans ruffle. The good news is that it’s really quick knitting in this Knitted Wit Silky & Single Worsted, so it will be done in a couple days. Pictures later.

My Aunt Rose is in town visiting. She’s the person who taught me to knit, way back when. Of course, we went yarn shopping. We stopped at Twisted, where she and Uncle P perused the patterns.

patterns

Cousin S found the Malabrigo Rios.

mal

This is going home with her.

malabrigo

We went to the iconic Voodoo Donuts. This was my first trip there; it’s fun to have out of town guests so you can be a tourist in your own town. The wait was only about 10 minutes, unlike on the weekends. It’s counter service only; you take your pink box of donuts and go elsewhere.

voodoo

We bought bacon maple bars. Sounds weird, but think of Saturday breakfast with bacon and pancakes with maple syrup. They were quite tasty!

bacon maple bar

And finally, an update: I’m donating all proceeds from online sales of my Pacific Shawl pattern in March and April to the Red Cross for Japan disaster relief. So far I’ve sold 57 patterns, so $342 will be going to the Red Cross. Thanks so much for being a part of this. I’m waiting until the end of April before sending the money, so there’s still time if you want to participate.

Back to work today, and knitting.

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Mad Knitting Skills: 1 Up!

Posted on March 29, 2011 | 8 Comments

kcbw2header

Knitting skills: They’re cumulative! Each new skilled learned is another tool in the toolkit, leading to another idea. What else can I do with this skill? I love that!

One new skill that I’ve learned this past year is adding beads to my knitting. Actually, I learned the basics of this at a “one hour wonder” workshop with Sivia Harding at Sock Summit in 2009, but the new skill languished until I wanted to embellish a shawl I was designing, Pacific.

beads

pacific

I love this method of adding beads as you go. It’s a little fiddly, but you only do it when you need to. That works for me. I once started a project that began with pre-stringing a hundred beads. I didn’t like the way it felt with the beads hanging on the working yarn, and I never finished it.

In case you’re interested, I’m donating 100% of my proceeds from now until April 30 from online sales of my Pacific shawl pattern to the Red Cross for Japan Earthquake/Tsunami relief. I’m paying the Ravelry and paypal fees myself; 100% of the purchase price is going towards disaster relief. I’m hoping the gentle waves on this shawl will help bring healing to our neighbors across the Pacific.

2KCBWDAY2

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Start-itis…

Posted on March 20, 2011 | 16 Comments

…but only in my head.

I’m still plugging away at my shawl, and it’s nearly done. Done enough that I’m hearing the siren song of new projects.

I bought yarn to make knitted cupcakes from Leigh Radford’s One Skein book. It was an accident. I went to look up the Baby Bolero when I was commenting on Bonnie’s post, and the cupcakes jumped out and grabbed me. I had a gift certificate at Yarn Garden, so it was easy. I was lost.

cupcakes2B

But I haven’t quite cast on yet, because I’m trying to finish the shawl.

That doesn’t mean that I didn’t wind some yarn. This lovely yarn has been sitting in my stash since August 2009. I got it at Deb Accuardi’s pre-Sock Summit luncheon. It’s Knitted Wit‘s Ladies That Lunch. The springiness of the pink has been calling my name. Yes, it’s fingering weight, and I’ve never knit socks with fingering weight yarn. But what else will I do with it? I’ve had a sock design idea in my head for two years, and I think this could be the perfect yarn for it.

ladies that lunch

But I resisted casting on because I’m working on the shawl.

And then I wound this. This is also from the pre-Sock Summit luncheon. There was a different yarn with each course of the meal! This was from Abundant Yarn, which is now only online, but used to be here in Portland. Stevanie Pico was the dyer, and now she’s half of Pico Accuardi Dyeworks. The color is Accuardi Insalata, named for Deb herself, and looks like basil and tomato.

accuardi insalata

And I need a new pair of socks with some red and green in it. Because this just happened to my beloved Leyburns.

blowout

I made these with Mirasol Hacho in February of 2009. This isn’t really sock yarn, it’s DK weight merino, but I like dk/sport/worsted weight socks. They felted a little more each time I washed them, and got harder and harder to get on and off my heel.

fuzzed

Fuzzy! The last time I pulled them off, my fingers went through, right where the leg meets the heel. They’ve lived a long and serviceable life. But I haven’t cast on with the Accuardi Insalata yet, because I’m going to finish the shawl first.

I also have the lovely Madeline Tosh Pashmina, which will become Annis (not Caireen, as originally planned) but I haven’t even wound that yet!

pashmina

Because I’m still working on the shawl…

P1030149

…for now.

As you can see, I like to have one main project at a time. It keeps me honest. And makes it more likely that I’ll actually finish. Are you a monogamous knitter, or do you like to have lots of projects at once?

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Big cup o’ fail

Posted on March 15, 2011 | 7 Comments

I’ve been knitting my current design project with Lorajean’s (Knitted Wit) beautiful Bling yarn, for what seems like weeks. Good thing I like it, because I get to use it again and again!

bling2

I first swatched with the storm cloud gray on the right, and figured out my stitch pattern. I left that on the needles, and started knitting my idea with the blue-gray. I knit for a long time, and on the needles, it seemed like all was well. I was basing the shape of this little shawl on a half-hex fichu, a shape I read about in an article by Jane Sowerby (author of the book Victorian Lace Today) in Knitter’s Magazine, Summer 2008. It’s basically 3 adjacent isosceles triangles, top points meeting at the center back neck. The shawl starts there and grows downwards, forming a half hexagon. The pictured shawls were all pretty long, which they’d have to be in order to have it be wide enough to wrap around oneself.

I know that there are triangular shawls that have increases at the beginning and end of both the right and wrong side rows, so I thought I’d try that to make a wider, shallower shawl. Sounds reasonable, right? I didn’t like my first edging attempt, so I decided to frog the 6 edging rows I had completed. When I took it off the needles, this is what I saw.

failure

I blurred the stitch pattern because I just want you to see the shape. Hmmmm. If I’d wanted something akin to the collar of a maternity dress from the 1980′s, this would have sufficed. Square back, tie front. Ig. There was no way it was going to block into a satisfactory long-armed half hexagon.

This is what it looks like, now.

bling2

Yes, the one on the left. Again. I didn’t even take a new picture, because it’s back to square one. I’ve started another attempt with the same lace pattern and a different shape, this time in the storm cloud gray on the right. It reminds me of this:

halo

The yarn is lovely to work with, but I would like to finish someday soon!

What else is going on? I had lunch on Friday at the Lantern Moon warehouse. They do a themed lunch about once a month. This month was a crab feast.

crabfest

It was delicious, and I didn’t even break out in hives. (Thank you, Benadryl. It was worth your drug-induced afternoon nap.)

crab

gift bags

I helped Sharon & Cathy stuff gift bags for the Yarn Market News Smart Business Conference, which is going on right now in Portland. Lantern Moon hosted the opening reception, and these gift bags were headed there. There was some seriously nice swag in them, including straight and circular needles, and these shawl pins, which I love.

Hope your knitting is cooperating with you, more than mine was with me. Here’s to second (and third) chances!

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A cavalcade of FOs

Posted on February 24, 2011 | 17 Comments

This past weekend was Crafty Mom weekend at the beach. This was the 10th year for some of us, and it was highly productive for me.

I finished my Heather Hoodie. It’s not blocked yet, but I love it already. It’s big, squishy and warm. And it weighs a ton. It has 9.5 skeins of Brown Sheep Lamb’s Pride Bulky, which means 950 grams, or 33.25 ounces, or nearly two pounds…

hoodie back

…but it doesn’t feel that heavy when I put it on. Working on the button bands was making my hands tired, with all the hood and front stitches crammed on a 26 inch needle.

hoodie

I started the button band with a full skein of yarn, and this is all I had left when the bands (including around the hood) were done.

ribbing remnant

This sweater was supposed to be a vest, but I wanted sleeves. I changed the straight armholes for a modified drop shoulder, indenting about 2 inches at the underarm. After seaming the shoulders, I picked up stitches at the sleeve cap for no-sew set-in sleeves and knit them flat to the wrist. I’m happy with the result.

What else did I work on? I finished my Athena with my leftover Chroma Worsted. I think this one is for me…finally!

chromathena fo

I finished a cowl in Dream in Color Classy, the color is Deep Sea Flower. I can’t really show it to you yet; I was re-knitting a new design that’s going…somewhere.

blue DIC

I took pictures of an FO in this pretty Pico Accuardi Dyeworks Worsted; the color is Rodgie’s Midnight Dancing. I can’t show you the FO of that, either, but here’s the wrong side so you can admire the yarn.

ws rocky

And I started a new project for Sock Summit, but there’s no picture yet. Mostly I was just trying to get it started. I’m using Knitted Wit‘s Bling yarn, the bluer one on the left.

bling2

But enough about me. Carole made a necklace that everyone wanted, so she made a bunch!

tiles

And of course the view was spectacular. I woke up on Saturday morning, and where the sun had set the night before, there was a pink orb over the horizon. It was a perfect moon set.

moonset gull

moonset saturday

Twin Rocks was pretty as always. They remind me of a sea serpent.

twinrocks

Although it’s trying to be spring here, there was snow on the hills, and it’s snowing tonight, too.

snowgulls

I could watch the sea and the sky forever. Always changing, but constantly lovely.

halo

How was your weekend?

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Podcast: Entrelac. Forecast: Sunny

Posted on February 18, 2011 | 3 Comments

I’m on the Knit Picks podcast, Entrelac-tastic! Stacey asked if I’d be a part of an entrelac episode, and I was happy to say yes. The episode begins with an interview with Rosemary Drysdale, author of Entrelac: The Essential Guide to Interlace Knitting, which I reviewed here. The episode also has an interview with in-house designer Kerin, and a review of Gwen Bortner’s book, Entree to Entrelac.

It was fun to chat with Stacey in my current role as entrelac evangelist. She asked me how I started designing, and I gave a roundabout answer, but the real answer is this. Sometimes I want to knit something, and can’t find a pattern that’s exactly what I want. So I have to come up with a way to match the picture in my head. It’s that simple.

Knit Picks is giving away a copy of Rosemary Drysdale’s book. Leave a comment on their blog to enter!

The funny thing about this interview is that Stacey and I live in the same city, but I was a continent away when I spoke with her. Another college visit, this time to University of Central Florida in Orlando. This is a huge school, 46,000 undergrad. But the 1700 student Honors College appears to be stellar; we were quite won over by the director’s presentation.

knight

pegasus

The teams are called the Knights; the school logo is Pegasus. There are a lot of constellation names on this campus (Gemini, Apollo, Orion), which makes sense because the school started out as Florida Technological University, a support system for the nearby Kennedy Space Center. The campus is laid out in concentric circles, with the student union at the center, classroom buildings on the next circle, housing at the outer edge. It feels a little theme-parkish (very Orlando!), but it makes perfect sense to keep traffic out of the main pedestrian campus.

Speaking of theme parks, we had an extra day in Orlando, so we went to Epcot. It was ok, but I’m not much of a theme park person.

icons

This fellow came to lunch.

lunch bud

Here are a couple other birds; I made them in a needle-felting class last week. My friend Carole signed us up for this class at Collage as a Christmas present. It was great!

brids

I’m scheduled to teach at Twisted next Thursday evening; coincidentally, it’s entrelac! We’ll be doing my Infinity Entrelac Infinity Scarf, and the Lacy Entrelac Infinity Scarf will be a bonus option included in the pattern that comes with the class. If you want to learn a spiffy provisional cast on and the basics of entrelac, this class is for you! You can even learn to purl back backwards (without turning your work). Contact Twisted to register.

infinity

lacy midwinter

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Lacy Entrelac

Posted on February 11, 2011 | 18 Comments

When I saw the new Chroma yarns from Knit Picks, I knew that it would be perfect for entrelac. It’s a 70/30 merino/nylon single ply yarn with a very long, slow color repeat. It comes in 16 color combinations; this one is called Midwinter.

chroma

I liked the look of this yarn so much that I designed a simpler version of my Infinity Entrelac Infinity Scarf for Chroma Worsted. It’s big, soft and squishy, and I absolutely love it.

lacy 2

lacy midwinter

This is my new Lacy Entrelac Infinity Scarf, and the pattern is now available for purchase through the Knit Picks Independent Designer Program. It’s priced at $3.99.

I’ve also added instructions for this lace as a bonus to the original Infinity pattern. If you purchased Infinity online, you should have received a message that the pattern has been updated.

lacy detail

I had some Chroma Worsted left over, so I am knitting Athena again. I’ve knit so many of these, but they’ve all gone out as gifts. Maybe this one will be mine?

chromathena

Oh, one more thing: I’m having a drawing for some greeting cards and tape measures over at the Lantern Moon blog. Stop on by for a chance to win!

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Potpourri post

Posted on February 4, 2011 | 11 Comments

A little of this, a little of that.

We’re in college visit season, as you could see from my last post. We have another trip coming up, to another warm place. I think theTeen wants to escape the rain!

3 o clock

Too bad theTeen no longer knits. He used to knit, a long time ago. He even knit one red worm. (Naomi Dagen Bloom’s worm; she used to live in NYC, as did we, and now she blogs here in PDX as A Little Red Hen. Small world!) Anyway, I found out about this scholarship opportunity recently.

Five $3,000 scholarships are now available to hardworking students who can knit or crochet (that’s $15,000 total)! Jimmy Beans Wool has teamed up with many people in the fiber arts industry to provide the Beans For Brains Scholarship for deserving knitters and crocheters! This merit-based award is for students who will be attending an accredited institution in the Fall of 2011. You can get more information and an application by visiting the Beans For Brains Scholarship page (the deadline for submissions is April 1st). Not attending college but know someone who is or will be? Spread the word and help the next generation of fiber artists fund their dreams of higher education!

Maybe I should get him started again. I’m a knitting evangelist! What else? I finished the project I was working on at last week’s knit nite, but I’ll blog about it next week. This week? I finished the first sleeve on my Heather Hoodie cardi, and started the second. It goes really quickly, when I actually knit on it!

knitcat

Oh, you want to see the *knitting*?

knitcat2

I also started on a project for Sock Summit. I’m using Knitted Wit’s lovely Bling (sparkly) yarn; she dyed both of these for me and I am having a hard time choosing which color to knit first! I think I’ll eventually use both of these, separately. The one on the left has blue overtones, and the one on the right is more gray.

bling2

bling

My tiny start here isn’t quite what I want, so this will get ripped out and I’ll start again. This is my favorite part of designing: the dreaming about what it’s going to be, and starting and re-starting until it matches the dream. Frustrating sometimes, but that’s okay.

What are you knitting now?

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Infinity and beyond

Posted on December 3, 2010 | 3 Comments

I wore the Mini Mochi Infinity scarf yesterday, doubled as a cowl. It was perfect for the chilly, rainy day: a soft warm cloud of coziness.

mochi cowl

TheTeen took some more pictures for me, because I didn’t love the ones we took before. I had been in a hurry to catch the last bits of daylight on the last non-rainy day this week, and although I didn’t love the pictures, they were all I had. I like these better, so I swapped them into the pattern, and into my previous post.

mochi long2

And I also played with the cowl/hood look. I like it!

mochi hood

I haven’t knit a stitch since I finished on Monday. I’m not ready to start the two design projects I have in my head; I’m too busy this week to put that much thinking into it. I just want to knit something. It’s too strange having empty needles. I think I want to knit another Infinity! I love entrelac; each little square or triangle is like a mini-project. They go so fast, and you can really see your progress. I’ll knit a shorter version of the Noro Infinity in the same yarn. I already have the yarn; I bought a bag of 10 balls at Sock Summit last year. I used four in the original, three are going to a contest winner, and that means the last three can be mine!

Knit on…

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