Honey Bee Mine in Spark Speckle, Slate Kettle, and Compass Kettle
Honey Bee Mine is a cozy three-color bandana cowl that features sweet honey bees flitting among the honeycombs. The cowl looks like a triangular shawl when worn, but it needs no fussing or pinning to remain stylishly in place.
Honey Bee Mine is worked in the round from the bottom up, so the bees are flying upwards. Multiple yarnovers over several rounds are dropped and scooped up to form the wings of the honey bees, and double yarnovers create bold eyelets for the honeycomb. The pattern uses 3 colors of fingering weight yarn. The edging can be knit in either Brioche Rib or 1×1 Ribbing. (I’m always sneaking in brioche!)
Honey Bee Mine in Panettone Speckle, Slate Kettle, and Gold Hill Tonal
I designed this for Knit Picks in 2022/2023 using Hawthorne Fingering. I love this workhorse of a yarn! The Honey Bee Mine pattern rights have returned to me, so I am now able to offer this through Ravelry and Payhip. Use coupon code SWEET for 15% off through June 26, 2025.
My sisters and I took a quick trip to Los Angeles to celebrate our cousin Stephen’s marriage to Lauren.
the happy couple!Sisters and cousins (and cousin-in-law)
It was so nice to get together for a happy occasion. Lots of laughing and remembering, too.
Griffith Observatory
I wanted to do one super-touristy thing while we were there, so we went to Griffith Observatory on Sunday afternoon. Very cool. If we had many hours, I would have read more of the exhibits. This was just a quick buzz through.
HOLLYWOOD
You can see the iconic Hollywood sign from there.
Which means of course you need to try to get it into your picture.
My sister Janelle took this picture of me taking a selfie, sign included.
Sister Sharon knows all the best places for food. We had hand pulled noodles (just a snack!) at Lan Noodle, and then ice cream at Fosselman’s. This was before dinner…
My first boba tea! (that’s enough for two people, honestly)
I thought I was going to have time to knit during the weekend, but there was just a lot of chitchat, revelry, and food the whole time. I’d say I didn’t knit a single stitch, but I did give my cousin Sandra a mini brioche lesson. She’s a quick study!
We were in a restaurant, so I cut out the busy unrelated background. Do you know how to do this in the Apple photos app? Long tap the subject, and it it makes a cutout. Save the cutout, and use it elsewhere. Okay!
I’m happily knitting away on my Simply Stellar (brioche plus assigned pooling shawlette) sample, and test knitters are beginning theirs, too. I love this yarn combo; it’s Wildflowers (pooling) and Sassy (pink) Deluxe Sock from A Chick that Knitz. There is just a tiny overlap of that fuchsia in the pooling yarn, but not enough to be confusing to the eye. Perfect!
I misread my intentions and started with a US3 needle instead of a US4. Not a big difference, but I decided to change mid-project. I wouldn’t do that on a sweater, but on a bias brioche shawlette? It’s not really going to show. It might give it a tiny bit more drape, and it might make me finish a tiny bit sooner. I was 126 rows in when I decided to swap needles. And then I swapped needles again today after another 6 inches, because my yarn was catching on a rough spot where the needle goes into the metal join, grrr. So away with the Knitters Pride Ginger (I usually really like these), and onto a KnitPicks wooden interchangeable that was in my stash. Things are going more smoothly now.
Sometimes the pooling color pops up where you don’t want it. One way to deal with it is to knit a pooling motif in the background color of the pooling yarn. This will reset where the color pool happens.
Another way is to cut your yarn and move the pooling color along. But that means you’ll have more ends to sew in. I don’t cut until I’m done with the project, because sometimes I frog entire projects! So I just pull up a big loop of the background color of the pooling yarn.
I’m enjoying this knit. I’ll have time to work on it this weekend. Airplane knitting! My sisters and I are going to our cousin’s wedding celebration. Yay, family time!
Yes, two of them! Both are for accessories knit with brioche + pooling.
Scattered Petals is a bandana-style cowl that features brioche plus assigned pooling. It’s knit in the round with 2 skeins of fingering weight yarn, one of which should be dyed for assigned pooling. The pattern is written for two sizes, and you can customize further if you wish. Yarn shown is from Yarn Snob/Knits All Done from Keith Leonard. Colors are Black Orchid and Wicked Green on A Good Fingering base.
Simply Stellar is a shawlette featuring brioche and assigned pooling stars. It’s knit flat using 2 skeins of fingering weight yarn, one of which should be dyed for assigned pooling. This design is the result of a conversation I had at Nash Yarn Fest. Yarn dyer Tammy Pelfrey (A Chick That Knitz) mentioned that she loves my Starstruck Shawlette, but brioche + syncopated brioche + assigned pooling can be intimidating to newer brioche knitters. I decided to design a simpler shawlette with no syncopated border. There is minimal shaping as a backdrop to the assigned pooling stars. Yarn is A Chick that Knitz Singles Fingering in Tropical Flowers and Caribbean.
These two test knits are both mashups of brioche + assigned pooling. You should already know how to knit brioche to test knit. Previous experience with assigned pooling isn’t necessary; there’s a video tutorial for each assigned pooling motif.
Both of these patterns have been professionally tech edited. Why test knit? It helps me to fine tune the instructions. Tech editing gets me halfway there, but real life knitters really help. Test knitters get early access to the pattern and tutorials, and help future knitters. The test knits will run for 4 weeks. You provide your own yarn, and keep the sample you knit. Leave a note in the comments if you’re interested in test knitting; let me know which project.
I was merrily knitting along on my Simply Stellar, but then I decided I wanted to see what it looked like with more tonal contrast. I’m in love…guess I’m starting over because I’m obsessed. This is from A Chick that Knitz, Deluxe Sock in Wildflowers and Sassy.
We were planning a trip to Japan for this month, but our plans fell through. You can read about that on DH’s blog here, if you’re curious. I had blocked out the back half of May for this trip, so we went to Plan B. Oregon Coast!
We stayed at a friend’s house near Pacific City. You can see Chief Kiawanda Rock from there. I know this rock as Haystack Rock, but there are three Haystack Rocks on the Oregon Coast. The most famous is in Cannon Beach up north from here. So calling this Chief Kiawanda Rock, at the end of Cape Kiwanda, makes sense!
I like the little sea arch kickstand on the north side.
I love beach walking; there are so many interesting things to see.
Look at all the colors in this sea foam.
This jellyfish is waiting for its ride home.
This Velella Velella (by the wind sailor) is too dried up to make it back to sea.
A couple steps can totally change your perspective.
Just like real life.
This area is known as the Three Capes Loop: Cape Kiwanda, Cape Lookout, and Cape Meares. We went to Cape Lookout on Wednesday and explored the South Trail (shorter, but lots of tree roots and challenging footing) and the Cape Trail (goes out to the end of the cape, longer but mostly easier footing). We didn’t have hiking poles with us, so we just did some of each. Lots of interesting flora! (This is the wet side of the Cascades and Coast Range, unlike last week’s dry side wildflower walk.)
Fairy BellsSalmonberry blossomsferns
We saw lots of trilliums that were past bloom, but there was one with just a bit left.
Trilliums are white when they bloom, purple after pollination, and this one was translucent, ready to disappear.
The views from the cape are spectacular.
looking south to Cape Kiwandalooking north to Cape Meares
On Thursday we went to Cape Meares to visit the lighthouse, a perfect rainy day activity. This lighthouse was in service from 1890 to 1963. It’s the shortest lighthouse on the Oregon Coast (on a tall cliff). We had a great tour of the light with a park volunteer; he loves lighthouses and it shows! He and his wife are living in an RV, traveling and volunteering when they’re not home in Boise.
Cape Meares lighthouseThree Arch Rocks, south of Cape Meares
And we even had one nice sunset.
We’re home again, and I’m knitting and designing and writing and…everything! It was nice to get away.
Oh! I did some knitting on this, but I’m not sure I love it. I think it needs more tonal and color contrast between the two yarns. What do you think? The pattern is all written and tech edited; I just need to knit a sample.
Last week (May 7), I went on a wildflower walk in the Columbia River Gorge, on the other side of the Cascade Mountains. That’s the dry side. I was enticed by the pictures of balsamroot in my Facebook feed.
I wanted a view of Mount Hood, so we crossed the river to Washington. This was one of the only clumps of balsamroot left this spring. I don’t know if it’s warmer/dryer this year, but last year there were a lot more! I’m going to have to put a note in my calendar to go in April next year.
There were a lot of poppies, though! I didn’t see any of those last year.
I love how luminous bitterroot flowers are.
The bachelor’s buttons were also out in force.
Catherine Creek Falls
So good to have friends that I can talk into excursions! I promised that it was a walk, not a hike. With views of Mount Hood and the Columbia River! We stopped in Hood River, Oregon on the way home.
We saw wing foilers, which seem to be the next interatiion after the windsailers. Pretty cool!
Reader, the gauge in the second version of the cowl was much better, but the cowl was still too big/tall/wide after blocking. I want that vertical center line to be straight, not wobbling back and forth because the piece is too big, at least for me. I had a taller friend try it on, and it was better on her, but it still needs adjusting. I had about a half skein of each color left, so I promptly recalculated and cast on for the THIRD time. For ME.
Post-midnight bind off
This is more what I envisioned. It’s still going to grow with blocking, but I think it will be the right proportions. Yes, I could just steam block it, and not let it grow much, but I think something that is worn around your neck should be able to be washed, eventually! So I’ll definitely wet block it.
Soooo close. I need to block and photograph, and then it will be ready for a test knit call. Current name? Scattered Petals, or Cascading Petals. What do you think?
Design by trial and error. I do all this refiguring/reknitting so you don’t have to!
I ordered the green yarn to go with Black Orchid. What did I knit?
A giant swatch, apparently. Top down is easier to figure, because you choose the neck size, and then increase until you want to be done. This was knit from the bottom up because I wanted the motifs to face this way. I cast on too many stitches, and the finished cowl was too loose, too long, too…everything. Sometimes you *should* listen to that little voice that says STOP! I didn’t block this, because I didn’t want to set the yarn into ramen-style kinks. I knew it was headed for the frog pond!
I cast on with the remaining yarn to confirm my new choices. This may look the same to you, but it’s infinitely better. Not so loosey-goosey, and a more reasonable number of stitches so it won’t be so long/tall by the time I finish decreasing. With this bottom-up construction, the rounds have been getting shorter as I go. I frogged the first cowl when I ran out of yarn, and now I’m nearly done with this second one.
I made a video tutorial for the assigned pooling motif yesterday. It’s slightly different than the one for Fired Up. I’ll put up a test knit call soon, but I want an FO pic first.
I loved designing and knitting Fired Up. I knew exactly what the yarn wanted to be, as soon as it was placed in my hand. I’d been thinking about this assigned pooling motif for months. In fact, I had already been planning a brioche/assigned pooling piece with it!
I started working with this color combo back in December while in Hawaii. When I ordered it, I thought the pooling yarn was black, with a pink and yellow color pop. Gray would be great with black.
But it turns out that Black Orchid is really a very dark purple. I didn’t like it with the gray; it gave me a cold jangly feeling. I tried it with white too, just because I had some, but the white wanted to be the star of the show. Light colors pop, right? And the Black Orchid should be the real star of the show here.
This orchid color was gorgeous, and I hoped it would work.
I loved it. (It was brighter in person.) This was the edging, with the purple orchid as the featured color, and syncopated flowers from the Black Orchid. The rest of the piece would feature Black Orchid with the leaf motif. But it was confusing to knit, because the colors were so similar. If it was confusing for me as the designer to knit, it would only be worse for the knitter. Back to the drawing board.
I looked at Keith’s (the dyer’s) inspiration photo for the Black Orchid colorway…what about that vivid green? I had some leftover Bellina from my Peekaboo Cowl, so I knit up a little swatch.
Fired Up and ready to go! Fired Up is a simple worsted weight cowl featuring an assigned pooling Flame Motif on a stockinette stitch background. It is knit top down.
Choose a worsted weight yarn that is dyed for assigned pooling, and cast on for some fun!
Two kinds of assigned pooling make this cowl shine: the Flame Motif, and colorful purl bumps.
Simple shaping at the center front creates cozy coverage over your shirt’s neckline. The cowl ends with a reverse stockinette edge to keep the bottom from curling up.
Tara Roberts of Stranded by the Sea gave me this yarn at Red Alder Fiber Arts Retreat, and I knew exactly what it wanted to be. It took me a few tries to figure out how to best make the Flame Motif, but once that was sorted, it flew off my needles!
This pattern is available on Ravelry, link here. It’s also available on Payhip, link here. Use coupon code FLAME for 15% off through April 21, 2025 on either site.
Find my patterns on Ravelry: Michele Bernstein Designs
Here are some of my favorites, and the newest. Many of my designs are also available through my Payhip store.
PDXKnitterati 