I forgot to add the biggest knit thing I did in 2023, which was also a second chance: I re-published my sold out, out of print book, Brioche Knit Love: 21 Skill Building Projects from Simple to Sublime! It’s for sale through Amazon.com and through select yarn shops including For Yarn’s Sake and Northwest Yarns and Mercantile. Get a copy and enjoy brioche knitting!
To ring out the old year and ring in the new, I’m having a sale on my 2023 individual self-published patterns on Ravelry. These are the eight designs you see above (not the book, which is not on Ravelry). Here’s a link to the Ravelry bundle so you can find them easily. Get 20% off any of my 2023 patterns from now through January 5, 2024. Explore assigned pooling, play with brioche, or just have a simple knit and let a gradient yarn walk you through Ebb and Flow! (If Ravelry is not accessible for you, message me and we’ll work it out.)
Happy new year…are you doing something fun for New Year’s Eve? We’re staying home with the cats. That’s enough excitement for us!
Remember these two beauties? I last posted about them, wondering which color I’d use to knit a Starfall sample. I have now knit three cowls with these two skeins. (You’ll see why/how in a bit.)
Wine Mom, first swatch
At first glance, I didn’t think there was enough going on with Wine Mom. And the color run was longer than in my previous Starfall cowl, so there was a lot of color on each side of the star. This swatch was knit on a US5.
Keith’s Irresistible Orchid
This colorway called my name. I was knitting on a US4.
Starfall Cowl, unblocked
I knit this over the Thanksgiving holiday, but I wasn’t really happy with it. The stars are pretty small, and the fabric is a bit firmer than I like. There’s a lot of color at the sides of the stars, too. I wondered if it would be better on a US5, even though I thought that looked a little puny with this yarn. What if I made 6 stitch stars instead of 5 stitch stars? Would there be enough yarn to finish the cowl? I didn’t want to frog the whole thing and reknit it, if it could mean losing at yarn chicken.
Of course that meant that I should knit an entire cowl with Wine Mom, just to make sure the yardage would work out. Behold, 6 stitch stars on a US5 needle.
Starfall cowl in Wine Mom
I love it. Which meant I had to frog and re-knit the first cowl. And that’s how I’ve knit three cowls with these two skeins of yarn. I re-knit the Irresistible Orchid cowl in 3 days. Don’t try this at home; my arms are definitely feeling some tendinitis. Oops. But I did binge watch the current season of Virgin River on Netflix, so that was fun.
Bisquee is ready to help with blockingStarfall encore
The stars are bigger and there’s less color leakage at the sides of the stars. And the fabric feels right, too. Winner! I also added one more 4 row repeat of the old shale lace at the bottom edge, because there was enough yarn left to do that. I would have added that to the end of the Wine Mom version too, if I had thought of it. It all depends on how much yarn you have left.
Blocked photos coming soon. And I’ll figure out if kits are happening with Keith, the dyer of these gorgeous yarns.
Oh! While I was knitting, I realized it would be easier for me (and you, the knitter), if I gave row numbers throughout the triangular increase section, instead of just telling you to repeats rows 2 and 3, 39 times. So I edited the pattern. If you purchased it through Ravelry, the updated pattern is available to you. I’ll get the Payhip version updated today, too.
Now I need to finish my qiviut cowl, and think about a sweater I want to knit for DH, and design something with some fun new yarn from Knitted Wit. Never a dull moment, right?
It’s the sparkliest time of the year: The Indie Design Gift-A-Long starts on Tuesday! I’m one of 286 participating indie designers this year.
The Gift-a-Long is a multi-designer event through Ravelry to help you kick-start your holiday gift-making. It begins with a pattern sale, and then the fun and games begin on Ravelry, with KAL/CAL activity and prizes. Here are a few of my patterns that are included in the coupon sale portion of the GAL; you can see the rest (there are 20!) in the GAL bundle on my Ravelry designer page.
The pattern sale runs from Tuesday, November 26 at 8:00 pm US EST – Monday, December 2, 2019 at 11:59 pm US EST. The coupon code is giftalong2019 and it’s good for 25% off any of the participating patterns from all the designers.
The KAL/CALs will run from Tuesday, November 26 at 8pm (US-EST) through New Years Eve December 31 at midnight (US-EST). Check out the Ravelry group for all the details. Your project with any paid pattern by a participating designer is eligible for prizes, not just the patterns in the sale.
You can see all 286 participating designers in this thread. I’m having a good time looking through the list and picking patterns I want to knit! Eventually. Or at least in my mind…
I don’t really gift knit for the holidays (too much pressure), but this is a great time to stock up on patterns for the knitting year! And participating in the KAL at a relaxed pace sounds good to me. How about you? Are you a deadline gift knitter?
I’m hosting this Thanksgiving year, so I’m in a whirlwind of prep. Happy Thanksgiving, y’all!
It’s been quiet on the blog, but that doesn’t mean that I haven’t been knitting and planning. I have several prototype projects in progress, a couple design proposals out, and I’ve set up some fun in the Indie Design Gift-A-Long.
What is Gift-A-Long? It’s a multi-designer promotion through Ravelry to help you kick-start your holiday gift-making! It begins with a pattern sale, and then the fun and games begin on Ravelry, with KAL/CAL activity and prizes. You don’t have to belong to Ravelry to buy patterns, but you do have to join if you want to participate in the KAL/CAL games and prizes.
The pattern sale runs from Thursday, November 13th at 8:00 pm US EST – Friday, November 21, 2014 at 11:59 pm US EST. The KAL/CALs will run from Thursday, November 13 at 8pm (US-EST) through our New Years Eve party, Wednesday, December 31 at midnight (US-EST). Check out the Ravelry group for all the details.
Posted onJanuary 21, 2014|Comments Off on Thrumbelina KAL begins today!
We’re casting on for a Thrumbelina KnitALong today! This KAL is not a mystery KAL. All the information you need is in the pattern. We’re sharing questions, tips, progress…
Before you cast on, you should read through your pattern for information on how to thrum. You can also watch my thrumming video on youtube.
I just made an extra tutorial on a tip for continental style knitters.
Just remember, it’s important to make sure your working yarn wraps around the thrum, rather than coming up underneath it.
Edited to add: The Thrumbelina pattern is on sale for 25% off ($4.50 instead of $6) through the end of January. Click here to purchase through Ravelry. I meant to do this earlier, but I forgot! If you purchased this pattern during the month of January, I’ll be contacting you.
I’ve added a Facebook page for PDXKnitterati. I’m using it for all things knit- and fiber-related: blog posts, sales, contests, and more. You can find it here.
I tweet as @pdxknitterati, if you’re inclined to be part of the twitterverse.
Every once in a while I check to see how people find this blog. Mostly it’s linking from somewhere else, but the search terms that people use can be a riot. I was surprised to see that if you google “pum pum pum aloha aloha,” my blog is the number one search result. Must have been the thrummed knitting on vacation!
Knit related: I’m sketching for a little design project. I think I’ve gotten my little selfish knitting binge done, and it’s back to work! Oh, but I’m also knitting some worsted socks. For me. They’re a relentlessly cheery take-along project, or TV-watching project.
You may remember these fingerless mitts that I knit for my sister’s Christmas gift.
I finished editing the pattern yesterday. It’s been tested by some of the wonderful test knitters in Ravelry’s Free Pattern Testers group. (The FPT group is a great resource.) I’ve included links in the pattern to my new tutorials on paired lifted increases and cabling without a cable needle. You can see all my tutorials on my tutorials page.
More information about the pattern is available here.
I must be loose. A looser knitter than Emilee, anyway. She finished her gorgeous Ishbel with less than one skein of Malabrigo sock yarn. That seduced me into thinking I could do the same. As I neared the end, I realized that I wasn’t going to make it. I weighed the remaining yarn and found that it takes a little more than one gram per row. I had 10 grams of yarn left. And 10 rows to go. And a bind off row. Ouch. I really didn’t want to buy another $20 skein for about 3 grams of yarn.
I kept knitting. Now I have three rows left to knit, plus a bind off row. This tiny ball of yarn isn’t going to make it.
Luckily, there is a Ravelry group called Malabrigo Junkies, and they have a forum thread titled “ISO/FT/FS.” In English, that’s “in search of/for trade/for sale.” Since I only needed a little, I posted there. Within a couple hours, I had a reply. KellyInTexas is my hero!
Yesterday’s foray with the Bleeding Heart Shur’tugal left me cold. That big blobby pool of pink just didn’t make me happy. The spiral reversed direction between the ribbing and the dragon scale pattern, and the area where it reversed was like a big pink eyeball. I couldn’t take it, so I ripped it out.
The pattern calls for 64 or 72 stitches. I had already reduced it to 56 stitches on size 1 needles because I’m using STR Mediumweight instead of Lightweight. I knew if I increased to 64 stitches, I would have to knit on size 0 or 00 needles. No way. So I went the other direction, and cast on 48 stitches on size 2 needles. (ETA: I thought they were 2’s, but they’re still 1’s! I guess I can switch back to my new Lantern Moon blondwood Sox Stix, since they’re the same size as these Brittany Birch.)
(Please excuse the harsh lighting. The sun actually came out, hooray!)
What a well behaved spiral. Just what I wanted, and it looks a lot like the spiral on the designer’s revised pattern for Shur’tugal. (Ravelry link for the updated pattern, but I don’t think you can get it elsewhere. Join Ravelry; it’s free!)
So I’m much happier. The sock is a little snugger, but still big enough for my leg and my foot. And there’s no pink eyeball. Ahhhhh.
I’m in! I just joined the Socks That Rock Leyburn Knitalong on Ravelry. I’m doing it with Socks That Rock Mediumweight in Eggplanted, top-down, 56 stitches cast on for the ribbing, decreased to 54 for the Leyburn stitch pattern. Here’s what I have so far.
I really wanted to try this cuff treatment that I saw on the Twist Collective Blog. Theirs is in a contrast color to corrugated ribbing, but even so, it’s so cool looking! It gave me a little giggle to deliberately put a twist in, after years of admonishments to “be careful not to twist” for circular knitting. Be aware that you have to work this part on straight needles; ask me how I know…
I switched to knitting in the round as soon as the cuff detail was done, just before the ribbing.
And I think I may try a short row heel, since I’ve never done them before. It’s always fun to learn a new trick. We’ll see when I get there. For now, I’m just enjoying the stitch pattern.
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 