Reversible Cable Moebius Cowl

I have been cheating. I admit it. I should tattle on myself to the teacher but I haven’t.

Each year as the holiday approaches I come to the realization that I need to get knitting on something for my son’s teacher. But I cheat, or double dip if you will. If I am going to be spending time knitting on a gift I might as well get a new pattern out of it, right? So when I say that this new pattern is good for gift knitting, I really mean it because it was designed and knit as a gift!

When it is cold and you are out corralling about a million second graders on the playground do you need to be fiddling with the ends of a scarf? I am gonna go with no on that one. So a cowl it was to be. For naming ease I used the recipient’s last name. So meet McClanahan.

I may have mentioned that I am in the throes of a minor obsession with Moebius construction, this is the pattern that started the whole thing. But because of timing and stuff it is only now getting released. After I finished knitting the prototype I decided I wanted to work it up in multiple different weights of yarn – to give the pattern more bang for the buck. Thinking about what yarn to use I remembered how much I enjoyed working with Dream in Color Classy for Cables are Cool and I thought I would see what the color geniuses over there might have in stock in the chunky / aran  yarn weight range.

 

Mammoth in Rio Verde Blue

It must have been in the stars because their response was that they were in the finishing stages of introducing both a new Chunky and a new Aran weight yarn. Get OUT of here! So I got my grubby little mitts on Mammoth and Canyon and rounded out the plan with their lovely worsted weight single Calm. I asked them to pick out some awesome colors that would go well together because I had this vision of a photograph with a squooshy pile of cables. And they did not disappoint.

 

The Yellow/Green is Calm in Prickly Pear.

Back to the pattern (I can talk about yarn all day), since you always see both sides of a Moebius I went with reversible cables. Essentially the whole thing is ribbed. The cast on is seriously the most complicated part of the whole pattern. Once the stitches are on you have some knits & purls and a cable once every couple of rows. As my son would say “Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.” I think that one came from last year’s teacher (For her I designed I Can’t Control my Fingers).

I have provided the cast on and instructions for all three weights and the circumference of the respective cowls are inversely proportional to the weight of the yarn. And what I mean by that is the chunkier the yarn the closer to the neck the cowl will sit. The worsted weight (skinniest yarn) has the largest circumference. I tailored it to fit the yardage. If you wanted a looser cowl you could use the cast on for one of the other sizes, but then you would need additional yarn. Which, two skeins isn’t that bad is it?

This is Canyon in Goblin Valley

To finish up the pattern I had some awesome test knitters take a whack at knitting it up and I tried something different. Usually I have a “secret” place to do the testing, but this time I decided to do it in “public”. If you are a Ravelry member and want to see the growing pains in all of their glory check out the testing thread. You can see what the testers thought of the pattern and how they helped me to whip it into shape. Once they were done it took a turn with my awesome Tech Editor and now it is available for you.

I would love to hear what you think in the comments.

Queen of Mapes

During the Gift-a-long I posted an interview with one of the other participants of the event and had a lot of fun. It got me to thinking that there are so very many interesting people in the knitting community that I should do more interviews. Then I got to thinking about who I should interview. The obvious thing to do would be other designers and dyers and so forth – which I totally plan to do – but it occurred to me that many of the people I would like to know more about are the knitters.

People like you, gentle reader. 😉

And immediately someone popped into my mind. You see, there is a wonderful knitter on Ravelry (who I have never actually met) who has made one of my patterns 10 times. She is the undisputed Queen of Mapes As someone who can barely manage to knit the same pattern twice (hence becoming a designer in the first place) I am completely floored by someone wanting to knit one of my patterns more than once. It gives me a warm fuzzy feeling.

Here are 9 of the 10 Mapes

So I would like you to meet Judy (perseph43 on Ravelry). She graciously agreed to answer my nosey questions and I am super excited to share them with y’all. I did a bit of snooping on her Ravelry profile to develop some questions and she was kind enough to elaborate even more.

Before we get into the interview, here is a little background on Judy from Judy:

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In my prior (to retirement) life I ran my own home based cottage industry business designing and manufacturing clothing for women’s specialty shops. I employed two full time seamstresses, several home based pieceworkers, and a sales rep. Our kids also worked on part of the process when the spirit moved them to do so. We had a big old house and the room to do this but most importantly, I was a stay-at-home-mom.

For fourteen years I had a quilting group of “old ladies” who came to our house every Thursday for the day. The youngest one was 74 when we began. As they became unable to drive a girlfriend and I would go around and pick them up. We made so many quilts – all hand pieced. We always had at least two quilts in the works – one on the table for quilting and one in pieces that the ladies would take home to work on. We took turns being the recipient of the finished quilts.

Everyone brought their own lunch including the two seamstresses upstairs – we all ate together and it was much fun. A side benefit of that quilting club is that my children enjoy and are comfortable with the elderly. Now that I’m in that category myself we are reaping some rewards – ha!

After the kids were grown and gone I designed and maintained websites for organizations and several businesses.

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And now, the questions:

Q: Moving from Minnesota to New Mexico is a huge shift in culture and climate. What prompted you to make such a huge move and how much does where you live influence what you choose to knit (and knit with)?

A: What prompted us to move was Minnesota ice and the endless winters. Las Cruces is high desert at the foot of the Organ Mountains about 40 miles north of El Paso. We do have winter but the coldest it gets at night is perhaps 20 degrees. Beautiful bulky knits are not an option here, but mid-weight garments are perfect and those with a rustic flavor always get my attention.

Q: Looking through your projects, knitting something for yourself seems to be the exception among beautiful gifts. What are your favorite gifts to knit?

A: It’s getting harder and harder to part with my treasures but mitts, cowls and scarves are nice to have in my gift drawer. Shawls are good gifts but only if I am certain of color or shape for a particular recipient.

Q: Of course, the thing that brought you to my attention (among my nosey Ravelry snooping) is your apparent affection for my pattern Mapes. Why do you like this particular pattern?

A: Mapes! What can I say? It’s the perfect pattern and project. It is portable, easy enough that I can carry on conversation or follow a TV show and has such a relaxing rhythm to it that I’m always thinking of the next one while I knit. It curves around the shoulders and stays on! But also it’s a blank canvas –

Q: When I wrote Mapes it was with hope that people would find it easy to customize and make their own. You seem to have caught on to that intention. What are the modifications that you have made and which are your most successful? Is there anything you tried that just didn’t work?

Can you believe that ruffle?

A: I have added one extra stitch in the cast-on to give me an odd stitch count rather than even when I wanted to incorporate a centered pattern and this worked well. I tried to incorporate beads into that very pretty line of holes which start at the neck and wrap around over the shoulder and hang down the front. That was a flop but I’m still thinking about that one. It’s simmering on a back burner in my brain. (This is something that I had to make happen too, see Caladan).

Q: What are some of your other favorite patterns? (it is OK if they are from other designers)

A: Amiga by Mags Kandis. Amiga is another blank canvas open to all kinds of interpretation and I love it. Although it was written for flake cotton and summer it works equally well in heavier weight yarn for cooler weather. I love top-down cardigans because it’s so much easier to control the fit. You don’t finish all the knitting only to discover that the fit is horrible and fixing it would require massive frogging. (Except I managed to do just that on one top-down sweater)

Martina Behm’s 22.5 Degrees because the formula for the shaping renders a triangle shawl which is more shallow and longer.

Q: On your Ravelry profile you paint a lovely picture of knitting with your Grandmother and her friends, it sounds like a wonderful memory. Could you tell us about that here? And in this vein, have you taught (or considered teaching) any of your grandchildren to knit?

A: I was my grandma’s first grandchild and she called me Honey. So I, in turn, called HER Honey. The name stuck and all the future grandchildren called her Honey. What was so lovely about being with Honey and her friends was that I felt like a grown-up while I was with them. My verbal contributions to their conversation were accepted and the flow continued. We would have lunch on plates which also held a teacup and hold them in our lap.

I have six grandchildren – five boys and one girl. I taught one grandson to knit when he was about 8 or 9 and now he is a senior in high school. He is very creative and artistic so maybe knitting is something he will come back to later in his life. My granddaughter was not interested as a child but she says she has taken up knitting recently. She is back in Minnesota and maybe when we go back to our cabin next summer we can compare notes

Q: Finally, I am always curious how other Ravelers use Ravelry. What role does Ravelry play in your knitting life? Do you use it mostly for finding patterns, planning projects, keeping records? Do you make use of the social aspects of the site? What is your favorite feature?

A: I could not believe my good fortune when I stumbled upon Ravelry! I’m a ‘puter nerd and actually built several of my own in the nineties. So it took me no time at all to appreciate the complexity of the Ravelry site. What a resource! It’s wonderful to see what other knitters are creating and their interpretations of a pattern or their use of a particular yarn. It’s so stimulating – the brain cells feel like they’re statically charged! 🙂 Keeping track of stash is wonderful – although, I confess to having some not listed. Being able to go back and see what size needle you used on a project or how many yards were used is priceless to me. I’m sometimes disappointed when people leave out some of the critical info on their project pages.

Another invaluable tool for me is the listing of my personal library. My goodness, to be able to get a look at all the cardigan patterns in my library and see what magazine or book they are located in? It boggles the mind

It never would have occurred to me without Ravelry to mix yarns to create unique fabrics. Now I love mixing yarns and kinds of fiber together. I like adding silk to a garment to get that lovely drape. Rayon does the same thing and I like adding that. When I invest in stash now it is with the idea that it will be blended with something else.

Oh – and let’s not forget dyeing! That too has become addictive – all the info you need right on Ravelry.

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As suspected a fascinating person was behind all of that knitting. It is possible that knitters are the coolest people ever. I hope that y’all enjoyed this as much as I did, because I plan on more interviews. Is there any one in particular you would like to hear from? Feel free to comment away!

Malabrigo Quickie – Reciprocity Cowl

Reciprocity – the quality or state of being reciprocal:  mutual dependence, action, or influence.

Reciprocal – shared, felt, or shown by both sides

Malabrigo (or as I refer to it; mmmmmmMalabrigo) has this wonderful program where they accept proposals from independent designers for projects that focus on utilizing one or two skeins of their yarn to produce a quick and fun pattern for knitters. They supply the yarn, you supply the pattern, both parties promote the pattern and everybody wins!

The same lovely model as for Sardaukar

This is my second Quickie – the first was Curiosity and I am still super proud of that one. For this cowl I wanted to address the challenge of making the gorgeous variegated colorways look as amazing in the pattern as they do in the skein. My first step towards that goal was to pair a variegated color of Silky Merino (Queguay) with a complementary solid in Silkpaca (Abril). The solid was chosen to pull out one of the colors in the multi and to break things up a bit. The second step was to stick with a simple texture pattern to allow the yarn to really shine through. I worked the texture holding both yarns together for extra softness.

Texture and stockinette alternate

But do I ever leave well enough alone? Do you know me at all? 😉

I wanted to have some stockinette but I didn’t want to continue holding the yarns together, each yarn deserved its own spotlight. So I cooked up a bit of faux double knitting that is super easy to work once you have it set up. While working with the Silkpaca I did not want to stop because it is just so exceptionally soft – so there is a bit more of that in there than the DK. These extra rows cause the Silkpaca panel to bow out a bit and therefore fluff up and rub a bit against your neck. I am sure that you will bear with the sensation.

Another drape option.

Of course, I haven’t yet addressed the construction. I may be a wee bit obsessed with Moebius right now. A true Moebius has the cast on in the middle of the piece and grows out from there. The top & bottom edges you see there? Both are the cast off. This construction allowed me to create a cowl that is truly reversible and that presents different panels of stockinette at different places. The cast on itself is a bit challenging to wrap your brain around, but I have provided a link to the Cat Bordhi video and fully written out *and illustrated* instructions on how to get it done.

The whole schebang.

All in all this is a fun, quick to knit pattern that should keep you entertained the entire time. The number one thing that I am excited about is seeing what all colors people decide to pair up for their cowls. What colors do you think you would use?

Zagless

Last week I had two patterns come out and I thought I would go ahead and talk about one of them. It was a little bit of a surprise for me because these projects are ones that I worked on last Fall in conjunction with Stitch Sprouts and the dyer Anzula. You see, these two independent fiber companies teamed up to produce a series of booklets to feature Anzula’s yarns (and also Stitch Sprouts designers) Yay!

I had the opportunity to work with two different bases Squishy and Cricket. Both are crazy soft and come in an amazing array of colors. For the fingering weight Squishy I decided to do (surprise) a two color mosaic style shawl.

I know, you are stunned. 😉

As you might have noticed I am a bit enamored of this side to side construction right now. This one is similar to Love Child in its shaping, but with subtle and not so subtle differences. For one, there is no lace at all in this. Truly. A actual solid piece. For me, an event, no? It is knit up on larger-than-average needles for fingering to allow the yarn to shine in its glorious softness and to maintain a lovely drape. But I wanted to keep it solid so that we had a truly functional shawl, one that would actually keep you nice and cozy.

The pattern is an optical illusion and one thing that really surprised me is how much the texture creates an interesting overlay that is almost independent of the color pattern. You can see it most in the zigging portion of the stripe – where the texture of the slipped stitches actually moves in the opposite direction of the color pattern.

You can see the whole side to side.

This oddity is why we chose to keep with colors that were very close in tonal value. If you crank up the contrast on the colors I think the illusion is going to be exaggerated and you are going to get something that truly changes appearance depending on how you look at it. Which could be totally cool, I can’t wait to see what people do. But it would have been a giant PAIN to photograph – so we went more subtle.

Of course, with this kind of project I have to lovingly pack up the sample and send it off to live with another. I miss it and its snuggly aspect. I am afraid that I am going to have to knit one of my own so that I can love it and pet it and hopefully wear it! Of course the question there is what colors I might knit it in for my very own self? I love the colors that the pros picked and would be tempted to do the same. But why do the same thing twice? They carry 98 colors to choose from, you can see a sampling on the Ravelry page here. What colors would you match up?

One way to wear the shawl.

The pattern is available in the ebook and soon through your local yarn store that carries Anzula. It is also available as a singleton. The single pattern has instructions in both written & charted formats. The pamphlet had to think about space issues so it is chart only, which really, when you also get 5 awesome patterns from some very talented designers it really isn’t much of a issue, eh?

All photographs courtesy of Stitch Sprouts.

Completing a House – Sardaukar Cowl

Happy New Year! I hope it is treating you and yours well. Mine started out with a nasty bout of the flu – I have decided to consider it good that I got that out of the way early.

Onward and upward!

For the new year I have decided to revisit an old idea. The impetus behind my designing was pieces inspired by Frank Herbert’s Dune. I began with House Atreides and it yielded 5 crescent shaped shawls Atreides, Mapes, Alia, Lady Jessica, and Caladan. From there I moved to House Corrino with Golden Lion Throne and Irulan.

But Corrino has never felt … finished … to me. It always seemed that there was one more lurking in there, but it was elusive. That was until I went to TNNA and met Mira from Baah! Yarns. I was wearing Golden Lion Throne and she really liked the mosaic motif. But she wanted a cowl. A tall cowl. A cowl that would keep her ears warm. And she had beautiful, beautiful yarn for me to work with. Shasta is a 100% merino super-wash in worsted weight. It is wonderful to knit with and the colors are fabulous.

Yarn in hand, it was time to address the most infamous arm of House Corrino. While this cowl was going to be beautiful, it also needed to be functional. Its ability to do its job could not be sacrificed just to look pretty. And so I ended up tinkering with, manipulating, and expanding the motifs of Golden Lion Throne to create Sardaukar.

Sardaukar the cowl

I had always known that Sardaukar was going to be a cowl. The costuming from the SciFi mini-series had the troopers in these giant, bulky, black cowls and when you think of it a cowl is a logical and functional accessory. It is protective and elegant, just like the Sardaukar. But I didn’t want to be too literal with the cowl and I had to wait for the inspiration to hit. And I am glad I waited

Flat size is 11 x 19 1/2

The mosaic pattern has been expanded a great deal from what is in GLT, and the lace has been pared down to its bare essentials. Working the mosaic in the round is much easier than working it flat and the same goes for the lace. You don’t have to think about where the yarn is positioned when you slip stitches – it is always on the inside of the cowl. And the only purling that occurs is in the edge ribbing and when you need to purl a YO that is framing a slipped stitch.

As you can see, your neck will be warm.

Now, I did something with this pattern I don’t normally do. The instructions are only available charted. That is because the pattern is one giant chart (I split it up so that it is on several pages). Due to the nature of the mosaic, there are no repeated rows. That makes this much more of a color-work project than lace. But even with that it is no where near as challenging as GLT. If you have been considering GLT but have been intimidated, this might help you get your feet wet.

A bit of detail.

Now that House Corrino is done, the next logical place to go is Harkonnen. And I am going to go there, when I find the inspiration. I have to admit I am stumped a bit for ideas because they are just so … so … evil. There is a part of me that wants to do something named Feyd and riff on his … umm … bathing costume from the movie. But I just don’t know. I am open to suggestions and would love to hear them (and your thoughts on this new piece) in the comments.

 

 

Indie Designer Gift-a-long 2014

Things have been crazy busy! I have been knitting up a storm on projects that had to be sent off to others and will be coming out on their own schedules (which I have no influence upon). Then, this past weekend, I attended the Wine & Wool knitting retreat and taught a couple of classes which I have been preparing. Finally I have been working on the behind the scenes planning for this year’s Gift-a-long which started up this past Thursday.

What is this Gift-a-long thing you may ask? Well, it is a group effort by a bunch (and by a bunch I mean almost 300) of independent knit and crochet designers to have a bit of fun with our fellow crafters. It is being run in a forum on Ravlery which you can find by clicking on this link. Each designer has selected a range of patterns from their catalog to offer for 25% off for the sale portion of the -a long. These patterns went on sale on Thursday the 13th and will be on sale until this Friday the 21st.

These are the patterns I picked

But the -a long doesn’t stop with the sale. There are threads that are a hoppin’ with chat and inspiration. You check into the thread that reflects what you are knitting (or threads – you can knit all kinds of stuff) and let the mods know what you want to knit. When you finish it you post a picture in the FO thread and you are officially entered to win one of the dozens of physical prizes or thousands of digital pattern downloads.

Prizes are also being awarded randomly based on participation and in fun games. To recap, we have a sale on thousands of patterns, physical and electronic prizes and encouragement to get some of your holiday gift knitting done (for others or for yourself – we aren’t picky). It really is a win, win for everybody involved. Please come in and join us. I am part of the moderating team for the Scarves, Cowls and Neck Thingies thread – so if something like that is on your list then I would love to see you jump in. I spy in the other threads to cheer on anyone knitting my patterns – so make sure to magic link me if you post something.

There is Water at the Bottom of the Ocean

A final note – you might have noticed that There is Water at the Bottom of the Ocean is in my collage. A happy coincidence occurred that the pattern rights opened up at the same time as the exclusivity expired – so it is now available for purchase. I cannot wait to see people knitting it up! Expect to see another blog post on it soon because it has been almost impossible for me to keep mum about it!

Love Child – a shawl

Here are words that I never thought would ever come out of my mouth: I love Yak!

Yak fiber that is.

Meeting a new fiber is always an exciting experience, but it doesn’t always end well. Luckily this is a love story. This yarn from Gale’s Art is a blend of Merino, Yak and Silk and it is a treat to knit. The name is more descriptive than fanciful, MYS622 – but it tells you what it is, a 60/20/20 blend of the aforementioned fibers. In a way it is similar to the cashmere blends with comparable blends, but the Yak is decidedly different than the cashmere. It is wonderfully soft, but it has a weight to it that cashmere lacks. The yarn also has a … coolness … to it, in the hand it feels almost like it is slightly damp – but it isn’t. Now that could be the high silk content? I am afraid I am not a fiber expert, but what I do know is that it knits wonderfully and has fantastic drape. The yarn itself feels heavy in the ball but the finished shawl is remarkably light weight (yet warm at the same time). Plus, it comes in absolutely glowing deep colors.

When we started talking about working on a piece together I absolutely knew I had to do color work. Gale was looking to put together a kit for the upcoming Fall fiber festival season – and I was pleased as punch to be a part of the project.

Hello lovely

Presenting Love Child. The name? Well it is a bit silly (but when am I not?) but it comes from my attempting to describe the idea over the phone. I believe what I said was “It is as if In Uffish Thought and Captive got together and had a two color Love Child.”  A few hours later I received a text message cursing politely thanking me for getting the song stuck in her head. And the title stuck as well.

You know me and swoops.

If you have been playing along at home you probably recognize this shape. I have become enamored of it. The side to side construction makes me happy because it allows the knitter to adjust easily to their yardage and desired size of project. It retains the curved neckline of a crescent that allows it to hug the shoulders and wear comfortably, but its hybrid triangular shape makes it deeper down the back and provides more styling options. The slight asymmetry shifts the “point” to one side to eliminate the dreaded “arrow pointing at butt” effect that so many dislike about triangular shawls … all in all I think the shape has a great deal going for it.

This shape just wears in so many ways

For this version I have eliminated the lower edge “trim” that you find on In Uffish Thought and BitterBlue. It streamlines the shawl and takes it into a more casual and functional piece. It is also the result of a whole pile of math to create shaping that is of an every other row style as opposed to the binding off some stitches style. Both have merits and I thought I would play to see what I could come up with. I wonder what would happen if I did both …. hmmmmmmm?

Are you ready for fall?

My end result was a shawl that is remarkably easy to knit. I memorized it without really trying and truly enjoyed the knitting process. It has some easy lace and a very repetitive rhythm, there is one fancy stitch for the leading edge increase – but you will soon get the hang of it.  It is also easily adjustable (as I said, one of the pluses of this shape) both in size and the possibilities for customization. I chose to have the striping pattern produce regularly spaced bands of color – but one could also muck about with the color changes and create one’s own banding pattern that suits one’s fancy! As is typical, I thought about how I could change up the colors as I was knitting it – but relied on discipline to stay the course.

Yet another way to wrap.

The photo shoot went beautifully and I had a very hard time narrowing down the shots.  I also almost fell into a stream. Fatimah said “Fall with the camera in the air.”, because she totally knows what is important! The shawl itself will be traveling to New York Sheep and Wool (Rhinebeck) with Gale and she will be offering the pattern in a kit with her stunning yarn. If you are going please stop by and say hi! I also believe that she will have the kits at Southeastern Animal Fiber Fair (SAFF) – which I will be attending! If you are going give me a holler and maybe we could say hi!

I would love to hear your thoughts on shawl shapes in the comments. Likes, dislikes, suggestions? Please speak up!

 

Edited to answer request in the comments:

I know I say it, everyone blogger says it – but I love comments. Without comments it is kinda like throwing pennies into a wishing well and never finding out if your dream comes true. Unless I receive feedback I don’t know if I am giving y’all the information that you want/need/enjoy. So when I saw the specific request from shoelaceswitcher in the comments I was all like “A schematic?” it had never occurred to me to put that in a blog post. It took a little fiddling to convert the file I have from the pattern into a JPG that I can put on the web – but it wasn’t anything too exciting.

So, here it is! I hope it gives you the info you need.

Schematic of shawl

Cables are Cool

Cables are Cooool <<<click for pattern page on Ravelry

First off, you have to say the title of this hat in the correct way. You have to use your best number 11 (Matt Smith) Dr. Who voice. (link is to video). It is a subtle reference, but hey, I like to amuse myself.

Cables are Cool

Now – you probably know I have a weakness for slipped stitch/mosaic style color work. I keep dreaming up ways to incorporate it into other knitting techniques to try and do something a wee bit novel. And it avoids stranding. I don’t like stranding. I mean I can totally do it if I really want to, and I might yet design a stranded pattern, but for now I am having too much fun with slipped stitches.

This is the smaller version

Which led to this hat. My newest victims are cables. How to create a cable that looks like two different color cables that weave in and out of each other. I think I managed the effect quite well. Now, this isn’t a beginner level pattern. I had to create my own cable nomenclature (which might give you a clue to why these two posts came about) and fiddle about with the charting software a bit. But I think I ended up with something that makes logical sense.

I love it when I catch Fatimah laughing

And then there was the matter of yarn. I wanted to use something that had a wide palate of colors that people could choose from and that was a joy to knit with. Luckily I was able to work with the amazing color minds at Dream in Color and they provided their luscious new revamp of their worsted base Classy. Super soft and easy to work with, I am thinking it will become my go-to for when I want a plied worsted yarn. Nice and floofy and in a bajillion colors, I just couldn’t go wrong.

I like the brim and think I could have gone even bigger.

For shape I wanted to go with a nice slouch, mostly because it allowed me to repeat the cables more – because more cables = good. I decided to end the cables before I really got into the crown decrease because really, who wants to fiddle with the decreases and the cables at the same time? The fun thing with this technique is that it allowed me to have this cool stripey pattern on the top. If you wanted you could switch to knitting in solid after you finish the last cable and have a solid top.

See, laughing

After finishing the first hat I had a ton of yarn left over and I decided to go ahead and knit a smaller version. The Adult/Large is a very loose fitting hat. It stays on but does not bind the head. Because of that people with heads on the smaller end of the spectrum might find it a bit too big. Hence a smaller size. But it is for quite small heads and will therefore also be appropriate for your bigger youths (tweens/teens). While knitting the smaller hat I also tried out a brim variation because – well, why not? Because it is just ribbing you could make it as long as you want to have a big fold-over brim. I went with four inches total for a 2 inch brim when folded.

 

Between the different sizes, brim options and color choices – you can really make this hat your own. I cannot wait to see what people knit up? What do you think your preferences would be?

 

 

BitterBlue – the reveal

It started innocently enough. One of my fabulous testers for In Uffish Thought sent me a note with her progress. She mentioned, off-hand, that she had to resist the urge to put a bead at the tip of each point.

I could have named this shawl Cascade Effect, I might keep that name for the future. But its name is BitterBlue.

One last tease

The process of knitting my sample for Uffish was quite enjoyable, I really like the shape and the knit was pretty simple. In the past I have explored different designs with the same shaping – why not with this shape? Of course, Uffish features the teeniest of cables, so the logical next step was lace (for me at least).

Beads and lace play so nicely together.

An alternate color scheme “Magic Carpet”

And if a few beads are good then more are better, right? Then the gradient yarn idea hit me and I thought to myself “Would it be possible to do a gradient in beads? What if the gradient in the beads went in opposition to the gradient in the yarn?” Yes, this is how my brain works.

This is in the namesake color BitterBlue

There had to be enough beads to make the gradient visible as a “thing” but I didn’t want to overkill. The final product is the result of a delicate balance of my personal desire for the sparkle and my desire to not be beading anymore. Because beading is time consuming – but oh so worth it.

This is the full size and shape

As I mentioned in my teaser post, this project represents the creative efforts of not just myself, but a couple of other very talented ladies. Kelly from The Unique Sheep and Ellen from Earthfaire contributed their amazing abilities in their respective fields to create this end result – which I think is the perfect meeting of yarn, beads & knitting. They have put together kits of these two color schemes and there are a few that will be available here if you missed out on the pre-order.

The pattern itself is fairly straightforward knitting. Knits, purls, yarn overs and basic decreases with some slipped stitches thrown in for good measure. I am not gonna lie, the beading slows you down – but it isn’t difficult. Just bust out your wee crochet hook and you are on your way. As with In Uffish Thought, the pattern is worked from one pointy end towards a long bind off (which naturally I beaded) and is therefore fairly flexible in sizing & yardage.

So many ways to wear this shawl!

Earthfaire is hosting a KAL for the shawl in September in their Ravelry group and I will definitely be there to answer questions and provide cheer-leading. But mostly to ooh & ahhh at the pretties. 😉 I could post about a dozen more pictures, but I think it better to go ahead and release the post into the wild. Hope you love it!

To wrap things up I wanted to send out an enormous Thank You to Lois. Lois is the reason why there is a sample in both of the colors, while I knit the original in the BitterBlue, I did not have the time to do the Magic Carpet version. Lois applied her experience with both beading and The Unique Sheep gradiances and produced the beauty that you see up there!

 

au Courant

What do you want to hear about? Do you want to have a detailed description of the pattern proposal process and the wonderful experience that was working with Twist Collective? Or do you want to peer into the dusty corners to try and understand the slightly off mind that would even dream of combining these two techniques? Maybe you want to see my relatively pitiful attempt at a “fashion sketch” that is required for pretty much all proposals?

Or do you just want to see the pretty pictures? Because we can totally do that!

Photo by Linus Ouellet courtesy Twist Collective

I was waiting impatiently to see how the photography for this shawl turned out … and I was not disappointed. I hope you love it too. This pattern involved quite a bit of indulging myself. If you hadn’t noticed, I like to push the boundaries a bit, break a rule here and there. One day I was visiting my best friend (who is a knitter of course) and I started paging through her copy of The Haapsalu Shawl and, just like any knitter, was in awe of the beauty of these intricate stitches.

But can I leave well enough alone? Hah! Never. Where I stray from being on the “normal” side of things is that my first thought was “how can I make this two color?” The review I linked to refers to the book as “The Estonian Barbara Walker” which explains a great deal, considering my obsession with Walker’s Mosaic knitting concepts. Long story short (don’t laugh) I spent a great deal of time figuring out how to make this happen.

Photo by Linus Ouellet courtesy Twist Collective

And this was the result. I will be forever grateful to Twist Collective for being willing to publish such a adventurous pattern. The entire issue is absolutely beautiful and if you haven’t taken a look at it yet, you should. I will be here when you get back.

It is a big piece, my biggest to date. I am not going to lie, it is a lot of knitting. But it was nothing that even resembled a chore because of the unbelievable yarn I had to work with. The incomparable Miss Babs supplied the perfect blend of Merino and Silk in her fingering weight Shiruku in the colors Helen of Troy and Cygnus. In my proposal to Twist I was fairly adamant that they yarn needed to contain silk. This was necessary for a couple of reasons.

The slip stitch color-work technique used in the pattern creates a situation where there is a lot of compaction of the stitches. If you have handled any “traditional” mosaic work it can be quite … dense. Much of my development time has been centered around figuring out ways to thwart this tendency. One solution I have arrived at is knitting at a larger gauge than normal. A second component is the lace itself; adding in holes creates a more bendy fabric. The silk is the final component.

Silk has fine drape and allows the fabric to move and flow just as a shawl should. It also has very little memory so it improves the shawl’s ability to retain its shape once it has been blocked. Now, you might ask “Why not just go 100% silk?” which is a good question. Silk tends to be a very well defined yarn and the stitches stand out individually. Which is not precisely what I wanted. My yarn needed some floofiness, some bloom. It needed to fill in a bit so that the color-work had more of a presence.  So the Merino/Silk blend is perfect! And shucks if I didn’t have to knit with it. The sacrifices I make for y’all. 😉

Photo by Linus Ouellet courtesy Twist Collective

Well, I have babbled on haven’t I? Considering that I started out with questions please let me know in the comments if there are any questions you have about this new shawl. If it is complicated enough, or if there is more than one, I can do a whole additional post. If you have an easy one I will answer in the comments.

I want to wrap things up by sending a special Thank You out to the awesome Raveler CathyG. The knitting of this shawl took place during my jaunt around the MidWest and she was kind enough to allow me to take over an entire room in her house to block this big guy. Crawling around on the floor with someone is an excellent bonding experience and I was pleased to have it with you!