An Interview with … Me!

As with (I am guessing) many knitters, I have read a lot of knitting blogs. I meant a lot. My feedly feed is full of them. And I have been reading many of them for years. Ever since I had the inkling that I might want to pursue knitting design as a calling I have been following one called “How to Become a Professional Knitter” by Robin Hunter. She posts weekly interviews with professionals in the knitting industry and I have probably read a couple hundred by now.

Imagine my surprise when I received a request to do one of these interviews?! You could have knocked me over with a feather. But interview I did and it was posted today. If you would like to know more about my design process and maybe peep into how my brain works please click over and check it out.

Secondly, I am super behind in blog posting. I have found that I am much better at talking to a camera than getting my thoughts out with the keyboard. The best way to keep up with me is to check out my YouTube channel Watch Barbara Knit. But that is not to say I am giving up on blogging. I just need to get better. Mostly it’s the fact that the Fall festival season is upon us and time has just flown!

I went to Wisconsin Sheep and Wool and had a grand time!

And I went to New York Sheep and Wool and had even more fibery fun.

I have released some new patterns along the way and will be writing up posts about them soon!

Book Look – Unexpected Cables by Heather Zoppetti

When I decided to do books for YouTube I was definite in my desire to not be putting a lot of negativity out there. I want to share with other knitters books that I think are awesome and the things in the book that I thought were on point. If I get a book and don’t care for it, why would I put in all of the effort that it takes to make a video saying such a thing? I had fun with the two book videos that I did, but I really wanted to do, as they say, kick it up a notch. I am a firm believer that all dials should go to 11.

Cue brainstorming on how I could change up the book “reviews”. And it occured to me, if I am definitely not going to be all Anton Ego on screen why not see if I could get the actual author/designer of the book to chat with me? Sort of a hybrid interview/book review. What could be better than sitting with the book and having the ultimate authority for that book on tap to answer any questions that might come up.

And Heather Zoppetti did not disappoint. She shed light on all of my questions and provided fun and interesting insights into many of the choices she made in the book. And at the end she was kind enough to share what she is working on now and even give us a sneak peek into what is coming down the road. So make sure you watch to the end of the video.

FYI, she has “serious” glasses and these awesome kitty glasses. I put in a request ahead of time for the kitty glasses and she totally went the extra mile with the amazing headband. Seriously, if you don’t feel like watching the video I totally understand. But you should at least check out her Ravelry page because her sense of the fun and unexpected really comes through in her design.

Conversations with yarn

My design process is slightly non-standard. I rarely start with a fully formed vision, sketch the design, and set about finding yarn that will work. I tend to start with the yarn. I have a conversation with the yarn. I try to find out what it likes and dislikes. Where its strengths lie and where it might prefer not to go.

Or.

I start with the stitches. My mind asks me “what if” I did something weird and then I swatch to see what will happen. Sometimes I begin with one stitch and end up swatching a length of fabric where subtle changes in the pattern evolves into something completely different (and coincidentally a gigantic swatch). Often this process begins with yarn that I have laying around. So then I have the fun of trying out the newly born stitch with other yarns to see what kind of yarn the stitch likes.

One commonality you might note in this is that the yarn and the stitches seem to be the boss of me. And they kinda are. Sometimes I manage to bully yarn into doing what *I* want, but most of the time it is me learning from them.

The Ross Farm wool

All of this is lead in to some beautiful yarn that I have been having an ongoing Serious Conversation with. It is a unique and amazing yarn that has been taking me to school.  The Ross Farm raises rare heritage breed sheep with care and love and use their wool to create beautiful yarn. Leicester Longwool to be specific. It is such a different beast from the wools that I typically work with that it has been a very steep learning curve.

It is minimally processed, lightly spun, and undyed. Each label has a picture of the sheep from whence the wool came and the color of the yarn is the color of the sheep. And I wanted to do color-work. Yadda, yadda, yadda

A swatch is a Proto Pattern

I think I might have finally found a stitch for this yarn. This is a combination of my two design techniques. The above pattern was the result of an experimental stitch swatch combined with extensive swatching with the yarn to find what it loved. What do y’all think? Is this worth pursuing? If yes – what type of FO would you see for this? I have one skein each of the two colors with ~ 250 yards of Sport weight.

Maybe a small shawlish thing? Cowl? Scarf? If you can visualize this as something I would love to hear about it in the comments!

Unboxing video blog – Gradient yarn and Beads

I have always wanted to be a better blogger, but somehow I have a difficult time thinking of things that I feel are worthy to be committed to writing. Imagine my surprise to learn that I have no such mental block about talking (this will come as a surprise to precisely no one who knows me). With the new video format I have been playing with I am having a much easier time keeping up consistent communication. And there are so many advantages of being able to show you things as opposed to trying to describe them.

Take this new video. I am working on another collaboration with The Unique Sheep and Earthfaire (the same team that helped me cooked up BitterBlue) and I just received the box brimming with lovely yarn and beads. With my webcam I was able to do what is called an “Unboxing” video, so you can watch me pull the goodies out of the box and get the same awesome surprises that I do.

I mention in the video that the inspiration for these color ways came from my Pinterest board (I think I mentioned it) if you are interested in seeing said board you can check out Color Combos for Color Work. Two of the three combos came from my inspiration stash one is here and the other (which is actually from a different board) is here. I am linking them instead of embedding the photos because I do not want in infringe on the artists copyrights. So click away!

This talking-to-the-camera format is kind of unsettling for me, I have always been camera shy. But I am gonna try and keep it up. Please let me know if you like this approach and if you have any requests for something you would like to see/hear from me I am all ears!

Storey Time

I am not going to re-blog or anything, but wanted to share something that was a little exciting for me. Remember the little lace number that I posted about a wee bit ago? Well, the great people over at Storey Publishing asked me to fill out an interview for their blog and I totally did.

The name of their blog is Inside Storey, which is quite witty. Hopefully my interview isn’t too boring. One plus (maybe) is that if you have ever wondered what I look like, they managed to con me out of a picture.

Do any of y’all have any questions for me that I didn’t answer in this interview? I would be happy to try to shed light on any burning mystery any of you might be experiencing. Ask away in the comments (or not, I have never been accused of being subtle and there might not be any mystery.)

Captive attention

Often times, the photography is my favorite part of producing a pattern.

This image I owe to a good, helpful friend.

This was not one of those times.

A rare moment in the past month where it wasn’t raining.

Nothing wanted to cooperate, the timing, the weather, the scarf … nothing.

Why do I love beads so?

I ended up getting the shots – but they were painfully acquired.

Detail of the blurple version

But the scarf? The scarf is easy peasy. A simple stitch repeated over the length of the scarf. Unusual for me, I know, but summer knitting should be fast and fun. The stitch is something new. I call it a Captive Double YO and it gives you a big hole that doesn’t get all crazy.

Wrong side is not so wrong

And in the DK weight version I think I like the wrong side as much as the right side. It has a very interesting depth and dimension. I had considered doing a mobius cowl so you could see both sides. Who knows, maybe I still might?

The nitty gritty on the scarf is that I knit the blurple version in DK weight cotton and the ivory one in a fingering weight cotton/silk blend. And I added beads. Because, why not? The pattern is easily adapted to be wider or narrower. You can use pretty much any yarn you want between fingering & DK weight;  heck it would probably make a nice winter scarf in worsted wool. This is not a piece that you will make only once. I have the attention span of a gnat and I made it twice.

An interesting aside to this, I thought I was going to need more than one skein of yarn for the fingering weight version but in the end I did not. The upshot is I have an extra skein of that yarn. And I bought way more beads than I needed. I was thinking about kitting the yarn & beads up and doing a give away. Possibly using it as a prize in a knit-a-long for this scarf. Would anyone be interested?

Irulan: elegant, beautiful and fit for a Princess

Quite some time ago I gave you a hint as to which was the next subject of my Dune inspired series. It has been a long time coming, but Irulan is finally here. First off, I was lucky enough to work with the talented Dani at Sunshine Yarns and she supplied the absolutely gorgeous yarn for this shawl. UltraLuxe Light is a single ply, fingering weight, Merino/Cashmere/Silk blend and it is truly a yarn fit for the Empress of the known universe.

I just had to take an arty shot to be dramatic

I seem to be completely smitten with the crescent shaping for a shawl, but they just sit so nicely on the shoulders. Staying on without fuss is something I value in an accessory. But Irulan has a significantly different construction from the crescent shapes in the Atreides series. Those shawls are defined by what I call a “winged crescent” shape – in tribute to to the Atreides eagle. All of them have the garter “wings” that stretch around and hug the shoulders.

I would have never thought of draping it like this. Yay models.

Irulan, on the other hand, maintains the edge shaping on both right and wrong sides and the internal shaping is integrated into the lace work. In this way I have avoided any of the distinctive and visible shaping elements that can be found on many shawls.

Look at the drape of that yarn!

Not to pat myself on the back, but I am really pleased with how the subtle details of this shawl came together as a whole. From the front you have these chevron motifs descending from the edge of the shawl and surmounted by the curved texture of garter. It looks as if it could be your traditionally structured shawl with a large garter top trimmed with a lace edging.( Also, see how the second motif in hangs almost precisely from the point of the shoulder?)

Surprise – not a plain back.

But when you see the back you are presented with these large, ornamental diamond motifs set off in stockinette and garter. The outside edges of these motifs follow the shoulder lines, framing the back and showcasing the yarn and lace. The larger of the trim lace patterns, fall not in the center of the shawl, but framing the center – which provides unexpected visual movement.

I love it when someone can pull off “bandit” style.

All in all I am smitten with this shawl. With regards to nuts and bolts – it is a low yardage shawlette, you can get away with less than 400 yards depending on your gauge. Because of the large chunks of stockinette & garter, it should work well with tonal and variegated yarns. The pattern is both entirely written and extensively charted, so hopefully everyone will be happy.

What do you think? Are you ready to feel like the ruler of the Universe when you wear this?

October ate my life

Holy cow, October was a whirlwind. Between managing the complex schedule of my new Kindergartener, Atlanta’s Shop Hop, Rhinebeck Sheep & Wool, and Halloween – I just lost an entire month. It was plum crazy. Which is not to say that I didn’t do any knitting. I totally did. I have a little surprise that should be coming out soon and I managed a fast and fun new pattern that is currently in testing. Hopefully I will get it out this month also.

But right now I am working on re-knitting a previous shawl. I KNOW, crazy talk!

But I kinda have to. You see, this summer I was lucky enough to have a shawl pattern published in the great UK magazine Knit Now. Because Knit Now is in the UK, I send the sample of – never to be seen again. It isn’t that they wouldn’t give it back, but the amount of rigamarole I would have to invest to get it back is not worth the time and money it would take. Instead I let them auction the piece off for charity, frankly it is a win/win as far as I am concerned.

It’s called the Scarab Shawl – here is a bit of a peek

But I need a sample. I need to take photographs and I just get all nervous if I don’t have a sample. What if I need to do something with the sample? What if, sometime in the nebulous future, I am actually in a position to do a trunk show … waitaminit … gotta quit laughing hysterically … Regardless of the sanity of the desire, I wan/need a new sample. The rights to publish the shawl independently revert to me in December and I need to be ready to hit the ground running.

The original piece was for the Summer and the yarn choice I made was tailored to that idea. Knit in a cotton/wool blend it is a great sundress shawl. For my new sample and for December  I want to see how a different yarn choice will work out. Yarn makes a monumental difference in how a knitted item turns out. You can take the exact same pattern and knit it in different yarns and get wildly different finished pieces.

Even I have to knit swatches. Really, I do.

Instead of an accessory for  picnic in the park I want an elegant drape for a holiday soiree. Something luxurious to wear to a fancy dress up party or to simply class up an outfit. Believe it or not, a different yarn in the same pattern will do this. And I managed to acquire the perfect yarn. Miss. Babs Tierno is a 50/50 Alpaca/Silk blend in the DK weight that I need for this shawl. And it is fabulous to work with. I have been swatching (as you can see above) to make sure my gauge is good before I hit the extra long cast on. It also comes in generous 310 yards skeins, so I am taking the opportunity to add a few repeats to the pattern to make a positively enormous shawl.
With the instructions for the larger size I will have a little “added bonus” for the downloadable pattern that wasn’t in the publication. Yay! Of course you can still make it in the original yarn, or substitute something of your own plotting to make the shawl uniquely yours. Could be fun!

Mini Mapes

Arrrgh, I just realized that I never showed y’all my Mini-Mapes! Inconceivable!

Deciding what yarn to use to knit the prototype for Mapes was a head scratcher. Part of me really wanted to use Malabrigo Worsted or Rios, but the madelinetosh just kinda jumped off the shelf and said Pick Me, Pick Me and it was done. But then came entering the pattern into the Ravelry database and the conundrum of deciding what yarns to suggest.

I don’t know that this pattern would work well with lace-weight yarn or a super chunky, but anything in between is pretty fair game. So it was thinking cap time. Being a “knit as long as you have yarn” type pattern it lends itself well to yarns with large or unusual yardage per skein. With the combination of garter, stockinette and textural elements – it is specifically designed to work well with variegated colorways.

Think, think, think.

Right off, and obviously – fancy pants colors + mega-yardage = Wollmeise. Pretty much a no brainer. Now I have listed a worsted (the tosh) and a fingering weight. My need for balance insisted that I add a sport or DK weight.

Think, think, think.

Eureka, I say to myself. How awesome would this look in Malabrigo Silky Merino? Super Awesome. Which rounded out my yarn suggestions and allowed me to proceed. But it also planted a little idea in my head.

An idea I couldn’t shake.

What would a single skein of the Silky look like? Only 150 yards of DK. I have said any yarn, any size for this shawl – how far can I push this?

Well, it looks like this!

I held off casting on for 2 whole days. I do have other things that I should be doing, but I couldn’t stand it. First I created a project page and hoped that would be enough – but it wasn’t. 2 days after casting on I had my Mini-Mapes. And I think it is crazy cute.

Bandito style.

It isn’t big enough to be a proper shawl (or even shawlette) but it works nicely as a kerchief or a cowl substitute on an adult. But it is also the perfect size to be a child’s shawl. My son (who is almost 5) was a relatively cooperative subject for the photographs – but I would love to see this on a pretty princess. Because it’s pinkness screams for a pretty princess.

He is such a good sport, isn't he?

Curiosity satisfied. And as an added bonus I got to try out the texture stitch from Mapes that I didn’t use in the protype. It gives a very different effect – but I really dig it’s look.

This is the YO texture option - worked non-alternating.

Want to knit this? Check it out on Ravelry or

Summer of Shawls

Back in February I knit my first shawl, I have never worn shawls – but once I had this one I wore it everywhere. What followed has been an ongoing obsession with shawls. Since then I have knit or crocheted seven shawls. That’s right. Seven. But more than that, I have found the urge to start designing shawls.

Into the deep end with me.

Shawls come in many shapes, sizes and designs. You can do endless things with a shawl and people have. The first thing that I had to get a better grasp on is shaping. I found this fantastic post regarding shawl shaping and I cannot recommend it enough. It helped me understand that with standard, top down, shaping how the shawl is shaped depends on three primary elements:

• How many increases per row.
• How many increase rows (every row, every other, every third …)
• Where the increases are located within the row.

Of course, for my first shawl I decided I needed to make a shape that is not found on this cheat sheet. I decided on a crescent. If you printed out the above cheat sheet you might want to pencil in notes for the crescent shape you might want to pencil in – Crescent = 4 increases on right side row and 2 increases on wrong side row (increasing every row).

But of course I could not leave well enough alone. I had to play with option #3. Where the increases are located. I fussed with that. I fiddled with that. I tried several different things. I ended up with the idea that the distance between the increases on the right side row should increase every row. I know that sounds crazy – and it probably is, but look how it worked out:

I was going for the look of outstretched wings, can you see it?

 This pattern is not for beginners, I used some unorthodox stitch marker juggling to achieve this shape. But I think it is worth it. My primary goal was to achieve the look of a bird in flight. With wings outstretched and feathers rippling down the back. Achieving this goal had an unexpected side effect. The curving line of YO increases did some very interesting things to how the shawl fits on the body.

Look Ma, no bunching!

It effectively works as shoulder shaping. The crescent shape curves around the neck and the garter stitch moves in a sorta “grippy” fashion, keeping the shawl in place.

The adventures in writing this pattern will be for a separate post. Needless to say it was a very steep learning curve. But it is now available for sale on Ravelry under the title Atreides (the name is yet another long story)! It comes in two sizes, the above being the small which uses 390 – 410 yards of fingering weight yarn, and the large:

The large version is large!

which did things that I wasn’t expecting. The addition of a single repeat of the lace pattern provided an extra inch of length in the back, but almost 8 additional inches to the tips. It is amazing how much bigger the large is. And it makes the tips fall in this beautiful swirly cascade that I love.

For those that a curious, the small sample was knit in Wollmeise Twin, colorway Igor (hehehehe) and the large is in Dream in Color Smooshy, Cloud Jungle. Samples were also knit in Malabrigo Sock, Cascade Heritage Sock and Knit Picks Stroll. I am pretty sure just about any sock/fingering weight yarn is going to fare just fine in this pattern.

I couldn’t be more excited about this pattern, and I have two more in the works utilizing this same shaping technique. What  would you like to see next?