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.

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?

Wrapping (up) Presents

OK, I have one more post to share about prizes for the Lace-a-long. I want to say something like “last but not least” or “saved the best for last” but really, I think all of the prizes are pretty awesome and totally want to keep them all. I hope y’all feel the same.

Anzula Squishy in Spruce – I forsee a beautiful green shawl.

At TNNA I met a whole bunch of great people who are doing amazing things in this yarn-y type industry. One of the wonderful surprises was meeting the Lady(ies) behind Anzula. Sabrina and her dynamic team create absolutely stunning yarn on a wide variety of bases, many of which I have never seen anywhere else. Being in Atlanta things like linen and silk really speak to me of cool, breezy knits that could be worn most of the year. Why is there so much to knit and I only have two hands?

Anyhoo … seeing that this is a lace-a-long and I mostly design shawls when offered the opportunity to claim a skein of yarn for y’all I decided to go with this decadent MCN fingering blend base. And this green, it is so soft and lovely. I hope I did good picking yarn for y’all? Honestly, if I were able to keep this yarn I would totally knit a Roller Coaster Cowl out of it; just so I could have all of its squishy softness up close to my skin.

Finally, a place to keep your doohickeys and thing-a-ma-bobs:

An Erin Lane notions wallet

To be honest, I purchased this for myself at Stitches South, but then decided it would make such a good prize that I would have to part with it. I was going to link to the Erin Lane website but it appears to currently be under construction. Regardless, they/she make really cool bags and things of holding to organize your knitting life. I fell in love with the pattern on this and its really innovative inside. To see the inside you will need to click through to the additional photo in the Prize thread on Ravelry.

That pretty much wraps things up on the prize front. I will be figuring out what will be “Grand Prize” and how to distribute the other prizes in the near future. I want to spread the love as much as possible.

Home again, home again

Jiggity jig!

I am back from my absolutely wonderful visit to the MidWest and I had a grand old time. There is so much to tell about, but for now I will just leave you with this gem:

 

Yep, that’s me.

Really, how can one possibly follow this up?

Summer Lace-a-long

It’s on like Donkey Kong!

The Summer Lace-a-long that is. After much chatting on Ravelry there has been enough interest to officially declare that we are having a lace-a-long. Right now we are in the planning stages and everyone is welcome to come over and join in. 

The actual event will begin on May 15th so that it is well and truly Summer. We haven’t decided on an end date yet, but it will be some time in July or August. This is a nice, long, leisurely  event – just as Summer should be.

Captive, just in case you want beads too.

To help knitters decide what pattern they might want to make I created a Pinterest board that has all of the qualifying patterns in one place. If you click through you can see all of the patterns quickly. There are 13 patterns that you can choose from!

Alia
and Curiouser
Atreides
Caladan
Captive
Drooping Elm Headband
Fairweather Hat
Golden Lion Throne
Gyre and Gimble
Irulan
Lady Jessica
Scarab Shawl

The 13th one is Mapes and it needs a little explanation. As written Mapes does not have enough lace in it, but the nature of the pattern is one that encourages improvisation and creativity. So, if you want to do Mapes and add in your own lace then it totally counts!

My Mapes in Dream in Color Smooshy with Cashmere

When I made a fingering weight Mapes for myself I couldn’t resist adding some lace along the bottom. It totally works.

As is customary in a knit-a-long, there will be prizes! I am working on rounding up some fun stuff for a “Grand Prize” but there will also be smaller prizes both at the end and as encouragement along the way. So not only will you have a cheering squad to help motivate you to finish a project, you could win prizes too.

We are also planning a stitch marker swap, but I will talk more about that later. If that sounds like fun to you check out the planning thread. Who doesn’t need more stitch markers?

Indie Designer Gift-a-Long

I know I promised another post on SAFF, and it will be coming. But something kinda crazy has come up and it is the kind of crazy that is crazy awesome. It started as an idea and has blossomed into something that has the potential to be completely amazing.

On the designer forum on Ravelry chatting led to plotting and plotting led to doing and now it is done! It is an Indie Designer Gift-a-long. What is that you might ask (as you should, because it is the first time it has happened)? Well, it is a bunch of designers who publish patterns independently that have gotten together to encourage/assist/enable crafters who are taking this season to create gifts for the loved ones in their lives. Now of course, the loved one can be yourself, but that is a minor distinction.

We know that ’tis the season of making gifts and we want to make it more fun. So the designers have gone through their catalogs and selected patterns to offer up on discount (some designers said eh, whatever and just discounted the whole shebang) . Starting on November 1st (as in now) and running through November 15th all participating patterns on Ravelry are 25% off. All designers are using the same coupon code which is giftalong. I chose to include the below patterns in the event:

You should recognize all of these. There will be a test.

BUT WAIT! THERE’S MORE!

Now, the discount only runs for 2 weeks, but the -a long runs for 2 months. That’s right, you have a ton of time to get your knit on (or crochet if that’s your thang). There are multiple threads in the Indie Designer Gift-a-long group on Ravelry divided up by what kind of item you are crafting. A thread for Cowls & Scarves, a thread for Shawls & Cowls, etc … I am going to be the moderator for the Shawl one – big surprise, I know.

So the -a long threads are someplace for you to gain encouragement in your endeavors AND your opportunity to win a prize. And when I say win a prize I mean there are, like, over 200 prizes. Prizes out the yin-yang. Right now there is a thread that has a listing of the physical prizes and tomorrow there should be a listing of digital prizes. It is Crazy I tell you, c-r-a-z-y.

I am not sure how this is all going to shake out. I don’t think that Ravelry has seen anything like this before. But I am really interested to see how it goes, won’t you join me?

Color Love, Chevzam

You may have noticed that I tend to favor accessories. It is what I like to knit so it is what I tend to design. I like projects where I can use and enjoy some beautiful yarn but have a chance of actually getting finished within a couple of months (weeks preferably). It is the way I avoid cast-on-itis. The new is always alluring and if a project takes too long I find myself pining for something different and exciting.

Which means that I have a lot of accessory projects favorite-ed. Consequently my “Pattern Highlights” section of Ravelry – you know, the part where they suggest things you might like based on the stuff you have made and favorite-ed – is chock full of tempting accessories.

And boy did a doozy pop up yesterday.

Look at that Cowl!

Chevzam is from the always fun Alexandra Tinsley. If you want to know what I mean by fun you should check out her blog Dull Roar and if you walk a little on the wild side you might want to check out her slightly less safe for work blog. These pictures are obviously hers, but I got permission to use them here.

Why?

Because as soon as I saw this piece my brain went into color overdrive. Her color palate for this cowl is flawless and I adore the use of colors that are so close in both hue and shade that the overlapping areas are boldly subtle. The clean lines of the pattern allow this subtly to work in an awesome way. To me, this presented a challenge. Could I pick out a color palate that would work this well. Now, I am not going to bust out a couple of new cowls to test it out. But I have the technology to fake it.

I started with Apricot.

First thing I did was pull up the Malabrigo page for their worsted weight yarn and start perusing. I admit, I initially thought I might have to look at another yarn manufacturer to come up with variants; but I obviously had no idea the sheer depth of their color offerings. (As an aside, I got this page from googling Malabrigo Worsted, this morning when I went to make a second palate I went to their site and found that I was working from an outdated page – here is the current one).

For this first try I was drawn to orange/apricot colors. I adore the yellows in Alex’s original but those colors make me look like the undead. I need more warmth to balance out my skin tone. For the contrast color the spring water seemed to be a scaled back teal that balanced well with the peach/apricots. The final color was the toughest and I ended up choosing one of Malabrigo’s subtle variegated colors. Apple has tones of peach and green in it and I think it could bring something really interesting to the party. note: Alex who is know-er of all things Malabrigo pointed out to me that this is Apple Cinnamon, oops.

Lets go crazy

This morning I got up and decided that to make this subject blog post worthy I would need a second set of choices. This is when I discovered, as mentioned above, that I was looking at an older list of Malabrigo colors. After going to the Malabrigo site and pulling up the Worsted page I was all “Where is the Apricot I was looking at?” Gone. But luckily, should I really want to do the first cowl, if you google for Malabrigo Apricot you can totally get your hands on it.

Back to the second set of colors. Purple. If you know me you had to see it coming. I love purple. Initially I had Periwinkle and Orchid, but they were too close in color, so I went with the darker Curazo. Honestly, either might work; this is a situation where I would need to have the skeins of yarn in my hands to compare. For the lightest color I thought that the Pink Frost would be fun, but the final color stumped me.

I considered another in the purple or pink range to keep it monochromatic but in the end the barely yellow won out as a nod towards the original color combo. I think the pop of the yellow running down the middle would be awesome.

I cannot decide which of these I would like better. Possibly the purple, but I am loving apricot right now. Who knows? Regardless it is a fun mental exercise with the end result of me wanting to buy lots of Malabrigo. Not that that is anything new.

So, what do you think of my choices? What colors would you use?

Knit a long prizes

For the last few months we have been running a knit-a-long in my Ravelry group and it finished up on November 12th. And what is needed for the end of every KAL? Well, prizes of course. This was my very first attempt at running a KAL and I think it went pretty well.

I know that with many of these type activities the designer is able to secure “sponsors” for the game and those sponsors donate prizes. I am not that fancy yet, so I came up with prizes on my own. Initially I had just planned on a Grand Prize for those who finished the shawl, but then I decided to add in a Not So Grand Prize for the entire pool of people who participated. I am including the people who finished in both lists so they get two bites at the proverbial apple, but I think that is fair because they – you know – finished!

The Grand Prize!

For the Grand Prize I commissioned an awesome project bag from the soon to be loaded Rosemary Potter etsy shop. I received the prototype for this bag in the stitch marker swap and loved it, so I purchased one for the KAL. It doesn’t look like your typical project bag but is still supremely functional.

You have no idea how hard it was to take this picture.

The inside has pockets and stuff! But of course I could not sent it out to the recipient all empty and sad …

I love me a Chibi

So I put a few trinkets inside. The Chibi might seem like a small thing, but I wish I had one for every project bag I own. They are the most convenient little things and without that little tube I lose yarn needles like nobody’s business. And, you know, could I send it out without yarn? I thought that a skein of Wollmeise Twin in Petit Poison no. 5 would be a fun bonus. I assume that anyone who is doing this KAL is a shawl knitter, and Wollmeise makes awesome shawls.

And then, the Not So Grand Prize:

Slightly Less Grand – but still fun!

I got this little felted notions bag at a local Art & Craft Fair and thought it would be perfect for this. It is made out of a recycled Faire Isle sweater and makes me smile every time I look at it. Then I thought I could include something fun to celebrate the re-release of Atreides (more on that later). When I decided to add beads to Atreides the wonderful Ellen at Earthfaire.com (purveyor of fine yarn, beads & knitting patterns) helped me narrow down my bead choice to two colors – and then sent me both.

A little sneak peek at a blog post to come.

One of the colors barely edged out the other for the sample, and that left me with a second set of beads. Ellen graciously allowed me to send it on in this prize and now one of my KAL participants will get them. And of course if you have beads you need a way to apply them to your knitting, so I got a wee crochet hook for that purpose. Finally, if the winner doesn’t already have their very own copy of Atreides they will soon.

And that’s it! Lots of pictures to tide you over the holiday and so much fun coming down the pike.

I guess it is time to start plotting a new KAL. Any suggestions as to what we should do next? Maybe the beaded Atreides or the independent release of the Scarab Shawl? Or something new? Because I totally have some new stuff coming! Actually, something really fun is happening in January, here’s a hint.

I might be a tease

Next month is shaping up to be a very exciting time. It will be the one year anniversary of my publishing my first “real” pattern (Atreides) and I will be releasing a new wrap pattern. I say wrap because it isn’t exactly a shawl, but it isn’t really a scarf either. If anything it is a long, narrow, curved stole. This piece marks a new shape, a new house from Dune and a new technique.

The technique is super secret but I can tell you that it involves not one, but two colors of yarn.  You might remember a little sneak peak in my post about lifelines, just to be a tease here is another “arty” shot that I took at my photo-shoot this weekend:

Oooh, can you even tell what it is?

To celebrate these two occasions I have also decided to do some fun stuff in my Ravelry group (requires Ravelry membership – but that is free). First off the new pattern that will pre-released in August (or possibly late July) with some promotional incentives including a “swatch-a-long”!

When the pattern is in pre-release you will be able to pre-order for 25% off what will be the “normal” price. This means that until August 31st the pattern will be $4.50. On September 1st the full price will be $6. If you decide to do the pre-order, you will not be without any pattern. The swatch pattern will be available for immediate download. This swatch is how you can determine gauge for the pattern at the same time you are trying out your chosen colors. It gives you an opportunity to try out the new techniques and have a little fun on a small scale.

I will be posting more about this “swatch-a-long” here in the near future, or you can head over to the Ravelry group where I give the break down. Mainly this post was to show you my teaser photo. Do you like?

GQ Eat Your Heart Out

This weekend past my little man and I attended his first wedding. A little over 5 years old, we haven’t had to go anywhere where he needed to be anything that resembled “dressed up”. Of course this means I had to go buy him an entire new outfit – including shoes.

White shirt, khaki pants, slip on loafers … all procured. But the ties? Horrendously ugly. Take the most boring and drab ties from the mens department and reduce them to pint sized and you have the selection of ties I was browsing.

Not to be deterred, I found one that was marked down on clearance (this was a clip on by the way – do you honestly think I was going to try and tie a tie onto a struggling 5 yr old?) and brought it home.

What is it with boys and pockets?

Knitting seemed to be the obvious solution. I kinda made a cozy for the knot end and then knitted a tie shape. Then I cut off the ugly tie and volia! Instant cute little boy tie. It looked fantastic right out of the gate but the test run was not without problems.

Oh the little stinker.

He kept on tugging on it and distorting the shape. And it was pretty humid, which made it curl up like a mother. If I am going to make more of these I need to either explore double knitting or the idea of some sort of backing.

For something that I just “whipped up”, I am inordinately pleased with how it came out. I cannot see writing a pattern for it because it is so simple, but I can see making more. But I waver, because there are so few cute patterns for little boys. What do y’all think I should do?