Over the last few years, I delved deeply into a lot of techniques. To celebrate 2023 joy of knitting theme, this year we’ll be revisiting some of favorites in new ways. From brioche to lace, regular cables to slipped stitch cables over garter stitch backgrounds, keep an eye out for easy accessories, technique filled beautifully structured garments, and a couple of exciting collaborations.
Without letting too much out of the bag, here a few a snapshots of what’s coming:
Last year I fiddled (and fiddles and frogged and fiddled and tossed in time out and fiddled) a design in brioche that featured butterflies. After designing a shawl with the final butterfly motif in mind, I knit up the “plain” shawl base and was like, uhm, I actually like this just as it is!
So bought another skein of yarn and turned the butterfly motif into a cowl!
The Technicolor: Matinee collection was a huge hit – thank you all! My simple scarf gets transformed into a highly structured garment. This special piece will be my 41st birthday release.
Before it was even off the needles, camera mom claimed one of my 2023 designs as her own. This year we’ll have a Mother’s Day shawl release! (It has bobbles… and that’s all I’m saying, but you can watch on the link 😉).
Continuing with the Meanwhile in Maine sweater design… fingers crossed working with a tech editor at this stage rather than once the pattern is complete will knock loose the mental block and get things flowing again. I know it’s all in there and wanting to get out… for some reason this one is just a bit stickier coming to realization… hmmm, rather like the build in a lot of ways. Maybe Teamwork, the solution for the build, will be the solution to the pattern writing, too!
In addition, the Joy of Knitting will feature a few Malabrigo projects, a new to me organic cotton that I swatched a few years ago (and designed but never got on paper), and a couple of other treats to tempt your knitting needles with!
The verse that keeps coming to mind as we broach the 2022 / 2023 horizon is Romans 8:6b – “but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace.” To me joy is found in Christ and in particular the fruit of the Holy Spirit, which is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control. Peace and joy go hand in hand, and both I find in the quietness of stitching as I meditate on His Word. It is also a challenge as I know events are coming up, in particular the move to Maine, that I’ve been longing for, but at the same time acknowledge the humongous alternations that will come with it. So, focusing on His Spirit and the peace He gives is the challenge to keep them in their proper sphere rather than overwhelming scary things.
Needles at the ready – who’s with me for a year of Joy of Knitting?