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 …
Tassels
Tassels and plant-based fibers can tend towards a bit of a love-hate relationship. Love the look, but do they ever tatter quickly! Without the natural felting abilities of wool and depending on the yarn twist, what looked lovely, can, after just one wash look like it was chewed to death by an active Great Dane 😉. Don’t fear there are solutions! The “ends” feature in the new release, Autumn Sense, in our Hems and Ends year showcases one very easy solution… Don’t cut the yarn… leave them loopy! Cut, bead, and knot – okay, I know this is fringe and not a tassel, but you can use it on tassels, too. If going this route, you may wish to decrease …
The Easy One
A Meanwhile in Maine update Remember back at the beginning of this year when I started to struggle with the Meanwhile in Maine design and decided to put it aside and work on an “easy sweater”? I’m happy to say that pattern release is right around the corner. However, it proved anything but easy! My sample was finished and shot in April with a promised summer 2022 release agreement with the yarn company, Malabrigo. But then my typical pollen fog never lifted. It’s strange how God uses events in our lives for change and this sweater was one such atypical tool! After writing, rewriting, and finally drawing out each and every size in excel, I “thought” I’d cracked it. The …
How Does Your Garden Grow
Stashing down for the move to Maine, I came across this beautiful skein of 100% cobweb weight linen yarn from a discontinued yarn company. It has been in my stash for years! And over the years I’ve tried to make several different design concepts from it. But nothing really stuck.
Optimistically Shooting Optimistic Elevations
The weather turned on a dime here from winter to spring and with it the “blue ridge haze” appeared for two weeks without a break. So, ever optimistic, camera mom and I went for a nice 2 ½ hour drive along the parkway looking for the quintessential mountain range background.
Love Letters Cowl Design Story
Like Shadowlands Headband, our next Slip and Rise release, nods to CS Lewis and Puddles.
Shadows of Inspiration
Such joy and smiles occurred when one of you wrote and asked if “Shadowlands” was inspired by C.S. Lewis. You know us too well!
Hemming and Ending Slingshot
Puddles and I are so excited to introduce something we’ve not done before – a pattern designed to learn and practice Lindsay’s Invisible Short Rows for 2 color brioche knitting! We could have just created a dishcloth, but that wouldn’t be very “Knit Eco Chic” so instead we created a fun faux-bius with directions for an optional skinny scarf.
Upper Back
After a few false starts… The sweater is underway! The back to the ‘join in rnd’ part is complete, which gave me an opportunity to test the full length of the chart once through.
Foundations
As the workers create the foundations of our home, I get to the foundations of the sweater to wear there! The foundation for my designs is excel. I start with a template I created in Jill Wolcot’s “A System of Grading” course and go from there.