The Naughty Knot Hat and Other Humourous Disasters

Hi all, remember me?  It’s your friendly knitwear designer!  I know 2023 started off with a bang of Joy of Knitting anticipation and excitement then crickets.  Well, I’ve been squirreling away pattern writing, frogging, rewriting, crying to my tech editor, and delving into all sorts of tangles.  Since the light at the end of the tunnel is beginning to glimmer, I figured today was a great day to catch you all up.

First up, the 3 designs I wrote last summer for late Winter / early Spring 2023.  Well brain fog during writing made them completely incomprehensible, even to me.  So despite the samples being “ready to go” sample / photography wise, instead of burying myself in those rewrites, I decided that the “Joy of Knitting” = a fresh beginning.

Late last year I upcycled On the Set into a hat that I absolutely loved!  It starts off with an I-cord and works up from there.  After a few weeks of pouring over the pattern to make sure it would be a quick (and therefore inexpensive TE), I sent it off.  Then the doom.  It took at least 3 weeks for the TE and I to unravel what my brain thought was sense into actual sense.  For instance, I charted with the center back marker in the middle of the pattern for pattern placement on the head.  But when I charted the crown it was centered to the pattern design, not to the start of the round.  Several back and forth emails flew about how to syntax the written directions because of this start of round issue, too.  But after a good month+, it went off to testing.  My wonderful tester caught a few things (like forgetting to update my gauge from “stockinette” to “in pattern” and yes, it made a huge difference).  Camera mom and I had a fantastic photoshoot, to which I returned and saw the hat was not centered on my head in any shot.  So, the following day we had a second fantastic photoshoot 😉 (much to her chagrin, but much to my joy).  This one, I am really pleased to say, is the light at the end of the tunnel – finally all fixed up and ready to meet the world in about 2 weeks.

During the Naughty Knot drama, I cast on a crochet blanket to give the little grey cells a break.  The creative mind didn’t stop, though, and inspiration for a book hit.  As soon as the crochet was done, I cast on what my brain had been tinkering with.  It was absolutely fabulous!  I couldn’t have been more happy.  Then last night I slide it off the needles and realized I placed my shawl increases in the wrong spot so ended up with an almost circle rather than crescent shaped shawl.  This one is in the sin bin.  But I know I’ll be back to it… it’s just too much fun not to forgive!  (Although the book might be 2024 given how late in the year we are.)  For a sneak peek on the colors, check out yesterday’s reel!

The second one in the aforementioned book also was cast on this week and gave me a little temper tantrum.  I’m fairly confident that all the kinks are worked out.  I planned this one as an “easy” design.  No lace, no cables, no fun… just kidding!  The shape is a ton of fun, but a bare basic gives me an easy knit to play with while also fixing the fabulous one at the same time.

Aside: on the technical front – I changed hosts for KEC in November and since then haven’t received any emails sent to Lindsay at knitecochic.  I’m still figuring this one out.  But any replies to my mailchimp newsletters, test knit, blogs, announcements, etc were lost in cyberspace.  I apologize if you hit reply (or wrote that email address) and never heard back!!

The other glimmer of light that saw me through these last 8 weeks… my fastest design ever!  It’ll have it’s own blog soon, but seriously sometimes doing something completely different than planned is the best solution to error city!

So, stay tuned!  The first release of 2023 IS coming soon.