Are you frozen yet?

I wanted to share with you my newest design, called Frozen Flakes, to celebrate winter. Hmmm.. there are a lot of us lately who’ve been dealing with sub-zero temperatures lately. Brrrrr……

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Frozen Flakes – side view

Frozen Flakes – top view of crown

Thanks to my Ravelry test knitters for testing this pattern.  You can see their projects here.

Video Resources:

Old Norwegian Cast on from Joan Laws

Latvian Braid

Leftovers anyone?

I am beginning to get a stash of leftover sock yarn and was enthralled with Wendy Johnson’s Leftovers Cowl. I favor purples, greens, and turquoise and here is the progress so far.

I didn’t make the cowl as wide as she did as I only cast on 122 stitches but I love the sense of accomplishment at having finished another repeat of a certain design.  Someone asked me when I expect to be done with it and I hope to be wearing it this fall.

I usually have two projects going at once because sometimes I need something that is simpler to knit depending upon the situation.

Not really a gift but I’m pushing!

I’m working on a new fair isle hat design since my husband asked for another hat. I figured I could accomplish two things at once! Even though it is not a gift, I’m still pushing to get it done. It’s easier for me to do fair isle when it’s not noisy so over the course of the next few days, I envision family and noise.

Here is a sneak peek. My design includes a Latvian braid of sorts. I hear it’s also called the Herringbone stitch.

Well, Merry Christmas to my blog readers and I hope you enjoy the holiday and remember the REAL reason for the season.

New designs published!

I wanted to share that I’ve just recently published two new designs at Ravelry.

The first one took a few months of design work using Intwined Pattern Studio and then I moved onto swatching the design with old sock yarn in case I had to do some frogging. So, here it is – Botanical Scarf. There are actually flower motifs in the chart repeat and then of course the leaf edging helped me name the design.

I used Opulence from the Woolen Rabbit and the yarn is so yummy being that it’s 50% wool and 50% silk.
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My other design was a “spur of the moment” hat. I really like the way the blue fair isle design coordinates with the gray background. I was not sure what the call the hat and I went for a walk and all of the sudden, the name, “Winter’s Morn” popped into my head. I used two skeins of KnitPicks yarn, Wool of the Andes Superwash.

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Back to knitting!

I know it’s been awhile since I’ve posted but it’s been longer recuperating than I expected. We also have been dealing with some family health issues.

I’ve finished my Amie sweater and a pair of socks using the Crosshatch stitch pattern. Today, I finished another one of my Spotted Diamonds hat for my husband. I’m so excited about this hat because it’s the best fair isle project I’ve made. There is NO puckering and it fits him perfect.

Fair Isle and Catching Floats

I’d like to share a video I recently found which explains how to catch floats when you are doing fair isle or as it’s sometimes called, stranded knitting.  As you knit, you basically are catching the yarn on the back of the work.  Some fair isle tutorials have you pulling the second color up and around the main color you’re working to capture it, but I’ve found that causes more tightness in your project and it’s easier to cause puckering.

The video explains how to hold one color in each hand and how to catch the float from either the left or right hand.  I hope this helps you with your next fair isle project.

I’m seeing spots!

Yesterday was a busy day as I finalized another pattern for my latest design called the Spotted Diamonds hat. The pattern includes links to YouTube videos demonstrating some of the techniques I used when making the hat.  I like to include those because I like sharing things I’ve learned.  Similar to my Best Friends Forever hat, you can reverse the colors and get two hats out of two skeins of yarn.

Side view of Spotted Diamonds hat

I’ve done other fair isle designs and have struggled n the past with the resulting fabric puckering.  I’ve gotten better but still don’t have a fabric I’m 100% happy with.  The biggest benefit of this design is that there only a few places that have a float of five stitches. So the smaller floats really help make a nice fabric and I don’t get any puckering or tight spots. I think this is a good project for those who’ve had the tight areas or puckering in their work.

Best Friends Forever hat

With Valentine’s Day approaching, I thought I’d share a recent design I published on Ravelry.  It’s called the Best Friends Forever hat and the idea is that you can take two skeins of yarn and create two hats – one for you and your best friend!

Pair of hats in coordinating colors

Knitted hats that are made from the bottom up typically have crown shaping created by knitting two stitches together at certain intervals. In my design, I decided to purl the two stitches together. This produces a unique pattern as shown below. I figured “Why not be different?”

Decreases made with P2tog stitch

The patterns calls for Cascade 220 Superwash but I think any lightweight worsted yarn would work. I’ve noticed that some of my newer Cascade 220 Superwash is thinner than some other “worsted” weight yarns so it might be closer to a DK. Whichever yarn you use, you should make a gauge swatch to make sure your hat will be the right size.

So, have you thought of what colors you might have in your stash?

Sneak Peek

I’m starting to work on a new hat design and wanted to give you a sneak peek.