New Pattern!

It took far longer than I wanted, but pattern #12 for this year (Nordic Kids’ Cardigan) is finally done and published to Ravelry, Etsy, and my website!  The 26 charts is what slowed me down, but I wanted the pattern to be easy enough to follow for almost any knitter.

One sample used Lamb’s Pride Worsted, one of my go-to yarns, and for the 2nd sample I used Garnstudio/Drops Nepal.  

I haven’t used Nepal in many years, the last time I think was for some socks, so I had forgotten how nice this yarn is, as well as inexpensive.  I no longer ask yarn companies for yarn support – I buy all the yarns for my patterns, so cost is definitely important.

I do try to use US grown and processed yarns, but I also love the softness that alpaca lends to yarns, and that means Peru.

Just two more patterns to finish up before the end of December, although ideally I’d like to get them finished in the next 10 days!  That may be over-reaching, but I know that once I begin getting and mailing out Christmas gifts and cards, my mind won’t be up to  writing patterns!  

Knitting, however, continues almost without interruption.  And these days, with hubby’s health throwing us curve balls now and then, having things to knit is imperative.  

This following cardigan design will likely be done in January, as this is the first sample, and I tend to want to knit 2 samples for sweater patterns.  It’s a teaser photo, as it’s showing the WS of the pattern!  I’m really pleased with the design, and the yarn (Valley Yarns Becket) is SO soft and cozy.  As you can see, it's in 2 blues, white, and sand – one of my favorite color groupings.  Can’t wait to wear it!

Personal-use knits tend to be socks – thick, thin, and everything in between!  But, this winter, I am adding a larger, personal-use item to the To-Knit list, and that’s a pair of wool slacks.  Wool pants on eBay tend to be lined and for going to work.  I don't like the former (cold nylon!) and I'm not doing the latter!  I have several patterns saved, which I need to study and, very likely, amend.  

Many years ago, I knit a pair of EZ’s tights/leggings, long ago deconstructed, when they were no longer needed.  If I didn’t need to wear Molnlycke’s Tubigrip from feet to knees to help the legs deal with their inclination towards swelling, I’d just reknit her tights in my now more slender size.  These days, though, I need pant legs with a bit of ease - no skinny legged jeans for me!

There’s still time for me to cogitate about what yarn I want to knit them in – Nepal?  Alaska?  Nature Spun Worsted?  Galway? A strand each extra fine merino and baby alpaca?  I intend on choosing wisely!

If you’re knitting or weaving holiday gifts, may your yarn never tangle, may your stitches be even, and may your selvedges be a thing of beauty!

Onward!
Dawn

The Finish Line

I have been diligently trying to create and release 12 new designs this year, and hopefully, in every year to come, in an effort to make up for far too many years when I couldn’t work on many new designs.

The 2 designs below are #’s 9 and 10 for this year, and as it’s October, it seems I am on track for this year!  At least until the holiday season and hubby’s new batch of upcoming surgeries derails me a bit, as well as the weaving I’d like to get back to, if only for a short time.  

And lest I forget, I still have outdoor garden work to finish, as well as cleaning the rest of the outdoor windows I began a week or so ago!

As I *am* only one person, some things have long ago fallen by the wayside, like the bi-weekly bread baking, or continuing with the bagel-making experiments, or even getting to finish this year’s spring cleaning!

12 patterns may not sound like a lot, but patterns do take a long time.  There’s knitting the samples, making the charts, writing, editing, and proofing the text, taking and adjusting oodles of photos, to get the best ones, then tweaking the layout, so everything logically fits into just as much space as it needs, and no more.  I tend to spend as much time writing the patterns as I do knitting the samples!

Some knitters may wonder if I use test knitters or tech editors.  Short answer: I do not.

Not only have I been designing and publishing my work for over 30 years, but my experience with designing for print publications for many years, as well as being a juried member of the AKD (Association of Knitwear Designers), previously known as PKDG (Professional Knitwear Designers Guild) helped hone these skills.

LOL, now I wouldn't mind having an assistant to take some of the load off, leaving me more time to design.  If said person was also good at creating social media posts and newsletters, all the better!  Like many creatives, I’m not very good at promoting myself.  

Although, to this end, I spent some time recently reinstalling the IOS into the older iPad.  It’s amazing how clogged up that thing got over the years.  Even after deleting everything that the iPad allows one to delete, its entire memory was still full.  

As we no longer depend on it for day-to-day productivity, I just re-installed the IOS from within iTunes on my iMac.  Now, it has under 400 MB memory used up for system, leaving me plenty of space for work. Yay!

I am not one to throw away old technology, willy nilly.  It will serve me to take photos, and hopefully, videos, to upload to instagram.  I do not need a cell phone, and hence do not have one, and although I researched how to upload to IG from a desktop, it was too bothersome to do it that way.  

Now I just need to find time to make IG posts, as well as the FB ones I normally do, and the Mailchimp new product emails, after uploading new designs to 4 websites!  But as the world has long gone visual, instead of written (more’s the pity, as I do love words!), I do need to try and fit into customer’s expectations.  We’ll see how it goes!

Now, those 2 new patterns!

Marina

About the Design:
This is an easy-to-knit and wear triangular scarf / mini shawl. I knit the first one many years ago in aran weight cashmere, although without the I-cord edging, and have used it almost every day! It serves as a scarf, and as a head scarf on cold mornings. It is knit from the center bottom outward, with Applied I-cord, and can be knit to any width.

I’ve sampled it in squishy, soft, undyed 100% superfine merino, as well as in frothy Cascade Yarns Kid Seta in a shimmering aquamarine held with Kraemer Yarns Stotts Ranch Limited in navy.  

Dimensions - before blocking
Width, tip to tip: 50”
Depth, at the center bottom: 12 to 12.5”

Finished Dimensions
Width, tip to tip: 52 to 54.5”  
(The aqua/navy fabric blocks a bit larger than the merino.)
Depth, at the center: 12.5 to 12.75”

Materials:
Natural Sample: YarnUndyed non-superwash merino, 182 yds/100 gr: 2 skeins
Sample weighs 159 gr. (5.6 oz.)

Aqua/Navy Sample: Cascade Yarns Kid Seta, 70% mohair, 30% silk, 230 yd / 25 gm: 3 balls #24 aquamarine; and 
Kraemer Yarns Stotts Ranch Limited, 52% Luxurious Diamond Fiber Kid Mohair / 48% Superfine Merino Wool, 610 yd / 100 gr: 1 skein
Sample weighs 109 gr. (3.85 oz.)

24-32” US size 10.5 (6.5 mm) ckn
2 Size 10.5 dpns

Tapestry ndl

Gauge:
Natural Merino Sample: 18 sts sts & 24 rows = 4” (10 cm) in St st, and 14 sts and 28 rows (7 ridges) = 4” in garter stitch with size 10.5 ndls.


Aqua / Navy Sample: 16 sts sts & 20 rows = 4” (10 cm) in St st, and 13 sts and 28 rows (7 ridges) = 4” in garter stitch with size 10.5 ndls.
To save time, take time to check gauge

Substitute Yarn Weight: Worsted to Aran (WPI = 11.5 to 13)

Skill Level: Beginner

Beach Roses Hat & Mittens

About The Design:
I first used this Fair Isle pattern for a cell phone cover, then immediately planned these women’s mittens and hat.  Most of the color changes are easy to work, only the center motif changes colors frequently.

The roomy mittens are worked Norwegian-style with a back of hand pattern, palm pattern, and 3-st stripes running up each side.  

You can knit the hat first, to get familiar with the patterning, as its only shaping is at the crown. I left the hat pompom-less to show off the flowers circling the top, in between the crown shaping stitches.  

This set would make a special gift!
 
Finished Dimensions
Hat Circ: 21.5”, Hat Depth to Top of Crown: 9”
Mitten Circ: 9”, Total Mitten Length: 10”
Cuff Length: 3”, Hand Length: 7”

Materials - Mittens
Lamb’s Pride Worsted, 85% wool / 15% mohair, 190 yd / 4 oz.:

2.64 oz. / 125 yds. #M10 Creme (MC),

.28 oz. / 13 yds. #M04 Charcoal Heather (A),
1.67 oz. / 79 yds. #M166 Plum Smoke (B),

.51 oz. / 24 yds. #M157 Orchid Blush (C),

.31 oz. / 15 yds. #M159 Deep Coral (E),

.08 oz. / 5 yds. #M03 Grey Heather (F), and
Harborside Aran, 100% wool, 162 yd / 100 gr.: .2 oz. / 10 yds. Sandstone (D).
One pair weighs 4.3 oz.

US size 5 (3.75 mm) dpns, set of 5
Tapestry ndl

4 stitch markers

Stitch holder or waste yarn

Materials - Hat
Lamb’s Pride Worsted:

1.87 oz. / 89 yds. #M10 Creme (MC),

.26 oz. / 13 yds. #M04 Charcoal Heather (A),

.46 oz. / 22 yds. #M166 Plum Smoke (B),

1.17 oz. / 56 yds. #M157 Orchid Blush (C),

.2 oz. / 10 yds. #M159 Deep Coral (E),

.11 oz. / 6 yds. #Mo3 Grey Heather (F), and
Harborside Aran: .19 oz. / 9 yds. Sandstone (D).
One hat weighs 3.88 ozs.

US size 7 (4.5 mm) dpns, set of 5
16-24” size 7 ckn

Tapestry ndl

6 stitch markers

Substitute Yarn Weight: heavy worsted

Gauge:
22 sts and 30 rnds = 4” (10 cm) in St st, and 24 and 26 sts = 4” in color patt with size 5 ndls, or size to give gauge.


20 sts and 28 rnds = 4” (10 cm) in St st, and 22 and 25 sts = 4” in color patt with size 7 ndls, or size to give gauge.

Marina is $3.50, Beach Roses is $6, both on Ravelry, Etsy, my site, and Lovecrafts.

Happy Knitting!
Dawn

On the Go!

It’s not usually like me to have more than 2 projects on the go at the same time, aka *startitis*.  Until recently it seems!  

I’ve had 5 projects in various stages, filling all available storage and horizontal spaces in my bedroom/office/knitting room, not counting the yearly sock re-knitting projects: 

* a stockinette knit bag (to be felted),
* a pair of slow-going fingering wt. socks at 8.5 sts/1”,
* a Fair Isle mitten and hat design, with just one mitten knit thus far,
* a worsted wt. striped pullover, and
* the last 2 samples for my newest design - Midnight Snowfall Stockings (whose first 2 samples sat waiting since 2020!)

As the Christmas stockings are done, I’m down to 4 WIPs.  But, only temporarily, as I have a Bohus-style yoke design to swatch.

As for the sock re-knitting, almost every spring to summer I assess my sock drawer to see which are worn enough to need their cuffs through heel flaps cut off from their feet, so to reknit the heel turns and feet.  When re-knitting, I use whatever yarns I have available, as, inevitably I won’t have the exact yarns or colors with which they were originally knit.  But I’m not fussy about such things – they don’t need to be pretty or even matching, just functional and warm.  One pair has been mended again, and will eventually be re-knit again!

Re-knitting makes good use of down time, when I need a rest, or just need something mindless to knit on, while I mentally figure out a design or other issue.  

For a long time, I’ve been fond of a k2, p1 rib for cuffs, as the repeat translates well into the stitch counts my socks need:  36 sts for bulky wt., 42 sts for chunky wt., 48 sts for heavy worsted, etc., and which work with my preferred 6 pt. round toe dec.  I also prefer how the this rib looks, as well as being less tedious to knit than k1, p1 rib!

And these WIPs are just the knitting projects.  We still need to finish putting the floor loom back together, upstairs, then I can rethread the rug warp for the remaining 3 rugs in a new series.  

The first rug in the series is still sitting, waiting for me to knot the warp ends, sew the hems, trim the tails and adjust any weft irregularities, then wet finish it.  I have read that rugs don’t need wet finishing, but I don’t find that to be true.  A good soak relaxes the materials used, helping to even out the fabric, and drying,  whether outside on a warm day or in the dryer, lets me know how the rug will wash and dry, for its new owners.

I’ve been putting the finishing off, rationalizing that until I can weave off the rest of the rugs, *this* one doesn’t really need to be finished, as I do want to present the entire collection at the same time.

As for new pattern – Midnight Snowfall Holiday Stockings – I began this design in 2020, then I went off on a tangent, designing the tea cozy, then the hat and mittens, then the cell cozy of the same name! 

In this design, I’ve kept my usual round toe shaping, but used wrap and turn short row heels, the shape and size of which seemed to suit the stockings.  I also tried the German short row heel for this design, but I find it easier to *read* the wrapped stitch heel turns rather than the pulled-snug double stitch heel turns in the German SR heel.

I've not knit SR heels in my socks, or wearable sock designs.  As you might guess, I’m a dyed-in-the-wool heel flap and V-heel sock knitter!  I like that a heel flap can be reinforced with heel stitch, eye of partridge stitch, or color patterns, none of which can be used in a SR heel, without a fair bit of trouble.  A heel flap's height and width is easily adjustable – it can also have as little or as much depth as is needed.  It seems that the only way to easily reinforce SR heels is by knitting a finer, strong yarn along with the sock yarn.

Thankfully, Christmas stockings don’t need to be reinforced, and SR heels *are* quicker to knit than a flap, heel turn, and gusset.  In an allover stranded pattern, like these stockings, a SR heel also eliminates the need to add in a separate gusset pattern, which I can imagine turns off some knitters, as they are more complex to knit, especially if the sole is *also* in a separate, though coordinating pattern.  Keeping track of 3 patterns while decreasing the gussets is a lot to be getting on with!

The pattern offers two sizes each in two yarn weights.  

Knit in Lamb’s Pride Worsted and Bulky along with Nature Spun Worsted, held single for the worsted stockings, and doubled, for the bulky stockings.    

Design details include:
corrugated ribbing,
allover stranded pattern,
duplicate stitching in a 3rd color,
wrap and turn short row heels,
rounded toe shaping, and
applied I-cord edging with a hanging loop.

Pattern includes 4 easy-to-follow color charts, and 4 short row heel turning charts.  The heel turnings are also written out.

Substitute Yarn Weights:  heavy worsted and bulky

Pattern is $6, available on: Ravelry, Etsy, Payhip, and soon, Lovecrafts

Start them now, and they’ll be done long before Christmas, to hang from your mantel, or string up and hang on your staircase!

Onward, to, hopefully, finishing more things than I start!

Happy Knitting!
Dawn

Satisfying Plain Weave

I finally added 2 blogs to my sidebar, for now, as I’m rather particular about such things.  I enjoy, and learn from, both Peggy’s and Karen’s blogs and I’ll surely add some knitting blogs.  Peggy has great general weaving information and Karen often posts about her rag rug projects, though not in detail!

Many weavers seem to have fallen down the multi-shaft rabbit hole, where I have always been content with 2 shaft or more basic 4 shaft weaves. I love simpler traditional textiles - plain weaves and twills, stripes, plaids, tweeds, and weft-faced and plain weave rugs. They may not provide the wow factor like other weavers’ work, but I find them to be comforting and relatable.  

When it comes to textile gymnastics, I prefer it in knitting, via color patterns or cable patterns.  

Needless to say, any snafus which occur whilst knitting are far more easily dealt with than a complicated weaving draft errantly threaded!  At this point in my life, I don’t need unnecessary stress!  (Although, is *any* stress really necessary?  I wish I could avoid it entirely, and save my heart the distress that ensues, undoing the good work of my heart meds.). Keeping it simple doesn’t mean it will only be boring!

More complex weaving drafts are lovely, but they do not *speak* to me.  Even Overshot, which I used to love, and have several books on, but we no longer own an antique home, at least for now, so I want whatever I weave for this non-fussy circa 1947 Cape Cod house to not look out of place.  And as we live on the Cape, a simpler seaside decor suits it well, although it will take me a while to weave and sew all that I want in the house!

As I may have mentioned, my floor loom (a 45” Hammett CB with sectional beam) is in pieces now, moved upstairs into a room where I will actually have space to weave easily.

Moving it also allows us to use my work table for Thanksgiving dinner, as the rest of my studio supplies and FO’s (handspun yarns and handwovens) need to remain in a room that is constantly heated or cooled.  I’ve BTDT enough, dealing with having to rewash linens that were stored in an unheated and non-cooled room.  I won’t do that to my hard work!

But this does mean it will be a while before hubby and I can get to putting the floor loom back together.  I only had time to weave one weft-faced rug, the warp for the remaining 3 rugs was rewound back onto the beam and taped down.

So, with the floor loom out of commission for a while, my small RH loom has been getting a workout.  It is not an unenjoyable process to direct warp the RH loom, even the more persnickety color and weave designs, although I think I prefer the actual act of weaving on the floor loom!  Passing a stick shuttle isn’t the same as throwing a boat, ski, or rug shuttle.  Floor loom weaving also gives my legs some exercise, like handspinning, which I also spend quite a bit of time doing

I now have 10 wool and alpaca scarves on Etsy thus far, and recently finished 3 more: another Houndstooth Tattersall, an all white Tweed, and a pattern I call “Faux Rib”, aka Log Cabin, as the pattern reminds me of offset panels of knit and purl ribbing.  LOL, I don’t like log cabins, much preferring Federal, Greek Revival, Colonial Revival, or Shingle Style. 

Actually, I was never crazy about most of the Log Cabin threadings and treadlings I’ve seen.  Many appear murky and confusing to me – I prefer clear, crisp, repeating patterns, which are easily readable.  This one, a 9-st rep both in warp and weft, please my sense of order!

Below are some other drafts I plotted and have been weaving.

Although I have a handful or rwo of 4+ shaft weaving books, I’ve only had one RH book, although the only thing that interested me in that book was how to weave a palindrome skein, which I have yet to do.  I'd much rather play around on weaving software to try to create interesting designs.

As you can see from the following 3 drafts, although they are similar, the first draft varies from the last two. Warping the first one is easier, with its solid blocks of color, but weaving it is slower, requiring 2 shuttles.  So, I decided to shift it, by moving the alternating color ends to the warp, making it slower to warp, BUT allowing the weaving to be solid blocks of color – just one shuttle for a # of picks.

Here’s some twists on the Log Cabin, which I’m calling “Peepers”, after the spring peppers we had so many of in the acre-sized pond back in the mid-Hudson.  I would even find them in the evergreen, off the porch.

These are next on my list to weave up.  As you can see, a simple adjustment to the color pattern in the warp and weft creates 3 options - a single set of alternating horizontal and vertical bars with horizontal peepers, a double set of alternating horizontal and vertical bars with vertical peepers, then a double set of alternating horizontal and vertical bars with *both* horizontal and vertical peepers: peepers on the ground, peepers up a tree, and peepers everywhere!

So many drafts, so little time!

Onward!
Dawn

A Summer of Socks

My sock WIPs have multiplied this summer, like bunnies!  It began as one pair, as a distraction from the cardigan I’m knitting, but then they quickly took over

Many sock knitters will likely have a drawer full of hand knit socks, and I am no exception, although I almost exclusively knit socks in DK to super bulky weight, instead of fingering or sport weight, and prefer non-superwash wool yarns, which I find to be warmer.  I’ve knit hubby several pairs of fingering and sport weight socks, but as he tends to be warmer than me, his socks last much longer, simply from lack of use!

I wear hand knit wool socks all year long – nothing is as comfortable and breathable, but I don’t have to tell sock knitters that!

The wide range of yarn weights I use covers all the seasons, with the bulky to super bulky socks knit larger, to be worn over a thinner pair, in the winter.  

One of my favorite yarns for socks (and sweaters and afghans) is Lamb’s Pride, worsted and bulky weights.  The mohair in the blend adds to warmth and wear, even though they’re single ply yarns, and they just feel cozy!  

I’ve loved other wools for socks, like Lopi, the defunct Woolpak Perendale, yarn I spun from a blend of 44% Mohair, 28% Romney, and 28% Leicester wools, which is also no longer available, but which lasted several years and were so warm, and the single skein of British BFL (Bluefaced Leicester, for non-knitters) I bought from Iriss of Penzance in Cornwall, England many years ago. 

Oh how I wish I could have bought a kilo (or 2, or 10!) of that beautiful yarn – it was heaven to knit and wear.  British BFL yarns these days all seem to be superwashed, unfortunately.  To my mind, and after many years of wearing wool socks, nothing beats long wools for socks.

These 2 most recent pairs are in a simple pattern, which has quickly become a favorite!  They fill a thickness gap in my sock drawer between the plain all stockinette LPW socks and the bulky wt. socks, as the pattern has two rounds of stockinette followed by one round of stranded color work, so it’s not as thick as an all color work pattern, but thicker than all stockinette. 

I mistakenly worked the first pair with the same 42 sts I would normally use for stockinette LPW socks.  They fit, but they are a bit snug, so I used 46 sts for the 2nd pair.  Stranding, even on occasional rounds, does take the fabric in a bit more than stockinette.  The summer heat must have made me forget this fact! 

Here is the 42-st pair, with slightly shorter leg than I usually knit. After knitting them, I decided the heel flap didn't look organic.  It didn't *flow* from the sock patterning, so I changed it in the 2nd pair, below.

     

 

This 2nd pair is on 46 sts, and I worked a few more rounds in the leg, so that when working the heel flap in the darkest color, the color flowed from the center of the stripe panel. A 1/2 repeat was needed just before the toe shaping, to give the desired foot length. This, too, flows into the dark toe color, and will be how I knit this pattern hereon in!

It’s a simple 2 stitch by 12 round pattern, which works well with hue/shade changes within a color family.  A 2 stitch repeat means the design can be easily adjusted smaller or larger as needed, and will work with any weight of yarn. 

Such designs are also ideal for using up bits of stash.  I used just 5 colors, but each color panel could be knit using a different set of colors, depending on your stash, or each panel could use the same 2 colors with a 3rd color as the background.

The other socks I’ve knit this summer (shown in the 1st photo above) are:
a 2-ply handspun Romney worsted wt. pair,
a super bulky handspun Romney pair (still in progress),
a Lamb’s Pride Bulky pair,
a re-knitting of the heels and feet of both a LPW pair and a Cascade 220 pair, and
a palindrome striped pair just begun.

I’ve knit many hundreds of socks since the very early ’90’s, and they’re still one of my favorite things to knit.

I love how they’re lightweight in the hands, so they don’t tend to stress joints, they’re small and portable, so they’re finished must faster than a sweater, they don’t use much yarn, and one can play with all manner of patterning or just enjoy plain knitting around. And who doesn’t like warm feet!

Onward!
Dawn

Kids’ Knits

DS, DDIL, and the kids travel a lot.  The kids are getting some fantastic experiences already in life, including a lot of farm stays.  Since this post I’ve been knitting on Alex’s Minnowknits Faux Fisherman pullover for Christmas.  I still need to do the neck edging and wet block it.

As little Evelyn’s Minnowknits hat was on hold, I searched for another pattern, again, hoping I could be a blind follower and not have to adjust stitch and row count because of gauge diffs.  When I found this Drops/Garnstudio pattern, I just had to knit it.  It will remind Evelyn of her times at the various farms she’s been to. 

I find knitting cables and texture stitches to be tedious sometimes, well, a LOT of times!  I’m really a color pattern knitter, it’s what my hands like to do best, so this hat was a nice reprieve from cabling, even though, once again, I had to adjust the pattern to fit my yarn and gauge.  The hat pattern didn’t come with mittens, but what is a hat without mittens?  So, I designed mittens to match.  As there’s just 32 sts in these wee mittens, I ran the color pattern around the palm as well as the back of the hand, instead of working a separate pattern for the palm.  One can’t get up a head of steam while changing patterns every 18 sts, especially while working a pictorial, like this one.

The yarns used were two Lamb’s Pride Worsted yarns, one Lanaloft Worsted, and two Cascade Yarns Ecological wool yarns - all heavy worsted wt, knit snugly on US 7’s.

The kids’ birthdays also flank Christmas, one in December, one in January, so more knitting is needed.  I’ll design a cabled cap and mittens in the same grey to match Alex’s pullover, and for Evelyn, another cute hat and mitten set.  Also a Drops/Garnstudio pattern - Warmhearted Hat.

But, no blind following for this design either!  It was designed as a tam, with increases then decreases to shape the tam.  I changed it to a regular hat, and changed the color patterns.  I must have re-charted this hat 6 times, before I got the balance of motif and color to please my eye. The hat is wet blocking and awaiting its pompom.

The Warmhearted Mittens that go with the hat has dice around the entire mitten, which I changed to stripes on half the mitten.  2-st patterns go much faster than pictorials!  With the thumbs at the sides, the mittens can be worn with the stripes on the back or on the palm - wearer’s choice.

They have tons of toys and art supplies, so the kids will be getting knits if and until they outgrow wearing things that Grandma (moi) makes.  If I’m lucky, and mindful of whatever trends they’ll be following as they grow up, I might be able to knit for them for a long time to come.  Fingers crossed!

Onward,
Dawn