Eclectic Closet Litblog, Book Reviews & Knitting Designs

A litblog dedicated to book reviews/recommendations, as well as literary and publishing news. Now enhanced with knitting designs.

Interview: Gabrielle Danskknit

November21

Interview #4 is with fellow Canadian designer, Gabrielle Danskknit.

Gabrielle Danskknit

Gabrielle Danskknit

Who taught you to knit/How did you learn to knit?
My grandmother gave me some yarn and needles and taught me the basics when I was about 12. Then I went to the library and learned more with books.

How did you get started designing?
I always felt like something was missing in the patterns I was knitting at the time (mostly French patterns). I wanted to take a little bit of this and a little bit of that, knit in the round, etc. Plus, my gauge was never right. So I started creating things just the way I was imagining them.

What inspires your designs?
Stitches and textures mostly. Sometimes I will stare at someone’s hat in the bus, get inspired and when I get home I just need to cast on!

Which comes first – the yarn or the inspiration?
Inspiration more often. Nowadays I’m lucky to have a good stash, so sometimes it’s the yarn.

What characteristics do you try to incorporate in your designs?
Easiness. I often go for straight forward construction and minimal sewing. Texture too.

What is your favourite type of item to design?
It changes! Right now it’s all about hats. When I started it was mostly baby items and blankets.

Tell me about your aviator hats, what is the story behind these pieces?
I wanted to knit something for a fellow knitter and she liked aviator hats. I thought it was something I could easily make so I just designed one! Then I had to add textures, colours, etc. An entire collection was born after a few years.

Do you have an aspirational knit – a complicated/challenging design that you want to knit “some day” when you feel ready?
A sweater for me. I don’t think it’s that much of a challenge but I mostly knit small items and get bored easily. So I will need to find the perfect combination of yarn and pattern to keep me motivated!

What is coming next? What’s in your release queue?
More hats! And baby items, I can’t stop!

Your desert island yarn? (if you could only knit with one yarn from now on which would it be?)
Malabrigo Rios. That thing is… wonderful!

Which is your most under-appreciated design?
I think I have a few ones. I also think I would like to revamp some of them. A design I like which is not getting as much attention as I think it deserves is Bergen Snowflake.

What’s the one piece of advice you’d like to share with other knitters?
When you no longer have motivation to finish an item, just drop it. The freedom you have after, to just cast on something new and forget about the old one…

Any knitting/designing New Year’s resolutions?
Knit for myself more often!

If you could have dinner with one knitting designer (living or dead) who would it be and why?
Maybe Ysolda Teague? A dinner in Scotland with a talented designer!

View all of Gabrielle’s patterns here. Photos copyright Gabrielle Danskknit. All images used by permission.

You can find Gabrielle on the following social media sites:

What is the Gift-A-Long? The GAL is a big knitting and crochet designer promotion with prizes and more than 5,000 people participating in a giant KAL/CAL. Come join the GAL group on Ravelry!

Interview: Nicole Montgomery

November20

Interview # 3 of the design interviews is with Nicole Montgomery, of Trappings and Trinkets.

Nicole

Nicole

Who taught you to knit/How did you learn to knit?
My friend, Kristin taught me how to knit. She mentioned to me one day that she was knitting a bear for some sort of church charity thing, and I told her I had always wanted to learn to knit, but had never quite caught on when I looked at diagrams in books. She hosted a “Knitting and Sangria” night at her house and tried to teach a group of us to knit. Most of our friends were more interested in the sangria than the knitting, but I came home that night with a swatch full of dropped stitches and holes, and kept practicing until I had it figured out. But Kristin really only knew how to knit and purl, so my first project was making squares out of fun fur (I know, I know) that I intended to sew together into a blanket. But the universe interrupted my ill-fated blanket project before it was finished by dropping a “knitting guru” into my lap in the form of Paula (of Knitting Pipeline fame). She is a friend of a friend who was also at the Knitting and Sangria night, and Paula had offered to lead a knitting class at church, so I tagged along. She showed me how to knit in the round and do basic things like increases and decreases. I remember telling her that I really wanted to try a pattern, but that I probably wasn’t ready for that yet. She said, “You can follow a pattern. All you have to do is read the first instruction, then do that. Next read the second instruction and do that. And if you don’t know how to do it, you know where I live.” That was all the encouragement I needed to be a fearless knitter, and I’ve never shied away from a project for fear that it was “too difficult”. I know that all I ever have to do is figure out how to do the next instruction. (And if I can’t figure it out, I’m confident that someone around me can help me!)

How did you get started designing?
A friend of mine is a photographer and about five years ago she approached me about making a “sock monkey hat” that she could use when doing infant pictures. “So you want me to make a hat that looks like a monkey head that sits on top of the baby’s head?” I believe that was my reply to her…I didn’t get it. But she was trying to start her photography business at the time, and I wanted to be supportive, so I went home and googled “sock monkey hat” in the hopes of finding a knitting pattern. Only one webpage popped up with a pattern link (there were a couple for crochet, but only this one link for a knitting pattern), and when I clicked on it, it was a virus. It totally destroyed our computer. I ended up coming up with my own pattern, and thought, “Maybe there are other people who would like to knit this, and if I can sell this pattern for a few dollars, maybe I can make some money that I can put toward replacing the computer that I just destroyed.” The response I had from knitters was so kind and generous, it motivated me to write up and share future patterns that I came up with.

What inspires your designs?
What doesn’t?! I often write patterns for things I want to make for myself, or that I think would be great gifts for other people. I might see some yarn and say “these 3 colors need to be used in a sweater together!” – that happened with “Jillian”. I might have a specific occasion in mind that I want something special to wear for – “Summer Vines” was supposed to be for my 20-year high school reunion…until it was cancelled due to lack of ticket sales! Maybe I’m watching a tv show and the costumes inspire me – my “Honeysuckle Hat” was inspired by a character in “Foyle’s War” and “Rory and Jojo” was my interpretation of a hat Rory wore on the “Gilmore Girls”. Or maybe I see something being worn out in public and take inspiration from that. “Siesta Tee” came from a long-sleeved mesh sweater I saw on someone at Panera. And “Leap of Faith” is a reboot of a hoodie I wore so much in my early 20s that I had to sew patches on the elbows. Once it was too worn to wear, I put it in a drawer in the hopes I could one day find a way to re-create it…that was before I even knew how to knit!

Sometimes I see a certain technique in a book or used in another knitting project that I see somewhere – “The Sweetest Thing” was completely designed around a delicate scalloped edging I saw in a knitting book and my “World War G{loves}” came from the idea of using welts on fingerless mittens. I also keep a Pinterest board with inspiration, and I have used some ideas from there. I pinned a fabric scarf that had lacy baubled fringe along the edges, and used that idea for my “Borderline” shawl. I am working with 2 ideas right now and use another idea from my Pinterest inspiration board, but you’ll have to stay tuned until mid-December for the first design and early February for the second one to be published!

Which comes first – the yarn or the inspiration?
Either one. With me it’s really about 50/50. Sometimes I see the yarn first and I know what it wants to be. And sometimes I have an idea of something I want to make in my head and I go on a search for just the right yarn.

What characteristics do you try to incorporate in your designs?
I like pretty un-fussy stuff. So I’d say that my general style is clean lines with an interesting detail or two. I like a modern fit (not too baggy, not too square) with garments. And I like a wide variety of colors & textures!

What is your favourite type of item to design?
For pure enjoyment, I’d say hats because they’re generally pretty simple. But I do love knitting sweaters, and those patterns give me the biggest sense of accomplishment, although I find the 8 hours or so that I have to spend with spread sheets and calculators pretty brutal!

You design a lot with rainbow colourways, such as the RollerGirl Raglan and Layers and Links.
What is the story/inspiration behind this?

RollerGirl was a design where the inspiration came from the yarn. I saw the “Carnival” color way of Knit Picks Chroma and decided that it needed to be made into the arms of a raglan sweater with a solid color used as the body. It turned into a “roller derby-themed pattern” because the color way was bright & happy and reminded me of colors you might see on circa-1980 leg warmers that would be worn with short shorts on someone at a roller rink. “Layers and Links” is part of a new collection that I’m in the process of publishing. It’s a 13-project pattern collection called “Color Packs & Stash Scraps” that is full of smaller projects that use smaller quantities of multiple colors of yarn. So it’s great for using the mini skein color packs that are so popular right now, or for making use of your lightweight-yarn leftovers. Layers and Links ended up as a rainbow hat because that color way caught my eye when I was looking at A Hundred Ravens’ internet shop, and trying to figure out how to approach her to see if she’d be interested in supporting my new collection!

Do you have an aspirational knit – a complicated/challenging design that you want to knit “some day” when you feel ready?
I really don’t, since I never consider anything “above my skill level”. There’s certainly things I haven’t made yet and techniques I haven’t tried, but as soon as I’m interested in something, I just do it. For example, last week I read a few Ravelry posts about “Invisible Stranding”, a technique that you can use when doing stranded color work that allows you to carry floats for as long as you wish. I immediately found “It’s Not About the Hat”, a pattern that taught this technique and made two hats using it – the first had a design on the front only, and I carried the floats across about 60 stitches around the back of the hat (replacing the need for intarsia in the round). The second hat I did was a modified version of the “Passerine Hat”, which has some long floats that would have made me unhappy if I had used regular stranded knitting. Now I can’t wait for more people to learn this technique because it opens up exciting possibilities for me as a designer!

What is coming next? What’s in your release queue?
As of today, I have 7 more patterns to release as additions to my “Color Packs & Stash Scraps” collection. I’ll be adding one pattern a week until the week of Christmas. After that, I may have a bit of a lull…designing, writing, knitting, testing, editing & releasing 13 patterns in a short period of time has been a big challenge for me (I started this collection in June 2015, and it will be totally published by December), so I’m going to need a minute to find my writing mojo again. But I do have a couple things – a scarf with a “woven” look to it, and a cabled men’s sweater – that are already knit and mostly written, so I’ll probably be releasing those later this winter or in the spring.

Your desert island yarn? (if you could only knit with one yarn from now on which would it be?)
I’m working with Anzula Cricket right now and it is delightful! But if I’m going for gorgeous colors, I’d probably have to stick with madelinetosh. I’m a sucker for tonal color ways!

Which is your most under-appreciated design?
Either the Leap of Faith sweater or the Orchard Pullover. I wear both of those all the time, but I think that they might intimidate some knitters. Leap uses steeking (although I can’t stress enough how very simple it really is if you can get over the fear of cutting your knitting!), and I think the fact that it has a zipper instead of buttons is another stumbling block for some knitters. I think the cables in Orchard look scary to some knitters, although there’s nothing more difficult there than a 2 x 2 cross. I guess that’s the downside to having no knitting fear – it’s difficult to predict what projects other people will be willing to take on!

What’s the one piece of advice you’d like to share with other knitters?
There is nothing about knitting that is too difficult for you. People in remote villages hundreds of years ago figured out how to do this stuff. So certainly you, with access to You Tube videos, a vast array of books, and staff at your local yarn shop, can learn whatever techniques you set your mind to!

Any knitting/designing New Year’s resolutions?
For the past couple years, my goal has been to publish 12 patterns a year (my “year” is September – May, and I try to keep the summers low-pressure since my kids are home from school…though that didn’t quite happen this summer since I was working so intensely on my new collection!) But that goal will probably continue. I also like to make sure I add to my knitting library each year – stitch dictionaries, books on pattern writing, things that keep me moving forward as a designer.

If you could have dinner with one knitting designer (living or dead) who would it be and why?
I honestly don’t have a knitting idol. I started writing patterns very soon after learning to knit myself, so I never had that period of time when I was knitting enough patterns from other designers that I developed favorites. But if I were to choose a dinner companion based solely on how enjoyable the dinner would be, I’d have to go with Stephen West. I think the videos he puts out are a riot, and I bet he would be a lot of fun to talk to. And even though I don’t think I’ve ever knit anything he’s written, I have a lot of respect for someone who thinks so far outside the box!

View all of Nicole’s patterns here. Photos copyright Nicole Montgomery. All images used by permission.

You can find Nicole on the following social media sites:

What is the Gift-A-Long? The GAL is a big knitting and crochet designer promotion with prizes and more than 5,000 people participating in a giant KAL/CAL. Come join the GAL group on Ravelry!

Interview: Tabi Ferguson

November20

Today’s interview is with Tabi Ferguson of Sericin Silkworks. There must be something in the water here locally, for Tabi is just one of many amazing designers hailing from my local community (Sally Melville, Debbie New and the many interviewed as part of last year’s series).

Editor’s Note: Tabi’s yarns are truly luscious and I highly recommend you visit her store! For the sake of total transparency, I have designed several pieces in her yarns (Gothic Forest Scarf, Pyrenees Shawl, and Crow’s Foot Cowl). Tabi currently has yarn kits available for the Crow’s Foot Cowl which include a coupon for the pattern.

Ceylon Cowl

Tabi modeling the Cowl of Ceylon

Who taught you to knit/How did you learn to knit? And dyeing?
My grandmother taught me to knit when I was fairly young, maybe 6 or 7 years old. She also crocheted and sewed. I started dyeing in 2010 because I wanted to create hand dyed silks for spinning.

How did you get started designing?
I also started designing in 2010. I love lace designs and had knit quite a few Nieblings so I was intrigued by his unique style. I also wanted to create motifs that weren’t in stitch dictionaries.

What inspires your designs and dyeing?
My designs are often inspired by architecture here and abroad and design magazines and websites. I enjoy re-interpreting classic shapes that we might see in stone, tile or wood and translating them into texture and colour. Dyeing is almost always the serendipity of the day.

Which comes first – the yarn or the inspiration?
It really depends on the project, but usually the inspiration comes first, then I get excited imagining all the different types of yarns I can use for the implementation.

What characteristics do you try to incorporate in your designs?
I prefer my designs to be concise with minimal finishing or simple shaping. I’m a slow knitter, so I try to consider ‘quicker’ techniques such as stranded colourwork vs. double knitting or brioche or mosaic. The effect is subtly different, but it’s much faster (for me) to knit.

What is your favourite type of item to design?
Because I’m not great at fit, I still mainly design accessories, particularly stoles and scarves, but also socks and gloves. Overall stoles are my favourite because you can tell a story across its width, similar to medieval tapestries.

How do your travels connect into your dyeing?
My travels connect directly with both my dyeing and my designs. I’m often inspired by the architecture and carvings of temples, churches, palaces of far-off places, but also ‘mundane’ objects like baskets and piles of fresh produce in open air markets.

Do you have an aspirational knit – a complicated/challenging design that you want to knit “some day” when you feel ready?
I would love to do a Fair Isle cardigan at some point incorporating my handspun yarns.

What is coming next? What’s in your release queue?
I have a double sided (but not double knit!) reversible colour work scarf and neckwarmer design in the immediate queue. I knit the original scarf for my partner, but I keep stealing it (I usually ask first), so I decided to knit and write up a neckwarmer version so we can figure out who gets which.

Your desert island yarn? (if you could only knit with one yarn from now on which would it be?)
That’s way too hard! My first answer would be any handspun, but mill spun yarn would have to be Sericin Silkworks 50/50 Bison/Silk.

Which is your most under-appreciated design?
That’s a tough one. Either my Clouds of Luxury Fair Isle Fingerless Gloves or Stupas and Spires. Clouds was inspired by the many beautiful fair isle patterns, but with a more modern look. It was spun then knit from a luxury fiber sample pack, but I’ve since knit the pattern with fine fingering weight yarns, a shetland yarn would be perfect, and I even knit a worsted version for my mom from commercial yarn.

Stupas and Spires was released in the Spring 2014 PLY magazine. It is a side-to-side stole, originally made from a graduated handspun laceweight yarn whose colours and design were inspired by the temple complexes of Sri Lanka.

What’s the one piece of advice you’d like to share with other knitters?
I don’t feel I’m a very accomplished knitter. Although I enjoy complicated lace and colourwork, I’m terrible at fit and shaping. However, I’m very fortunate to have a great LYS, Shall We Knit?, and many local talented knitting friends and designers. My biggest piece of advice is to seek out other knitting friends, you will learn so much, not only about knitting but life!

If you could have dinner with one knitting designer (living or dead) who would it be and why?
Herbert Niebling. He was able to sit down and immediately translate an organic (ie. non-geometric) motif to a lace design.

Any knitting/designing New Year’s resolutions?
I need to get better at queuing up my next knitting or spinning projects before finishing the current one. I often find myself knit- or spin-less for a week or two between projects. Valuable time wasted! Plus it’s embarrassing when you get invited to knit or spin-ins and you don’t have a project. 🙂

View all of Tabi’s patterns here. Photos copyright Tabi Ferguson. All images used by permission.

What is the Gift-A-Long? The GAL is a big knitting and crochet designer promotion with prizes and more than 5,000 people participating in a giant KAL/CAL. Come join the GAL group on Ravelry!

Interview: Karen Robinson

November19

The first interview of the 2015 interview series is with Karen Robinson of Karen Dawn Designs.

Who taught you to knit/How did you learn to knit?
I’m self-taught although I have taken a few classes here and there. While I was in the first year of my PhD program, I wanted something to do besides reading (which had always been my hobby, but I was doing so much reading for school). I was in Target one day browsing the book section and a book caught my eye: Stitch ’N Bitch by Debbie Stoller. I thought that knitting sounded like it might be a nice break from graduate study, so I bought the book, got some yarn and needles, and worked my way through it. I also watched some videos online through knittinghelp.com.

How did you get started designing?
I took a class at my LYS for how to design your own scarf. I had actually designed a colorwork hat a while before that but never sat down and wrote out the pattern. So with the scarf, I was determined not only to design it but also to write and release the pattern (that’s my Criseyde Scarf). But it took another two years before I started actively designing (having a toddler sometimes puts other things on hold for a while!).

What inspires your designs?
The inspiration for the names of the designs comes from medieval literature, so lots of Arthurian legends and Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and the like. I don’t try to make the designs mimic medieval-style clothing, but I do try to use stitch patterns (as well as yarn choices) that help with the connection between the name and the design.

Which comes first – the yarn or the inspiration?
Both. Or rather, sometimes it’s the yarn and sometimes the inspiration. Although I’ve definitely bought yarn for new designs, I also love going into my stash and pulling out a skein that’s been sitting there for a while and figuring out what to do with it. But yarn selection is a major part of my design process, both for the yarn content and the color.

What characteristics do you try to incorporate in your designs?
I enjoy working with lace and cables the most (sometimes both at the same time), so those are the types of stitches that I tend to work into my designs. And I want my designs to be something very wearable and functional, that the knitter can use daily, although I’m not opposed to a special occasion project. I also aim for designing projects that use 1-2 skeins of yarn with the idea that these patterns can be worked with those single skeins picked up here and there because the yarn was irresistible even with no project in mind.

What is your favourite type of item to design?
Definitely cowls. I love wearing them because you can keep your neck warm while not having to worry about having loose ends on a scarf to mess with. I prefer knitting in the round so most of my cowls are knit in the round. And I love how something so seemingly basic can have so many different options in its creation.

Tell me about “Gawain’s Shield”, what is the story behind this collection?
The collection is the result of several things coming together at once. I knew that I wanted to develop a collection and actually had a different idea in mind at first. Then I learned how to work German short rows. I usually avoided short rows before because I only knew the wrap and turn method and that seemed like a pain, especially with picking up the wraps. German short rows changed that and suddenly I wanted to work with them all the time. Originally, I was just going to do one individual design using the short rows, but ideas kept coming and I was having trouble narrowing them down to one. So I started thinking about how I might develop several designs using short rows into a collection.

Gawain's Shield cover image

Gawain’s Shield

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is my favorite story from medieval literature. As I was working on the ideas for the collection, I had the story in the back of my head. The number five is important to the story and I realized that I had been focusing on five different designs for the collection. So after thinking about how to incorporate the story into the collection, I kept coming back to the significance of the pentangle on Gawain’s shield: five-pointed star, five crescent-shaped shawls. At that point, the decisions I made about the collection were directly related to the story and to the five ideals of knighthood, which make up the pattern names.

And at about that same time, I had worked with Elizabeth Green Musselman on developing a logo for my yarn business (Round Table Yarns). She was starting a business with Anne Podlesak to provide services for designers from photography to tech editing to graphic design (Stitch Definition). I was so pleased with the work Elizabeth had done with the logo, and after talking to Anne and finding out how similar our backgrounds were, I knew they were the ones to help me in putting this collection together. And I couldn’t be more pleased with the work they did on it.

Do you have an aspirational knit – a complicated/challenging design that you want to knit “some day” when you feel ready?
I see so many of those beautiful circular shawls and I keep thinking that I’ll make one someday. I actually started the Evenstar Shawl once but ripped it out because I had put it aside for a long time (I started it just before my son was born and didn’t have the energy/brainpower to work on it after he was born) and lost my place in the pattern. I’d love to get back to it or something like it at some point. Heck, I’d love to design one of my own as well.

What is coming next? What’s in your release queue?
I have a couple of hats and cowls that are at various stages of progress, so those should be releasing in the next couple of months. I’m also feeling the desire to experiment with shawl shapes that I haven’t used before, so that’s what I’ve been focusing on lately.

Your desert island yarn? (if you could only knit with one yarn from now on which would it be?)
My first non-acrylic yarn was Malabrigo Merino Worsted (at the time when that was the only yarn produced by Malabrigo) and I fell in love. It’s still one of my absolute favorites. But as lovely as it is, it has a tendency to pill something fierce. So I think I would chose Malabrigo Rios instead. Beautiful colors. Super soft. And better wearing that the single-ply yarn.

Which is your most under-appreciated design?
Definitely my Laudine Shawl. I used three different colors on this triangular shawl as well as a ruffled edge. The colors create a chevron design and the stitch pattern is nicely textured, so it’s a warm shawl that I envisioned someone using to curl up with on the couch with a good book. But it seems very few people share that vision because I have yet to sell a single copy of it.

What’s the one piece of advice you’d like to share with other knitters?
Be an adventurous knitter. Don’t look at a pattern and say, “Oh, I haven’t done that before so I guess I can’t do this pattern.” Instead, if you see a pattern you really want to make but find there’s something in it you haven’t done before, use it as an opportunity to learn something new and develop your knitting skills. That’s how I’ve approached knitting and it’s been so much fun to be able to add to my knitting knowledge.

Yet at the same time, always have a “mindless” project on the needles for when you want to knit but can’t concentrate on something more complicated.

Any knitting/designing New Year’s resolutions?
Just keep trying new things. There’s still a lot to explore both in knitting and designing, and I hope to continue picking up new skills.

If you could have dinner with one knitting designer (living or dead) who would it be and why?
That’s a pretty tough question because I can think of quite a few people I’d love to have dinner with. How to pick just one? I think right now I’m going to say Elizabeth Green Musselman because I’ve loved working with her and we missed meeting in person at an event earlier this year. I think we have a lot in common, and she would be a delightful dinner companion.

View all of Karen’s patterns here. Lady Bertilak Cowl and Gawain’s Shield photos copyright JS Webb Photography. Remaining photos copyright Karen Robinson. All images used by permission.

You can find Karen on the following social media sites:

What is the Gift-A-Long? The GAL is a big knitting and crochet designer promotion with prizes and more than 5,000 people participating in a giant KAL/CAL. Come join the GAL group on Ravelry!

Vogue Knitting, Fall 2015

July8

Made in Canada column, Vogue Knitting Fall 2015

Some things require serious squealing and excited jumping up and down. Getting mentioned in Vogue Knitting’s Made in Canada column certainly qualifies! Getting described by author Lee Ann Dalton in Vogue Knitting this way, “Janelle Martin makes you want everything she designs,” put me over the moon. Seeing that in bold print under one of my designs brought me to my figurative knees. Thank you Lee Ann for your amazing words. And a big thank you to my mentors, technical editor, and the rest of the team that helped me reach this point – you know who you are!

A special thank you to the beautiful Jen and talented Shawn for making my designs look so beautiful.

Secret Society Shawl

July5

Secret Society in Bare Naked Wools Mrs Lincolns Lace
I am thrilled to announce that I’ve released the “teaser” pattern for my new collection, Northern Landscapes. I’ve been working on these pieces for the past nine months and am excited to see the work nearing release.

You can purchase Secret Society either as an individual pattern for $7.50 or by pre-ordering the ebook. The ebook (a $75.00 value) is available for $24.95 until the rest of the patterns are released in mid-August, at which time the price for the ebook increases to $35.95.

Secret Society in Stone Soup Fingering

The patterns in the collection are also collated as a “set” in Ravelry. You can purchase individual patterns and these will be credited toward the cost of the ebook. Once you’ve spent $34.95 you will automatically receive the rest of the patterns from the collection in your library.

Purchase Secret Society:

Purchase Northern Landscapes, part one ebook:

Northern Landscapes, part 1

June22

Burnt Cape Guernsey Stole in Bare Naked Wools Ghillie Sock

For the past 10 months I’ve been working on a semi-secret project, my first pattern collection! I shared the first details on the collection in an interview on the Knitspot website, whose fantastic Bare Naked Wools provide the foundation of the collection.

About the collection:
This past summer (2014) I traveled to Newfoundland, to the arctic coastal tundra region where the Vikings had the first European settlement in North America. Such gorgeous landscape! It’s inspired a collection focused around the landscape of this area of Newfoundland and its geological cousins in Iceland and coastal Ireland. I’ve been lucky enough to visit all three places over the past 10 years. I find the remote and stark landscapes inspiring – nature has such beautiful lines and movement.

Secret Society in Mrs. Lincoln's Lace

Secret Society

The first part of the Northern Landscapes collection will be released mid-August but the first “teaser” pattern, Secret Society, will be released on July 6, 2015. For now, please visit the pattern page on Ravelry and favourite it.

Secret Society in Stone Soup Fingering

Knitting in the Garden

April25

I’m not one who makes many resolutions at New Year’s but I knew that for 2015 I wanted to spend more time doing activities in my garden – my oasis – this year rather than just plant things in it. If you check this out and read more, you will know how gardens can be made the best spot in your home.

View of my garden

View of my garden

I want to spend time simply being in it and enjoying the serenity with my cats, a cup of coffee and my knitting. While it may not be super warm yet in the most of the city (today’s high is 11C/56F), the sun lays in my garden all afternoon raising the temperatures significantly and making it an amazing place to knit in cooler weather. You can check out uslawnsfranchise.com who are responsible for setting up this beautiful garden.

Finley checking the garden for interlopers

Finley checking the garden for interlopers

In the height of summer I can’t knit here in the afternoon without shade or I risk heat stroke, but today, as I sit and enjoy the warm sun and singing birds, I’m reminded of what a treasure my garden really is. The tulips and daffodils are blooming, the cats are enjoying a nap in the sun and the neighbour’s wind chimes are playing in the breeze. For now I’m ignoring the weeding and clean-up and just enjoying my second Saturday afternoon in a row spent knitting in the garden.

Dwarf tulips

Dwarf tulips

It’s difficult to believe it’s been two months since I posted anything here or released a pattern. I have several that are almost ready to be released, they just need formatting and to be uploaded to Ravelry. So stay tuned for pattern releases coming soon. Most of my attention has been focused on this year’s large project, a collection of my designs being released in three stages. The first part of the collection will be released in August and a lot of the pieces are ready for photography. I’m very excited and will post in the next week to share more details. For now, I’ll leave you with this teaser photo, a pattern slated for release in July as a teaser for the collection – and today’s garden knitting project.

Any guesses what it might be when it's done?

Any guesses what it might be when it’s done?

Experimental Cowl

February17

Close up of Experimental Cowl
It’s been incredibly cold the past week in Ontario. Plus -30 Celsius could (including wind chill)! When it’s that cold you need lots of layers and really warm pieces to protect your skin from freezing. With temperatures dipping as low as they have, now seemed like the perfect time to release the Experimental Cowl.

I designed this cowl mid-January as an experiment. I was curious what cables would look like in super bulky yarn and I had this idea in my head. I wanted to do a centre cabled panel and then pick up off that to make a cowl in garter stitch. I had the perfect buttons from Melissa Jean (bought at Rhinebeck a few years ago) in my stash and I was sure the scale of the buttons would work well with the super bulky yarn.

Experimental Cowl showing alternate method to button it

I also wanted to create a stash busting pattern. The sample was knit with three strands of aran weight and one strand of worsted weight yarn held together, but any configuration of yarn that gets gauge would work. The pattern as written makes a fitted cowl but the pattern can easily be adjusted by working additional garter rows to make it longer.

P.S. Thanks Jen (model) and Shawn (photographer) for braving the cold temperatures to capture these amazing photos!

Variations on a Theme

February9

I suspect many designers do it. We create a design and then, much like a composer does, we continue to work with the stitch patterns over time – putting them together in different ways. Essentially, variations on a theme.

Sometimes this is because we aren’t done with a stitch pattern, it still has us in its grasps. Like a melody that haunts a composer, this stitch pattern isn’t ready to let us go. For me, that haunting stitch pattern is the one used in my Cartouche series (Cartouche Shawl, Cartouche Stole and Cartouche Slouchy Beret, if you’re curious). I’m pretty sure I’m not done with it yet.

Designs using cartouche stitch pattern

Cartouche Stole, Shawl & Beret

As I mentioned in the blog post announcing the release of Twisted Circles Cowl, the idea for it was sparked in early 2013, after I saw a picture of a stitch pattern that creates the illusion of circles, reminiscent of op-art, by the simple use of blocks of reverse stockinette stitch. I knew instantly that I wanted to use it in something but didn’t have an idea yet. Fast forward a year to a doodle made while I was on the phone and I suddenly found the inspiration to use the stitch pattern. I had been doodling hour glass shapes and it suddenly came to me – alternate sections of this circle pattern with a densely cabled pattern to create the hourglass shape. Do this multiple times in a circle to make a unique infinity cowl!

Twisted Circles Cowl, showing wide and narrow sections

Figuring out the shape I wanted essentially determined the construction. The cowl begins with a provisional cast on and is knit flat back and forth. The piece is finished by grafting the two ends together. The gently scalloped cable edging provides a beautiful frame to the face. All that was left was to figure out what yarn to use. I knew I wanted it to be a worsted yarn that had spring and loft and I love knitting with Indigodragonfly Yarn’s wonderful yarns and colourways. So I turned to Kim for advice and she pointed out the rich green colourway – “Is the Money Okay? Did they Hurt the Money? (Buffy)” – in their MerGoat Worsted base.

Twisted Circles Cowl

Twisted Circles Cowl

I had thought that would be the end of working with these stitch patterns until a friend presented a challenge – could I use the same stitch patterns to create a long, shallow shawl. The quick answer was yes, of course I could, but to make it something that would be attractive, wearable and yet could be written up as a pattern would be the challenge.

The shape was already determined what I had to do was determine how to put the stitch patterns together that would showcase the best qualities of each design. The added challenge was the differences in gauge between the two main patterns. In the cowl where the two stitch patterns alternated, these differences wouldn’t matter. In a longer piece, those differences could be significant, depending on where the stitch patterns were place.

Twisted Circles Shawl cover shot

Twisted Circles Shawl

During the design phase, I considered multiple shawl constructions methods; top down, bottom up, and even working the body first in the circle pattern followed by an attached edging of the dense cables. None felt quite right until I looked at the piece from a different angle and decided the construction needed to be worked from tip to tip. That way all three stitch patterns could be knit at the same time with periodic short rows are worked in the densely cabled sections to compensate for row gauge differences.

Twisted Circles Shawl, back view

I already knew this shawl was going to be published in Knitty and that it would be done in the luminous Clematis shade of Miss Babs Yowza – Whatta Skein. On to the knitting!

Thus ends the story of the Twisted Circles variations. Now I’m curious to see what variations the knitterati choose as they knit these patterns!

Twisted Circles Shawl

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