Jacqueline

Tags

buttons, cardigan, pattern, retro

I am so excited to be releasing my newest pattern, a retro double-breasted cardigan called Jacqueline! I think the inspiration for the name is pretty obvious – I was definitely going for a vintage Jackie O look.

The body and sleeves of Jacqueline are knitted from the bottom up and joined at the underarms to work a traditional raglan yoke. A turned hem is worked at the bottom of the sleeves and body to create a clean edge. Twisted ribbing travels up the front of the sweater and six buttons make the closure. A fold-over collar (worked seamlessly from the body) gives a sweet and cozy finish to the sweater. Three-quarter length sleeves make this a fall appropriate garment, but could easily be lengthened for colder weather.

The pattern is offered in nine sizes, ranging from a finished bust measurement of 32 to 64 inches. The sweater was designed to be worn with 2″ of positive ease at the bust. Jacqueline calls for a worsted or aran weight yarn and I used Lorna’s Laces Worsted Solid in Pine for mine. The required gauge is 18 sts/24 rows per 4″ in Stockinette stitch and 24 sts/24 rows per 4″ in twisted 1×1 rib. At such a large gauge, this sweater knits up very quickly!

The pattern is available for 6.50 (USD) as a download in my Ravelry Store or through Paypal.  Just click below!

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Some Booties for a New Baby

Tags

baby, booties

One of my lifelong friends recently had her second daughter and I pretty much went on a baby-knitting-spree! I will admit, this is partly because this is the first girl baby to come along in a while and I really, really wanted to knit some baby girl stuff. It’s also really special to knit for this baby girl because her sister, born a few years ago when I first started knitting, just happens to be the first person in this world that I ever knit anything for. Back then, I went to Hobby Lobby and picked up one of those Lion Brand “pound of love” skeins in yellow and knit the baby pattern that came on the back of the ball band (it was simply stockinette and seed stitch stripes with a seed stitch border and a little hood). I also decided that I wanted to knit a little baby hat, and, in what I can only see now as foreshadowing of my design ambitions (though I didn’t see it that way at the time), I decided to make up the pattern myself. I ended up with a simple ribbed hat, but, get this – I had to seam up the decreases at the crown because I didn’t quite comprehend that I could make those little triangular shapes at the top of the hat all at the same time! I ended up with this flat piece of knitting with a bunch of points (like one of those paper crowns you get from restaurants as a kid) that I sewed up. Oh my goodness. It was a hat in the end though! It even had a pom pon!

In any case, I have much more experience now, and I’ve knit a few things for this new baby. I’ve been wanting to knit the Saartje’s booties pattern by Saartje de Bruijn for a long time now, so I was very excited to have the opportunity to knit these for a baby girl. I had some pink yarn left over from a baby sweater (that I will post about soon), so I decided to make a set.

Saartje’s pattern is easy to follow, but I decided to knit the booties in the round. Quite a few people have written up seamless versions of this pattern on Ravelry, so if you’re interested in doing the same try a search over there. I didn’t use anyone else’s pattern and just knitted them up the way it made sense to me – I used Judy’s magic cast on to eliminate the seam at the bottom of the foot, then worked the same foot shaping outlined in the pattern.

The yarn is Sweet Fiber Yarn Super Sweet Sock in Bloom. I’m in love with these little baby shoes! The light pink buttons are the same as those on the matching sweater, and I just think the whole effect is too cute!

 

Winter 2012 Twist Collective – Zenith

Tags

designing, pattern, twist collective, zenith

Photo copyright Carrie Bostick Hoge and Twist Collective

My very first pattern published in twist collective! I’m still pretty giddy from the whole thing, even though the pattern was accepted months ago and I’ve had to keep my quiet about it for, like, ever. When I sent in my submission, I had actually already worked up the pattern and knitted a sweater for myself, but I also sent in a picture of my swatch and my sketch.
You can see that as the pattern evolved from the sketch I decided not to make the collar quite as deep and I shortened the ribbing on the sleeves a bit.  After the pattern was accepted, a few more changes were made in the next version and now we have Zenith! My main inspiration for the sweater was the super-trendy chevron thing that is going on right now and I wanted to repeat that pattern for a subtle texture all over the cardigan. I was also going through a vertical twisted ribbing phase when I designed this sweater and you know I can never resist a shawl collar.

I started with figuring out how I wanted to work the chevrons, and I settled on a simple purl bump pattern. It took me a while to decide exactly how to do the ribbed collar because I needed the edge to look nice on both sides since it would be folded over. I finally decided to go with an i-cord edge that is worked simultaneously with the body.

As for the construction of the sweater, it is knit in 5 pieces (6 if you count the belt) and seamed. The sleeves are set in, and the shoulder seams are finished using a three-needle bind off. The ribbing for the collar is worked past the shoulder (imagine you place the shoulder stitches on a holder and then continue to knit only the ribbing so that you will have a strip of ribbing that extends past the shoulders) on both sides, then the collar pieces are joined at the center back neck with kitchener’s stitch and finally the whole collar is sewn to the back neck. I know that’s a long explanation, but I promise it makes sense as you’re doing it!

I’m so excited about this pattern and I really hope people like it and enjoy knitting it! The pattern is written for nine sizes, ranging from 34 3/4″ to 67 3/4″ bust. The yarn I used for the twist sample was the lovely elann.com Peruvian Sierra Aran in Plum Heather (be sure to check out the yarn website where Zenith is the featured pattern for this yarn and there is another picture of the sweater!) If you’d like to take a look at even more pictures, head on over to the pattern page on twist collective. And don’t forget to look at the other amazing patterns in this issue!

Photo copyright Carrie Bostick Hoge and Twist Collective

Handspun Thorpe

Tags

handspun, hat, spinning

My first finished object from my own handspun! You may remember a few posts a looong time ago about me trying to learn to spin, and that I was at one time working on a really lovely batt from Brains and Beauty Yarn. Just to recap, the batt was BFL, silk, sari silk and angelina and was called Autumn Glory. Well, I finished spinning it and it is my best finished handspun yet!  And it was actually kind of fun this time (less frustratingly slow).

I didn’t have that much yarn in the end, so I decided to make something small and I thought Kirsten Kapur’s Thorpe would be perfect – if I only had enough for the top of the hat, I could finish the garter stitch portion in a different color. As it turned out, though, I had enough for the whole hat and just needed to work the crochet in a contrasting yarn (some left over plymouth yarn homestead from a long time ago (like, before this blog existed) when I knitted a wedding blanket for some good friends).

I’m so excited with how this hat turned out – the yarn knitted up very evenly (victory!) and the colors are gorgeous! I also couldn’t resist including some gigantic pom pons at the end of my braids since this was already a really fun accessory. The pattern is worked from the top down and has great little details like the garter stitch edge being longer in the back than the front. It’s a super simple knit, but really fun and I love the contrasting crochet on the edge. Here’s Sophie enjoying the hat (I tried to get her when she was swatting at it, but this was the best I could do).

I would highly recommend the pattern, and I just have to say that it is really exciting to see something that started out as a big pile of fluff end up as a wearable object! Obviously Sophie loves the hat, however my family has advised me that I should never wear it like this (otherwise, I think they like it too).

On the Bandwagon – Color Affection

Tags

blocking, crescent shawl, garter stitch, madelinetosh, shawl, stripes

A few months ago I was browsing on Ravelry and spotted the most amazing shawl; a beautiful combination of colorwork (in stripes!) and a graceful asymmetric crescent. I knew I had found a real gem and seconds later I looked at the project count and realized I was a little bit late to the party and that pretty much everyone else had also discovered this gem. It’s the most recent (in my memory) in the everyone-must-knit-this genre and I totally get it – this pattern is awesome!  It’s the amazing Color Affection by Veera Välimäki.

Despite the shape being so interesting, I knew the color choice was going to be the real star in this project and as soon as I saw the pattern the only thing I could think of was Madelinetosh. I also showed the pattern to Sasha’s mom and then she could only think about knitting it in Madelinetosh too, and luckily we were together so we could go in search of our Madelinetosh almost immediately! I chose tosh sock in a moody palette of grey, purplish-grey, and dark purple (clearly some of my go to colors) and Sasha’s mom chose a beautiful mix of fall colors. (The actual names of my colors were dust bowl, kale and dahlia.)

Color Affection is a lovely pattern, but I’m not going to lie to you and say those final rows don’t get long! However – I’m typically in heaven if I’ve got a sea of garter stitch ahead of me and if you throw in something like color changes to sweeten the deal, it’s perfect. Keeping track of the increases got a little bit tedious, but wasn’t too hard to pay attention to. I did decide (as suggested by many knitters before me) to add a yarn over between the first two stitches that I then dropped on the return row so that the edge wouldn’t get too tight.

I wet blocked my shawl just by laying it out in the shape I wanted on the bed (I wasn’t looking to stretch out the garter stitch that much) and ended up with a lovely shape with these little curls at the end that hang down when I’m wearing the shawl. (This is me trying to get Sophie to come over and be in the picture . . . )

I’m absolutely in love with the finished product and I’ve been wearing it everywhere! There’s actually a lot more fabric to this shawl than my usual go-to’s (these two), so I find it really easy to wear (I’m not worried about it slipping out of place) and super cozy. And did I mention the stripes? I’m such a sucker for stripes! And Madelinetosh . . .

Kauni Wrap

Tags

blocking, color, kauni, shawl, stripes, wooly, wrap

My first time working with Kauni! Sasha’s mom and I stopped in at a few yarn shops over last Christmas (I know, I know, I need to get these finished objects blogged about in a more timely manner!) and happened to see one of the shop’s employees knitting a large shawl with two colors of Kauni striped together in a feather and fan pattern called the Wiggle Wrap by Sally Brandl.

I’ve been wanting to work with Kauni for a while, and I have always loved striping Noro, so I thought this would be a good pattern to start with. Of course it took a while for Sasha’s mom and I to choose our colors, and in the end I went with the same colorways as the sample we had seen (EFL and EZ) – probably because it was right in front of me and I knew it would be gorgeous!

I’ll be honest, a lot of knitting goes into this project! It’s a nice wide stole, so you are looking at some long rows, but the pattern repeat is easy to remember and the thought of the next color change keeps you going. Since it’s wool it’s super warm, and (possibly my favorite thing about Kauni), it smells wonderfully wooly! Great for wrapping up in the crisp fall weather!

As for blocking the piece, I hope this isn’t a horrible sin against wool, but I decided to steam iron it! I spread the fabric out on top of a towel on my table and then placed a damp cloth over the fabric and ironed over the cloth. In the end I got a beautifully flat and regular piece of fabric which ended up nice and light with almost a drape-y quality.

Tweedy Hawthorne

Tags

crescent shawl, scarf, shawl, tweed, twist collective

A couple of Christmases ago my friend Kristen gifted me two skeins of a very pretty purple tweed that she got on her trip to Ireland. It took me a while to figure out exactly what I wanted to do with it, but eventually I came to the realization that it was meant to be a Hawthorne. Hawthorne is a gorgeous shawl pattern from twist collective that has a shallow semi-circular shape and just looks so cozy with lace and garter stitch. Both the pattern and the yarn had been percolating around my head for a while with me not quite sure what to do with either until one day it all came together and I realized my Irish Donegal tweed was perfect for this lovely pattern.

This shawl has an interesting construction – you cast on at the lace edge, work the lace section and then use short rows to create the semicircular shape. The pattern is very well written and easy to follow, but, through no fault of the pattern, it gave me tons of trouble because I didn’t have quite enough yarn to complete the garter stitch section as written, but I wanted to use every bit of it – which means I reknitted that section, like, five times to try to get a combination that gave me enough yarn to finish, but still had the deepest garter stitch section possible. I literally had no yarn left over! After casting off, I had maybe one and a half inches to weave in!

I love this shawl, it is so cozy and the yarn softened up quite a bit after blocking. The different construction of the shawl was really fun – this was my first of the new super popular crescent shaped shawls. I really love the shape and I think it is ideal for casually looping around your neck a couple of times. Very, very pretty. Thanks for the yarn Kristen!

Colorwork Inspiration

Time for some more fair isle inspiration, this time from some delicious looking cookies! The image is from Pure Vegetarian by Lakshmi. The fair isle pattern is a slightly modified version of one found in the Ivy League Vest by Eunny Jang.

NOTE: The pattern repeat is 12 sts.

Colorwork Inspiration

Tags

colorwork, colorwork inspiration, fair isle, pretty

As part of my daily online reading, there are a few design-y blogs that I go to (they’re listed on the sidebar under Design & Inspiration). One of these blogs, Creature Comforts, has a wonderful series called “Color Inspiration Daily” where the blogger, Ez, finds a beautiful picture and selects a few colors from it to make an inspirational palette. Well, after looking at her lovely posts for a long time (2, 3 years?), it dawned on me that this might be the perfect way for me to overcome some of my fear when it comes to choosing colors for colorwork! So I decided to give it a shot and create my own “Colorwork Inspiration” series. For the inaugural post, I’m going to rely a little bit on my muse and use an image that Ez featured in her own series,  pulling my own colors out of the image for the fair isle pattern. The original image comes from Sarah Winward of Honey of a Thousand Flowers, and pattern inspiration is from Knit Picks Corrie Fair Isle Vest. Alright, here goes . . .

NOTE: I’ve repeated the pattern here so that the color palette has more impact, but the pattern repeat is actually only 6 stitches + 1 extra stitch.

Fletched

Hello All! Today I’ve got one of the new patterns I’ve been working on lately – a slender shawl named Fletched. It is worked from side to side and gentle shaping gives the shawl a slightly wider center that tapers off at both ends. The edge is accented by a line of arrows that (I think) add a little bit of whimsy.

I used the same Madelinetosh sock in Winter Wheat that I used for my grandmother’s Girasole. That’s two posts in a row with tosh sock so I think it’s going to look like I only use one yarn! And you know what? If I had to pick one yarn for the rest of my life, it might be Madelinetosh sock! (Or maybe Rowan felted tweed? Ok, thankfully I don’t have to make this decision.)

The shawl is quite slender – maybe it could be called a fat scarf. Either way, it’s an easy modification to make the shawl thicker by upping the frequency of the increases and decreases. Since the edge of the shawl is stockinette (with a garter stitch border), I did experience a little bit of rolling, but with a good blocking I don’t think it’s too much of a problem. One of the things I really like about the arrow motif is that you can see the shape of the arrow – either the point of the arrow or the indentation of the “feather” – at the ends of the shawl.

Worked in a lightweight yarn (and in my case, a light color) I think this is the perfect shawl/scarf for cool summer nights, and it’s a little bit trendy thanks to certain recent cultural phenomena (Katniss forever!). The gauge is approximately 6 sts/inch in stockinette stitch on size 3 US needles. This can of course be changed, though, and I’m sort of curious what this pattern would look like in a heavier yarn for the fall.

I hope you like it! The pattern is available for 5.00 (USD) through Ravelry or Paypal, below. If you do decide to knit Fletched, I always welcome feedback and questions, so please let me know how you like it!

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