Hi everyone, it’s Sarah again. Since I’m practically snowed-in at home in Scotland I thought I might do a bit more blog hijacking and show you a few things I’ve finished recently. There’s been lots of knitting going on and Ysolda came over to help with what turned out to be a very cold photoshoot!
This shawl is something I’ve wanted to make for a while, its Simple Things by Mary-Heather Cogar. I tried a couple of different yarns but settled on this delicious pink merino/cashmere yarn, Cariad Yarn Dale. Its a fantastic pattern for showing off a special sock yarn, I think it would look amazing in handspun too. I love the eyelet ridge detail and so added an extra repeat to use the entire skein. I managed to knit the whole thing in just two days, so it would be perfect if you were looking for a last minute Christmas gift.
I also managed to finish some more patterns from Whimisical Little Knits 2, now I only have two left to make. I promise that I have total free will on my pattern choices – there’s no arm-twisting going on here!
First was the Damson I knit while we were away on tour and finally got around to blocking, in Handmaiden Casbah in the Peridot colourway.
Then I made another pair of Snapdragon flip-tops. I’ve made these a few times for samples and as gifts so it was time for own pair. These were made in Easyknits 100% Organic Merino in the O-negative colourway.
And my Peaks Island Hood, knit in Rowan Coocon was by far the warmest thing to model! I knit this while visiting my mum in the Highlands and it was the perfect thing to keep me cosy when walking dogs on the beach. I’m blaming this one on the knitters at Once a Sheep in Gourock – I wore the original sample for a while in the shop while Ysolda was doing a book signing, and before I knew it I’d been persuaded to make one myself (I don’t think I needed much convincing.)
Secret knitting on Ysolda’s Christmas present continues, but isn’t going to be finished on time unfortunately. Hopefully I’ll be able to reveal all in the New Year!
I’ve been working on a modified version of one of my soon to be released patterns, because I thought it might be fun to show it in a slightly different style. This got me thinking about how much I love to see the ways that people modify my patterns, while I’m designing something I always end up thinking of so many different possible directions for the design and of course it’s only ever realistic for me to actually follow one or two of those. I also love how eager people are to share their pattern modifications and how easy Ravelry makes that. Sometimes people worry that I won’t like people changing my patterns, that I’ll feel precious about my vision, but that couldn’t be further from the truth – if I didn’t want people to make them their own I probably wouldn’t be publishing patterns! So here are a few of my favourite pattern mod projects, at least of the one’s I’ve actually seen – you’ve been busy, there are 500 pages to go through on Ravelry and I sadly haven’t yet had time to look through them all.
I get a lot of inspiration from children’s clothing, and have a rather childish style at times myself, so it’s hardly surprising that some of my sweaters look wonderful downsized – like this adorable toddler Coraline.
Two of the most popular modifications to Vivian are a collar and buttonbands .
Sometimes something as simple as changing the arrangement of colours slightly can add a lot to a design, I love the little stripe of the contrast colour on the edging of this Little Birds, alongwith the subtly alternating bird shades.
Here’s a cute Elijah with some contrast colour added with fabric, I love his tusks!
http://www.ravelry.com/projects/geniphyre/coraline
I quite often see cardiganized versions of pullovers, but it doesn’t seem quite so common to go in the other direction. I love these two different
ways of turning Coraline into a pullover though.
An extra special Damson with pretty lace panels incorporated into the existing edging pattern, Jill who made this even kindly shared the chart she made.
Another adorable mini Ysolda pattern mod, the chart from Little Birds is easy to insert into a basic pattern like this little boy’s vest.
Those were just a few of the many, many creative things that knitters have made from my patterns, if you’ve changed things up a little (or a lot!) in your project I’d love to see. Or maybe your inspired by what someone else has done to try making a similarly modified version of a pattern – if so, the Ravelry project notes are your friend. I love how helpful people are with their notes and here’s a tip – you can find projects with particularly helpful notes by choosing “helpful notes” in the dropdown box on the projects page for a particular pattern.
I’m delighted to announce my new collection Whimsical Little Knits Book 2. Once again you can pre-order and receive a pdf of a new pattern in the collection every week. The final book will ship on or before November the 1st and you can choose just the digital version or both the printed and digital versions.
The first pattern in the new collection is Damson and it’s available right now.
Hope you like it!
