What a Week

TGIF, friends. It's a dark and rainy Friday here; a cold front is coming in, bringing an end to the summery weather and the arrival of Sweater Weather (I'm not sorry -- I want to wear my woolies!). Despite a calm week in terms of workload, it's been a long one.

First, an update on the washing machine: The technician came on Wednesday and, unsurprisingly, couldn't do anything because he didn't have the right parts. But the Mister, who isn't very handy around the house but is really good at Googling things, had found the parts online and ordered them, and when they showed up shortly after the technician's visit, he thought he'd try to see if he could replace them. I guess it was an easy fix, because shortly afterward, we were doing laundry again! So far, everything seems to be fine, and I'm reassured that the washer would not turn on if the door wasn't locking, so at least I don't have to worry about flooding the laundry room.

I have made only very small start to my new socks, but I think doing a tubular cast-on and ribbing in black yarn at night deserves a little recognition. I have a bit more ribbing still to do and then I'll start the colorwork.

My main focus the past several days has been spinning (I know, you're all shocked). I am hoping to finish up these singles today:

I still have not decided how I am going to ply these, though I have a little time before I have to decide. When I started spinning, I thought I would do a two ply, plying from both ends, but the singles are turning out rather fine, meaning a two ply would be a lace weight. So then I started considering chain-plying, which would get me a fingering. I posted a poll on my Instagram Stories with photos of plyback samples, and the majority of people seem to be in agreement with that.

Two ply on the left, chain-ply on the right

I will be working on finishing up the singles today in between a lot of baking -- my parents are headed to Florida tomorrow, so I offered to host Friday night dinner, and that means baking challah plus a cake for dessert (I'm trying out a recipe for Apple Cider Donut Cake!). Tomorrow, we're running (or running and walking) as a family in the neighborhood 5K that's a fundraiser for the local Boys & Girls Club -- it's returning after several years away due to the pandemic. This will be Mo's first race, and I told her I'd stick with her, so I'm sure this will be my worst time ever, but that's okay. We're also signed up for the local Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving, so this can be seen as a training run.

Finally, I did want to mention some design news! I have two patterns out with Knit Picks, one existing and one new. First, my Obfuscation pattern was chosen to be part of an Independent Designer Partnership Showcase, and I knit up a new sample using a rainbow set of mini skeins:

You can still buy the pattern directly from me, but now it's also available from Knit Picks (linked above), and you can conveniently purchase a mini skein set at the same time if you so choose.

Brand new is a pattern I've been keeping secret for a while: Funnel Vision.

This is a super cozy cowl knit in fluffy Swish Bulky yarn in brioche stitch. If you've mastered basic brioche and want to expand your skills a bit, this is the perfect pattern for it, as it introduces simple brioche increases. I envisioned this pattern as a cowl with a bit of a sweater attached -- there are raglan increases that mimic the top of a sweater yoke, and that shaping helps it sit perfectly atop your shoulders. Plus, you get a bit of extra fabric so you don't get that one spot where the cold wind can get in when you fasten your coat and there's that one area right on your chest that's uncovered. At the moment, this pattern is exclusive to Knit Picks, so you can get it individually (link above) or as part of the Déja Yarn: Single Color Stashbusters collection.

Spinning My Wheels

It took me a minute this morning to remember that it's Monday; having a Tuesday off is a bit weird, and if I were in charge, I would have shut down the office today as well. I expect that many people will be off today and not much will be happening at work, but I do have two meetings this morning.

We had a very wet weekend, with rain and storms on and off. I did manage to get out and walk both days, and it felt a bit like walking through soup because the humidity was so high. I had grand plans of spending Saturday afternoon at my wheel (as Saturday was the first day of the Tour de Fleece) but got caught up in cleaning bathrooms and doing laundry. Still, I managed to finish up the final bobbin of singles for my combo spin yesterday morning:

I spent about three hours total yesterday afternoon and evening plying, and I still have room on the bobbin (and will likely be filling a second bobbin as well!):

I'll be interested to see how much yardage is in the finished skeins. If I assume an average of about 400 yards per bag of fiber, then I should have somewhere in the range of 1,200 yards, but I would not be surprised if I have more than that. I will say that for projects like this, I am very glad to have my Super Skeiner so I don't have to kill my shoulder winding off the yarn using a niddy noddy!

Finally, I wanted to mention that I did manage to publish my sock pattern Friday afternoon, so you can find it on Ravelry and Payhip if you're interested.

If you're celebrating the 4th tomorrow, I hope you have a wonderful holiday! I'm not feeling especially patriotic this year, but I will certainly enjoy a day off from work and a chance to get together with family.

Friday Fiber Fun, Dishcloth Edition

We've made it to Friday, and today I have a dishcloth "recipe" to share with you. I don't feel right calling this pattern; I used the stitch count from the Ballband Dishcloth and a photo from another pattern to inspire me, so it's really more of an adaptation. But I really enjoyed this slip-stitch mosaic knitting and thought you might like it as well.

This pattern uses two colors of kitchen cotton; I used Lily Sugar'n Cream in Dazzle Blue and Overcast, about 45 yards/41 meters in total. You'll use a bit more of one color than another (because you work two more rows with one color compared to the other). If you reverse the colors, you will have plenty two knit two dishcloths with some leftovers with two balls of cotton.

My cloth is roughly 9 in. by 9 in./23 cm by 23 cm square and I used US 6/4.0 mm needles. You will use one color at a time, alternating every two rows.

With Color 1 (C1), cast on 45 sts.
Knit 1 row.

Row 1 (RS): With Color 2 (C2), k4, slip 1 with yarn in back (wyib), *k5, sl 1 wyib; rep from * to last 4 sts, k4.
Row 2 (WS): With C2, k4, sl 1 with yarn in front (wyif), *k5, sl 1 wyif; rep from * to last 4 sts, k4.
Row 3: With C1, k1, sl 1 wyib, *k5, sl 1 wyib; rep from * to last st, k1.
Row 4: With C1, k1, sl 1 wyif, *k5 sl 1 wyif; rep from * to last st, k1.
Rep Rows 1-4 nineteen more times, then rep Rows 1 and 2 once more. Break C2.

Next row (RS): With C1, k all sts.
Bind off all knitwise.

Weave in all ends and trim tails. Enjoy!

Pattern Release: Obfuscation

Dear readers (especially longtime readers), do you remember when I used to design and publish patterns almost every month? It seems like forever ago, and there's no denying that the pandemic has really dampened my creativity. I had to go back and check to see when I last published a pattern because I honestly couldn't remember (it was July, by the way). I'm just starting to feel the designing mojo coming back, and I think going to Rhinebeck really kick-started it.

Today's pattern, my first new release in four months, is a direct result of that trip. Remember that set of mini skeins I picked up at Indie Untangled? My brain started going the very night I bought them and I had a plan for them before I went to sleep. When I got home, I moved the idea from my brain onto my needles.

"Obfuscation" is the act of throwing something into shadow or darkening it. My idea for this cowl was that as each new color/mini skein was introduced, it would push the previous color to the background. I immediately thought of brioche stitch, as it's not only fun to knit and creates an extremely squishy fabric, it also creates a fun blended effect when worked in two colors.

Though this might look like a complicated knit, if you have knit basic brioche stitch before, you'll find that it's a piece of cake. The stitch is the same the whole way though; all that changes is whether you're using one color or two. In fact, I'd say the most complicated (or maybe fiddly is the better word) part of the pattern is weaving in your ends carefully so that the cowl can be fully reversible.

The pattern is written to use one six-skein set of fingering weight mini skeins (I used a set from McMullin Fiber Co.), but I've also included a customization section should you want to use scraps/leftovers or change the final dimensions. The beauty of this design is that it's immensely adaptable, and I plan to make another as an infinity cowl/long loop at some point!

You will find the pattern on both Ravelry and Payhip, and in both places it is on sale for $1 for the first week with the coupon code MINIBRIOCHE. 

I hope you like this one, and I certainly hope I have another new pattern to share sooner than four months from now!

Happy weekending!

Pattern Release: Intermingling

(Okay, I promise this is the last new pattern for a while and that the blog will go back to its normal content after this release!)

If you've been reading this blog for a while, you know that I have a thing for garter stitch. I keep coming back to it, whether it's for shawls or blankets. There's something very comforting to me about knitting every row and the squishy fabric you get. So for this shawl, I started with a basic garter triangle. The twist, and the part that makes this shawl a lot of fun, is in the edging. I introduced a contrast color for some textured stripes and a frilly picot bind off.

This is the third in my series of relatively simple top-down triangle shawls that emphasize texture (there's one more to go), and if I'm being completely honest, this might be my favorite. In terms of difficulty, this is a lot easier than it looks. The texture in the striped section is achieved through slipping stitches, so you're only working with one color at a time even though it might not look like it.

To knit Intermingling, you'll need a 100 g skein of sock yarn (somewhere in the neighborhood of 420-440 yards, though if your skein has a little less than that, you can adjust the shawl easily by working a smaller garter section) plus about 50-60 yards of sock yarn in a contrasting color. The shawl uses pretty basic stitches -- knit, purl, directional increases (m1L and m1R), and slip stitches -- and the only notions you'll need are four stitch markers and a yarn needle to weave in ends. As written, you'll get a shawl that's approximately 46 in. wide across the top edge and about 21 in. deep, but I could see this easily being worked in a heavier yarn for a much more substantial shawl. Picking the colors is both the fun and the hard part, but I think this pattern looks great in bright, cheerful colors (take a look at this test knitter's photos for evidence!).

I had a lot of fun knitting up this sample, and I think I might need to do another -- perhaps in some handspun. I hope you enjoy it!

A Do-over and an Announcement

Shortly after I published my last post, I sat down to work on Rainbow's sweater. I was almost done with the waist decreases when I realized that somehow, no doubt in a haze of exhaustion, I'd thrown in an extra random decrease way back near the beginning. There was no way to fix it except to rip back. Fortunately, it was just stockinette, so while it took some time to get back to where I was, there was no patterning to keep track of or chart to refer to. As of last night, the body (up to the underarms) is done and the first sleeve has been started.

I have a feeling the sleeves will go very quickly, so I should be able to get to the fun part of this sweater -- the colorwork yoke -- later this week. That section is going to take some thought, though, because it's stranded colorwork that's worked flat, something I have not done before. I suppose I could add a steek, which I might end up doing just to keep my tension even.

In an unrelated note, this Wednesday is Halloween, which means it's been seven years since I started this blog. Can you believe it? I started it on a whim, when I was between jobs and was spending way too much time on the Internet reading other blogs (which I'd only recently discovered), but I'm so glad that I've kept it up all these years. Were it not for the blog, I wouldn't have met some great friends and probably wouldn't have developed as much as I have as a knitter.

In honor of the occasion, I'm having a little pattern sale. Starting at midnight on Wednesday (12 a.m. eastern), all of my patterns will be 25% off for the following week (until 11:59 p.m. eastern on Tuesday, November 6). Simply enter the code BLOGGING7 when you check out on Ravelry or by clicking here. This code is good for all my patterns and can be used more than once. This is just a little way of saying thank you to all of you who have been reading and commenting during these last seven years!

Tiled In

When the Mister and I were redoing our bathroom last year, we spent a lot of time looking at tiles -- tiles for the floor, tiles for the shower walls, tiles to cap the other tiles, etc. The tiles we ultimately picked for the floor came in a set pattern that reminded me very much of the floors in the old bathrooms of my childhood home and the home of my best friend growing up, who lived across the street. It was nothing fancy, just a simple geometric composition of rectangles and squares, but it was so appealing to me. Naturally, when I sketching out some ideas for some stranded colorwork patterns, it made its way into my sketches.

About the same time, I'd received an order from Knit Picks with several skeins of their new Chroma yarn, which has long color repeats with gradual transitions. It was only a matter of time before the tile pattern and the yarn came together to form the Tiled In Cowl.

This cowl is worked in two colors, but because of the color transitions in the Chroma, it looks like there are many more. (It looks just as nice in two solid colors, too.) The top and bottom are sewn hems that are achieved through a provisional cast on at the beginning (which is later undone and worked together with the stitches on the needle) and grafting the live stitches at the end.

Worked in a light fingering weight yarn, this makes a cozy yet lightweight accessory -- one that I've discovered also makes a cozy headband in a pinch! It's worked in the round with minimal finishing, and the pattern includes a photo tutorial for sewing down the live stitches at the end.



I've been working on this pattern for quite some time, so I'm very excited to share it with you today. It's now available for download on Ravelry.

I can also finally share these pictures with you -- when I was trying to take a few more shots for the pattern, a certain someone wanted to get in on the action.

Finished Stuff Friday

It's Friday, I haven't blogged in a while, and I haven't been doing much that's blog-worthy or inspiring, so I thought I'd take a page from Jenn's book and at least show you something that is finished. It's a mitten.

It still needs to be blocked (it just came off the needles last night), but this is the second in a pair. The pattern, of course, is my own; this sample is done in the medium size without the picot hem. I used Jamieson's Shetland Spindrift for these, though I still have to weigh the remains to see how much yardage I used. It's definitely more rustic and fuzzy than the Knit Picks I used for the pattern sample, but this yarn is kind of like velcro in that it really sticks to itself, so I know these are going to felt up nicely with wear. The reason I can't show you a complete set is that the other mitten is now a shop sample at Natural Stitches, which is also now carrying the pattern! So if you're local, you can stop by to fondle the other mitten if you'd like.

The mitten knitting has been done primarily during my lunch hour at work because my evenings have been filled with mad spinning to try to get as much done before the contest ends as I possibly can. I'll save the spinning update until Sunday, though.

This afternoon, however, I got to leave work early because of a power outage, so I'm going to spend a couple of hours working on a sample/prototype for a new design. Here's a peek:

Happy weekend!

Pattern for You: Baby Ribs

As promised, the following is the pattern for those baby socks the Yarn Harlot liked so much. I'm calling them Baby Ribs (and I'm taking no responsibility whatsoever if you get the Chili's song stuck in your head).

This pattern assumes that you have knit socks before and are familiar with sock construction. However, if you encounter a problem, please feel free to e-mail me and I'll do my best to help you through it.

Baby Ribs: the pattern

Materials:
US 1/2.25 mm dpns, set of four
Leftover sock yarn (I used Knit Picks Essential, approximately 1/4 of a skein or 60 yds.)

Gauge:
8 stitches per inch

Abbreviations:
st(s): stitch(es)
k: knit
p: purl
sl: slip
ssk: slip, slip, knit
k2tog: knit 2 together
p2tog: purl 2 together

Leg:
Cast on 40 sts and distribute them evenly over 3 needles. Join for working in the round, being careful not to twist. Work (k2 p2) rib around for 20 rounds.

Heel:
Set up for heel:
K 9 sts on needle 1, turn.
Sl 1, p 19, turn.
Redistribute sts so that 20 heel sts are on needle 1 and 20 instep sts are held on other two needles. Work heel flap back and forth on needle 1.

Heel flap:
Row 1: Sl 1, k 19
Row 2: Sl 1, p 19
Work Rows 1 and 2 ten times total.

Turn heel:
Row 1: Sl 1, k 10, ssk, k1, turn.
Row 2: Sl 1, p 3, p2tog, p1, turn.
Row 3: Sl 1, k to one stitch before gap, ssk, k 1, turn.
Row 4: Sl 1, p to one stitch before gap, p2tog, p1, turn.
Repeat Rows 3 and 4 twice more, until all sts have been worked. 12 sts remain.

Gussets:
Set up for gussets:
With needle 1, k across 12 heel sts, then pick up and k 11 sts on side of heel flap.
With a new needle (now needle 2), work across all instep sts in rib pattern as established.
With a new needle (now needle 3), pick up and knit 11 sts on other side of heel flap and k 6 heel sts from needle 1.
You will now have 17 sts each on needles 1 and 3 and 20 instep sts on needle 2 (54 sts total).
*If desired, an extra stitch may be picked up between the end of the stitches at the side of the heel flap and the beginning of the instep stitches to prevent a hole. If you do this, just be sure to work two additional gusset decrease rounds.

Gusset decreases:
Row 1: K to last 3 sts on needle 1, k2tog, k1; work instep sts in pattern on needle 2; k 1, ssk, k to end on needle 3.
Row 2: K all sts on needles 1 and 2, work in pattern on needle 2.
Repeat Rows 1 and 2 six more times, until 10 sts remain on needles 1 and 3 (40 sts total).

Foot:
Work 8 rounds even, keeping needles 1 and 3 in stockinette and needle 2 in rib pattern.
Work one more round, knitting all sts.

Toe:
Row 1: K to last 3 sts on needle 1, k2tog, k1; on needle 2, k1, ssk, k to last 3 sts, k2tog, k1; k1, ssk, k to end on needle 3.
Row 2: K all sts
Repeat rows 1 and 2 three more times (16 sts decreased; 24 sts remain). Then repeat Row 1 only three more times (12 sts remain -- 3 sts each on needles 1 and 3 and 6 sts on needle 2).
Using needle 3, k across sts on needle 1 so that all 6 sole sts are now on one needle.

Cut yarn, leaving an 8-10" tail.

Use kitchener stitch to graft toe stitches. Weave in all ends and block as desired.

Baby Ribs Socks look as adorable on stuffed daschunds as they do on babies.