Welly's Socks

What makes you think of summer? Change from pants to shorts? Pulling the cover off the grill? For me, it's ice cream. As soon as the weather starts to warm I want all different kinds of ice cream. So when I saw the Mint Chip colorway from Jadawoo Designs I knew that I needed to design with it. 

From Jessica's gorgeous wool came the Welly's Socks, a knitted interpretation of an ice cream cone! Welly's is a top down sock pattern with cables, a contrast heel, and helical knitting. The cable is fully written out for all three sizes which makes it so simple to knit. 

The cables are 1x1 crosses which made it easy to knit them without a cable needle. The heel used is a Modified Eye of Partridge Heel Flap which is always eye catching. Before starting the toe the helical knitting technique is used which is a single row striping technique that doesn't require any slip stitches! To me, it looks like ice cream cone, swirled ice cream, and then topped with chocolate. 

There are kits available at my Etsy shop that is for the yarn and a matching sock bag! So cute right! I was just so excited for this collab that I wanted to make it even more special. 

Welly's is a pattern that will work great with tonal, solid, or speckled yarn. I think a variegated would overtake the cables but any sock yarn will work! With the cable pattern across the top of the foot sock is a tighter fit. If you prefer less negative ease then I would suggest going up a cast on size or needle size. 

Valley Snow

 Ya'll should get excited because this pattern is amazing and has wonderful memories that inspired it! Valley Snow is a traditional triangle shape that highlights three different sections of the same lace pattern. 

Let me tell you a the inspiration behind my new shawl pattern. There's an urban legend where I grew up in Sacramento Valley that it only snows once every 10 years. In my 28 years of living there I believe it snowed twice. What did happen every year is the dropping of the almond blossoms which cover the ground like snow. Valley Snow was inspired by the slow drop of petals from the almond trees; the only snow that valley ever really saw. 

For the collaboration I reached out to From Me to Yarn with the inspiration photos below and explained what I was looking for in colors and what shape/patterns I would be using to evoke the feelings and nature of falling petals. 

I was looking for the soft colors of the petals and then slowly getting darker as the shawl gets larger and more lace is added to each section. This color change would represent more and more petals falling through out the season. This is what Jessie sent to me and it was perfect! 

With these colors and the inspiration of falling petals I started working on my design! This was one of the first times that I started with a full drawn picture of the shawl will look like and represent. Usually I'm a bit more freeform with my designing. The end result looks so amazing and accurate than what I imagined! 

Valley Snow uses a fingering weight yarn with approx 900 yards total. If you want the same colors I used Jessie has a kit in her shop with a free shipping code! If a kit isn't in your budget or you already have yarn in stash than any fingering weight would work, though probably not a self striping. I think that a solid or a tonal color would look amazing and really show off the lace transition.