Spring Socks for me!

I love to knit a pair of socks for the coming of a new season and during the season. Seeing as it's April 2023 it's Spring sock time! 

I picked a pastel rainbow self-striping yarn distributed by Lang Yarns from stash and I had so much fun knitting it. The yarn is Super Soxx Color in color 901.0199 (I don't have an affiliation to this shop but I wanted to link it in case you'd like some.) I loved every time the color started to change, it was like a small push to get to the next section. 

The yarn is definitely a hardy wool, not soft to the touch but such hardwearing socks are my favorite! They wear well and don't stretch out as quickly as the softer handdyed yarns. 

The heel was pulled from my leftovers stash and seemed to match perfectly. Using a vanilla pattern and adding in a heel flap a had 33 grams of yarn left so my mom will be knitting a pair of shorty socks with a contrast heel and toe. 

Do you like to knit with seasonal colors? Is it usually socks or a larger project? 

Playground Shawl

It's April of 2023 and I haven't published a shawl pattern yet! Well, worry no more because the first shawl of 2023 is here! Playground shawl is a top down triangle shawl that uses four different stitch patterns to show off your skills and keep you interested. 

Why Playground? Have you ever watched kids on a playground, how they bounce from one activity to another as they see fit? Playground Shawl is very similar! As soon as you start to get bored with a section you are on to the next one! 

Playground has broken rib, garter, a simple lace, and half twisted rib and each section keeps your needles flying! The yarn is a fingering weight with ~800 yards used. So whatever you are comfortable having around your neck will work. 

Little Pops Hat and Cowl

Do little things make you happy? A small sticker, a tiny tapestry needle? For me, they totally do. Little Pops Hat and Cowl set brings out those tiny pops of color to make you ridiculously happy! 

Little Pops Duo is a meditative knit with stockinette in the round interspersed with a slip stitch round that is easy to memorize and breaks up the knitting. 

This set can be made as a matching set to fit your winter wardrobe or switch it up and make them fraternal twins, change which color is the contrast and which one is the main color. 

The sample was made with a neutral color as the base and a barber poled gradient, a fun way to add hand spun or a similar yarn to your knit. Don't have a hand spun yarn? Use scraps or a variegated yarn as the contrast color! 

The only requirement for this set is to have the main yarn be comfy on your skin. You can even play around with the weight of the yarn. The main color for the samples is a fingering weight but the contrast color is classified as a sport weight. What do you think you're going to use? 

Two of a Kind Cowl

When the cold really hits all I'm inspired to design is cowls. I want that snuggly wool and cashmere on my neck, tucked in my coat, and keeping out the damp chill from the ocean. I'm very much a 'design what inspires you' designer so my pattern for February is a cowl design! 

Two of a Kind is a two skein cowl using complimentary color fingering weight yarn and mosaic knitting! Two of a Kind uses provisional cast on and icord bind off for a polished and structured finish. The mosaic pattern is easy to knit and simple to memorize, perfect TV or social knitting! 

Two of a Kind uses 75 grams of two different colors, I used two colors of Miss Babs Yummy 2-Ply a 100% Merino yarn. For my colors I chose a speckled and solid, my speckled was a yellow base with speckles of green, teal, and a bit of purple. My solid is a teal that matches perfectly and really brings out the teal speckles. 

My recommendation is two fingering weight yarns you are comfortable wearing around your neck and that you like the color combination of. If you have slightly less than 75 grams of yarn you can definitely still knit Two of a Kind it will be slightly shorter or you can decrease the cast on by 10 stitches (the amount that is in a repeat) 

I had a few testers knit with a solid and a gradient/self striping and their projects look amazing! Fun color changes without the ends to weave in, gotta love that! Not loving any combos in your stash? Check out Miss. Babs Duo Sets, combinations of two colors the dyer has already put together! 

Made a Stop at Starlight Knitting

Have you ever traveled through Portland OR before? If you have and you didn't make a stop at Starlight Knitting Society then you are missing out! Starlight Knitting Society is a gorgeous yarn shop on the outer areas of Portland that carries a variety of hand dyed and commercially dyed yarn. 

                                               

We stopped at Starlight as part of our (my Mom and I) trip to Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival. We like to make the drive part of the adventure so the whole trip is fun, not just the parts other than the driving. 

Starlight is in a gorgeous building with tons of light and has a very welcoming environment, the workers area always helpful but leave us to explore. 

I think that the shop carries quite a few yarns/brands that I don't find in a lot of other shops. I hope you get to make a stop here soon! 

Knit Ornaments

Just a quick little update on a fun project I just finished up. I signed up for a few fiber holiday swaps and for one I needed to knit an object for someone not send them yarn (which is the usual.) So I dug into my stash of leftover sock yarns and knit an ornament! 

I currently have no pattern written for this as I was just increasing and decreasing around the shape but I think next holiday season I'll have a variety of patterns for these little plastic ornaments! I essentially knit a sleeve/sock for these plastic ornaments I purchased from Michaels. There are a variety of shapes and I think I'll have recipes for a few of the different shapes in the pattern. 

Leannan Shawl

Two of my more popular patterns are the Leannan Cowl and the Leannan Socks, so I'm so happy to introduce the Leannan Shawl! Leannan Shawl is a fingering weight pattern that uses a slip stitch cable that is fun to knit and easy to memorize. The shawl is a triangle shawl that has the cable run down one side and garter across the rest of the body. 

The sample shawl was knit with Western Sky Knits Magnolia Sock, which is a merino/cashmere/nylon mix, so luxurious to knit and wear ❤️ 

The shawl used ~1,100 of yarn or about 2.5 skeins of fingering weight yarn. One of the test knitters knit it in a heavier weight yarn and it came out gorgeous. If you are interested in using a heavier weight yarn then you just need to adjust your needle size. 

I think that Leannán Shawl would be a great opportunity to practice/lean to cable without a cable needle. Cabling without a cable needle definitely makes the cable rows more enjoyable and knit up quicker. I like this tutorial to take a look at how to knit cables without a cable needle. 

The sample yarn is a variegated/speckled yarn so there is quite an assortment of yarns and dye styles that will work for this pattern. As are typical/special about my patterns you only need to pick a yarn that you find comfortable around your neck to knit with, it doesn't need to be special or expensive, just something you enjoy knitting with.