Getting ready for Unravel

It's that last minute press to finish off bits and pieces of prep before packing up on Thursday and heading to Unravel. There's been a lot of final dyeing and prepping and labelling of fibre around here. Want to see some of what's coming with me this weekend?

I'm also super excited to be able to offer kits for my newest hat design, Ironwork.

*Handspun undyed Shetland, with Crystal Violet, Coomassie Blue and Xylene Cyanole for the contrast colours.*

The pattern is written with handspun in mind, and includes tips on how to spin the yarn. It's also got a handy chart to determine the finished size of your hat based on your preferred gauge with your particular yarn and needles. The gauges included run from 4-7 sts/inch, so the pattern can work with anything from fingering to worsted weight.

*Undyed natural brown Shetland, with Congo Red, Ethidium Bromide and Yellow Fluorescent Protein as the contrast colours*

The kits will include 3 oz of main colour and three 0.5 oz bundles of the contrast colours. I'll have the two sample versions kitted up ready to go, but if you want to swap out some of the colours on the day, that's no problem! Kits will also include a printed version of the pattern, with a download code for the electronic version.

I'll be in the Barley room, next to the Yarn in the City booth (which will have copies of the London Craft Guide and yarn for the projects!), and I do hope you'll come by and say hello! And if you're around on Friday afternoon, please come to my talk on "Dyeing Science" from 4:00 - 5:00, where I'll share a few of the stories behind some of my more science-inspired colourways.

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The Nordlándda Collection: Ifjord, Sappen and Skáidi

This is the last post to cover the Nordlándda Collection, and I've save the hats for last.

Ifjord Hat and Moen Cowl long version - close up.jpg

When originally discussing the collection, Daphne and I decided that we wanted to have a hat that was throughly unisex. I went for a close fitting shape with a small, all-over stitch pattern and ended up with Ifjord.

Starting with 2x2 ribbing, the hat is then worked in a lovely but simple cable pattern that only every uses 1x1 crosses; in other words, only 2 sts are in each cable crossing, making this a good project to work without using a cable needle. The stitch motif is a 6 stitch repeat worked over 4 rounds, 2 of which are plain stockinette, making the stitch pattern easy to memorise. The crown decreases are worked at four equally spaced points around the circumference of the hat, and hide the decreases within the already existing stitch pattern, making for a smooth transition to the crown shaping.

Next up is Sappen. This is another beanie that is worked in an all-over cable pattern, but unlike the small stitch motif in Ifjord, this hat uses two cable patterns: a large complex cable panel bordered by four stitch Honeycomb cables repeated around the hat. After starting with 1x1 twisted rib (k1tbl, p1), the cables are worked up to the desired length. The crown shaping is built in to the cable panel as the hat grows, so there is a lot to pay attention to as you work your way to the top!

Slouchy Skáidi is related to Sappen, in that they share the twisted ribbing, the large cable panel and the Honeycomb cables. In Skáidi however, the cable panel is only worked once, with Honeycomb cables on either side and a third Honeycomb cable directly opposite the cable panel. The crown decreases are again worked into the large cable panel and on either side of the opposing Honeycomb cable. Although the rest of the hat is worked in stockinette, I actually think this one is the most difficult of the three because of the more complicated crown decreases.

This wraps up my overview of the pieces in the Nordlándda Collection. It's been great fun to share them all with you, and it's wonderful to see projects and FOs starting to pop up on Ravelry, Twitter and Instagram. There's still time to join the #AYSWinterCablesKAL hosted by Carmen from A Yarn Story if you need a holiday gift, and share your projects in the Ravelry thread!

Note: If you are in Europe and would like to purchase one of the patterns from the collection without paying VAT, please go to the Nordlándda page and be sure to include your Ravelry ID (if you have one) when you check out. The pattern will be emailed to you and put into your Ravelry library. Thank you!

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Nordlándda

Today is the launch of my new collection of accessoried, Nordlándda, from The FIbre Company. I'm going to be blogging about each of the pieces from the collection over the next few weeks, but I wanted to show them all to you as a whole.

By the time this post goes live, the patterns will all be available on Ravelry. I'll get them up shortly over here. In the meantime, I hope you like them! If you're interested, A Yarn Story is kicking off their #AYSWInterCablesKAL with this collection today, so come on over and join in!

ETA: the patterns are now up on the website, so if you'd like to purchase them without paying VAT, head over here! If you include your Ravelry ID with your order, I will gift you a pattern for your library in addition to email you the pdf. Thanks!

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Fait accompli

I've just returned from a trip to the post office, to send out a very special pile of knitwear.

It's been a bit of a crazy few months while I've been working on this collection. I've had a few shows, looked at a lot of very expensive and not very nice property, been back to the States on a scouting trip against the possibility of moving back next summer, seen family, come back, put on a Yarn Crawl and Marketplace, seen more expensive real estate, starting visiting secondary schools with my daughter, put in an offer on a house, had the offer accepted...you get the idea. And all the while I've been plugging away at this accessory collection, in the fantastic Tundra from the Fibre Co.

As the pieces have only just gone off for their photo shoots, I'm not going to reveal too much, but I will share these details: there are three hats, two pairs of fingerless mitts, two cowls (one of which comes in two sizes) and a long, narrow shawl. All of the pieces have cables and texture - some are all over, some have just one focal cable, some have an all-over cabled pattern. All are worked in bulky weight yarn, so they knit up super fast. They all take between one and three skeins of Tundra, and are super soft and squishy.

Over the next few weeks I'll share more details of each piece and the construction, but I didn't want to go much longer without letting you know that I'm still here, and there is still lots and lots of knitting going on.

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The Design Diaries: test knitting

Now that the Boat Race Hat prototypes are finished, and the pattern is written, it's time to move on to the next steps: testing and editing. I suppose you can argue that doing both test knitting AND tech editing is a bit redundant, but I would disagree.

Test knitting is a great way to get feedback on your pattern before it goes live - you'll be able to know if the wording in one section isn't clear, or if you've left out an important line of the instructions. You'll be able to get a good sense of the yardage requirements for each size (as long as your testers are knitting to the correct gauge), and as a bonus, you'll have a number of projects that can be uploaded to Ravelry when the pattern is published, so people will be able to see your design knit up in different colours or yarns right from the beginning.

With that in mind, the next step for the Boat Race Hats is test knitting - I find that test knitters can very often pinpoint a number of errors and inconsistencies that I would otherwise depend on a tech editor to find. And while tech editing is crucial for any knitting pattern, it's also a service that has to be (and should be!) paid for. I don't know about you, but I'd rather have my tech editor spend their time on a pattern that's been tested and had most of the kinks worked out already.

In an ideal world, test knitters would also be paid for their work, but sadly that's not something I'm able to do at this stage, so I have to rely on knitters who enjoy getting a sneak peek at a new pattern, or like helping to work out the kinks. You can pick your yarn, and I'm happy to send you a copy of the pattern when it's finished, as well as your choice of another of my self-published patterns if you'd like one.

Here are the two hats and their specs/requirements. If anyone is interested in test knitting, please give me a shout in the comments or head over to my Ravelry group and post in the Boat Race test knitting thread that's there.

A bit about both hats: both hats are sized in S (M, L) sizes, and both are worked from charts with no written directions.

Oxford

This hat is a slouchy, comfy knit, with two staggered twisted stitch boat motifs worked on a reverse stockinette background. The only complicated bit is the knitter will need to be comfortable shifting the crown decreases to keep the stitch motif intact as much as possible as the crown gets towards the top.

Techniques: twisted stitches and working stitches through the back loop.

Yarn: the large size pictured used less then one skein of baa ram ewe Titus (a fingering weight yarn) held doubled, so under 175 yds/160 m. Appropriate yarns would be sock yarn held double or DK yarn, or any yarn that knits to gauge specified.

Gauge: 23 sts/30 rows over 4 inches/10 cm in reverse stockinette.

Needles: US 4/3.5 mm circulars or dpns, as preferred

Cambridge

This hat is a close-fitting beanie style. Although the stitch pattern is worked all over, the crown decreases are much simpler then in Oxford.

Techniques: twisted stitches and working stitches through the back loop.

Gauge: 23 sts/30 rows over 4 inches/10 cm in reverse stockinette.

Needles: US 4/3.5 mm circulars or dpns, as preferred

And views of the tops of the hats:

Although I wanted to get these up and published earlier this year (like in time for The Boat Race. Hahahahahaha!), I'm not in a rush to get them out ASAP, and the deadline for this test is going to be the end of September. If you're interested, leave a comment on this post, or PM me on Ravelry, letting me know the size you'd like to test, and the yarn you'd like to use. If you're on Ravelry, you can also post in the testing thread in my group. Thanks!

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Porpoise Fur