Catalina Cowl

Before I take off for the month of March, I wanted to share another pattern I’ve been working on. I obviously love the look of ripples. It’s been a theme of most of my patterns (well, ribs too).

First of all, I wanted to experiment with dyeing a long colour-changing yarn. It took a bit of research to figure out how to do this with a skein, without stringing it from one end of the house to the other (something I’m sure my cat would enjoy) and a way to do it without creating a tangled mess of regret.

It took a bit more effort, but I came up with a pretty easy way of doing it and I’m hoping this Spring to get more dyed for the summer market.

With the gradient blues I came up with, it of course made me think of water and waves and my beloved ripples.

Named after a place we would visit as kids, a place where I spent a few summers at Girl Scout Camp, a place we sailed to on weekends, Catalina seemed like a perfect name.

It’s knit in the round, a simple 4-row pattern, 3 of which are just knitting. This is knit with a soft superwash merino worsted-weight yarn. Very cozy to wear.

This pattern is offered free on Ravelry and I hope you have as much fun with the ripples as I do! There is also a link in the header menu under “patterns”.

Happy Knitting!

Pattern Link: Catalina Cowl

chunky cove mitts

When I published my Ripple Wave Fingerless Mitt pattern a few years ago, a friend of mine asked if I could adapt it to a heavier yarn. Sure, I said. No problem. And then I kind of forgot about it until a few months ago when I was wanting to knit up some finished mitts for Room6 before Christmas. With no time to do fingering weight mitts, but what about bulky yarn and hey, I have practically a yarn shop of bulky yarn right now in my craft studio.

I quickly dyed up some tonal yarn in my trusty crock pot, got my Ripple Wave pattern out and played around with it and came up with these Chunky Cove Mitts.

It has a similar design: wide cuff, a pattern of increases and decreases, and a wide cuff at the top to be worn up or folded down. It has half the number of stitches as the Ripple Waves and once I got the pattern figured out, it was knit in about 2 hours’ time. That is very, very satisfying!

So here is the pattern for sale on Ravelry.

Chunky Cove Mitts.

It is knit with approximately 110-130 yards of bulky-weight yarn on size 10US (6mm) needles.

As always, I have proofed, had it test knit, proofed again and again, but if there is an error or something that isn’t clear, please let me know!

Cheers!

kicking things off

I’m definitely getting my holiday buzz on… much earlier than usual, but why not? It’s dark, dreary, rainy. I need sparkly lights, wool in my hands, wool on my feet, music, hot beverages.

We had a great day at Room6 on Saturday! We arrived to see our yarn and kits artfully arranged and I set up our winder and swift. I brought my spinning wheel and plunked myself in everyone’s way.

https://www.instagram.com/p/vtwi8LSvSQ/

We met new friends and saw old friends. The day flew by and we are so grateful to Megan and her team for making us so welcome and providing a fun atmosphere. We had tea and cookies provided by Sunnyside and Provisions12, there was music and amazingly, there was sunshine!

Again, a HUGE thanks to Megan and her crack team at Room6! ❤ Our yarn/handspun/kits will be there through the holidays and hopefully we can sneak it past into the new year too… 😉

Yesterday I spent the whole day in my pjs. It was wonderful! Nothing that needed to be done where people would see me. Instead, after seeing my favourite sister off to go home, I sat by the fire and spun all day. I also dyed some yummy peruvian top that I will get spun up this week to bring down to the cove.

I finally got around to photographing the latest Ripple Wave Mitts… these are in the Vineyard colourway. I love them to bits… if I can say that without sounding like I’m bragging. But they really are lovely 🙂

Melissa finished our Deep Cove Cowl in this gorgeous Madeline Tosh DK she got in Portland a while back. I love seeing how it came out in a yarn with more variegation. Yum! She adapted the pattern for DK and it looks great! I’m thinking of trying it in some bulky yarn.

This week I’ve got to get a friend started on her cowl, do more dyeing and spinning and knit a pair of mitts for my friend.

Over on Ravelry, we’ve started an Emerald Lotus Fiberartists Group. Please come and join us and we can catch up with each other and our projects! I’ve also added our yarns into their database, so if you enter a project, our yarn should pop up when you type in “Emerald Lotus Fiberarts”. Melissa is going to be adding some things to our Etsy shop. We had to close things down for a bit while we did our holiday market booth and getting our items ready for Room6, but soon there will be some pretty things listed.

Sorry this post was a bit scattered, but that’s how life has been lately! I’m looking forward to spinning today and listening to podcasts. I need to download and listen to “Serial” which my daughter and her friend have been raving about. And I’ll finally get out of these pjs and look presentable. 😉

Have a great week!

Deep Cove Cowl

A new pattern! Named after one of the most beautiful spots anywhere, Deep Cove, the new cowl is a quick and simple project that when finished will give you a warm wrap around the neck that will keep away drafts, stay in place and not fall off (one of my pet peeves about wearing scarves).

Very similar to my Squishy Ribbed Cowl, the Deep Cove Cowl has an added twist and slipped stitches. The twist takes it one step beyond the mobius.. it’s a full twist on the needles versus a half-twist. Having the twist makes it always fall nicely around your neck, no matter which way you plop it over your head. And because the circumference is not big but more compact, it doesn’t have the awkward “knot” look that the full twist has when knit longer.

And one more photo of me and my crazy eyes wearing it…

We will be selling the pattern along with the yarn (kettle-dyed worsted superwash merino) at the Craft Bazaar next weekend, on the 15th (info in the sidebar) and at Room6 starting the following weekend (Nov 22… more details to come).

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

• The finished measurements are 24″ in circumference and 9″ high.
• You will need approximately 200 to 240 yards of worsted weight yarn, size 5US needles and a 24″ circular needle.
• Pattern is $2 and in PDF form.
• Pattern Link via Ravelry.

ready, set…

And we’re off! We have Etsy open again, yay! Like our market booth, we’ve scaled back what we are offering for sale, choosing to focus on hand dyed yarn, handspun yarn, kits, patterns and a few woven shawls. Both Melissa and I love dyeing yarns and spinning, so that is what we will have!

We will be slowly adding items to Etsy this week. Nothing is as easy as it would first appear… a motto that my husband has muttered for many, many years and it is true. It took us a couple of hours on Monday to get where it is now. We had our computers out, our iPads on FaceTime and worked away.

Besides the yarn and kits, we are offering a couple of patterns for sale. The first one listed on Etsy is the Ripple Wave Fingerless Mitts.

I sold many of the kits at the market and have only 3 left, and those are listed in the shop. I’ve been busy dyeing up yarn the last few days and will have them ready to list in the shop later next week as well. Also, I have the pattern for sale, via PDF file, for anyone who would like to knit it using their own yarn, and that is available on Ravelry and Etsy.

Here are the Ripple Wave Fingerless Mitts, as modelled by my daughter, the Lovely Sarah, hand model extraordinaire!

The pattern starts with ribbing and the Ripple Wave pattern low enough on the wrist that it will not peek out from under your coat sleeves.  The thumb is worked with a gusset and then the top of the mitt has a fold-down cuff in ribbing.  I find when I go out for a walk and it’s chilly, and yet I want to be able to take a photo with my phone or text or something requiring the use of those digits, it’s nice to fold down the cuff.  Or to keep the fingers warm, unfold it and they stay snug.

The gentle ripple wave pattern shows off the colour changes of variegated yarn, and the kettle-dyed tonal yarns give just a hint of colour variation.  Here is the latest I’ve dyed up in the last few days.

Oh boy, I’ve got a lot of skeining and winding to do!