Over the last year or two I sent a few projects in to different books but that is usually where my involvement ends.  I don’t see photos and/or edits until the actual book is sent to me.  This does have the added excitement of seeing them almost for the first time when the book is released :-)

The first book I want to tell you about is Stitching In the Stacks that is published with Cooperative Press with Sarah Barbour who is the author.  It’s now up for pre-order in digital and hard copy format.  There is a really beautiful collection of pattern and I’m very proud to be a part of it.

My two contributions are a pencil case:

Plus a hooded vest.  Before I sent it off I took a few photos of this on my oldest son and I must also put a blog post up with a few of those photos!

The second book that I have a contribution in is Free Spirit Shawls.   My copy of the book arrived last week and it’s a really interesting book.  As well as 20 shawl patterns there’s lots of good info in this about different ways to wear shawls as well as different shawl construction types.  I’ve taken a few photos of my shawl Euclid from the book, it’s st st and garter and all the shaping is done using short rows.  (Easy to tell it’s mine right!)

I’ve just started some swatching with my Plucky Knitter ‘primo sport’.  It’s got a lovely hand, tightly spun with super crisp stitch definition and the yarn feels ‘dense’ when you pick it up like it’s got a lot of weight to it.

I love this stage of a project, seeing how the yarn works best for  you.  I’ve been playing a little with biasing (increase/decrease on one row) this year.  Vertex Cardigan in Interweave was the first result of this but I really want to take it a little further to try some biased ribbing.  There are a lot of variables to get right with this, what kind of increases/decreases work best and are the most unobtrusive.  Will I have the entire garment biased like Vertex or perhaps just a panel.  How can I take full advantage of the shaping effect of the bias, where would it look best?

The best place to answer all of these questions is in your swatch.  It can do so much more than tell you gauge – in fact sometimes when I’m trying to work out pattern issues my swatch can end up the size of a scarf!

So while I travel to Denver I’ll have some plucky biased rib in my bag to keep me company :-)

BTW I think this color is really a dark pink (magenta) but DH insists on calling it a purple!  So tell me readers, who’s right?

In Ireland (as with much of the world it seems!) Spring has been very, very slow to make itself know.  March here in Cork was the coldest in 5o years and further up the country it was the coldest on record.  It makes it difficult to get the Spring brightness buzz going…..but, but…..we’ve got sunshine this week and temperatures that have actually passed single digits.  Yesterday my car actually told me it was 18 degrees.  As we are in Ireland it seems likely this will only last a day or two but I’m willing to take it :-0

If you look really closely I think you’ll see a hint of blue in the sky?  I know the branches are still bare but hopefully with a few more days of warmer weather we’ll start to see leaves as well :-)

It feels like the busy exam & travel season is about to begin as well.  I’m feeling very excited about the coming months and bursting with energy to get started on it all.

Do you like the start of Spring?  Tell me what you like most about Spring and to celebrate its late arrival I’ll give away my newest spring pattern, Meves, to someone on Friday.

A few months ago I finished a shawl for the yarn store A Verb for Keeping Warm. Every year they run their ‘Pro-Verbial‘ yarn club and invite designers to contribute patterns for each of their shipments. I actually thought I had already blogged about this but I found a draft blog with only the title so it looks like I never got past the title in my writing!  So may I belatedly introduce, Semi-Quaver.

The design of this shawl was interesting for me, usually you don’t have a yarn limit when you’re designing but with this shawl I wanted to create a unique design but not allow it to run over 385 yards (Yarn is Creating) that comes with the club shipment. I decided to design a shawl that could be ended at each side when the yarn runs out, ideally you can get to the finish but if your yardage was a little short or your gauge different you could still have a beautiful finished shawl.

This shawl started with a center out back panel in a simple lace. Sometimes starting with just a few stitches is tricky but I use a method in the pattern that makes it super easy :-) From there each side ‘wing’ is worked in short row garter wedges until you reach the full size. It would be possible to extend these wings also by working more wedges. Due to the nature of the shawl it needs some blocking of the wings to achieve it’s full potential!

This shawl is currently exclusive to the club but by July I can release it into the wild. I might even experiment a little to see how extending the wings works….

There are some lovely versions of Aruba popping up on ravelry.  The version I’ve shown in the photo is the smaller version but a knitter has already finished a large version that looks totally amazing!

I’ve had a few questions on how the fringe works at the edge.  It can seem somewhat scary to start ripping your knitting so I’ve posted a video to show how I’ve done it, hopefully it makes it a little more manageable!

If you’ve finished go ahead and take a photo and post it here.  I’ll use the posts to choose a winner for the KAL at the start of next week.

Maybe you can help me out, what would you like to see as a prize for the KAL? Yarn, a book (mine or others), maybe a collection of pdf patterns?  Something totally different?  Would love to hear what you think makes a good KAL prize!

I’ve got two winners to announce today ….

The first winner is from the Born & Bred Blog Tour, Sheila is the winner of Born & Bred!

Our next two winners are from my Coriander Hat KAL.

The winner of the skein of yarn is knitwitchnj with:

And the winner of the Scrumptious Knits booklet is Koviljka with:

I love how this hat turned out, she used Cascade yarns 220 superwash which I think works really nicely giving a very smooth sculptural feel.

I’ve just uploaded the first pattern from my Spring 2013 collection, Aruba.  This means that we’re all ready to get our Spring KAL going over on ravelry!
If you want to buy the full Spring Collection today is the last day that it’s being offered at the $10 discount price – it’ll go up to full price tomorrow.

For anyone who has been working on the KAL for my Coriander Hat, if you’re close to finishing it get your photo up by Friday here and you’ll be in with a chance to win a prize in the raffle!

Here are a couple of the prizes I’m offering…..

Every year when February comes around it feels like winter should really be over. The days are getting brighter but the temperatures doesn’t really qualify as spring yet! I’ve been putting a little pattern collection together over the last few months in preparation for spring. All the patterns are now finished and tech edited ….almost ready to go!
I want to give you all a chance to get this full collection of 3 patterns at a discounted price, I’m putting the collection up for pre-sale until the first pattern is uploaded (at the start of March).

All pattern links will be automatically emailed to you when the new pattern is released.

Stolen Stitches Spring 2013 Collection

$10.00 pre-order price

add to cart

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So what do you get?
When you buy the pre-order you’ll get a pdf to download that has photos and details of all the patterns with the pattern releases schedule.
There will be one pattern released at the start of the month over the next three months.
To help you on the road to your new spring wardrobe I’m going to run a KAL for each of the patterns. The KAL will start as soon as the pattern is released and will run until the next pattern comes out the following month. I’ll have lots of spot prizes dotted along the way to keep you encouraged!

The patterns will also be released individually at full price.

Do you want a peek at the patterns in the collection?

Last month I announced the pre-sale of my Coriander hat KAL.  Amazingly a month has now almost passed and we’re starting tomorrow!  (I want to know who’s eating up time around here…)  The full pattern will be uploaded tomorrow complete with useful tips and a full chart as well as written instructions.  If you want to join the group for enthusiastic support from fellow knitters you’ll find us all hanging out here.  I can’t wait to get the pattern up and see all your amazing hats taking shape.  Once the full pattern is uploaded the pattern reverts to full price.

I had a lovely surprise this morning when I looked on twitter, Interweave Knits Spring 2013 preview is live!  Not only do I have a pattern (Vertex Cardigan) in this issue I also have a designer feature that was written by my friend here in Cork Evin O’Keeffe.  I can’t tell you how excited I am to have a feature on me in Interweave, it’s very cool :-)

This is a top down cardigan that used a simple bias to create a wonderful effect with very lightly variegated yarn.  The sample is knit in Manos Fino that was just perfect for this, the finished cardigan is light as a feather.  Do be aware if you’re knitting the cardigan that biased fabric behaves differently as your stitches are on a diagonal so the stitch count doesn’t look like it matches the gauge!  Just knit to the sizes given and once you achieve gauge your sizing should be perfect.

Over the last few years I’ve seen a lot of knitters complete projects; some were thrilled with the results, others not so much.  Sometimes you can catch the problems while you are knitting and correct them but other times it can seem so overwhelming that you never, ever want to see the project again!  These are the projects that get hidden in the back of wardrobes, given as gifts or donated to charity.  While it is of course possible to rip and reknit the project not every knitter wants to do that.  Or maybe you don’t even know how to start correcting the problem?

If you’ve got one of those garments sitting around at home would you be willing to donate the garment to me for a super secret project?  I’d need a photo of the garment being worn by you (showing me the problem area) with just a few words telling me what went wrong with the garment.  Any construction type is fine, bottom up, top down, seamless or in pieces.

If you have a garment donation that fits the bill just leave a comment below and I’ll get in contact with you.

Bet you can’t wait to see what’s going to happen with all these garments!!