This is my version of the Leitmotif Cardigan. This pattern was published in the Fall 2010 issue of Interweave Knits.  Just after I sent their version off I started this one for myself in Cascade Eco+.    I made good progress for a little while and got the first half of the back done that summer.  Then work caught up with me and there was no time for selfish knitting so it sat for several months…..I picked it up again later that winter and got the second side finished.  And then it sat…for a whole year!  Last September I picked it up again and put it in the car.  I intended it to be my ‘waiting in the car project’.  That didn’t work out too well, I managed a sleeve cap and perhaps 2-3 inches of the sleeve. So, I’m almost at the end of my deadline knitting and we’ve had another cold snap.  I’m really mad at myself that I don’t have this cardigan to wear so I started back on it yesterday and finished the sleeve.  This morning I did the second sleeve cap and hopefully I’ll have the sleeve finished tonight so that I’ll have a cardigan to wear tomorrow before it gets warm again!  See that pretty shawl pin, great and useful gift from my Knitmas Gift exchange.

Please tell me that I’m not the only one who lets non-deadline knitting languish for 18 months?  I never finish deadline knitting late but when it’s for yourself then no one is going to come screaming at you!

I’ve just had a new pattern published with Knitscene for Spring 2012 (Spring always seems like wishful thinking at this time of year!)   There are some very wearable designs in this issue, I’m really fond of Beulah Cardigan by Mercedes Tarasovich-Clark, I love the wonderful color and delicate design of the cardigan.

I worked with a yarn for the Florence Cardigan that was new to me but really works for the pattern.  Its a slubby cotton/linen mix that was knit at a slightly loose gauge.  This allows it to drape and flow which is what the design needs!  It’s a simple pattern with a few little twists to make it unique!  I would love to knit another one for myself, seems like a good all purpose summer cardigan.

You can see more about Florence Cardigan here, you can buy this issue of Knitscene (Spring 2012) here and you can see more details on the ravelry page here.

I try to take a few photos of me wearing the knits before I send them off to magazines.  I think that way you get a chance to see the piece in two different settings and worn different ways.  Here are my photos from last summer of the cardigan:

My niece will be here after Christmas so I’m hoping to get a second little girl knit finished before she leaves.  Knits for here are really selfish gifts…you can only take it if you let me photograph first!  The first knit I have for her is a version of Ignus Junior in Spud and Chloe sweater.  Its in the Watermelon colour so just right for a girl that is crazy about pink!  The knit I hope to get finished before she leaves is in Madelinetosh Tosh DK.  I’m pretty mad about this colour combination of Citrus and Tern, but these colours are really for me as she only wants pink.  It’ll be a child’s version of Eilonwy but with a swing cardigan that has long sleeves.  It’s a good thing I’ve got such yummy yarns to work with, it makes all the speedy knitting more fun!

Speaking of yarns, I got to try some of Miss Babs yarn this week and she has some seriously delicous colors….have a little peek here to make you jeleous!

Just in case you want a little yarn love yourself, the publisher of my Contemporary Irish Knits Book, Wiley are doing a Christmas giveaway for a sizable batch of Studio Donegal yarn.  You just need to leave a comment by the end of the week here! (Please don’t watch the video, its seriously embarrassing to have to listen to my own voice!!)

The winner of the adult section was maikinchen with a beautiful version of the Straboy hoodie.

The winner of the Children’s section is CelticCastOn with her wonderful Rossbeg.  You may recognize the little girl, her lovely photos are also used in my newest pattern, Igunus Junior!

The final section, Accessories, was won by SmokingHotNeedles for her version of Dangan.

Finally, the bonus prize, drawn at random was won by barbieluvspink.

Your prizes are all winging themselves to you, and now you can all get back to your Christmas knitting!  Somehow I managed to take on enough deadline knitting for the next month or two that I won’t be giving many knitting gifts this Christmas.  I wonder if I can find a sample though to give to my mother, she always appreciates hand knits!

Ignus is the cover photo from my newest booklet Scrumptious Knits.  This booklet is still on pre-order but it’s almost ready.  We’re on the last set of edits and it will be released at the end of the week.  So if you want to take advantage of the reduced pre-order price (and the exclusive bonus pattern Ignus Junior) order quickly!

I had promised you some details about the patterns in the booklet, the first I’ll look at is Ignus.  I’m really happy with how this tunic turned out, it incorporates so many things I love, raglan shoulder shaping, ribbing, just a little cables and a long length.  Over the last year I’ve found myself drawn to longer tops, they are so versatile and flattering to wear with leggings or skinny jeans.  If longer tunic styles isn’t your cup of tea it’s an easy job to shorten this, just omit some of the hip increase rounds, start the ribbing sooner and make it just a couple of inches rather then the depth shown.

Here is a detail of the side cable.  It’s worked into the ribbing pattern and ends just before the bottom of the ribbing.  This cable detail is echoed in the cowl neck sleeve and in the hip ribbing.  The ribbing along the side gives a very flattering fit, it adds a little extra stretch without being clingy.  It’s the same with the sleeves, worked in ribbing it does take a little longer but they fit so nicely it’s worth it!

Here in this detail of the front you can see that it has raglan shoulder shaping.  This is started at the neck and is worked from the top down.  There are a few short rows at the back of the neck to raise it up and the neck is curved to create a good shape.  When the neck shaping is finished you join to work in the round and the rest of the top is worked in the round.  The side shaping is worked on either side of the ribbing as you go so it’s easy to move it up or down to suit your own natural waist.

Finally the cowl neck is worked at the very end.  I love the finishing touch this gives to the tunic.  Until this was added when I was knitting it looked almost naked!  It really needed the extra detail to finish it off.  As with the length of the tunic the length of the cowl is also customizable.  I knit a longer version but just try it on as you go until you get the finish you want.  I’ve got a little secret to tell you about my blocking, I had a bit of a disaster….It got slightly shrunk!!  I ended up stretching the body, cowl and sleeve length back to the original size and it just about worked.  The sleeves ended up a touch shorter than originally but only I’d notice!  It worked really nicely for the cowl, stretching it created really nice drape, so due to my accident I discovered how nice a drape you get in the cowl with extreme blocking!

We’ve done several photo shoots for the booklet, but the final one from last Thursday really gave us some beautiful shots, the wonderful autumn light and bright golden leaves really create the perfect atmosphere.

I wanted to get this booklet printing this time so that it could be available for yarn shops to sell also.  If you’ve got a local yarn shop you’d like to see it in just tell them to contact one of my distributors.

This booklet should be available to pre-order in the next few weeks, with an extra exclusive pattern for anyone who pre-orders!  With the high cost of printing the pre-orders for this booklet will be important for me to help fund it.  Anyone who’s had anything printed recently knows just what I’m talking about.

On Saturday I got to get my Contemporary Irish Knit trunk show out on my home ground at Cork.  There is a knitting and craft shop here called Vibes and Scribes that has a great selection of wool, books, and general crafty goodness.  It is packed to the rafters with goodies so there was much shifting of stock to fit me in for the morning!  I had a steady stream of knitters calling by and we got to chat about tension/gauge squares, cables and reading charts.  With a few hints on magic loop and tightening up your cable stitches thrown in along the way!  I am very grateful to the very talented Evin O’Keeffe who took all the photos in today’s post.  I’ve got a link down further if you’d like to see more of her photos.  It was extra impressive as she was busy leaning over the table photographing while 7 months pregnant!

You can see my full set up here, complete with my trusty I-pad that is invaluable when doing trunk shows, knitters can’s miss the photos!

This was Evin’s favorite of the Ardara tunic.  If anyone want to see all the photos Evin took when she came to visit you can view them here.  You can see some from fiber Feis as well as an added bonus….and pretend that it’s still summer!

Knitters are making great progress with The Ultimate Contemporary Irish Knits KAL.  There are already some beautiful finished pieces starting to appear.  This is running until the first of December so join right in.  We are pulling together some great prizes for this so don’t miss out!

Later on today the final stop on my blog tour will be up – Ilga Leja.  If you’ve missed any of the tour stops you can view them all below.  Thank you everyone who has taken part, I appreciate your support and kindness so much.  And a big thank you to all the readers as well, I hope you found the tour interesting and discovered some new facts along the way!

Tour details:
15/9/2011 Stephen West
17/9/2011 Hoxton Handmade
21/9/2011 Shannon Okey
23/9/2011 Rosemary Hill
25/9/2011 Ann Kingstone
27/9/2011 Marly Bird
29/9/2011 JC Briar
1/10/2011 Woolly Wormhead
3/10/2011 Anne Hanson
7/10/2011 Stephannie Tallent
11/10/2011 Alice Yu
13/10/2011 Michelle Miller
15/10/2011 Deirdre Thornton
17/10/2011 Ilga Leja

Speaking of blog tours, tomorrow it’ll be my turn for a stop in the blog tour of one of my favorite designer’s Woolly Wormhead.  I’ll be taking a look at her newest book ‘Bambeanies‘ which is full of cuteness for little ones!

I’m getting so excited about heading to Glasgow this week, can’t wait to meet all you lovely knitters!

It looks like almost everyone has a preference for PDF patterns:

It looks like pdf wins by a mile with hardcopy books/pdf combination coming up a very distant second.

The next question I asked was how many patterns you liked in a collection:

Again, there was a very clear winner, with 6 being the ideal pattern number knitters liked.

Next there was the type of pattern, in the comments knitters had a preference for all one type of pattern in a collection with women’s garments being miles ahead:

Shawls and accessories came up behind this.  In the comments many knitters said they were slow to buy collections of children’s and men’s patterns as they was no guarantee they would be like and both sections can be very fussy to knit for!

Now for the idea of subscriptions, it seems like knitters were nervous about the commitment and wanted to make sure they got value for money.

And my final survey question was for anyone who would buy a subscription, what would be your ideal length.  6 months just won out, but 3 months was close behind:

So basically what I’ve taken from this survey is; just keep working the way I’ve been going.  I think as a designer the benefit to collections and bigger work rather than operating from pattern to pattern is that you have a more cohesive voice to your work and it is a little easier to organize.

I had so much fun yesterday with Marly Bird talking with her on her podcast.  It was my first time doing a podcast so I started off feeling fairly nervous about it but she’s fun to talk to and very relaxing so I soon got into the rhythm.  She also has a chance to win a copy of the book for the podcast listeners.  It’s still available to download and listen to here.

Tomorrow we’ve got the next stop on the blog tour with JC Briar so come check it out!

Anyone who is in the direction of The Yarn Room, I was originally going to run a class there on Sunday the 2nd of October but this has now been cancelled.

Do you prefer paper or pdf?

Single pattern, small book, larger book, mystery KAL?

What about the idea of a pattern subscription (like a yarn club) where you sign up for a set period (say 3 or 6 months) and get a new pattern every month/6 weeks at a discount with an extra surprise along the way?

Or maybe a a club in conjunction with an indi dyer with yarn and pattern together for a 3 or 6 month period?

I’d love to hear your ideas, there are so many ways of doing this that the possibilities can be overwhelming.  Plus there is no point trying a different route if no one is interested in it!

Let me know your thoughts….