New pattern: Anagram

I'm so happy to finally be able to share this pair of projects with you! The Anagram Hat & Wrap are part of the new amirisu Winter 2018 issue, along with seven other patterns celebrating texture in knitting.

Photo by amirisu

The Anagram Hat is a cosy beanie with crisp texture, and its sibling the Anagram Wrap is a large dramatic rectangle with an all-over lace pattern. The stitch patterns combine modern geometric lace with garter stitch for texture and squish factor.

Geometric stitch patterns have become a real signature of mine - I find them very satisfying, both in the designing stage and the knitting. Because of the small repeating elements in their stitch patterns, the Hat & Wrap are very rhythmic and meditative to knit. I rearranged the little 'blocks' of pattern, with diagonal lines travelling across the garter stitch background, just like rearranging the letters in a word - so I think of these two stitch patterns as 'anagrams' of each other.

Photo by amirisu

The Anagram Hat & Wrap are both knit in Brooklyn Tweed Arbor in the delicate wintery shade 'Thaw'. Arbor's beautifully crisp stitch definition really lets their texture shine. You will need 7 skeins for the wrap and 2 for the hat (including a pompom if you wish).

Photo by amirisu

Hat Features:

• a cosy textured beanie in modern geometric lace
• can be topped with a pompom if you wish
• knit in the round from the bottom up
• techniques include the long tail cast on, and lace knitting including the occasional double increase and decrease
• suitable for solid or semi-solid-dyed DK-weight yarn
• one size, easy to alter by changing the number of repeats around
• pattern includes full written instructions as well as charts.

Wrap Features:

• a long cosy rectangular wrap in modern geometric lace
• knit flat from end to end
• techniques include the long tail cast on, lace knitting, and a stretchy bind off
• suitable for solid or semi-solid-dyed DK-weight yarn
• one size, easy to alter by changing the number of repeats across or lengthwise
• pattern includes full written instructions as well as charts. 

Photo by amirisu

The patterns are available as part of amirisu Winter 2018, Issue 15. You can purchase a print copy from their website or your favourite yarn shop, or a digital copy from amirisu's website or Ravelry.

How to embiggen your shawl

Do you like your shawls and wraps to be as big and cosy as possible? Many patterns are easy to enlarge, if you have extra yarn on hand. And if you'd like to make a smaller shawl, because it would suit you better or you're short of yarn, the principles are exactly the same. I like to include suggestions for customising the size in my patterns wherever possible, so your project will come out Just Right.

Budburst shawl by Amy van de Laar

The designs which are simplest to re-size have an all-over stitch pattern, and I'll be focusing on these since several of my shawl and wrap patterns are in this category. It gets a little more complicated if the edging contrasts with the main stitch pattern (e.g. my Silverwing shawl) - here you would need to consider how the proportions of the two sections will look if you enlarge one or both of them.

Let's take a look at a couple of common shapes and how to approach re-sizing them.

Triangles

Triangular shawls are usually easy to enlarge, because the cast on number does not affect the shawl's final size - you can simply knit extra repeats if you decide at any point that you'd like it to be larger.

If you have a precise final wingspan size you're aiming for (if for example you find a 65" wingspan easy to wear), and the shawl has the same stitch pattern throughout, you can calculate how many repeats to knit by measuring the size of one repeat on the diagonal. I'll be using my Budburst shawl as an example, which is a triangular shawl knit sideways from tip to bind-off edge, with an all-over lace pattern. This formula will also work for traditional top-down triangles (like Amarilli), and other triangles where the wingspan is diagonal to the direction of knitting.

Measuring a diagonal pattern repeat on a swatch

One you know both the target wingspan and the size of one diagonal repeat, you can use this formula to find the total number of repeats to knit:

Desired wingspan size / diagonal size of one repeat = number of repeats.

If the answer is a fraction, round it up or down to a whole number.

Rectangles

Lengthening a rectangular wrap or scarf knit end-to-end is just as simple, because again you can simply knit extra repeats. Adjusting the width of a rectangle is a little trickier, because in this case the number of stitches you cast on does directly affect the final size. I'm using my Beeswax Scarf as an example here, which has an all-over stitch pattern and includes three width options from scarf to wrap.

If you want to widen a rectangle which is knit from end-to-end, you'll need to know two things before casting on:

1. The width of one repeat (find this by swatching if you need precision, or take the info from the pattern if it's given), and 
2. The number of stitches in each repeat (find this from the gauge info in the pattern, or from the chart).

The formula to find the number of repeats across a row is:

Desired finished width / width of one repeat = number of repeats.

If the answer is a fraction, round it up or down to a whole number.

Now you can calculate exactly how many stitches to cast on:

Number of repeats x number of stitches in one repeat = number of stitches to cast on.

Remember to add the edge stitches to this total, if any. They will add a little extra width.

Other shapes, like crescents, pi-shawls, and all the many weird and wonderful shapes knitters keep inventing, will need different approaches depending on their construction. I hope this partial guide has been helpful as an intro, and gives you an idea of which variables to look at when you want to change the size of a shawl.

New pattern: Leadlight

It's always exciting when I can finally share one of my secret projects! Today Leadlight gets its big reveal, as part of Brooklyn Tweed's Wool People 11. This is my third Wool People outing, and the third of my designs in Brooklyn Tweed's wonderful yarn (the first two being my Amarilli and Kea shawls).

Be sure to browse through the WP11 lookbook, which is completely gorgeous! I like to save them up until I have a little uninterrupted time to soak up the inspiration. :)

Leadlight, photo by Jared Flood

Leadlight is a rectangular stole in laceweight yarn, featuring large-scale geometric lace. I was inspired by the image of sunlight streaming through glass panes, and the memory of a small geometric stained-glass window I had in my room which my Dad had made (picture framers are good with glass, after all).

(Photos by me, before I sent Leadlight off to the USA.)

The lace is simple to knit, while the construction and finishing methods keep things interesting: beginning with a circular cast on, the centre of the stole is knit in the round as a square. After placing some of the stitches on hold, the two ends of the stole are each knit flat to create a rectangular shape. Finally, a garter stitch border finishes off the edges.

The centre of the stole, worked outwards from the pinhole cast on

The garter stitch border keeping things crisp

Vale is a new laceweight yarn from Brooklyn Tweed, a springy, plied yarn that's light and soft, but substantial and full of personality. It blocks easily and drapes beautifully, which makes it just perfect for lace knitting.

I knit my Leadlight stole in the colour Heron, which is a calm, neutral, mid-toned grey with a subtle sheen to it. The whole Vale colour palette is beautifully subtle - I definitely plan to use this yarn for more lace projects!

A close-up of the centre

Features:

• an all-over geometric lace pattern
• constructed from the centre out, with two sides extended to form the rectangle
• a circular cast on (instructions for the Pinhole Cast On are included)
• a garter stitch border all around the edge
• a stretchy bind off (instructions for the K2tog-tbl Bind Off are included)
• easy to alter the length by working a different number of repeats
• requires 3 skeins of Brooklyn Tweed Vale, or 1170yds of laceweight yarn
• the lace instructions are presented as charts only.

Drapery studies...

You can purchase the pattern for Leadlight on Ravelry, or from Brooklyn Tweed's website. Their Summer of Lace KAL is coming up very soon, beginning later this month.

Simple lace: a love letter

I have a confession to make. Relatively simple lace made up of basic stitches is one of my favourite kinds of knitting! I love to look at complex lace as much as the next knitting-obsessed person, but I really enjoy the process of knitting simpler lace. It just flows off my needles! And you can do a lot with simple lace stitches, with a little inspiration.

I've designed a few scarves and shawls that fall into this category of deceptively-simple lace, most recently my Hextile Wrap:

Its basic elements are garter stitch with some areas of yarn-overs and k2togs, and once you get the gist of the pattern you really don't need to check the chart/instructions very often. The speediness of simple lace means you can see the shapes emerging quickly, which is really satisfying. I find it keeps me wanting to knit "just one more repeat"...

Two of my lace shawls which I think also hit this sweet spot of simple-but-satisfying are Folia Crescent, which has a nice small easily-memorised lace repeat, and Silverwing, which has a closely-related lace pattern elongated into feathers.

Keeping to the bird theme, I have two more examples in my Tailfeather scarf and Kea shawl. Once again, one of these stitch patterns is a variation on the other. Simple stitches; endless possibilities!

These two designs aren't quite as straightforward, since their vertical ribs mean no 'rest' rows on the wrong side, and they also require the occasional double decrease stitch in addition to knit/purl/yo/k2tog/ssk. But they do share my favourite characteristic of simple geometric lace in that you can always tell what comes next, just by looking at your knitting.

I'll be casting on a new simple lace shawl tomorrow. :)

New pattern: Hextile Wrap

My latest adventure in lace is the Hextile Wrap, a long, versatile wrap with bold geometric patterning. The design gets its name from the tiling pattern of triangles and hexagons in simple lace mesh, and it's based on garter stitch for reversibility, ease, and cosiness.

Equally useful for cool spring or autumn evenings, this wrap has already come in handy! Last weekend Mum and Dad and I visited Napier to see my brother and his crew, and my sister-in-law Colleen modelled my Hextile Wrap on the beach like a pro. The sun went down just as we finished the last photo.

I designed the Hextile Wrap to make the most of two lovely skeins of sock yarn I've been saving - Miss Click Clack's Fenwick Street Flashmerino (made up of 85% extrafine merino and 15% nylon) in 'Melbourne Black'. The wrap's open mesh panels and bias-knit construction work together to produce a surprisingly large wrap from just two skeins.

The stitch pattern is fast, easy, and intuitive once you get the hang of the structure - the mesh is the simplest kind of lace (just yarn-overs and k2togs), and all wrong-side rows are plain knit rows. I found it a great project to accompany tv and podcasts.

Features:

• an all-over geometric pattern of mesh lace triangles
• intuitive and easy to knit
• knit on the bias from end to end
• easy to enlarge by adding extra repeats to the length and/or width
• requires two skeins of fingering-weight or sock yarn
• solid, semi-solid, or gradient-dyed yarn is ideal
• pattern includes full written instructions as well as charts.

You can see all the details and download the Hextile Wrap pattern via Ravelry, Loveknitting, or Craftsy.

How to block textured knits

Here's the situation: you've just finished knitting something with fantastic texture, either in cables or knits-and-purls, and now you need to block it. Wet-blocking, where you soak the project before laying/pinning it out to dry, can really flatten out texture, especially if you've used a yarn that doesn't 'bounce back' much once it's dry (like an alpaca or silk blend).

I had just this dilemma when I finished my Beeswax Scarf! I had wet-blocked my swatch and been disappointed by how flattened-out it was:

Scarf above; swatch below

Scarf on the left; swatch on the right

Obviously, I was keen to try a different blocking method that would preserve more of the lovely texture!

I settled on a method similar to wet-blocking, but with the order of the steps switched up: first you pin out your project, then you wet it. I used pins to stretch the scarf slightly and open up the eyelet-holes, and then I sprayed it liberally with a spray-bottle full of water. And I made a stop-motion video showing exactly what I did:

This method also has the advantage of taking less time to dry, because the yarn isn't fully soaked through. :)

I really want to try it next time I knit a cabled hat, because putting the hat over a balloon and spraying it has got to be easier than prodding a floppy, wet hat into shape.

Do you have a favourite blocking method I need to try?

New pattern: Beeswax Scarf

I've combined my love of bees and textured knits once again, and the result is the Beeswax Scarf! Its large-scale honeycomb pattern echoes the cables on my Beeswax Hat, but this is much easier to knit - and most importantly for a scarf, it's easy to knit flat. No cables here, just simple lace and garter stitch. It's so incredibly cosy, I can't wait for winter... ;)

The stitch pattern really is simple to knit, and watching the honeycomb grow is quite addictive. The only skills you'll need are working basic lace stitches (knit, purl, yarn-over, k2tog, and ssk), slipped stitches at the edges, and the Long Tail Cast On (which is optional). Charts are included as well as full written instructions.

Bohemia Worsted by Outlaw Yarn is a snuggly, luxurious blend of polwarth wool, alpaca, and possum fibre. This amazing rich golden colour is called 'Troy', and I used three balls for my scarf with plenty left over for swatching.

The Beeswax Scarf pattern includes three size options - a standard scarf (which is the one I knit), a wider scarf, and a wrap. All are a generous length for maximum cosiness.

Features:

• an all-over textured honeycomb pattern
• knit flat from end to end
• three width options (scarf, wide scarf, and wrap)
• easy to enlarge by adding extra repeats to the length and/or width
• requires 3, 4, or 5 balls of Outlaw Yarn's Bohemia Worsted (depending on size) or 611-1018 yards of worsted-weight yarn
• solid, semi-solid, or heathered yarn is ideal
• pattern includes full written instructions as well as charts.

You can see all the details and download the Beeswax Scarf pattern via Ravelry, Loveknitting, Etsy, or Craftsy.

Bees on the brain

I'm a week and a bit into my holiday at Mum & Dad's in Whakatane, and so far I've knit half a scarf and taken a ridiculous number of photos. I've borrowed Julian's DSLR camera for the trip, so I can get to grips with its manual controls with Dad's help. It's a lot of fun taking practice photos of whatever I fancy!

But before I get into photo-talk, I'll show you the scarf. It uses a stitch pattern I drafted up about six months ago, which is a lace-and-texture version of my Beeswax cable pattern. It traces the same shapes, with decreases forming the surface layer of honeycomb and yarn-overs forming the layer behind. The benefit of this version is that it's easy to knit flat, whereas the cabled Beeswax pattern is only really suitable for knitting in the round.

The yarn is a rich golden shade of Outlaw Yarn's Bohemia Worsted called 'Troy'. I hope to have the pattern available in about a month's time. :)

One really cool thing about playing with a DSLR camera (and having a photographer and his gear on hand) is trying out different lenses. My favourites at the moment are macro tubes, which can be stacked behind the lens to get varying levels of close-up-ness.

You can really see the darker possum fibres and lighter alpaca hairs in this yarn with a macro shot:

I've also been taking lots of photos around the garden, of flowers and insects and birds. I'm most proud of these bee photos, taken with a macro tube extension. The bee was foraging in a big patch of flowering pizza thyme, one of my family's favourite all-purpose herbs.

As part of my new photography learning curve, I've signed up for the free course A Year With My Camera, which involves weekly email lessons and homework assignments to share in the Facebook group (or on Instagram). We're only two weeks in, so you can still join in if you'd like!

New pattern: Folia Loop

Folia Loop is the second design in my La Folia Collection of accessories featuring leafy lace and garter stitch. It's a lightweight cowl that can be worn draped as a long loop or doubled up for warmth. I was lucky enough to have my Mum agree to model it for me!

It requires only one skein of fingering-weight yarn - I used Malabrigo Mechita in 'Pearl', a soft grey with a pretty tinge of mauve. It's a little more tricky than the Folia Crescent shawl, but aside from the provisional cast on and the final grafting it should be relatively intuitive once you've knit the first section or two of the lace. And the garter section is of course smooth sailing!

If you haven't tried a provisional cast on before or would like to try a new method, this is my favourite tutorial, using the crochet hook method: Crochet Provisional Cast On.

Features:

• a diagonal leafy lace panel surrounded by squishy garter stitch
• long enough to wear looped either once or twice
• knit flat with a provisional cast on and grafted to finish
• a stitch marker keeps track of the lace/garter boundary
• a one skein project in fingering-weight yarn, perfect for that precious single skein
• one size, easily enlarged by working extra garter stitch rows
• pattern includes full written instructions and hybrid charted + written instructions

You can see all the details and download the Folia Loop pattern via Ravelry, Loveknitting, Etsy, or Craftsy.

The remaining pattern in the collection, a triangular shawl, is currently being test knit and will be released in late September. You can find the collection-so-far here on Ravelry: La Folia Collection. The triangular shawl pattern will be added to the ebook once it's released.

Curious about the name La Folia? I introduced the collection and its musical inspiration in my earlier post, New pattern: Folia Crescent.