Espalier

A couple of weeks back I test knitted a shawl pattern for a friend. It's a triangular shawl in fingering weight yarn, knit top-down.
The pattern is reverse stockinette with a leaf pattern that climbs on a trellis. I absolutely love leaf patterns, they're fairly simple to knit and they look amazing. The moment I saw a photo of this shawl it go right on the top of my knitting queue. The pattern however, did not exist yet so I had to wait for a few weeks and then I had the opportunity to test knit the shawl.

Last week Mia Rinde published the final pattern of Espalier and I can tell you it's a gorgeous shawl! I love my shawl and use it a lot.

The pattern is quite straight forward, lace pattern on the right side, relaxing rows back. No tricky techniques, just a little focus on keeping track of where you are in the pattern. I only used stitch markers to mark the centre stitch since the middle sections kept growing and stitch markers to mark the repeats would have to have been moved around a lot. I did one more repeat than the pattern suggested and ended up with a shawl in the perfect size for me. I can wrap it around my shoulders as well as wear it as a scarf. I used up 120 grams of Cascade fingering, most of the test knitters landed somewhere 100-150g of fingering weight.

Viajante

Imagine a poncho. Now imagine a shawl. Now imagine they're one and the same garment. It's a Viajante!

Viajante is a genius pattern by Martina Behm. It's a versatile garment that can be worn as a poncho or a shawl in various styles. I knitted my Viajante in 2-ply Shetland wool in graphite grey, I'm not sure about the meterage but the finished garment weighs 270 g.

I have gotten a lot of use out of my Viajante, it's still warm enough to wear it over a sweater and let the jacket stay in the wardrobe.

Pimlico - my first pattern published

Yesterday I published my first pattern Pimlico on Ravelry! I'm so excited and have to sneak a peak every now and then to see how many people have faved the pattern and how many downloads. This morning I woke up to see the first project had been started! I am so happy to see such lovely response to my first pattern!

The pattern is a fairly easy hat with contrasting stitches creating stripes which and the decreases create a twirl in the stripes. It may not look like it, but there's not much purling in knitting this.
Check out my free pattern here! 

Needles at work

My needles have really been working this last week. I've finished the cowl I test knitted, my January socks from the sock knitalong and a Winchester hat in reflective yarn.  It feels very inspiring when finishing several projects within a short period of time. But now I don't know what to knit now. I have my Sprig sweater that needs arms and the February socks in the sock knitalong. I've decided on a pattern but wasn't very excited about the heart pattern on them so I've been drawing replacement ideas. So far non of my ideas has worked out with the numbers of stitches I have. Even A helped and drew some ideas! Hopefully the inspiration will come soon!

A pair of Nutkins

Hat in Schachenmayer Lumio without flash, only missing a pompom

Hat in Schachenmayer Lumio WITH flash, only missing the pompom on top

Distracting needles

My needles are very distracting while packing. I'm just done with the body on a Sprig sweater and started the first arm but put it down for a week because my gauge was slightly off when I got on the doublepointed needles. 

I also needed the time to knit the hat Lina for A for xmas. Lina was an easy knit that took just a few days to knit, the pattern wasn't selfexplanatory and I had to look for notes in other projects to help me get it right. A was very pleased with the hat and so was I. Great project when short on time and in need of a gift or a hat for yourself.

I've been knitting on an easy side project for a while, but I'm not very fond of knitting with this yarn, it slips off the needles way too easy. Entrelac is a rather fun technique but the yarn is not fun to knit with. I've just finished my second Grey Gardens headband, I love that pattern. Entrelac and a turban twist makes it exciting. Now I'm just waiting for some snow to match it with.