Designing – Cowtown Knits

Introducing Capitol Hills Wrap

April 12, 2019Leave a comment

For the first time in a long time, I’m happy to announce the launch of a new pattern!

This one is a pretty lace number that’s perfect for spring and summer wear, and it’s called the Capitol Hills Wrap.

I’m very lucky to live in a great neighbourhood (Capitol Hill, here in Calgary) with an incredibly high proportion of fibre artists. We recently started up a Fibre Arts Club at our community association that’s drawing a surprisingly large crowd of crafters who knit, crochet, Tunisian crochet, cross stitch, embroider, sew, and dye yarn!

One of those crafters is Jenn, the incredibly talented dyer behind Fibre Goddess, who happens to live just a few blocks from me (our kids even go to the same school). When I got my hands on her Artemis yarn, a silk and linen blend, I knew it could be something special.

I wanted a shawl that I could wear every day. I sometimes struggle to find a good way to wear triangular or semicircular shawls, so I decided to go with a simple rectangle instead. I also wanted to utilize the beautiful drape of the yarn, so I made it nice and hole-y. I found a geometric wallpaper pattern I really liked on Pinterest, and converted it to knits, purls, and yarn-overs, because that’s the way my brain works. And because I wanted it to finish with points on either end, I started it from the middle and worked outwards.

Construction starts at the middle of the wrap with a provisional cast on, and a narrow band is then worked in opposite directions to form the horizontal centre panel. Then stitches are picked up along one side, and a broad chevron pattern is worked vertically in one direction, ending with a peaked edging. The process is repeated in the opposite direction to complete the wrap.

I’m so happy with how it worked out! The yarn is scrumptious, and the wrap is something I can wear every day, which is pretty much all I’m ever looking for in a knitted piece.

You can buy the pattern (which is $2.00 off until end of day April 19th) on Ravelry by clicking the button below.

Or come visit Jenn and I at the Fibre Shindig at the Hillhurst Sunnyside Community Association on Saturday, April 13th, from 10am – 4pm. We will both have kits at our booths that will include 2 skeins of Artemis as well as a hard and digital copy of the pattern (at its discounted price).

This collaboration is all about great neighbours and lively neighbourhoods, which I’m so grateful to have!

Dublin

May 23, 2018May 22, 20185 Comments

Welcome to Dublin – the penultimate pattern in Travel Knits for the Family, and a city in Ireland.

The pattern is for a versatile cardigan to throw in your bag to keep you warm when those travel days get cold. It features a leaf lace pattern than flows from the shoulders down the sleeves and is integrated into the ribbing at the cuffs. The same ribbing and leaf lace pattern is repeated at the bottom of the body as well.

It’s designed with generous ease and no shaping to make it easy to layer on over anything. That being said, the body is a blank canvas to add shaping if you’d like to modify it.

The pattern is worked from the top down, seamlessly, beginning with the lace shoulders. After the shoulders are worked, the back is worked to the underarm, followed by each front. Then the body is joined and worked to the bottom. The lace pattern is continued down the sleeves as they are worked from the top down, with short-row sleeve caps. The collar is worked, followed finally by the button bands. The lace pattern is provided as both charted and written instructions.

For this pattern I was so lucky to get my hands on Travelknitter’s new DK weight Blue Faced Leicester yarn. This yarn was a dream to work with, and of course the colour is outstanding, as are all the Travelknitter colourways (really, every single one). You can check them out at the Travelknitter online shop when it’s open and stocked. But if you’re lucky enough to be heading to Woollinn Dublin this weekend, you can grab the yarn and the book at the Travelknitter booth. Larissa will have a limited number of Travel Knits for the Family books for purchase at her booth, and I believe you’ll also be able to check out a second sample of the Dublin cardigan there as well.

I wish I was going to be in Dublin for the festival this weekend as well (though that would mean missing the launch party at The Loop here in Calgary, so maybe not). We visited Dublin for a quick weekend trip at the end of the summer of 2016. We strolled around St. Stephen’s Green, learning about the Easter Uprising. We visited the National Museum of Ireland – Archaeology, as well as The Old Library and the Book of Kells at Trinity College. We took the best bus tour I’d ever been on – the driver provided the commentary, which was equal parts hilarious and educational, all while winding us through the narrow streets of Dublin. We finished off the weekend with a pub lunch along the river Liffey while listening to Irish folk tunes while it drizzled outside, which was perfection. Our main regret for that trip was that we didn’t get to see any of the rest of Ireland – so we’ll have to go back!

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(PS. I included the photo where Atticus is hanging his head to show that traveling with kids isn’t always a party. They were both really cranky that day, which happens. It can make it really hard to enjoy, but it’s rarely what we remember from a trip.)

For more information about Travel Knits for the Family, get all the details here.

Oslo

May 11, 2018Leave a comment

The next pattern in Travel Knits for the Family is named after the beautiful city of Oslo, Norway.

The pattern is for some very versatile mittens. They feature the same cable and rib pattern as the Bergen hat, but in mitten form. And for those who are more adventurous and need some extra warmth, the pattern has optional thrums worked into the centre of the cables. If this is your first time working thrums, there is a handy photo tutorial at the back of the book to walk you through it.

The magic of the pattern is that it comes with lots of variations. Make them fingerless, full mittens, or flip-top. And you also have the choice to make them with thrums or not. For my family we ended up with two pairs of thrummed mittens – one flip-top and one full mitten – and two pairs without thrums – one fingerless and one full mitten.

We visited Oslo in the Fall of 2017. We spent a day and a half in the city, exploring the abundant museums, the opera house, and the harbour area. The highlight of the trip though was the train ride from Oslo to Bergen. It’s actually billed as one of the top train journeys in the world, with good reason. It leaves from Oslo and winds its way through forests, lakes, and fields up to snow-capped mountains and rushing streams, and then back down through beautiful fjords on the way to Bergen. I tried to take lots of photos through the train windows, but in the end I decided to just enjoy the view.

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For more information about Travel Knits for the Family, get all the details here.

Lambton Panes Kits, And How to Get Them

July 11, 2016Leave a comment

There’s something new and exciting coming soon! I’ve been working on a collaboration with Lola from Third Vault Yarns to bring you a pattern that’s going to knock your socks off. But first, a bit of backstory.

Lola and I go to the same southwest London knit night, hosted by the lovely Rachel and Allison from Yarn in the City. I’ve been attending this weekly get together as much as possible since moving, as it’s been a great way for me to meet like-minded people in the new city/country/continent. I’ve gotten to know Lola and admire her mad yarn-dyeing skills over this time.

Recently, Lola mentioned that she was going to have a stand at the upcoming Fibre East in Ampthill, Bedfordshire. We started discussing working together to come up with some new patterns and colourways to package into kits to sell at the show. After brainstorming, we came up with the idea of a shawl using two skeins of Third Vault Yarns Companion 4ply, one in a gradient and one in a complimentary neutral shade. I left that knit night with some of that buttery-soft yarn and started swatching, and Lola went to the dye pots and got to dyeing.

What we’ve come up with is the Lambton Panes shawl. It features traveling, slipped stitches over a background of garter stitch stripes, creating a diamond lattice effect.

The sample is knit with one skein of Blue Steel as the neutral stripes and traveling stitches, and one skein of Cowtown, a custom gradient using my brand colours, for contrast stripes. I’m so excited that Lola created such a cool colourway using the shades of salmon, wheat, and aqua from my brand.

So, where are we going with this? Lola has been dyeing yarns in some gorgeous gradients and semi-solids. She’s made up some of the Cowtown gradient as well as The Poisoned Apple (left) and Hawkeye (right). I’ve seen them in person and I must say, they’re even more gorgeous in real life.

I’ve been working through the editing, testing, and printing process. I’ve already had one tester finish and it’s so pretty!

So here are the important details. The pattern will be released to the general public on Friday, July 29^th, for digital download either through Ravelry, LoveKnitting.com, or here on my website. If you’re lucky enough to be attending Fibre East, you can get your hands on a kit (one gradient, one neutral, 8 stitch markers, and a print copy of the pattern) in person on July 30^th or 31^st, while supplies last. Or, you can visit Third Vault Yarns starting Wednesday, July 13^th, and pre-order your kit for delivery after Fibre East.

That’s all the details for now. Stayed tuned here for more news on another collaboration to be unveiled at Fibre East.

Introducing the Mount Rundle Mittens

September 14, 2015Leave a comment

Hello! Long time, no see! And boy, has life been happening since I last posted. Most of the radio silence of late was a result of a move to a new continent. My husband’s office in Calgary was closed down, and he was lucky to get an offer to transfer to the office in London. Three months later, here we are.

In order to focus on the logistics of moving a whole family across an ocean, I put designing aside until we got here. I gotta tell ya, that was not easy! Ideas were festering in my brain and I so itched to get at my yarn and spreadsheets. But there was so much else going on, I knew it had to wait.

Luckily, I had a pattern that had been completed back in June that was waiting for the right season for publishing. As the days have started getting shorter and colder here, I’m feeling confident that now is the time. So, I present the Mount Rundle Mittens.

These mittens were originally designed for an event at The Loop, my local yarn store in Calgary. They had a Craft Cruise coming through and wanted some patterns and yarns from local artists and I was fortunate that they asked me. These mittens are my homage to the tall mountains and sunny skies of Alberta.

The original sample was knit in my own hand-dyed yarn. I loved how it looked in the navy blue and silver. But, when moving, I decided that the yarn-dyeing operation was best left on hold. Then I was left not wanting to have a pattern only suggesting a yarn that wasn’t commercially available. So, I picked up some incredible Mrs. Crosby Trunk Case from The Salty Sheep while on vacation in Swansboro, NC. The new sample is knit up in Hollywood Cerise and African Grey – both stunning colours with such depth and subtle variation.

The pattern is now available for purchase on Ravelry and Love Knitting. I hope you like it, happy knitting!