Tag: knitwear design

Feeling Renewed

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I got a chance to get away on my own this weekend and it has left me feeling completely renewed. I had a little too much to drink for me to say I’m feeling “refreshed”, but having spent a full 24 hours away from the family has everyone appreciating each other a little bit more.

I was at a wedding in Emerald Lake, a spectacularly green lake nestled in the mountains of Yoho National Park, British Columbia. I had a lovely room with a balcony overlooking the lake, equipped with rustic chairs that were begging for someone to come and knit in them. So I obliged. I didn’t have a lot of time between the hot-tubbing and getting ready for the ceremony, but I did manage to get a few rows done on P’s fair isle jacket. I am finding that being on the designing side of knitting leads to a lot more time sitting in front of my computer doing math and writing and less time knitting, but it’s rewarding in it’s own way. I was happy to be able to get all the required math done in order to do some actual knitting while away.

I’m going to need another weekend like that again soon!

New Page – And a Little Teasing

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As I was heading into the land of no internet (a beautiful, if slightly unsettling place in the Canadian Rockies) this weekend I received an email from my Technical Editor that she was done with my hoodie pattern. I wasn’t able to receive the files until this evening, which was excruciating. But now I’ve had a chance to look through it and I’m happy to announce it is ready to go. C says I should hold off until Tuesday since “that’s the day things get released,” but I’m unconvinced. Suffice it to say, within the next few days you will finally be able to get your hands on The Everyday Hoodie pattern!

Since I’m officially going to have multiple patterns I have added a new page to the top of the blog. If you click on the “Patterns” tab at the top of the page you will be taken to a list of patterns I have for sale. Hopefully it will fill up quickly!

Jennifer Boot Cuffs

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And here we go! My very first published knitting pattern! It is a very simple design, but my own nonetheless! You can click on the Buy Now button below to go to the pattern page on Ravelry where you can purchase the pattern if your heart desires! Thank you to Eleanor Dixon for technical editing and Ryan Barr for photography! I am only using exclamation points to punctuate this post!

 

My Life is So Glamorous…

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… that I go on photoshoots now. Okay, so I must disclose that although I am the model, I am also the casting director and the client. I enlisted my friend Ryan’s expertise again today to take some pictures of my new boot-cuff design. We headed to a park near his house and were able to find some beautiful trees and even a small stream for a backdrop. Just looking at what he got on his camera has made me very excited to see the finished product. Unfortunately I don’t think I’ll have the time to knit him another pair of socks for payment, but a case of beer will probably go over very well. Hopefully this business will take off and I’ll be able to pay him with actual money.
In the meantime, the pattern has been tested quite successfully by 4 test knitters, and I should be getting it back from the technical editor sometime in the next week. Then I’ll just have to tidy it up, add the pictures and make any possible changes, and then you’ll finally get to see it. Yay!

Swatching and Math

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Today’s confession is that I’m not good at following through. As such, that will likely be my last Sunday Confession.

Onto new business, I haven’t been posting as much as I had been because I’m finding myself very busy lately. With A being back in school 3 days a week, the 1.5 hours I get to myself is overshadowed by the 2.5 hours of getting him ready and walking him to and from school. I also signed myself up for swimming lessons, which I love, but they are taking up two evenings a week.

When I have been getting some free time lately I’ve been planning my new girl’s sweater/jacket design. This one is going to be fairly complex again so I’m having to learn some new techniques along the way. The idea for the sweater came while looking for a fall jacket for P last week. I didn’t like anything I saw but I did like the looks of some chunky, fair isle cardigans. After seeing those I couldn’t get them out f my head and I’ve been preoccupied with designing my own ever since.

I spent some time trying to come up with my own fair isle motif. It didn’t take me long to figure out that not only is a good motif extremely complex, it’s just not the type of designing I’m good at. Instead I hit the book store and found 200 Fair Isle Motifs, which is an incredible directory of all things Fair Isle.

Then I dug through my yarn stash and found a bunch of Cascade 220 in lots of different colours. I wanted the sweater to be nice and dense so I picked a US 5 needle and started swatching. Happy with how the swatch turned out I began all the math. I’ve now got the measurements worked out for 5 different sizes and converted them to stitch and row counts. I’ve started writing what I know of the pattern so far and will make the rest up as I go.

I cast on this morning for my sample, which will eventually be P’s fall jacket. Hopefully I will finish it and the pattern before we’re fully into winter coat season. Stay tuned for more updates on the pattern writing and progress on the sweater. I figure posting about it will keep me motivated to finish!