My new work, Wilma for Artesano Vintage Handknits patterns is now available on Ravelry! The above 2 images by courtesy of Artesano. They just released the first edition of their newsletter. Check this page because you can get a free knitting pattern from the collection.
I am just so excited about it and am so happy about the design. This project is to celebrate the release of their new colours. The above picture is made in Guyana (2133) for main colour and Wholemeal (C969) for the trim and the waist band.
This one above is made with Columbia (8440) for the main colour and Bolivia (0785) for the trimming and the waist band.
I do enjoy knitting with Artesano yarns. For this Vintage Handknits collection, I wanted the design to be something feminine that you can wear indoor when you go out somewhere. I also wanted the structure of the top to be something that keeps you warm but without becoming too hot.
Basically the cardigan has ruffles around the waist and the cuffs. These creates feminine look but also the garment “catches” the air so that wearing this top is always fresh. It has a low V-neck shaping and the waist is shaped with dainty but simple cable stitch over 3 sts.
I made the samples myself and I thoroughly enjoyed it. If I have time, I want to make one for myself
For me, Spring is a great time to knit accessories. It’s small and portable so that I can knit alfresco which is one of my favourite things to do.
Today, I wanted to let you know that Forest Glove knitting pattern, which was featured in Knit Now issue 1, is now available as a single pattern from my shop and from Ravelry.
Many years back, I was hooked on knitting gloves. I just loved working the fingers for some reason (strange I know!). Knit Now is a great magazine for accessories for all levels of knitters so I took an opportunity to create an original glove knitting patterns so that everyone will also get hooked like I was
The pattern is made for a DK yarn (4mm (UK 8/US 6). The sample glove above is made with Olympus Premio (100% wool (of which 40% Tasmanian Polwarth; 114m / 124 yds per 40g ball). It’s available in the US but not so within Europe, so we decided to stock them here in Cotton & Cloud for those who live in European countries. Instead of a single pattern, you can get a pattern and yarn set which works out better value than buying a pattern and the yarn. Do please check out because you can see the gloves in different colours!
So for a fashionable weekend to come, below is the style idea for the glove which I created using Polyvore (if you haven’t tried it, it’s so fun).
Did you know that merino wool is not just a beautifully soft and lovely yarn? This year, I pledged that I would keep running in winter. Since I am a forever-cold-body person I did a research on what sort of things are good to wear outside when you exercise… and I was really surprised that I landed on MERINO WOOL! They are used for so many winter sports clothing (cycling, mountain climbing, skiing.. you name it!).
So here are some facts I found on merino:
Regulates body temperature without over heating.
Merino fibres has lots of tiny pores on their fiber which traps air. This acts like a layers between your body temperature and the outside environment keeping you warm when the weather is cold, and vice versa.
Apparently Merino has high warmth to weight ratio. which means lots of warmth with less amount of fibre.
Merino wool wick moisture away so that your body feels nice and dry.
Merino is a hydrophillic (mening loves water!) fibre and can wick up to 1/3 of its weight.
Merino wool is naturally anti-bacteiral.
This means that the fabric is resistant to smell (unlike the sysnthetic counterpart).
The reason for this is that bacteria prefers to grow on an even surface with moisture but merino wool fibre has uneven surface and it draws water keeping the surface dry.
So I thought I would knit something for myself a nice little project using merino wool…
Free glove pattern Rayna by Artesano. Haven't knitted selbuvotter for ages!
Pattern:Rayna by Rita Taylor, a free knitting pattern by Artesano.
Yarn:Artesano Superwash Merino (100% machine washable wool; 112m / 50 g ball). I used Purple (3158) and Baby Peach (8413).
I LOVE knitting selbuvotter of all kinds. This was perfect because it is knitted with DK weight yarn so it’s nearly finished!
So warm and so cute!
If you are a merino geek, you might have heard of some controversial issues about museling on merino sheep. I don’t know much about this issue but the fact that people talk about it, it must be an important aspect of wool production. I think some of you would be happy to know that Artesano Superwash Merino wool comes from Peru and I have read that the practice of museling does NOT happen in Peru – it’s good to know these facts.
Front view of the glove.
Also I recently found out thatArtesano is giving out free knitting pattern by Nick Atkinson when you complete a quick questionnaire. And out of those who has completed a questionnaire, 5 people will win the Superwash Merino DK in their colour choice to knit the garment!!!! The deadline is 17th Feb 2012.
I have done it already I think the pattern is beautiful (see below). Isn’t it nice? It’s so clever that the diagonal eyelets are worked on the yoke. It continues even across the buttonband! I so want to knit with a red (colour: 8083) or teal (colour: 6701). I also think grey (colour SFN41) would look gorgeous.
This is going to be a beautiful cardi that you can knit up quick!
Do you have a favourite knitting technique that you use all the time? Mine is “wrap and turn”. The reason why I am blogging about wrap & turn is because many of my patterns include this technique. So, I thought it is about time for me to do a detailed tutorial about it.
Recently one of my new patterns called Hollyberry Bonnet & Cape have been published in Interweave Holiday Gift 2011 (super hurray!). This pattern is a typical example of wrap & turn technique.The horizontally shaping of the cape and the bonnet brim shaping are all worked using short-row technique.
I was thrilled to read in the magazine that the design is expertly shaped and designed. Seeing such a wonderfully edited and stylised publication of my knitting pattern, it made me think even more that I want to make sure that my patterns are logically constructed, knitable and achievable with 100% satisfaction!
So today I would like to write a detailed knitting tutorial about “wrap & turn”.
WRAP & TURN is one of the methods in short-row knitting. Short-row knitting allows you to change the direction of knitting, creating darts, mitred corners, vertical gathers and curves. It’s used for toe-up sock (the toe bits), horizontal yoke garments and lots of other 3D knitting!
In a nutshell: wrap & turn is worked as taking the yarn to opposite side of work (so if you are on the knit stitch, bring yarn front, if you are on the purl stitch, bring yarn back), slip next stitch from left to right needle, return yarn to working side, then slip st back from right to left needle. This will wrap the base of the stitch. The remaining stitches are unworked. Turn and continue working.
If you want to master all knitting techniques including various short-row knitting methods, I highly recommend Knitter’s Handbook by M. Stanley.
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The process of short-row knitting (i.e. wrap & turn) is divided by two stages: 1) The first stage is to do the actual wrap & turn, 2) The second stage is to “erase” the wraps by working together the wrap with the stitch.
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STAGE 1: WRAP AND TURN
RIGHT-SIDE of the work
When you reach to the stitch where you need to wrap & turn;
1. Bring yarn to front as if to purl.
2. Slip the stitch on the left needle to the right.
3. Bring yarn back.
4. Bring the stitch from the right to the left needle.
5. Turn Work
You will see that the stitch has a wrap at the base.
WRONG-SIDE of the work
When you reach to the stitch where you need to wrap & turn;
1. Bring yarn back as if to knit.
2. Slip the first stitch on the left to the right needle.
3. Bring yarn to front.
4. Slip the stitch on the right back onto the left needle.
5. Turn work.
You will see that the stitch has a wrap at the base.
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STAGE 2: ERASING THE WRAPS
This is done so as to prevent a hole being made between the rows. You can ignore this process if you like the wraps to remain for a decorative purpose.
The most important thing is to pick up the wrap from the right-side of the work. This way, all the wraps would be tucked behind the wrong side of the work after the stitches are knitted together.
You can pick up the wrap either with right or the left needles. I will show you how you can do both methods.
RIGHT-SIDE of the work
METHOD 1) Using right needle (very similar to slip, slip, knit (ssk)):
1. Pick up the wrap from below using right needle, then slip the stitch knit-wise (it’s a little like slip, slip, knit).
2. Re-insert the left needle from behind. Then knit these stitches together.
METHOD 2) Using the left needle:
1. Insert the left needle into the wrap from above.
2. Knit these stitches together.
WRONG-SIDE of the work
METHOD 1) Using right needle:
1. Insert the right needle into the wrap from below (or above). The picture shows the wrap is picked up from below.
2. Then place this wrap onto the left needle. Purl these stitches together.
METHOD 2) Using the left needle:
1. Insert the left needle into the wrap on the WS from above.
In November issue of Simply Knitting, you can find the lates Cotton & Cloud men’s sweater pattern!! This issue comes with John James Pebble darning needles too. Essential tool for knitting
Simply Knitting November Issue.
This is the first time Cotton & Cloud pattern has been featured in the magazine. I love the contents and would highly recommend you to check it out if you haven’t done so yet. The magazine is perfect for quick knits projects. It is not just ideal for beginner knitters but also great for more confident knitters if you are looking for a nice weekend project or gift knitting. The general layout is so reader-friendly. If there are any technical detail, it will explain in plain English.
Great shot! Huggable sweater I think.
The garment looks so nice on the model. I just love the look – this is exactly how I imagined the garment to be worn! yay!
Knitting for men is quite tricky – my husband is quite specific about what I knit for him. It has to be simple but not that simple. From the knitter’s point of view, there are a lot of stitches to work. So you want to make sure that the project will not be an endless one.
This cable sweater is uses 5 mm needles using circular knitting technique. This means that it knits up fast, which is, for me, a very important factor when making a man’s sweater.
The yarn is also important. It has to be something that you enjoy knitting with. For this pattern, I used Jarol – superwash British wool. it’s soft, cozy and natural. I loved knitting every stitch of it.
When I patterned this garment, I kept the structure as simple as possible. The body is knitted up straight and has drop-shoulder structure. This means that you don’t have do much shaping for the armhole at all. The collar is made of reversible honeycomb cable stitch. The sleeve stitches are then picked up from the armhole and knitted downwards using magic loop method. Basically there is no sewing up involved (except for the front shawl collar section).
My husband wanted to keep it but it had to be sent for the magazine for photography! Tough luck.
If you are not so keen on working with cables (especially for the collar), you can simply change it to ribbing. For single ribbing, make sure you have an odd number of stitches. If you use double ribbing, ensure the stitch numbers are multiple of 4 plus 2.
Since Jarol is a new yarn, I googled to see where you can get them and here are some of them:
Lastly, just a quick note. The shop will be closed for a quick maintenance between Wed to Sun. The site will function as per normal and download will occur as usual. All items purchased during this time will be dispatched on Monday 24th October. Thank you so much for your patience.
Also for those who had problem with the site with Internet Explorer, it should now be solved. If there are any more problems, please let me know. Please rest reassured, there were no dodgy bugs or anything.
Hope you are all enjoying the amazingly sunny weather in the UK. The world of Cotton & Cloud is mildly chaotic at the moment; preparation for Knitting and Stitching Show at Alexandra Palace next week, swatching for new designs, training for 1/2 marathon next week….
With all the chaos, there is a fantastic news! You can now get a new Cotton & Cloud knitting pattern in Knitting Magazine issue 95 out this week. When I saw the cover I was over the moon because you can see the design on the front page.
Knitting Magazine Issue 95 November 2011 - My sweater can be seen on the bottom left hand corner of the cover. Check out my name splashed on the cover too! My old friend who I lost in touch saw the mag in Waitrose the other day and got in touch with me - which is also super cool.
The editor Emma has also mentioned about my pattern in her note which is so nice – Thank you Emma!
I love the cool chic styling! Be bold, show off your knits.
In this pattern, there are lots of photo instructions for beads-knitting techniques. I used the combination of both seed beads and wooden beads because I thought i would make the garment really striking and fun.
Lots of photos like this in the magazine. You will learn a whole new world of bead knitting.
The inspiration for this garment is a traditional beaded necklace. This garment is all about the neck line. I have used the Japanese Olympus Premio for this garment. Neat and squishy yarn. It knitted up so well.
Work in progress, photo took at night. It is a top-down yoke sweater.
I think it would look really pretty even if you used less vivid colour. For example, try black or grey yarn with transparent beads to make it a smart sweater. Why not use oatmeal coloured yarn with lots of wooden beads for a country look?
Embellish it with a baggy belt.
For those in the US, I will double check with Emma where you can purchase the actual printed magazine, but for now, you can get a digital version for iPhone / iPad etc from here.
So what’s on your needles now? I will be going to Ally Pally on Saturday. Have a fabulous weekend!
Hope you all had a wonderful Bank Holiday. For those in the US, I am so glad that hurricane Irene did not become any worse, but I am sending my prayers for those who suffered and I hope things will get back to normal soon. The world is going crazy at the moment so it is always good to be safer than sorry.
Today, I would like to talk about how you can get inspired from things that are ordinary but by looking at it from a different direction. While the weather is bad outside, why not find inspiration at home?
A standard cable swatch, but I am loving it.
Currently I am creating series of swatches for new designs. There are beautiful stitches around but I don’t usually choose an extremely difficult ones because I like my patterns to have a nice “rhythm” when one knits.
I always want to create something visually attractive yet fun to knit. To achieve this, I need to overcome minor obstacles in knitting: unlike sewing, you have to cast on-> knit -> cast off. This means you can’t just create a shape quickly – everything has to be carefully calculated.
So to make knitting look fresh and new, you have to look at things from a different direction:
It's not that I have a terrible eyesight (actually I do) but I am trying to find a secret message in this book by reading upside down.
So I try looking at things up-side-down.
What does the world look like from a cat-point-of-view?
I also try to think like something else (e.g. my cats). How do others look at things?
I may create something novel by sitting up-side down to knit.
I position myself differently. May be I see something differently too.
Do try this at home. You will find something you did not know at home. I have actually got lots of inspirations doing this (my husband was getting a bit worried LOL) and they will be in the new designs to come.
I saw something about 10 days ago that surprised me immensely. I think one of my knitting patterns has been copied or at least “adapted” to an extent that it is literally identical. But I won’t say it’s for definite because things like this could truly happen by chance. But thinking again and again about what I saw, it is really quite hard to believe that this happened by chance because it looks exactly the same. I can see some differences but I know why these differences were made. If (that is if) this pattern which is already published, was really an adaptation of my design, it is disappointing that no credit was given to me. Actually this is the second time by different individuals that my designs as been “adapted” to an extent that it is identical. So I decided to voice about it.
I won’t go into detail about this particular case as it is by an individual and not by a large retail giant. If this happens for the second time by the same person, I will take an action. But for now, I would like to talk about my philosophy about this whole situation.
Knitting community is a great pool of people where they are all courteous and give credit to one’s design if a person adapts it – even to an extent that you cannot really see any resemblance to the original design! Knitters are all creative and I love being a part of this community.
Getting an inspiration from other designers, brands, etc is natural. I have my own favourite designers that I admire and I am always inspired by fabulous knitting designs that I see on Ravelry and elsewhere. If you are designing a new pattern, you may adapt a certain shape, a certain stitches on a completely different type of garment. I think that’s fine. But when it becomes, the same style of garment, the very similar detail of designs, very similar stitches on a same style garment – then that is a bit too much.
When you suspect that someone has adapted your design to an extent that it is literally identical, it is a difficult feeling. But one thing I can say is not to let this stop you. It’s a cliche to say that “imitation is the highest form of flattery”. May be it is, but you know, the bottom line is all about THE NEXT NEW DESIGNS. There is no point publishing what has been seen before.
It taks a LONG time for me to create a garment from start to finish. I go into a lot of details (scenery, photos, words, colours, texutres etc), swatches, analysing the ideal fibres. So when someone adapts my design I would expect someone to give some credit for the hard work I did.
Although I won't be able to tell you which one it is, these are some of the images I went through to design a garment.
I don't just go through inspirational images. I knit countless number of swatches. It really does take a long time, but that is the beauty of knitting - TIME.
I would like to “turn lemon into lemonade”. So next time I create my own design (which is going to be soon), I will blog about every step that takes from the beginning to the end of creating the final garment. I want to share my method of how I do it, and may be there is something that we can both learn from each other. Life goes on. I have a loving family and kitties with amazing knitting friends. All I need to concentrate is to create knitting patterns that we can all enjoy.
Since yesterday, I have been frogging this particular sleeve so many times… I know I will do it properly next time but I just want to make sure I am in the right mood to do it…
So I decided to talk to you about something that made me happy . I was so chuffed to see my beaded knitted purse pattern in Simply Homemade issue 3!! As usual, this magazine is packed full of all sorts of crafts for your home. There are projects for decorating your own glass, embelishing baby clothing etc. So fun!
Simply Homemade Issue 3
In recent months, I have been asked to create more knitted purse patterns. I was so lucky to have been given an opportunity to publish the pattern in the magazine.
There are lots and lots of pic to help you make the purse. You can't miss this issue!
This beaded knitted purse pattern is quite unique because it is knitted using a circular technique. The pattern for the beads is simple. This means if you can knit with magic loop method, but haven’t yet tried beads-knitting, this pattern is ideal for you.
The purse has two layers: beaded outer and stockinette stitch interior. All you need is 2 balls of Jamieson’s of Shetland Heather and exactly 174 beads to make this purse.
In order to make sure you can follow the pattern, there are many pictures in the magazine to help you knit the purse
This is made with wooden beads - Urban version. Yarn: Rosewood (#236), beads: brown round wood beads 6mm (2 strands).
What I made sure, when creating this pattern, was to make the design versatile and customizable. You can use different colours of yarn and beads to make it your special OOAK.
Bridal version with pearl beads. Yarn: Natural White (#104), beads: light beige Toho Seed Beads size 3 (4 bags).
Hope you’ve all been having a great first week of 2010. Today as promised, I would like to share with you my brand new FREE knitting pattern for an iPhone (well, you can put anything you want ).
My cool electrical gadget must travel in style. So I made this retro-style iPhone purse for me to take everywhere I go.
My knitted iPhone case.
This Knitted iPhone Purse…
♥ has an external pocket where you can put your earpiece
♥ is seamless
♥ is knitted in one piece (i.e. no joining required – grafting is involved but this is optional as you can cast off and join the bottom anyways you like)
I think the pattern is beautiful (see below). Isn’t it nice? It’s so clever that the diagonal eyelets are worked on the yoke. It continues even across the buttonband! I so want to knit with a red (colour: 8083) or teal (colour: 6701). I also think grey (colour SFN41) would look gorgeous.
by M. Stanley.
