Pattern & FO: Baker Street Gloves

Baker Street is the third and last pattern in the Old Maiden Aunt/Karie Bookish yarn club collaboration.I feel a bit sad about the yarn club drawing to a close. It has been a lot of fun for both Lilith and I - not to mention the horde of knitters who have been taking part. Also, I cannot believe it is December already!

The Baker Street gloves are knitted in the "221b" colourway in Lilith's Bluefaced Leicester Aran. The gloves are knitted to an unusually tight gauge on 3.75mm in order to make the gloves extra warm and also extra durable.

Lilith loves these gloves and nearly nicked them when I first showed them to her. I really like them too. They are super-cosy and due to the nature of the stitch pattern and construction, they fit snugly across many shapes/sizes of hands. I like having my fingers all cosy, so the gloves are rather long - but as with most of my patterns, I have shown how to modify this in the pattern.

A little bit about how I put the collection together.

I started out by sketching a motif I could play with across many types of accessories. The motif becomes increasingly more elaborate and complicated throughout the club patterns: the shawl had a fairly easy repeat and the hat started incorporating the motif in the round and into shaping. The Baker Street patterns adds twisted stitches to the motif and instead of repeat it in a sort of diamond formation, I chose to stack it. OK, so this is designer mumbo-jumbo. Basically this just means that all the patterns use the motif differently and yet they all work together.

I have been wearing my Baker Street gloves these past few weeks: winter has hit the UK and I needed something a bit more cosy than my usual fingerless mitts. These were perfect - heavier yarn than my other fingerless gloves and the length/fit of them ensured my hands were warm. Of course I were slightly worried that I'd meet a knitter who'd ask me about my gloves. Well, I was on constant Whip-'Em-Off alert, but I escaped unscathed. It's a pleasure to be able to wear them with pride in public now!

Thank you so much to all yarn club participants. The club-only exclusivity for all the patterns runs for the remainder of this month. By the beginning of January, the patterns will be available for everybody via the magic of Ravelry.

I'm off to make æbleskiver now. The Old Maiden Aunt studio is open tonight as part of the West Kilbride (Craftstown Scotland) Yule Night and I offered to bake some Danish Xmas goodies for the Knit-In. Yes, it's most definitely December..

Pattern & FO: Baskerville Hat

The November pattern in the Old Maiden Aunt/Karie Bookish yarn club is now live. SO excited!

Baskerville is knitted in OMA Bluefaced Leicester DK in the club-only colourway Grimpen Mire. I originally asked Lilith for a green that was somewhere between sage and hunter green - I think she outdid herself with this one. I want to knit everything in this colourway.

Every time I release a pattern I say that this is my all-time favourite pattern, but it's particularly true for this one. I first toyed with the idea of creating an even lacier hat based upon the stitch pattern I first used with Serpentine Avenue, but I realised that I like hats to be warm. So, instead I let the stitch pattern run all over the body of the hat before incorporating it into the crown decreases. I love how it looks.

Pretty, right?

Designers like to talk about "samples" and "not touching the samples". I can tell you that I will be wearing the beep out of this so-called sample because I just love it so much.

(It is also a handy replacement for the hats I lost to the moths but I couldn't tell you before now)

All the patterns and colourways in the yarn club take their cues from late Victoriana with a special nod to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Baskerville takes its name from the Sherlock Holmes novel The Hound of the Baskervilles in which Holmes investigates the mystery of a supernatural hound that supposedly takes revenge upon the Baskerville family. It's a also a sly nod to baskerhue - a Basque hat - which is the Danish name for a beret!

The colourway is named after the location where the Baskerville Hound roamed. There is no actual place called Grimpen Mire but Conan Doyle was inspired to write his story after a visit to Dartmoor's Fox Tor Mire.

Many thanks to my testknitters and my patient stylist/photographer/cake devourer. Let the knitting commence!

FO & Pattern: Serpentine Avenue

Remember the old joke about tombstones reading I told you I was ill? It was one of my uncles' favourite jokes, bless their socks. Though magnificently Gothic, Serpentine Avenue is not my tombstone, but it does allow me to say I told you I was knitting!

It is the first pattern release for the Karie Bookish Knits/Old Maiden Aunt autumn 2012 yarn club. At the moment it is only available to yarn club members, but the pattern will be made available for general consumption in January 2013 as part of an ebook.

The shawl was written for OMA Bluefaced Leicester 4ply. It used approximately 375 yrds and is knitted on 4 mm needles.

But I want to write a little bit about the design process involved in designing Serpentine and the other yarn club patterns.

When Lilith of OMA first approached me, I started out by creating a moodboard on Pinterest. Lilith had decided on yarn bases by that point and then dyed up some samples for me. What a privilege it was! I sat there surrounded by yarns and beautiful colours - and I had to figure out which yarn/colour combinations I wanted to use.

It was around that time I started sketching patterns. Lilith and I had already decided upon Sherlock Holmes & Sir Arthur Conan Doyle  as a common reference point between us. So, I wanted something gothic, something Victoriana, something vaguely burlesque, and something steampunkish.

And so I ended up with a stack of swatches and a stack of stitch patterns.

I finally cast on for Serpentine during the Olympics Opening Ceremony - it was to be my own Ravellenic Games project - but it flew off my needles. The only snag I hit was trying to decide upon the cast-off edging. I first used an elaborate crochet cast-off  and it worked nicely. Then I changed my mind as I know a lot of knitters are not very comfortable with crochet. It was a step too far, I felt. The crochet cast-off will be used in another pattern down the line.

The second cast-off was a picot cast-off. It was pretty - it was very pretty - and I was happy with it for a long time. I finished designing and knitting the two other yarn club patterns - and suddenly the picot cast-off did not work. Don't ever try to tinker back a picot cast-off on a shawl, dear readers. It was not fun and I did it two days before the photo shoot.

I am really looking forward to seeing people's shawls. A lot of people have already talked about its Gothic and Steampunk feel - and I am so, so pleased that people have made that connection. It was very much the intention.

Then, the photo shoot.

If I look pale and flustered, it is because I wore a corset. I could hardly walk and talk at the same time - however did ladies waltz in corsets? I bought the corset especially for the photo shoot from Corsets UK - my corset is of far better quality than I would have assumed given the very reasonable price tag and they have good customer service. I also bought some stunning handmade earrings from Cherryblossom on ebay - again, highly recommended.

And now back to work. You know, I told you I was knitting..

Florence & Molly

The start of August is always the busiest time of year for me and this year is no exception. The yarn companies are beginning to launch their Autumn-Winter collections with new patterns and yarns galore - and as a result I have a thousand thingsto keep my head and hands busy. I hope to have a more in-depth look at some of my favourites soon - but before I can play favourites, I need some time to breathe and gather my thoughts. To tide things over, I thought I would share a free pattern with you.

I designed the Florence scarf last summer at the request of a well-know British department store. It takes one ball of Rowan Kidsilk Haze, it is a good introduction to knitting with fine mohair yarns, and it would make a good 'first lace project'. The scarf was very popular with the store and I thought it might also prove popular with others. I think of it as a quiet design, if that makes sense.

There are more designs to come, but I'll write about those as they get released.

In case you want something more worthwhile to read than my moans about work, my good friend* Molly Templeton has gone viral (as the kids say) with coverage ranging from Jezebel to The Atlantic Wire. Why? Molly took issue with the cover of The New York Times Book Review. It had a How-To issue in which men wrote about a wide range of topics and the ladies got to write about how to raise children and how to cook. In the words of Ms M.:

 There is nothing wrong with cooking and raising children; there are lots of things right and wonderful with these pursuits. They are also, as I’m sure I don’t need to tell you, traditionally female tasks, and when you take into consideration the VIDA stats, the history of gender imbalance in literature and journalism and the world at large, you might find yourself a little frustrated by the fact that it’s 2012 and we are still too often relegated to writing about deeply gendered topics. (Of the 18 bylined reviews and essays in the issue, five are by women.)

And so Molly decided to start The How To Tumblr which features women writing how-to articles about anything and everything under the sun.This is her call for contributions:

I’m sure there’s something you know how to do. I’m sure there are things your many brilliant friends know how to do, or something you could write about that has to do with doing a thing (most of the NYTBR pieces were, of course, book reviews). I would like to read the essays, reviews, comics, lists and more we, and they, could write in this vein -  irreverent, funny, heartbreaking, ironic, wry, snarky, sweet, clever, brilliant, silly, and everything else.

Inevitably, Molly's tumblr has turned out a whole host of fun, insightful and interesting essays . You can contribute too - Molly's project is open to women and those who identify as genderqueer/not of a binary gender.

(* how good? Handknitted-present-good!)

Pattern: Elsinore Shawl

Remember yesterday when I mentioned a photo shoot for a new pattern? Well, I can show you the results now!

The Elsinore shawl is now available to buy from Ravelry which is why I can now show you some of the amazing photos we shot in Copenhagen.

I had long wanted to shoot some photos in Denmark as I gather so much of my inspiration from my old homeland. Elsinore proved the perfect pattern: I designed it with a persistent idea of 'flatness' in mind: the stitch patterns are quite pared down in order to showcase the fabulous colour of the yarn. Flat and pared down .. all are words that I could use to describe Nordic light, especially during the winter months.

That is not to say that I think Elsinore is a minimal shawl. I started out wanted to capture 'flatness' but the simple lines turned out to be really flattering once draped over a person.

I was really lucky that my old friend Kirsten Marie agreed to model for me. She sings, she knits, she reads, she translates, she sews - and now she models too. And Kirsten Marie introduced me to a photographer who was interested in the challenge of shooting lace shawls in the depth of winter. Win-win.

The original sample is knitted in OMA superwash merino 4ply in "strange rock'n'rollers". It took roughly 390 yards to knit the sample but I recommend 400 yards in the pattern just to be on the safe side. And as always I recommend using a 4mm (US 6) needle to give the shawl a good deal of drape. The yarn was phenomenal to work with and the colourway was very interesting: it kept changing colour dependent upon where and when I was working on it.

And the last chapter in this story belongs to my poor test knitter, S. She kindly offered to testknit the pattern whilst I was gallivanting in Denmark. Unfortunately this meant she actually testknitted most of my next pattern. Amazingly the wrong chart worked really well with the Elsinore charts and she did not suspect a thing. I felt horribly guilty when I realised what had happened - but it's intriguing that the chart worked!

Elsinore was such a joy to design and knit. It came together very quickly and proved a really relaxing knit for me. I hope you'll enjoy it too.

Pattern: Tornved

My heart sank when I woke up this morning. It was another classic Glasgow early-winter morning: overcast, rainy and dreich. And I meant to do a photo shoot today, rats. Yes, boys and girls, I finished designing and writing another pattern. Remember the Old Maiden Aunt knitalong? I set myself the challenge of designing a shawl pattern during the KAL (oh, and knitting the sample and writing the pattern too).

I had the idea very early on that I wanted to design a shawl with my childhood in mind. I spent my summers in Tornved, a tiny hamlet in rural Denmark, where my great-grandmother. Lily, lived in a cottage. Her cottage looked out on farmland and I thought I wanted to put that into writing knitting. So, there you have it: birds chasing seeds and flying over unworked soil. I find it oddly poetic.

And on a practical note, I love small shawls with a solid stocking stitch middle but I find them quite dull to knit, so I wanted a lace pattern that would break up the monotony of stocking stitch but remain fairly solid.

Anyway, I eventually decided to take some photos inside one of the glass house in the nearby Botanic Gardens. Some of the statues kindly volunteered to be wrapped up in wool which gave my shawl a faint Gothic feel. Maybe those are not birds, but hearts..Hmm..

I am still unsure about the amount of light, but things are not going to get any brighter for a few weeks (yay, solstice!). Also, the grand prize in the Old Maiden Aunt November knitalong is a complete Tornved kit, so I needed to wrap things up.

Tornved took me three weeks to chart (because charts kept being stupid and big and difficult to knit) and less than four days to knit (when I finally cracked the chart thing). This speed-knitting adventure can possibly be the reason why I'm struggling with a wonky wrist now. Don't try this at home, kids. And it was an oddly emotional knit (and I don't do emotions) because I sat there thinking about ways to incorporate memories into a knit without being too specific.

You can purchase Tornved on Ravelry, if you so desire. I used 390 yards of Old Maiden Aunt Merino 4ply in the colour Berry Good and knitted it on 4mm circs. I did not bead this shawl, but I have included several beading tips for all you bling-lovers.

And that is that, I guess. I have lived with this shawl design for a month and now it is leaving the nest. Aww..