Thursday, January 27, 2011

Dolce

My favourite thing to do is design a pattern with someone in mind.   This particular somebody is a stylish woman on the go.  I wanted a design that was practical - that could go from thrown on casually with a jean jacket to more formal with a great wool coat.  


"Dolce" hits all those marks with great pleats all along one side creating an asymmetrical funkiness that I love and a slipped stitch pattern that makes a channel on the wrong side that an i-cord can be fished through.





As with Emma, I have taken to naming my patterns after my recipients and it's fitting that this pattern name technically means "sweet".   So here it is, a sweet pattern for the sweetest of persons, who happens to be named Dolce.  

(modelled begrudgingly by yours truly)

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Short on time, Big on Heart


What do you do if you have limited time and limited yarn to knit something?   Easy.  Knit less of it.   Thank the knit gods for cowls.  Being a pre-Christmas baby myself, I suppose I should be acutely sympathetic to the post-Christmas birthday "overlook" and plan ahead a bit better.  At any rate, January 2nd snuck up on me again and it struck me the day before mom's birthday that I should knit her a little something special.   Luckily, I had one ball of this great sparkly yarn in my mom's favourite fuscia colour (she's a sparkly kind of mom) and I knew I could knit something up real quick for her. 


  I hate that "real quick" usually equates to a lot of stockinette stitch or a lot of mindless "yo, k2tog" repeats.   I'm not above them, don't get me wrong, but my hands were looking for a bit more of a challenge.   Julie's Stockholm Scarf pattern suddenly hit me, and I literally ran to the computer and was off to the races.  The scarf in its entirety is fabulous, but the mini cowl is a pretty fabulous second.   One and a half movies later I was long a little birthday gift and got a model shot out of it too.  (She's a good sport)