Wednesday, July 21, 2010

More Patterns

Another free sock available at Handwerks, this one is Zig Zag Zug. It's suitable for all fingering weight sock yarns and is shown here in Handwerks Classic Sock colorway Sonoran Sunset.





That's Elsa, my dog-rug.


And now the pattern for Grand Canyon Socks is available for sale. Shown here in the original colors dyed especially for club members, you can use any two contrasting colors, again in fingering weight sock yarn.





All my patterns (and others as well) can be downloaded here

Friday, March 05, 2010

My First Pattern

Well, this is it. My first pattern. After 10+ years of knitting and fudging other peoples patterns I finally wrote my own! This is using Handwerks Textiles Sport Sock and the pattern is available for purchase of the this yarn. I designed for my friend Laura who own's Handwerks. She dyes all the yarns and was looking for someone to write patterns for them. I didn't know what I was getting myself into when I said I could do it. All the things I never do when I knit I now do when I design. Like swatch. I poured over my collection of stitch pattern books, then starting knitting a test tube. When choosing a stitch you have to consider not only whether you can do it, but whether you can explain it to someone else. There were several stitch patterns I threw out just because of that.







Here's some detail of the stitch I chose:
There's a mirror image of this stitch where the loop goes over to the left instead of the right. That was the first version I tried. But it required moving stitches to the right needle, pulling the stitch over then moving them back to the left. When you pull the stitch over, you lose a stitch but then you make a new one in the next row which creates the little eyelet. I had a lot of fun knitting the sock. It was strange having to write everything I did down. Even the heel which I usually just do from memory.

After I provided this pattern for her we signed a contract for me to design 2 more for her sock yarn club. A contract! I know! So official like. I just completed the first of those and submitted it to her. It's weird, for a little while there I had been in a knitting slump. I didn't find much enjoyment in my current projects. But now I have renewed vigor. I think it's the design work, it made me look a knitting in a whole new way. So next things? Besides the socks you should see a shawl and well, who knows?

Pattern is now available free