So you might see some changes over the next short while.
At the mo, I’m trying to get rid of the ruddy big “S” in the top left corner. I have NO idea what it’s doing there, except I think the theme is called “suburban” something or other. Argh. The css stylesheet is locked down unless I shell out $30 to get access to it.
Has anyone out there heard of a duck? This is a bready (brioche-y?) finger or rectangle, with a creamy lemony filling or glaze. I only remember it vaguely from a single tasting in my youth. It was a favourite of my dad’s, however, and I’d love to find one for him.
One slight problem, “duck” might be a family name for this confection, and not the official one at all!!! Please help if you can!
I can’t believe it! So, so happy to announce that Kaava has reached #15 on the ravelry Hot Right Now list! Out of 127,977!
This is a huge “designer moment” for me, I thought I was at least 20 more patterns away from making “the list”. Seriously guys, happy, happy, happy dancing going on here.
This light little lace shawlette is quick to start, with just enough challenge to keep you interested. It uses up as much yarn as possible from that special skein of hand-dye you’ve been saving.
Kaava features a beautiful open band of Shower Stitch, an old French lace pattern. The lacy rib section frames the shawl and a nifty crochet bind-off adds the final castellated touch.
Get it now for £3 
I love the phrase “to be swept off one’s feet”. It’s been running through my head since I was at the wedding of a beautiful Irish girl (whose name I’ve jumbled up for this pattern) and a very witty man earlier this year. I couldn’t tell you who did the feet-sweeping between the pair of them, but this shawl is what I plan to be wearing when my own feet next get swept under!
A wide, crescent-shaped shawl that is ideal for showing off a skein of glorious hand-dyed 4-ply yarn. The shawl features Shower Stitch, which is a beautiful old French Lace stitch.
A wool-rich yarn is recommended as this shawl needs to be blocked aggressively to bloom to best advantage.
Size
Shape: Crescent
Wingspan: 148cm / 58in
Depth: 50cm / 20in
Yarn
Shamu Makes Hand-dyed British Blue-Faced Leicester (4-ply; 100% wool; 400m/438yds/100g skein). Colour: mauve/denim, 1 skein.
Needles and Accessories
1 set 4mm (UK 8/US 6) circular needles, 80cm / 32in long
4mm crochet hook
Blunt tapestry needle
Optional, but recommended:
Stitch markers
T-pins and blocking wires
Tension
20 sts and 36 rows to 10cm/4in over stocking stitch, relaxed after hard blocking.
Explicit Content Warning!!!
I had the great good fortune to attend Benjamin Wilson’s first off-piste (by which i mean non-sponsored) tutorial yesterday. The topic was “pornographic intarsia” which sounded hugely daring and exciting when I first read about it on Ben’s blog.
Ben is a character: I think, but I’m not sure (cos i didn’t ask) that he matched his contacts to his hair! A vision in turquoise. (pinched from his twitter feed).
My friend and I escaped suburbia and walked along Oxford st towards soho. Things were quiet, morning after the gay pride day before, perhaps?
The workshop was held upstairs in the Soho Theatre, and Ben sorted us out with a very civilised drink and course notes upon entering. My eyes immediately lit on the last item in the table of contents and before Ben had managed to get the words “explicit warning” out, I had already revealed an intarsia chart for an erect phallus. Brilliant.
Fab charts aside, the real value of this workshop was learning how to make any photo into an intarsia chart using gimp. Well worth the fee for that alone, but the craic was great and I enjoyed myself hugely.
We also got to feel Ben’s knickers and see Ron Jeremy on a cushion cover.
And I know it was an intarsia workshop, but I have to confess I didn’t do any… I like the bit of stranding I did though! Lovely colours.
I’ll be keeping an eye on knityounexttuesday for future workshops. You should try one too.
Half the reason I don’t post as often as I should is that I feel like I must have pics every time I do. That’s another of the “golden rules” of blogging. 1) Post often, 2) Have pics 3) Be interesting. 3)’s kinda optional.
Of late, I’ve been working on a secret design for Knit Now 27; getting submissions together – can’t show you any pics of them either for much the same reason, and I have two designs in testing at the mo too. One of those (le sigh) is also secret, but the other is the Kaava Shawlette that I flashed the other day.
This is my first lace shawl and I’m going to release it just as soon as it’s tech-edited and tested. Could be as close as two weeks away or as much as a month, but either way looks like it’s going to be my next released pattern.
I’m stoked to say that the response to Kaava has been overwhelmingly good. The yarn is 100% blue-faced leicester, handdyed by a friend and member of The Harrow Knitters, Shamu Makes, who has a fab eye for colour. I made it originally to go with a purple dress, but actually, it looks gorgeous with turquoise. I blocked it really hard and it has graceful, flowing drape. The main stitch patterns in it are Stocking Stitch, Shower Stitch and Lacy Rib, and the crochet bind-off reminds me of castle crenels or cogs. Something very engineering-y, anyway :)
My next projects are lots and lots of proposals – sketching, swatching and specc’ing, but I do also has some more of my own patterns in the pipeline. I find it hard to prioritise my own patterns over everything else that needs to be done – any one out there want to be my drill sergeant?
I’m looking forward to the Summer holidays – I’ll be home in Dublin for a week in August, so I’d love to catch up with the Irish yarny world, aon sceal nua for me?
Hugs, and proud to get to post #100! (It’s the little accomplishments!)
x Elanor
Well done to Ann! A big thank you to everyone who commented on my blog, better luck next time! Which will be in October, all going well!
Here’s a shawlette that’s a little bit of a challenge, but in manageable doses.
Moody, arty shot follows:
The Kaava shawlette is knit flat, top-down, starting with a garter st tab CO. Then there are three featured sts: st st, shower st (a double-sided lace) and Lacy Rib (which is a super simple one-sided lace). Then a crochet bind-off gives the shawl edge the appearance of a clockwork cog.
I’m looking for testers now, so drop by the Free Pattern Testers group if you’re interested! I’ll put a link here when the request is approved.
A tweet by Kristen Hanley put me on the scent of this website, where you can see how your knitting will flow given the chart! Most Excellent.
Catchloops 