FO: Kaelyn Cardigan

I'm not sure quite how I overlooked blogging about this little knit. I guess that life just got in the way, as it sometimes does!

It's the Kaelyn cardigan by Kyoko Nakayoshi, from the Fyberspates Scrumptious Babies collection. It is such an adorable little design. I love the knitted flowers along the hem (even though I had to knit bobbles and I'm normally vehemently opposed to them...), and the sweet scalloped edging. I did a few little modifications to make my life easier... I knitted the garter stitch front bands at the same time as the body (rather than adding them at the end), and I just used one button at the top, so that I didn't need to keep track of anything else as I knitted. It's gone to my new niece, who will hopefully get a bit of wear out of it before she's too big! I used Fyberspates Vivacious rather than Scrumptious, and I was really pleased with how it knitted up. The fabric really shows off the stitch patterns beautifully. It was a fun knit! I look forward to trying a couple of the other cardigans from the collection in the future...

FO: Shetland Trader Mystery KAL

Thank you for all the Wee Bruton love yesterday! It was great to get the new patterns out into the wild. I'm going to talk a bit more about the finishing on the design later in the week, so watch out for that!

In the meantime, I've finished a few projects from my needles. First up is my Shetland Trader Mystery KAL:

I so enjoyed knitting along with this! The Ravelry group was so friendly and enthusiastic! I almost managed to knit the whole thing with the month of June - I just overran a little at the very end. Not too bad for someone with my limited knitting time these days. The design is so beautiful. It has 3 different textured patterns, based around a garter stitch background. Really simple to wear, and soothing to knit. I would love to knit another in 3 colours as there were some fabulous 3-colour versions made. I'm just not terribly confident about combining colours effectively, so I might have to steal a scheme from someone else. There was plenty of inspiration in the threads on Ravelry, so it won't be hard to choose.

The blocking technique was a bit new to me, as you thread the yarnovers with a thread to block the curved edge. I've read that before, but never tried it, as I have tended to make things with straight edges where I can use wires. It was a bit tricky to ensure it was even all round, but gave a lovely smooth curve, so well worth the time to thread them all.

Thanks again Gudrun for such a fun knit along!

New design: Wee Bruton Hoody

Can you believe how adorable these two are?

© Fergus Ford

Sofia and Toby are wearing the latest designs in the Cross-Country Knitting series, Wee Bluebells and Wee Bruton respectively. You may remember our first Cross-Country Knitting adventure that we published just over a year ago (how the time has flown!), well this time the challenge was to design a child's version of one of our adult sweaters...

Kate and I have different but complementary styles, and as soon as we started talking about the project, I knew it would be my Bruton Hoody that got a fresh look. Kate chose to scale down her popular Bluebells cardigan from the wonderful book, Yokes. She's kept the same pretty bluebell motif, from that point when the flowers start to go over and point skywards, but reworked the sweater to a more child-friendly cardigan. Sofia is wearing the age 2 size, and sizes are available from 1-12, but you should definitely check the actual finished sizes in comparison with your intended recipient - kids vary in size ENORMOUSLY!

What a cutie!

I had been of a mind to design a child's version of the Bruton Hoody since it was first conceived. As I worked on the original I had ideas about making a mini-version for my nephew James. Well, it's only taken a couple of years, but Wee Bruton is now here! The adult's hoody is worked in Excelana DK, but to keep the proportions of the Bavarian twisted stitch motif, I have scaled the Wee version down to Excelana 4ply. Both yarns are a joy to knit with, and there are some limited edition colours available in the 4ply at the moment, if you're quick!

When you purchase Cross-Country Knitting Volume 2, you not only get the patterns for Wee Bruton and Wee Bluebells, but also a lovely essay by Rachel Atkinson exploring the significance of childhood handknits. Spoiler alert, there are pictures of Kate, Rachel and me as kids in handknits along with that article! It's a great read. Thanks for joining us on the CCK adventure Rachel!

Kate and I were overjoyed when Fergus Ford (the brother of the TURBO Felix) agreed not only to photograph but also arranged our fantastic models for us. Fergus has really captured the exact look and feel we were hoping for in these beautiful pictures.

If you'd like to know more about Kate's design, head over to her blog to read more.

You can buy a copy of Cross-Country Knitting Volume 2 from Ravelry for £5.95 

 Or alternatively, you can buy a print copy from Magcloud for $12.00

Thank you so much to Kate for persuading me to keep my toe in the design world. I love editing, but it's also great to have the adrenaline rush that publishing my own designs brings. I really enjoy working with you! Here's to the next CCK adventure...