Ensata Revisited

Brooklyn Tweed are launching a new yarn this month, and they’ve knit up a new sample of my Ensata Scarf to show it off! I love the fun, juicy-looking colour and the slightly softer, plump texture in this yarn. Tones Light will be available to purchase from the 17th of August, with more details and colour-reveals coming soon.

The Ensata Scarf & Cowl pattern includes directions for knitting the scarf in either fingering or laceweight yarn, plus directions for a fingering-weight cowl knit in the round. During the month of August, Brooklyn Tweed are offering a rare $1 USD discount on the pattern on their website, with no coupon code needed.

Photo: ©Brooklyn Tweed

Photo: ©Brooklyn Tweed

Photo: ©Brooklyn Tweed

New pattern: Beanstalk Cowl

The Beanstalk Cowl is a one-skein fingering-weight cowl featuring the same columns of lacy leaves and twisted ribbing as my Beanstalk Hat and Beanstalk Shawl patterns. This is my first cowl design with a tapered shape, which is created by working occasional increase rounds to add extra twisted-rib columns between the ‘beanstalks’. The wavy edges are created by the lace pattern, and add to the cowl’s general prettiness.

The pattern includes instructions for one size: 11”/28cm high, 22”/56cm circumference at the top, and 32”/81cm circumference at the bottom.

A few notes on potential modifications:

• Adding a 24-stitch repeat will increase the circumference at both top and bottom (remember to allow for the extra yardage)

• The height can be altered by working a different number of 6-round repeats between the increase rounds

• If you’d prefer a slightly chunkier look and a stiffer fabric, you could substitute 200g of DK or worsted-weight yarn and cast on fewer 24-stitch repeats on larger needles (I would try US 6 / 4mm or larger). You might also wish to work fewer repeats between increase rounds.

The Beanstalk Cowl + two of my Beanstalk Hats

I had a bit of a journey settling on the right yarn for this design! At first I had my heart set on using my gorgeous skein of Farmhaus Fibres Grounded Twist (a BFL/nylon blend) in the Copper Red colourway. Unfortunately, as you can see from the swatch photo below, the stitch pattern just isn't shining like it should, and for a design sample I really need to showcase the stitch pattern. So I switched to the gentle grey colourway Perfect Day on Farmhaus Fibres’ non-superwash base Homestead Merino, and it was indeed perfect.

Unfortunately this yarn is currently unavailable (its creator is on a dyeing hiatus), but hopefully I’ll be able to give you enough detail on its special properties to give you confidence in substituting a different yarn.

First of all, it’s a fingering-weight yarn with two twisted plies, composed of non-superwash fine merino, with 437yds/400m per 100g skein. My Beanstalk Hat and Shawl samples were also knit in non-superwash yarn, which I find helps to highlight the texture of the lace and ribbing in these designs. Colourway choice is also important for this pattern, as I discovered when swatching - the stitch pattern stands out the best in a solid or very-nearly-solid colourway. A number of my preview knitters also made beautiful cowls using subtly-variegated yarn. I think the problem with my Copper Red swatch lies with the tiny golden flashes which are much lighter than the base colour. If you do choose a semi-solid or variegated yarn, go for one that is low-contrast.

Comparing two yarn options - the stitch pattern is much clearer in the near-solid Perfect Day than the Copper Red

I blocked my cowl very simply by soaking it in warm water with a little wool-wash, rinsing and gently squeezing, and spreading it out flat on a blocking mat. I decided not to use pins or wires to avoid flattening the texture too much (and because skipping them makes for a much quicker blocking session). This method also preserves the naturally wavy edges - I decided to embrace them this time, rather than flattening them out as I did when I blocked my Beanstalk Shawl using wires.

Carefully spread out to dry on a blocking mat

Admiring the pretty edges

Beanstalk Cowl features:

• A tapered cowl knit in the round from the top down, with alternating columns of lacy leaves and half-twisted ribbing

• One size is included in the pattern, which uses only a single 100g skein

• Requires 417yds/381.5m of fingering-weight yarn (shown in Farmhaus Fibres Homestead Merino)

• Choose a non-superwash wool yarn in a solid or near-solid shade

• Cowl dimensions, relaxed after blocking: 22”/56cm narrowest circumference, 32”/81cm widest circumference, and 11”/28cm height

• Charts and written instructions are both provided in full.

Find out more about my Beanstalk Cowl pattern, including Ravelry and Payhip purchase options.

New pattern: Beanstalk Hat

Sometimes it takes me a while to get a particular stitch pattern out of my system, and I’ll keep playing around with it even after a pattern is published. Last August I published the Beanstalk Shawl, which was an offshoot of my Ensata designs, and as it turns out I still wasn’t done with leafy lace and half-twisted ribbing! The Beanstalk Hat features the same lace pattern as the shawl, flowing out of the brim’s half-twisted ribbing and easing gracefully into the crown decreases.

You may be wondering why there are three versions of the hat pictured with varying levels of lace-coverage, and the honest answer is that there was a lot of trial and error involved in getting this design finalised, which resulted in three different versions of the hat. I love all three, and rather than publishing them separately, I thought you might enjoy a ‘pick a path’ pattern. The Beanstalk Hat pattern allows you to choose whether to knit a single panel of the lace pattern, all-over lace, or no lace at all. For ease of following your chosen path in the pattern, I’ve named the three versions Spring, Summer, and Winter according to the amount of lacy foliage.

‘Spring’ (single lace panel) in smaller size, ‘Summer’ (all-over lace) in larger size, and ‘Winter’ (plain half-twisted ribbing) in larger size.

For each of the three hats I used a fingering-weight yarn with wonderful stitch definition: Knitcraft & Knittery’s sustainable Australian merino 4ply in the colours Missy Z (muted pink), Sandilocks (rich gold), and Silver Fox (speckled greys). As I was knitting, I really enjoyed how satisfyingly soft the non-superwash-treated merino felt in my hands.

For the two lace versions of the hat I recommend choosing a solid or nearly-solid colour, as the lace pattern can easily get lost otherwise. We (me and a few of my test-knitters) confirmed this after giving more variegated yarns a try, and we all ended up frogging the lace. But because I loved how the speckled Silver Fox colourway looked in the ribbing, I decided to keep going and include a plain ribbed version of the hat as a bonus option.

Skills needed to knit this pattern include the Long Tail Cast On (optional), working lace stitches from charts or written instructions (both are included), working a small circumference in the round, and working twisted decreases in the crown of the hat - I have a tutorial on How to work twisted decreases if these are unfamiliar. Two sizes are included in the pattern, as well as suggestions for customising the length.

Beanstalk Hat features:

• a beanie knit in the round from the bottom up, with optional leafy lace pattern

• choose between a single lace panel, all-over lace, or plain twisted ribbing

• requires 157 (248)yds/143.5 (227)m of fingering-weight yarn (shown in Knitcraft & Knittery Fingering Weight Merino)

• the two lace versions look best in solid or near-solid colourways, while the plain version also suits variegated yarn

• hat dimensions, unstretched: 14 (16)”/35.5 (41)cm brim circumference, and 8 (9)”/20.5 (23)cm length from cast-on to crown, to fit 18-20 (21–23)”/46-51 (53.5-58.5)cm head circumference

• charts and written instructions are both provided in full.

Find out more about my Beanstalk Hat pattern, including Ravelry and Payhip purchase options.

New pattern: Beanstalk Shawl

Introducing my latest adventure in textured lace! The Beanstalk Shawl is a botanically-inspired triangular shawl in fingering-weight yarn. Its all-over lace pattern includes twisted stitches for crisp texture, and increases & decreases are worked on every row to create the gracefully-curving pairs of leaves.

The shawl’s stitch pattern grew out of the leaf-lace motif in my Ensata Scarf & Cowl and Hat designs (Ravelry links), which I couldn’t stop playing with further! I added more twisted stitches and stacked the leaves in unbroken columns, and through a lot of trial and error, found an elegant way of fitting the repeats into a triangular shawl shape.

The final effect is an abstract interpretation of growing vines or leafy plants, and makes me think of my Mum & Dad’s vegetable garden, which for its small size produces an awful lot of food. Their tomatoes are a particular point of pride, and I admit I actually enjoy their brussels sprouts (gasp)!

Do you ever find yourself enchanted with a certain type of stitch pattern? The combination of leafy lace and twisted stitches has been haunting me for a while now, and I don’t think I’m quite done yet - I still have a few more ideas charted out and ready to swatch…

The yarn I used to knit up my sample is Maniototo Wool’s Rough Ridge 4ply (90% Merino cross wool, 10% coloured Polwarth wool; 394yds/360m per 100g skein). This is an airy woollen-spun yarn with gentle heathering as a result of the inclusion of naturally coloured wool in the mix. I used two skeins of the undyed yarn for my shawl, but if you’re a colour-lover Mary has overdyed a few special shades to coincide with the launch of the Beanstalk Shawl pattern.

Techniques involved in the pattern include working lace increases and decreases on RS and WS rows (I have a tutorial coming soon for the WS decreases), and knitting and purling through the back loop to form the twisted stitches. I strongly recommend using stitch markers between repeats of the leaf-lace pattern, to help you keep track of the increases and decreases in the WS rows. Marking out the repeats also helped me get fully into the rhythm of the stitch pattern, which is worked over 6 rows.

Beanstalk Shawl features:

• triangular shape, worked from one point to the triangle’s opposite side

• all-over textured lace pattern including increases and decreases on every row

• twisted stitches add crisp definition to the leafy texture

• requires two skeins of fingering-weight yarn (shown in Maniototo Wool’s Rough Ridge 4ply), and 10 stitch markers

• suitable for solid, semi-solid, or gently-speckled fingering-weight yarn

• one size, easy to alter by changing the number of repeats

• pattern includes full written instructions as well as charts.

Find out more about my Beanstalk Shawl pattern, including Ravelry and Payhip purchase options.