New pattern: Cat's Eye Cowl

I’ve been wanting to design some cat-inspired knits for a long time. This year, when my cats have been such wonderful little distractions through lockdowns and uncertainty, has turned out to be the year! The Cat’s Eye Cowl is a tribute to my beautiful kitties Sasha and Katya, who always like to keep a close eye on me in case I might be about to hand out cat-treats or a new cardboard toy. The cowl is a short loop knit in the round, with an all-over stranded colourwork pattern featuring gleaming feline eyes and strong geometric lines.

Katya, age 2

Sasha, age 2 & 1/2

And Mitzi, Mum & Dad’s feline friend

I usually begin my colourwork designs by filling in squares in an Excel spreadsheet, which allows me to quickly copy & paste and go through a lot of variations quickly. This colourwork pattern actually began life as a moon-and-stars design, and as I played with it over time I decided the moons should be cat-like eyes instead. Not much remains of the original idea in the present pattern, except for the glints of starlight in the centre of each eye and the shading towards their outer edges. As is the case with many of my knitting ideas, simplifying the design over a number of iterations made it much stronger and also much more ‘me’.

The yarn I used for my sample is John Arbon’s Yarnadelic (100% Falklands Corriedale Wool; 364yds/333m per 100g skein), one skein in Sunflowers in my Garden for the main/background colour and one skein in Indigo Dust for the contrast colour. Yarnadelic is a multi-plied yarn with a bit of a woolly halo which helps the colourwork stitches ‘stick’ together, and the colours are beautifully rich and complex.

Two height options are included in the Cat’s Eye Cowl pattern, 9”/23cm and 11.5”/29cm, and it’s easy to alter the 24”/61cm circumference by working additional repeats if you prefer a longer or double-wrapped cowl.

Skills needed to work this pattern include the Long Tail Cast On (or your favourite cast on that will work with 3x1 ribbing), working stranded colourwork in the round, and following a colourwork chart. Tips on colour dominance, tension, and swatching colourwork in the round are included in the pattern. I would also recommend going down a needle size when you work the ribbing, which I wish I had done! You can see in the photos below the bottom ribbing has flipped up. It laid flat just fine after blocking, as you can see in the non-modelled photos - up until I put it on and moved around. I think it actually looks ok, but that wasn’t supposed to happen…

This blog post from Felicia of The Craft Sessions has a few more tricks to help avoid flippage: How To Stop Your Knitted Hem From Flipping Up.

Cat’s Eye Cowl features:

• a short cowl knit in the round, with an all-over stranded colourwork pattern of cat’s eyes and geometric elements

• two height options are included in the pattern, and the circumference is easily adjustable to your preference

• requires MC (Main Colour): 127 (169)yds/117 (155)m + CC (Contrast Colour): 185 (228)yds/170 (209)m in sport or heavy fingering-weight yarn (shown in John Arbon Yarnadelic)

• choose a wool or wool-blend yarn suitable for colourwork, in colours with sufficient contrast

• cowl dimensions, relaxed after blocking: 24”/61cm circumference, and 9 (11.5)”/23 (29)cm high from cast-on to bind-off. Sample shown in 11.5”/29cm height.

Find out more about my Cat’s Eye Cowl pattern, including Ravelry and Payhip purchase options.

New pattern: Heartwood Cowl

Getting this pattern from the idea stage to its final form has followed a similar path to my Beanstalk Hat from earlier this year - a long and meandering path! At first I intended to design a DK-weight hat with columns of heart-shaped cables, but I couldn’t find a solution I liked for the crown decreases that resulted in a well-balanced-looking hat. Eventually, after a lot of ripping-out of hat crowns, I realised a cowl would work beautifully with the heart-cables flowing in and out of 2x2 ribbing. One more swatch in fingering-weight yarn, and I had my design all planned out.

(Note: Just recently I came up with another idea for the disagreeable hat decreases, so a matching hat just might be in the cards!)

I started knitting the sample for the Heartwood Cowl back in early August, at the beginning of the second Melbourne lockdown. It’s an absorbing knit which requires concentration, and between the warm comforting colour and the slightly fiddly cables it’s been the perfect lockdown project for me. The cowl’s pattern of intertwined cabled hearts is a slightly on-the-nose design element in honour of my loved ones back home in New Zealand, who I hope to be able to see next year if all goes well in the world.

The delicious brown yarn I used to knit the sample is a fingering-weight merino from Happy Hank Co - Classy Fingering (100% superwash merino; 437yds/400m per 100g skein) in the Cinnamon colourway. The combination of a fingering-weight yarn and densely-cabled texture produces a squishy and substantial fabric, with a little more drape than you might get from a heavier yarn. When choosing the yarn for this pattern, look for a smooth, multi-plied, worsted-spun yarn for a similar effect. I recommend choosing a solid or near-solid colourway to show off the texture.

I’ve included three height options in the pattern, the shortest of which uses only a single skein. The circumference is also easy to adjust to your preference by adding or subtracting repeats. Some of my wonderful test knitters even adapted the pattern to different yarn weights for their projects, including DK, worsted, and aran weights. If you’d like to use a heavier yarn, I’d recommend planning for fewer repeats - for example you might cast on eight 24-stitch repeats instead of the original ten.

Skills needed to work this pattern include the Long Tail Cast On (or your favourite for 2x2 rib), working in the round, and working 2-over-2 cables. There are also a few six-stitch cables in the mix, confined to three rounds per pattern repeat. Both charts and full written instructions are included.

Heartwood Cowl features:

• a cowl knit in the round from the bottom up, with an all-over texture of cabled hearts and ribbing

• three height options are included in the pattern, the shortest of which uses only a single skein, and the circumference is easily adjustable to your preference

• requires 351 (496, 641)yds/321 (453, 586)m of fingering-weight yarn (shown in Happy Hank Co Classy Fingering)

• choose a smooth, multi-plied, worsted-spun yarn in a solid or near-solid colour

• cowl dimensions, relaxed after blocking: 24”/61cm in circumference, and 7.5 (10.75, 14)”/19 (27.5, 36)cm high from cast-on to bind-off. Sample shown in 14”/36cm height

• charts and written instructions are both provided in full.

Find out more about my Heartwood 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: Fledgling Hat

I’m often drawn to stitch patterns in the shape of feathers or leaves, and I find it oddly satisfying that I can see both in my new colourwork pattern, the Fledgling Hat! I watch a lot of nature documentaries (Springwatch and its seasonal counterparts are a favourite), and the annual unfolding drama of birds raising their chicks never gets old. This colourwork pattern reminds me of both the feathers of the intrepid birds and the leaves of the trees and hedges that conceal their nests. I named the pattern after fledglings, which are young birds on their way to independence, just beginning to venture out of the nest and learning to fly.

I took the initial idea for the stitch pattern from the image below of a Roman floor mosaic. The feathery ‘halo’ just screamed out to be translated into some kind of colourwork pattern, and I was especially drawn to the 3D effect created by the alternating light and dark elements. After a certain amount of tinkering with the scale of the motifs, I decided to add diagonal strokes to the feathers - this has the practical advantage of keeping the colourwork floats nice and short, at four stitches or less (except for one round in the decrease section). The short floats make this hat a fairly quick and straightforward knit, because there’s no need to worry about trapping floats as you go.

Head of Medusa, from a Roman era mosaic tepidarium floor (Museum of Sousse, Tunisia). © Ad Meskens / Wikimedia Commons

With its short floats and simple crown shaping, the Fledgling Hat is suitable for those new to stranded knitting and willing to give an all-over pattern a try. You will need to be comfortable following a colourwork chart, as well as working a small circumference in the round. I’ve included quick tips on tension, swatching, and colour dominance in the pattern.

For more information on these techniques, I have a couple of tutorials which may be helpful: Swatching in the round and Magic loop: yes it is!

I used Brooklyn Tweed’s Loft for both samples, and used a little less than half a skein of each colour per hat. The colourways I chose are Woodsmoke for the main colour for both samples, and Artifact and Homemade Jam for the contrast colours. Because you only need a small quantity of each colour, this could be a good project for using up leftovers - in fact, the Artifact shade was a partial skein left over from my Kea shawl (Ravelry link).

Two sizes are included in the pattern, to fit adult head sizes with 20-21 (22-23)”/50.5-53.5 (56-58.5)cm circumference. Each size is shown in the photos on my 22"/50.5cm head: the smaller size (in green) is quite fitted on me, and the larger size (in red) is slouchier. If you prefer a slouchy fit, you may prefer to work a larger size.

Fledgling Hat features:

• a stranded colourwork beanie knit in the round from the bottom up

• all-over stranded colourwork pattern inspired by abstract feathers, and a contrast-colour brim

• requires 90.75 (102)yds/83 (93.25)m of the main colour + 114.5 (140)yds/104.75 (128)m of the contrast colour in fingering-weight yarn suitable for colourwork (shown in Brooklyn Tweed Loft)

• suitable for heathered, semi-solid, or solid colourways

• hat dimensions: 18.9 (21.25)”/48 (54)cm circumference and 7.9 (8.25)”/20 (21)cm length, to fit adult head sizes with 20-21 (22-23)”/50.5-53.5 (56-58.5)cm circumference

• pattern includes charted stitch patterns only.

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

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This pattern is my contribution to the Operation: Social Justice fundraiser, which unites over 180 fibre businesses raising money for charities supporting equal rights. From 15-31 March I will be donating 20% of sales of this pattern to two charities supporting LGBTQ+ youth: New Zealand's RainbowYOUTH, which provides support and resources to queer and gender diverse youth and their communities, and Melbourne's RCH Gender Service, which provides care and support to transgender young people and their families.

New collection: Twisted Strings

I’ve been dreaming of making this collection a reality for literally years, and I’m so happy to be able to present it to the world! Twisted Strings is a collection of five accessories inspired by the decorative tracery found on Baroque string instruments, in unapologetic celebration of my particular brand of nerdery. The names of the individual designs - the Dowland Wrap, Tielke Shawl, Playford Hat, Jaye Mitts, and Simpson Cowl - are borrowed from seventeenth-century composers, instrument-makers, and music teachers and publishers.

My interest in the seventeenth-century musical world is a long-standing thing - I studied various aspects of it in my university days, which I touched on in my earlier post Why ‘Baroque Purls’? At around the same time I took up playing the viol - badly - before moving on to singing, which happily was a much better fit for me. I still enjoy messing around with songs from this period, but my cats do tend to object.

A couple of years ago I was fortunate enough to visit Europe for the first time, and one of the big highlights for me was visiting Leipzig and its Bach Museum, churches, and Museum of Musical Instruments. I took a ridiculous number of photos, some of which you can see below, and I took my inspiration for the cable patterns in this collection directly from a few of the decorative details I captured.

If you’re interested, you can find more examples of beautiful historical instruments in the Orpheon collection, and via the MIMO (Musical Instrument Museums Online) database, which I wish had existed when I was at uni!

A case full of viols, and an early edition of Playford’s Introduction to the Skill of Musicke (Musikinstrumentenmuseum der Universität Leipzig, 2016)

This clavichord was one of the few instruments we were allowed to touch (Musikinstrumentenmuseum der Universität Leipzig, 2016)

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Dowland Wrap:

Named for the composer John Dowland, famous for his melancholy songs and instrumental works for viols, the Dowland Wrap is a dramatic rectangular wrap featuring a central cable panel flanked by contrasting garter stitch.

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Contrabass, Italy, mid-17thC (Musikinstrumentenmuseum der Universität Leipzig)

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From ‘Flow my teares’, a lute song from Dowland’s Second Booke of Songs or Ayres (1600)

Dowland Wrap features:

• a rectangular wrap worked from end to end

• a central cable panel inspired by the geometric tracery decorating 17thC string instruments, with wide garter stitch edges for textural contrast

• simple 1-over-1 cables, which can be knit without a cable needle (instructions for my favourite twist method are included)

• requires 5 skeins of Malabrigo Dos Tierras (50% baby alpaca, 50% merino wool; 210yds/192m per 100g skein), or 1050yds/960m of DK-weight yarn. Sample colourway: ‘Azul Profundo’

• 72.5”/184cm long and 17.5”/44.5cm wide, relaxed after blocking

• charts and written instructions are both provided in full.

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Tielke shawl:

The Tielke Shawl is an asymmetric triangular shawl featuring a garter stitch ground and a cable panel which grows in complexity as you knit: it flows from simple twisted cables, representing the strings of musical instruments, into a complex intertwining motif. The shawl is named for the Tielke family of musical instrument makers - Joachim, who created richly decorated instruments in his Hamburg workshop, and Gottfried, who made the five-stringed contrabass (now in Leipzig’s musical instrument museum), which inspired the shawl’s cable detail.

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Contrabass by Gottfried Tielke, 1662 (Musikinstrumentenmuseum der Universität Leipzig)

Tielke Shawl features:

• an asymmetric triangular shawl worked from one point to the opposite side

• simple garter stitch with a cable panel running along one edge, inspired by the geometric motif decorating a 17thC contrabass

• simple 1-over-1 cables, which can be knit without a cable needle (instructions for my favourite twist method are included)

• requires 4 skeins of Malabrigo Washted (100% superwash merino wool; 210yds/192m per 100g skein), or 820yds/750m of worsted-weight yarn. Sample colourway: ‘Sunset’

• 74.5”/189cm wingspan and 31.5”/80cm depth, relaxed after blocking

• charts and written instructions are both provided in full.

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Playford hat:

The Playford Hat is named for the music publisher and bookseller John Playford, known for publishing music by various composers, the collection of dance melodies and steps The English Dancing Master, and instructional books for various instruments including the violin. The hat’s all-over cable pattern is inspired by the delicate latticework framed with hearts inscribed on a beautiful violin by Hans Krouchdaler (circa 1700).

Playford Hat features:

• a cabled beanie worked in the round from the bottom up

• an all-over cable pattern inspired by the geometric lattices framed with hearts on a highly-decorated Baroque violin

• simple 1-over-1 cables, which can be knit without a cable needle (instructions for my favourite twist method are included)

• requires 1 skein of Malabrigo Arroyo (100% superwash merino wool; 335yds/306m per 100g skein), or 205yds/187.5m of sport-weight yarn. Sample colourway: ‘Borraja’

• 18”/46cm circumference and 8.75”/22.5cm length, relaxed after blocking

• to fit 19-23”/48-58.5cm head circumference

• charts and written instructions are both provided in full.

From The English Dancing Master (1651)

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Jaye mitts:

The Jaye Mitts, named for the viol-maker Henry Jaye, are a pair of fingerless mitts featuring a delicately intertwining cable motif, and simple twisted cables on the palms representing the strings of musical instruments. Many modern viols being played today are careful copies of Jaye’s original instruments.

Jaye Mitts features:

• a cabled pair of mitts worked in the round from the bottom up

• cable motifs inspired by the geometric decoration on a 17thC descant viol, and plain twisted cables on the palm side

• simple 1-over-1 cables, which can be knit without a cable needle (instructions for my favourite twist method are included)

• requires 1 skein of Malabrigo Sock (100% superwash merino; 440yds/402m per 100g skein), or 196.5yds/180m of light fingering weight yarn. Sample colourway: ‘Teal Feather’

• 7”/18cm circumference and 7.25”/18.5cm length, relaxed after blocking

• to fit 7-8.5”/18-21.5cm palm circumference

• charts and written instructions are both provided in full.

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Descant viol by Henry Jaye, mid-17thC (Musikinstrumentenmuseum der Universität Leipzig)

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Simpson cowl:

The Simpson Cowl is named for viol-player and composer Christopher Simpson, who wrote The Division Viol to teach players how to embellish and improvise on a melody or bass line. The short cowl is worked in the round, and features an all-over pattern of intertwining cable motifs which I extrapolated from the lattice motifs found on various seventeenth-century viols and other instruments.

Simpson Cowl features:

• a cabled cowl knit in the round from the bottom up

• an all-over cable pattern inspired by the decorative latticework on 17thC string instruments

• simple 1-over-1 cables, which can be knit without a cable needle (instructions for my favourite twist method are included)

• requires 1 skein of Malabrigo Washted (100% superwash merino wool; 210yds/192m per 100g skein), or 201yds/184m of worsted-weight yarn. Sample colourway: ‘Pearl’

• 22”/56cm circumference and 8.5”/21.5cm depth, relaxed after blocking

• charts and written instructions are both provided in full.

From The Division-viol, or The Art of Playing ex tempore to a Ground (1665)

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The cable patterns featured in these designs have some elements in common across the whole collection, most notably interwoven latticework motifs of varying complexity, combined with 2-stitch cable ribs which symbolise the twisted strings of musical instruments. The cable patterns are relatively fuss-free, and can be worked entirely without a cable needle - instructions for my favourite method are included in the patterns, and you can also find my tutorial here. You will come across a few stitches worked through the back loop (because they give a crisper look to the cable tracery), but I’ve kept these to a minimum for the sake of ease.

All five patterns are available for download on Ravelry and Payhip, where you can find additional photos and details, and purchase them individually or together in an ebook (with a reduced price per pattern).