New pattern: Liquid Honey

So happy I can finally share this with all of you! Liquid Honey is my second pattern to be published in Knitty, and it's one I'm super proud of.

And that's not all... my face is on the cover of the Spring + Summer issue! I've been making 'cover girl' jokes all day, it's been quite surreal... :)

I love yellow, and I love knitting lace, and I'm totally fascinated by bees. Put it all together, and you get a sunny yellow shawl inspired by honeycomb dripping with honey. I thought its cheeriness would make it a great fit for Knitty, and a nice gift for my fellow knitters.

Features:

  • honeycomb lace with a zigzagging lace border

  • top-down triangular construction with garter-tab cast on

  • no special stitches: just knit, purl, single and double yarn-overs, k2tog, ssk

  • a decorative picot bind off

  • requires 1.5 skeins of Malabrigo Lace (700yds of laceweight yarn)

  • suitable for solid or semi-solid colourways

  • one size: 63" wingspan, 29" along spine

  • both charted and written instructions.

The main part of the shawl is very repetitive and intuitive to knit, perfect for an on-the-go or tv-knitting project. The edging requires a little more attention, and I do recommend using needles with nice sharp points, for example Addi Lace needles. They kept me sane!

Shout out to my best photographer Dad for doing the photoshoot with me, and finding all the summery-looking flowers in the garden and around the town. And another shout out to Mum & Dad's 'Fortune' plum tree for co-starring in the photos! Since then, the plums have ripened and been turned into a couple of dozen jars of sauces and jams. Go tree.

The pattern is available for free here at Knitty.com. Its Ravelry page is here.

You can also read my post from last September on the story of Knitty and me.

Purls KAL project love

Well, my singing practice hasn't been going so well thanks to an unfortunate chest cold. Nice timing, cold. But I do have some cool things to share with you folks, namely the fantastic projects that were made during February's Purls KAL on Ravelry.

There were 20 (wow!) finished projects by the end of the month, plus a few more finished since. Of the projects finished during the KAL, the most popular pattern was Beeswax mitts, with 4 projects, followed by Beeswax hat, Beeswax cowl, and Bushwalk Beanie with 3 projects each. It was such a delight seeing all the wonderful colourful projects pop up! Thanks to all the participants for making it such a fun and inspiring month. :)

Here are a few of my favourite project photos from the KAL (links are to Ravelry project pages):

LeighC's INSULATE! hat

Doesn't Morag's yarn make everything cooler?

I'm definitely looking forward to hosting more KALs in the future!

It's Bach season!

It's March, and for those of us in choir-land that means the countdown to Holy Week has begun. As well as our St John Passion performance on Good Friday, my choir at the Scots' Church is doing a few Bach cantatas spaced throughout the year. We did one last Sunday - the first half of BWV 147, 'Hertz und Mund und Tat und Leben' - and it was really lovely to sing. The opening chorus was fast and exciting with its trumpet solos, and the final chorale was just beautiful. Definitely worth getting up at 7am on a Sunday. ;)

There's a video of us singing & playing the final chorale here on Facebook, courtesy of our organist Ria. The tune is best known as "Jesu, joy of man's desiring" - you might recognise it when you hear it. I remember coming across a piano arrangement at Nana's house many years ago and playing it on the dodgy old piano...

This is a video of the whole cantata, performed by The Sixteen:

I'm glad it won't be my first time singing the St John Passion this year, there aren't many weeks left now to brush up on my German (not to mention all of the notes). I'm also glad we have more than one special rehearsal scheduled this time in addition to the Sunday morning run-throughs.

One of my favourite Bach interpreters, John Butt and his Dunedin Consort, have recorded a liturgical reconstruction of the St John Passion. Here's a short intro video with some rehearsal clips:

After filling my head with all of this music, I'm going to be super-primed for a very, very exciting trip... This April I'll be heading off on my first trip to Europe with Willie and Julian! I really can't believe it's actually happening. We'll start with a visit to Berlin where Chloe and Celena live, and spend three weeks exploring a few different cities including Florence, Rome, and Amsterdam, with short stops in Leipzig and Munich. It was incredibly hard to narrow down our list of places to visit, but I prioritised the places with the art and architecture I most want to see (as a consequence of my years of studying music and art history and Latin).

In Leipzig I plan to visit the Bach Museum, the Thomaskirche and Nikolaikirche, a museum of musical instruments, and a music bookshop. And hopefully a coffeehouse or two!

More on the trip later. For now I need to work on my German and Italian (both beginner-level, alas) and do some more plotting and planning...

New pattern: Heartpops

New pattern day! Heartpops is a cute textured tam or beret, with embossed hearts popping out from a lattice of cables.

I took advantage of the Valentine's Day display at the lolly shop for my photo props. ;) My sweet tooth is pretty much non-existent, so my flatmates will have to take on the task of eating the lollies now I'm done photographing them... I'm sure they won't complain too much!

This is what the bright blue yarn from my Wellington trip became - it's Madelinetosh Tosh DK in 'Button Jar Blue'. Tosh DK has great stitch definition and, best of all for someone who tends to do a lot of un-knitting in order to get a project just so, it's tough enough to stand up several rounds of frogging without getting damaged. And the colour is just unreal...

Features:

  • textured pattern with embossed hearts and cable lattice

  • 1/1 cables that can be knit without a cable needle

  • the lattice flows out of the ribbing and into a star-shaped crown

  • can be blocked into a tam/beret shape or a beanie shape

  • a one-skein project for 100g of DK-weight yarn

  • suitable for solid or semi-solid colourways

  • four sizes (Child Small to Adult Large)

  • both charted and written instructions.

Here's a link to my favourite tutorial on knitting small cables without a cable needle: Twisted Stitches.

There are a couple of special increases and decreases in this pattern, which are explained in the stitch glossary. They only occur a few times - mostly you'll be working plain old m1, k2tog, and ssk. This pattern would be suitable for an intermediate or advanced level knitter.

Find out more about my Heartpops hat pattern, including Ravelry and Payhip purchase options.

You're invited: Join the Purls KAL!

For the month of February I'm co-hosting a knit-along or KAL with Morag of Vintage Purls, and I hope you'll come join in! If you haven't been part of a knit-along before, the idea is that a group of people knit similar-themed projects, and chat and post photos for the others to admire.

The Purls KAL is one of the monthly knit-alongs held in the Ravelry group Budding Designers Downunder.

The theme of the Purls KAL is knitting any of my designs in Vintage Purls yarn. I'm offering a 25% discount on all of my self-published patterns and pattern collections during the first week of the KAL, using the Ravelry coupon code ALLTHEPURLS. You've still got until the end of Sunday to take advantage of the pattern sale. :)

www.ravelry.com/discuss/budding-designers-downunder/3367815/1-25

Full details are in the KAL thread on Ravelry: February 2016 Purls KAL: Baroque Purls + Vintage Purls.

In case you've been wondering, yes there are prizes! Really cool ones too, if I do say so myself. Check them out:

2 Skeins of VP Sock in “Silver Arrow” + “High and Mighty”

2 skeins of VP Max in "A Handful of Silver” + “Man From the Sea”

A notions pouch (or pencil case) by Belinda Piper

A set of stitch markers by Marmalade Scarf + a small pouch (or coin purse)

Aren't they pretty?

And for some pattern inspiration, below are some of my designs using Vintage Purls yarns. They're definitely among my favourites, with their subtle, rich colours and great stitch definition (links are to Ravelry pattern pages):

The Beeswax Set

Quite a few knitters have already joined in and posted yarn-photos and work-in-progress photos. It's going to be a fun month! :)