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Free Pattern Tomorrow : Ashes of Roses

Pattern release days are always a little bit nerve wracking for designers.  So many little, last minute things to do!

But they are also quite exciting...

Today, today will be exciting! Today is all about magic!

Ashes of Roses.

 

“Magic is always pushing and drawing and making things out of nothing. Everything is made out of Magic, leaves and trees, flowers and birds, badgers and foxes and squirrels and people. So it must be all around us. In this garden—in all the places.”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

All kinds of knitting is magic to me, but there is something different about lace! Taking only the simplest of tools, some needles and thread; fancy doilies have always intrigued me.  Worked in a heavier yarn than the thread that doilies are typically made from, Ashes of Roses includes all the things that fascinate me about fancy lace knitting in a fingering weight shawl. Beads, nupps and the mysterious “no stitch” chart boxes make it exciting enough for the adventurous lace knitter, but really it is much easier than it looks, like magic!

I used Ozifarmer's Market Yarns Moolah to create this shawl.  In Pink Heath, a lovely soft pale pink to deeper pink tone gradient, the shawl has a very vintage feel to me.  But, a bright, saturated purple or blue, would certainly have a more edgy, modern look.

The shawl does take slightly more yardage than the average 100 gm put-up of fingering weight yarn, so Dawn (the brains and brawn behind Ozifarmer's Market) has created special larger gradients that have just the right amount of yardage.  Don't see your perfect colors there?  She custom dyes too, so you can get exactly what you want!

As always, getting just the right photos was a challenge!  The weather in my little corner of the world is not very predictable in the early months of the year, and this year, winter didn't seem to want to leave us.  Trying to coordinate a nice day, model availability and the "right" setting meant this one got several photo shoots!

Inside, outside, dressed up, dressed down....that pretty dress?  A lucky thrift store find.

So, are you ready for the best part of this new pattern release?

You can grab your copy FREE...here on Knotions!

Leise

Saving this mostly for myself....

George Robert Webster

George R. Webster

George Robert Webster, born January 5, 1937, passed away peacefully at his home in Shoreline, WA on April 2, 2018, after a courageous struggle against pancreatic cancer.
George was born at Providence Hospital in Everett, Washington on January 5, 1937.  He grew up in Snohomish, WA, son of Clyde Arthur Webster and Letha Hope (Eckert) Webster.  George graduated from Snohomish High School and went on to the University of Washington graduating in 1960 with a B.S. degree in Chemical Engineering.  George met his wife of 57 years, Velma M. (Romine) Webster on a blind date during his senior year of college and they married at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Snohomish, WA on February 4, 1961.  After college, George worked for Scott Paper Mill in Everett, WA where he developed several environmental patents.  George was next employed by the Public Health Service who sent him back to the University of Washington to get his Masters degree in Sanitary Engineering.  Upon completing his masters’ studies, George loaded his young family into his 1953 Ford and drove to Washington DC taking a job with the EPA.  His experiences there included two-years as Technical Representative to OECD in Paris, France, while working ten-years as a GS-15 Senior Environmental Engineer. Honors included being a Diplomate of the American Academy of Environmental Engineers with expertise in Water and Wastewater.  After a brief employment with Marsh McLennan in Bloomfield, Michigan, George and his family were able to move back to “God’s country”, the Pacific Northwest, where he started his first company Ekistics and later Webster’s Inc., specialized in asbestos inspections and abatement management for WSU, UW and ten local school districts, and leaking underground storage tank clean-up.  George was a licensed Professional Engineer with over 45 years experience and loved every minute of it.   He continued as a consultant to local environmental firms up until the time of his death.  George was most proud of his elected position as Commissioner on the Ronald Wastewater District for which he served the Shoreline community for almost 5 years, until his illness required him to retire. 
George was an experienced traveler, having traveled extensively throughout the United States and internationally including: Sweden, Denmark, France, Porto Rico, Canada, Mexico, and Thailand.  George will be remembered for his love of card and board games, especially hearts and his uncanny ability to “shoot the moon”, and his love for all things Lord of the Rings, inspiring his nickname Gandalf the White and his car Shadowfax.   George was a gold enthusiast and loved to go mining for nuggets. George had a wacky sense of humor which had him loving Stewart, the one eyed minion, and other quirky gag gifts.

(Some information removed to protect the privacy of family members...my ex-SIL wrote this about her father....my children's grandfather and now it is here, for them.)

安静

What I'm Working On

As you can tell from the pictures, there has been a lot of knitting going on around here.  Charting and writing too!

The pink gradient yarn grew up to be something special...more on that coming your way over the next couple of weeks.

I have also spent quite a bit of time the past couple of weeks looking at different ways of doing things. 

One of the best parts of knitting, for me at least, is that if one way of doing things doesn't work out for you really well, a quick internet search and you can usually find at least a couple of different ways of achieving the same end results.

A while back I did an entire series of tutorials for Knotions about short rows....and at the time I thought I had done them all, but I forgot one...and if you are a sock knitter you use it already when you are turning a heel.  A no wrap, no hole, short row that has just one limitation to it's ease of working and finished appearance...it changes the stitch count. Hopefully soon (in designer lingo as I am still working on the pattern soon could be several months) you will get to see why that was actually a helpful thing for the grey and pink muddle of knitting above!

That same muddle of knitting had me looking for different ways of working an I-cord Cast On....I found three, which I suspect I will be making tutorials for because they all seem to work really well (or really badly) for different people.  The one I decided, for me, looked the best is fiddly to work, so I think it will be best to give knitters an option in the pattern for which look and feel the best for them to use..

But more on all of that...another day.

I have some knitting to get done!

What are you working on?

~M

Chatty Sunday

As it has mostly been quiet around the here lately, how's about we catch up at least as much as I will in a public forum?

Silence here usually means one of a couple of things...secret projects...yes there are two....and family "stuff"...yeah there was some of  that too.

This week my go to word seems to have been "distance".

The distance between me and other people in miles.
The distance between where I am and where I want to be in some other sense of measure...it isn't miles and I don't even know what to call it.
The distance between....the hugs I want to give and the person who needs them...and to be honest vise versa...the hugs I want to get and the people who are trying to give them.

But for every "ending" there is a beginning....one of the highlights of the week was the birth of a new little person, one of the sorrows the loss of another.

Focus on the future....for this little person I wish...all the smiles, joy and laughter that offset all the tears and sorrows of life..

Happy Birthday, Michael!  And...safe passage George..

~M

No Foolin' - It's a Real Pattern

Happy April Fool's Day!  (And Happy Easter for those that celebrate it.)

Around here, this year at least, I am focused on April Fool's Day...

In January I was “challenged” to design a “naughty” shawl. Not being one to leave a challenge unanswered, I played around with some lace and cable patterns and finally settled on this…a Choose Your Own Adventure Shawl.


There are so many fallacies about knitting, especially knitting shawls! Only gray haired old ladies knit shawls…Fallacy. Anyone can knit shawls…Truth. You can’t use self striping yarns to make shawls…Fallacy. Any yarn can be used to make shawls…Truth. The lace on this shawl represents the Eiffel Tower…well….that would be a “Phallus-y”. Pick one, two, or three colors, a body style and a border for a Choose Your Own Adventure Shawl.

April Fool's Day seemed like the most appropriate day to release and inappropriate pattern...so presenting....

 

Truth, Fallacy and Statistics!


Body instructions are written only, borders have both charts and line by line written instructions.
Three variations of a garter stitch, winged triangle body lead you to a choice of three variations of the border.
All three variations that I knit were in worsted weight yarns, so the knitting goes quickly and each takes approximately 460 yards. You can decide to work it in one, two or three colors.

The plain garter stitch body is shown paired with the Fallacy border which has 23 motifs.

 

 A two color slip and slide garter stitch body is paired with the Truth border, which has no motifs.

 A three color slip and slide garter/stocking stitch is paired with the Statistics border, which has three motifs.

All three body styles will flow into all three border styles.
Thank you to everyone in the Indie Gift Along After Party group for ensuring, by challenging me to design this, that my inner 13 year old had a good laugh!

You can buy the pattern here.... and for a limited time use coupon code AprilFools to get a hefty discount!