We have a new shawl pattern up! This is a pretty solid textured triangle, with enough interesting features to make an engaging project, even though there’s nothing especially technically difficult.
Here’s the link: link.
It is called Toast Triangle Shawl, because the original name was too generic! I am not sure this one is better! But I think it fits pretty well.
Where we last left off, I was posting at a great rate of 3 posts per month! Unfortunately, this was in November.
There’s a lot to promote! The most recent new knitting pattern .PDF is Blocky.
(Nothing came up when I searched for a knit design called Blocky. So I published Blocky. When I went to add my own projects to Blocky, there was another Blocky, but it was very different to mine.)
Here is mine:
You can knit this project at least two ways: as a shawl, or as a cowl. Finishing for either one is pretty easy, and although I went with the cowl option, I felt that wet blocking took away a lot of the bouncy wool-yarn vitality of the thing, if that’s not too strange a thing to say. Garter stitch grows, but it also felt like it went kind of flat on me and I preferred the unblocked version pretty strongly.
For my second project, I’m doing the shawl (or trying to get close; I am having to kind of play fast and loose with yarn requirements and will probably end up with something a little different to what I had in mind color-wise) in a two-ply non-superwash wool, in hopes it kind of keeps more of the loft and bounce. The yarn I used in the cowl sample is one of my all-time favorites (Malabrigo Sock), but it’s just not quite as satisfying here as it is usually.
The photo above doesn’t show much—just yarn—but it’s probably the best yarn photo I’ve taken all year. There’s about five minutes of really nice light in this little alcove in the afternoon in January, apparently.
Anyway, there’s also Revenge of Pup Patch Hat and Cowl in this series. Please check them out if you’re interested or like mitered squares (these aren’t mitered squares, but they’re kind of mitered-square adjacent in some ways).
You can currently buy any 3 mouse army patterns and get the fourth one free! It is easy to do! You only have to be sure you have all 4 patterns in your cart at checkout to take advantage of this offer.
(Just between you and me, on this very private forum, I spent a small part of the morning putting together a yarn order wishlist, and this is directly related to that. My social media presence is pretty small, so I strongly doubt that this little weekend sale will fund the whole planned yarn purchase, but it’d be nice to offset it a little.
This is actually going to be the first yarn purchase I’ve made this year—right now, I’m still working through yarns from 2021—so the ideal Wishlist Palette feels and looks overwhelming. It’s hard to keep in mind that it’s almost a year’s worth of yarn purchasing (and would technically be less than the cumulative 2021, even if I were to make the whole purchase at once), and that it covers at least 6 formal project samples, plus whatever the scraps compel me to do.
Anyway! The concise version is that right now, most of your pattern purchase from now through this weekend goes straight into supporting the next ~6 patterns (or technically, the next ~6 patterns after the next ~3-4, since I try to work a little ahead), and you get a free pattern when you purchase 3. So if you’ve been thinking about putting together a mini-collection of mouse army patterns, this is a pretty good time to do it.)
Until next time, in about 8 weeks probably. Here’s the official “look, it’s reversible!” photo for the Auks Cowl.
Spokey Shawl is now live! I’m planning bonus content for it—an additional repeat, planned so that the entire knit takes around ~2-3 balls of soft sock yarn (probably 900-1200 total required yards)—which will be available at a later date.
So! I’ve only been on social media hiatus for about three days, but it seems, for now, to have been Enough.
(I’m not sure if you could tell there was a hiaturs; I’m not sure I’d expect you to be able to tell, even if you were following any of my media closely. My posting schedule overall is not the most consistent.)
Anyway, today we have Weird Fitted Cowl Thing, officially called Hex Key Cowl. It’s oddly shaped and, unusually for me, involves your choice of mattress seaming or a three-needle bindoff. (I went with the latter. I don’t love sewing knits, although I’m getting better at it, and it’s started to feel satisfying and pro; it doesn’t look like I couldn’t seam a potholder to save a life anymore. So that’s nice.)
I’m actually pretty well pleased with how it turned out! I’m working on a second sample, with hopes to explore some tentative ideas; I had a third finishing option that might be a nice potential addition to the pattern, and some things that are less directly related. (It’s anyone’s guess which are goin
Anyway, meanwhile, it’s spring! Holy crap! I’ve been dealing with subzero cold fronts for the past six weeks, up til recently. I am not used to this. These concepts. Sunlight. Plants growing. It’s weird.
New Hat!
First person who comments with the correct namesake for this hat gets a free mouse army Ravelry .PDF of their choosing. (You have to be able to receive Ravelry gifts, so this may be limited to registered users, but I’m not sure. I may be able to work around that, actually. But I am not going to be unreasonable; no carrier pigeons, no morse code.)
A new hat! Mafic is a simple garter-stitch beanie with an unusual construction. Knit it flat on one circular needle, with no seaming at the end. It’s reversible, with faux seams on the ostensible wrongside.
(If you want.)
A new cowl pattern! The Emerger .PDF makes the cowl shown in two different sizes, in one or two skeins of fingering-weight yarn. (Most fancy yarns come in 350+ skeins, so two skeins will be plenty. With the sock yarn shown, two skeins is enough to make both sizes—one each.)
Gopher is available now on Ravelry!
It’s got a little in common with Manta, in that it uses a similar exploded-shape concept (Manta is a kind of broken square; this is a kind of wrecked rectangle, I guess). The slightly weird shape lends itself well to wearing; there are a couple of ways to style it that I’ve found so far, just trying to get photos of the finished shawl.
I worked a second test/sample in worsted-weight cotton blend, and while my final gauge is to be determined, my yardage was very different—a little over 500 yards rather than just under 455–so if you’re going to play yarn chicken, be careful. Maybe yarn chicken is not advised at all for this; I am not sure.
The Mouse Army Knitting Co. 