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.
Spokey
Tag: pattern
Hex Key.
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.
Anning.
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.)
MAFIC.
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.)
Three Sisters (1).
New cowl.
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.
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.
North Platte Cowl.
Columnar Jointing, 2nd Edition.
I’m reworking the Columnar Jointing hat and cowl, because frankly I’ve been using a much better method of setting up the transitions for this style of hat in all the related designs since this one originally went out. The original design works, but the improved version is so much better and smoother I’m feeling a lot of mortification about releasing the new .PDF just because it is so daft by comparison. I overcomplicated a thing in a pretty remarkable way; this way is better; mea culpa.
Anyway, this way is just so much better that as much as I hate advertising that I didn’t do it the best possible way the first time, I’m doing a new edition of the pattern; if you liked the hat, you’ll like this one better, and I’d highly encourage you to download the new version if you have the old one.
Improvements/Additions:
- An additional hat size. (It’s a size small, intended for preteen kids. However, you do have to watch the brim edge on this design to make sure it’s not tight, so if you’re in doubt as to which size to make, size up. It’s better to have a hat with a folding brim than a hat that’s too tight and unpleasant for a kid, and s/m will also work for a lot of kids’ sizes.)
- New instructions for picking up stitches. It’s a very small change, but it makes the project flow a lot better. If you’ve done Columnar Jointing and Strandlines, or the Trinity Lace hat, you’ll know right away what’s changed to bring the first design up to an improved level.
- A stockinette gauge for reference! I have a lot of trouble imagining that anyone will do a stockinette swatch for a hat, since I walk around with Elizabeth Zimmermann’s idea that hats are basically almost swatch-sized in my head, but if you know your stockinette gauge in a given yarn to begin with, it might be helpful.
The Mouse Army Knitting Co. 