Author: Lesley Robinson

I am a work-at-home-mom doing freelance Interior Design in Lansing, Michigan, taking care of my two adorable boys and knitting whenever I get the chance. After graduating from the College for Creative Studies (located in Detroit, Michigan) with a degree in Interior Design and a minor in Fiber Design, I moved to New York City! I spent several years there working as a commercial Interior Designer and learned so much! I recently started publishing my own knitwear designs and knits for the home, and I just love everything about this incredible community!

Early pattern release and Citizens of Textile

Since last June, I have been extremely lucky to feature my fiber work with Citizens of Textile (COT), a very cool online pop-up shop that features different fiber artists every month! I started with selling some of my hand knits, but realized that this shop is more of a market for yarn, notions pouches, and knitting patterns. Heather Bostic (@houseofalamode on Instagram) is the creative genius behind COT and House of A La Mode hand dyed and painted yarn, and she is so much fun to work with. Every month since June, I have been pairing my Condominium cowl pattern with her DK weight yarn as special knitting kits, and this month we have something very special cooked up!

Introducing Scottish Honeymoon, a new knitting pattern that includes His and Her complimenting hats, knit using a custom colorway that Heather and I created together called Winter Plaid. This yarn really inspired the name of the pattern, and I am so excited to see it come to life. His hat, shown in Winter Plaid Stunning Single DK, is the perfect blank slate to show off a fabulous variegated yarn, with interesting ribbing and purl ridges to add texture. Her hat, shown in Winter Plaid Freckle Stunning Single DK, was designed to make a speckled yarn shine, with slight ribbing, and purl and stockinette horizontal striping. Both hats come in two sizes, adult small and large, and use less than one skein of DK weight yarn each! This is a great first hat pattern for a beginner knitter, or just a fun and interesting knit for you advanced knitters out there.

You can find this pattern, as well as some limited edition kits with Winter Plaid and Winter Plaid Freckle, exclusively at the November COT pop-up shop, starting at 5pm Pacific / 8pm Eastern time on Friday, November 6 and going through Sunday, November 8, 2015! These kits will make the perfect holiday gift for that knitter in your acquaintance, or buy the kits / pattern for yourself and create hats for you and your significant other, your mom, your dad, or anyone who will need a warm head this winter!

The pattern will also be released in my Ravelry shop and will be available to download starting on Tuesday, November 10, 2015.

Happy holiday knitting!

Processed with VSCOcam with f2 preset — Winter Plaid and Winter Plaid Freckle yarn, hand painted by Heather of House of A La Mode

New pattern release :: Taking Turns hats!

I am so excited to announce my newest knitting pattern release, Taking Turns! This includes patterns for two different hats – Hat #One is full of texture using one-color brioche syncopating stripes, while Hat #Two creates exciting two-color brioche Alternating Color stripes! Brioche in a light bulky weight yarn creates the squishiest fabric, so grab a skein or two and let’s go!

These hats were actually a complete experiment for me! I had been thinking about a new technique with brioche knitting that would create interesting color-changing stripes by switching which color yarn is used in the middle of a row or round. I started experimenting with this technique using two skeins of beautiful bulky yarn hand-dyed by Melissa of Hey Lady Hey, in colors Scabosia and a custom speckled colorway, Books and Pens. I was having a lot of fun playing with syncopating and Alternating Color stripes, but the combination of solid and speckles just wasn’t working. It was too much for one hat pattern! So I decided to make the Books and Pens SHINE by using it alone in one hat design! The speckled yarn with the texture the syncopated brioche stripes creates is just magical.

Of course, this meant that I had to get another skein of the bulky yarn to go with the Scabosia! So I went for a beautiful contrasting color, Ephemera, which is a bright yellow-green! Deep eggplant purple with the bright yellow-green was exactly what the Alternating Color stripes needed to really pop. And it worked! I am delighted to have sort of UNvented this new technique, and I’m looking forward to creating more brioche designs with it! In case you’re a little intimidated to try a new technique with an already complicated stitch, I did put together a short photo and video tutorial that goes with the pattern.

This pattern is another in my fun collaboration with Andrea Mowry, KNIT in COLOR! I have so enjoyed working with indie yarn dyers like Melissa and hope that you will check out her gorgeous yarn!!

You can get your copy on Ravelry, and right now I have a special Back To School sale going on! Use coupon code BACKTOSCHOOL at checkout and receive a 25% discount on ALL Knit Graffiti Designs!! This sale will run from Thursday, October 8 through Sunday, October 11 at midnight Eastern!!

Fiber Graffiti and other ways to enhance your handmade wardrobe…

Do you love adding a personal touch to your handmade wardrobe? I really do. One of my favorite things to do when I was younger (mostly after college when I lived in New York City), was to go thrifting for clothing, then add embroidery and applique to it! I loved it so much, that I decided to build a small business selling recycled and upcycled clothing and accessories. I opened a little Etsy shoppe called Pink Graffiti, and sold accessories, sweaters, even leg warmers made from old sweater sleeves!! It is currently closed, but if you wanted to see some of the One-Of-A-Kind items that I sold, you can check out Pink Graffiti here :: lesleyanne.etsy.com.

When I was in college, I found a bolt of this gorgeous floral fabric on sale at some random fabric shop in Detroit – I immediately fell in love with the bright colors, but the fabric was very translucent. It sat in my stash for a long time before I found the perfect BRIGHT purple sweater in a thrift shop, and created this upcycled treasure to sell in my shop!

I was so excited about this piece, that I wrote a tutorial on my old blog – which you can find the post, here.

I hope this can give you some inspiration to take some of your old pieces of clothing that maybe you don’t want to wear anymore, or are thinking of donating, and give them new life!

Pop Fizzle class!

Hey!! Are you in the East Lansing / Lansing, Michigan area?? Would you love to learn how to knit this super fun hat?! I will be teaching a Pop Fizzle! class at Woven Art in East Lansing in October!! Check out their website for all of the information, but it will be the first 3 weeks in October, and positions are very limited!

In this class, I will be covering ALL aspects of the design, and it is really geared towards intermediate brioche knitters (meaning, if you know how to knit two-color brioche, you will totally be ready for this class). I am very excited to be teaching these amazing stitches, and to have such a generous local yarn shop to host me!

If you have not yet tried two-color brioche and are just itching to learn, please be sure to check out Nancy Marchant’s amazing website: www.briochestitch.com. From there, you will discover an entire world of brioche that you may never have known existed! You can take her phenomenal Craftsy class, buy her innovative books, and so so so much more. She was MY teacher, I actually learned all of these beautiful stitches by knitting her Willow shawl, from her most recent book, Knitting Fresh Brioche. So knit up a little swatch of two-color brioche, and then go sign up for my class!!!

Happy briocheing, friends!!

From Condominium to High Rise

I am so excited to announce the release of my newest knitting pattern! High Rise is a funky, textural triangular shawl knit using the condo stitch and basic garter stitch. With its super long wingspan and generous height, you can wrap yourself in warmth this fall and winter!

This is actually my first shawl design! I was inspired by one of the first accessories that I designed, years ago before I really wrote anything down or documented my knitting projects. I picked up a copy of the Vogue Knitting Stitchionary, Volume One: Knit & Purl, and started browsing through all of the fascinating stitch patterns. There was one in particular that stood out to me more than any other: Condo knitting. What is this?! It almost had a punk rock look, like fishnet tights or netting. I knew I had to try this out. So I cast on some stitches using stash yarn and knit myself a giant cowl that I still wear to this day! Fast forward to this year, I decided to publish that pattern, which you know as the Condominium cowl!

Condo knitting is so interesting to me because it looks like dropped stitches, but in reality, it’s simply knitting garter stitch with two different size needles! In order to create this super open look, the bigger the difference in size, the better.

The High Rise shawl uses this same technique in combination with garter stitch to produce an open, textural accessory that will grow so fast you won’t know what hit you!

Grab your favorite DK weight yarn and cast on this easy, breezy shawl! This is a great project to show off variegated and speckled yarn! Use all one color, or mix it up and add stripes for extra pizazz! I knit two different versions of this shawl to show how a solid yarn will really show off the stitch pattern, and to show how the simplicity of the pattern will really let a variegated or speckled yarn shine! You can find the pattern for sale in my Ravelry shop, here. Be sure to grab a copy today and receive a 20% discount using the coupon code, YAYSHAWLS ! Offer ends at midnight tonight EST, Friday 8.28!

I also have plans to re-vamp my Condominium cowl pattern, so stay tuned! More on that later!

Everything new and exciting!

Hello, and welcome to the brand new website for Knit Graffiti!

This is a pretty big step for me and I am so excited to finally be sharing it with you! My website and blog is a work-in-progress, and I hope that it will grow into something more in the coming months.

I have been knitting for a fairly long time, but only in the past year has it become a true source of relaxation, self-expression and a challenge to my creative sensibility. This intoxicating community of knitters, weavers, yarn dyers, spinners and other fiber enthusiasts is my home away from home. I am so grateful for all of you. Thank you.

More coming very soon!

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