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New pattern release :: Loro wrap!!

My new pattern, Loro wrap, is now available on Ravelry and knitgraffiti.com!! Be sure to use coupon code LORO at checkout to receive a 15% discount through Sunday, July 15, 2018 at midnight CT!!

Explore color with stripes and chevrons! Loro is a lightweight, drapey rectangular wrap knit on the bias, transitioning from garter stitch stripes to dimensional two-color brioche chevrons. I love garter stitch and brioche together in one accessory: they create almost the same amount of squish! This shawl pattern is named after my favorite Pinback song, Loro. It is a magical, flowing melody, full of waves of notes, rhythms, and vocals.

This is a fabulous pattern if you are wanting to just dip your toes into brioche knitting!  With mostly garter stitch, lots of stripes and a little bit of brioche, this wrap is sure to keep you entertained!!

This was a very fun collaboration with Nicole of Hue Loco yarns!!  She creates these beautiful little 50 gram sets of yarns, and I fell in love with her Bird Watching set.  After receiving her yarns, it took a little while for them to tell me what they wanted to be!  Then I thought of this fun idea of creating brioche chevron stripes with garter stitch in between, where the garter blends in with the brioche.  I also just LOVE three color garter stitch stripes.  I cast this on and seriously could not put it down….which explains the length!!  This beauty is 113 inches / 287 cm long!!!  [insert big eyes emoji]  But it is very narrow for a wrap, so it’s more like a scarf that can be easily wrapped around the neck multiple times.  We all need a little extra drama in our life sometimes, right??  Maybe just in our knitwear.  🙂

A closer look at the yarn I used in this design.

 

Here is a photo showing my favorite way to style this wrap, with all the colors and textures showing.  I love to layer it in a way where all sections of colors can be showcased!!

I hope you enjoy, and please let me know if you have any questions!!  xx Lesley.

 

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New pattern release :: Just Like Honey shawl!

Introducing my newest shawl pattern, Just Like Honey!!  This pattern has long been in the works, and it feels so amazing to finally be able to share it with you all.  I am offering an introductory discount, use coupon code HONEY at checkout both on Ravelry and knitgraffiti.com for a 15% discount!  This offer will end on Thursday, May 10, 2018 at midnight CT.

This shawl pattern was created in collaboration with Jess of Shop La Mercerie and Carol of Swift Yarns, and I wanted to create something that would represent all three of us together in one design. Just Like Honey, we all stick together and build each other up in this community, and so I chose two different honeycomb stitch patterns for these wonderful ladies: Diamond Honeycomb for Jess and Two-Color Honeycomb Brioche for Carol, and I developed the Two-Color Brioche lattice pattern for the center panel. I am so incredibly proud to be a part of this wonderful knitting and fiber community.

A limited number of exclusive kits will be available through Shop La Mercerie starting at 9am PST!

In each kit you will receive the following:

  • A digital download code for the pattern
  • 4 skeins of Swift Yarns Tough Love Sock, with 3 different color options to choose from (including what I used in my original sample shown here)
  • Busy Happy Hands honey hand salve
  • Honeycomb stitch markers, and a bee place keeper
  • Project bag with an adorable bee stamp

This pattern holds a very special place in my heart. Since joining this fiber community over 3 years ago, I have been constantly impressed by the love and support shown by all of the people involved.  It’s just incredible to me.  I stumbled upon Shop La Mercerie about a year ago, and fell in love with Jess’ aesthetic. I purchased a couple of sewing patterns from her, and we immediately started emailing and chatting, it made me so happy!  I saw that she had a few knitting patterns, and tons of gorgeous yarn.  So I knew she was the kind of person I wanted to collaborate with!  We started brainstorming and this shawl design was born.  Jess had started carrying Swift Yarns in her shop, which was a new-to-me indie dyer!! We had tons of fun choosing the colors for my sample, as well as for the other 2 kit options!

West Village and Emerald City (colors used in my original sample)
Brooklyn and Wednesday
Aurora and Log Cabin

 

The stitch patterns used in this shawl were all new to me, and they might be new to you as well.  It took a bit of swatching and trial and error, but once I got the hang of them, I couldn’t put this shawl down.  Because these are new techniques, there aren’t very many resources out there to help you.  SO!!  I have put together some video tutorials, and have linked them in the pattern, as well as here in this blog post.  The stitch pattern techniques are as follows:

Two-Color Double Brioche: https://youtu.be/XlailKh30Fk

Two-Color Honeycomb Brioche: https://youtu.be/ObKGDPAnFio

Diamond Honeycomb (not my own tutorial, but a great one): https://bit.ly/2v565nE

Hopefully with these resources, you will feel confident enough to cast on this shawl, and challenge yourself!!  I have become a bit obsessed with Double Brioche, and will have some new patterns in the future using this fascinating technique.  🙂

Closeup of the center lattice panel, you can see the Double Brioche stripes in between the bobble shapes.

If you’d like to join us, I’m hosting a Knit-A-Long for this shawl in my Ravelry group, here! I want to provide a safe space for people to knit together, and receive any help they might want or need!!

Thank you for following along, and I hope you enjoy my newest pattern!  xx Lesley.

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New pattern release :: Indigo Wings!

Introducing my newest brioche shawl pattern, Indigo Wings!  You can find this pattern on Ravelry and knitgraffiti.com, and please enjoy a 15% discount using coupon code WINGS through Sunday, April 22, 2018 at midnight CT!

Indigo Wings is a lightweight half-ellipse shawl with a feather-like lace fanning out to a beautifully simple texture, all knit using the two-color brioche stitch.

Brooklyn Tweed Vale yarn is as light as a feather, and I was inspired to create a wing-like shawl with a stitch pattern resembling feathers. The texture created by the moss brioche stitch in the center of the shawl is incredible, and extremely relaxing to knit. Use 2 contrasting colors for a statement shawl, or 2 colors of similar shades for a subtle shawl perfect for the transition to warmer weather.

Indigo Wings is a half-ellipse shawl, knit from the top of the neck down to the border. The feather-like brioche lace stitches adorn the edges of the shawl, and fan out as the shawl grows. All of the shawl shaping is created within the two-color brioche moss stitch. 4 stitches are increased every Main Side, Main Color row within the moss stitch, and continue to do so through the border. This textural brioche stitch is so relaxing to knit. I call it the “Garter Stitch” of two-color brioche, because you are simply “brk-ing” all stitches. I wear this shawl with the top edge at the base of my neck, the small half-ellipse shape fits so perfectly there, and the rest of the shawl around my shoulders and arms.

I hope you enjoy my newest brioche shawl pattern, and happy knitting!!  xx

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New pattern release :: Rain Falls shawl!

I am so excited to finally share with you my Rain Falls shawl pattern!  You can find it both on Ravelry and knitgraffiti.com!  I am running an introductory offer: receive a 15% discount using coupon code RAIN through Sunday, April 1st at midnight CT!  Place the pattern into your cart, and enter the code to receive the discount.

This shawl has quite the story.  I actually never intended to publish the pattern at all!  But I’m so happy that I was able to share it with you because it was such a comfort to me during a difficult time.  It all goes back to last August when we found out that Hurricane Harvey was making its way to us down here in Corpus Christi, Texas.  We had only recently moved here, and knew that hurricanes were pretty common.  I don’t think we thought one would come so soon!  My oldest son had just started Kindergarten, so things were already a bit crazy around here!  After all of our preparations were made, there was the waiting.  We had decided not to evacuate, since we live quite far from the bay.  Our area is on the edge of town, and elevated, so we rarely get flooded. I needed a distraction, something that could keep my hands busy but also able to focus on my children and comfort them during a scary time.  Like many of you I’m sure, I have baskets and bins full of beautiful leftover fingering weight yarn!!  Tiny little balls of gorgeousness that I can’t bear to throw away.  Well, this was the perfect project for them.  I just started grabbing all of my favorites and arranging them on my sofa.

Before casting on, I actually did a little research into shawl shaping, to create a shawl in a vortex shape!  The final result is closer to an asymmetrical shawl knit on the bias, but the shaping used is a bit different than a traditional shawl shaped this way.  I didn’t end up using all of this yarn.  I didn’t want it to look like a rainbow, more like how the sky looks when a storm is on the way.  Fading from pinks to dark gray, with some blue and purple in the middle.

My favorite way to style this shawl.

Originally, it was going to be all two-color brioche!!  But as I kept knitting it, I felt myself wanting to change stitch patterns as well as colors.  So I made this a texture AND color play shawl!  It starts with two-color brioche, then moves to two-color garter stitch, then a small section of two-color seed stitch, and finally ending with a heavy marled garter stitch border. Even after the hurricane was gone and we had moved on, I continued to pick up this shawl when I needed a brain break.  Getting a little bit done here and there, it eventually was finished!!  I have written the pattern exactly as I knit my own sample, but with the color blending completely up to you.  Included in the pattern is the simple formula that I used to blend my own colors, as well as a graphic schematic that you can color on and play with ideas.  I truly hope this can be a fun pattern for you!  Let your imagination go wild, grab your leftover yarns!  Or even just two colors!  One of my test knitters used just two colors for the entire shawl, and it really made the textures of the different stitch patterns shine.  If you’d like to see all of the different yarns and colors that I used in my shawl, be sure to visit my own project page on Ravelry, here.

Thank you for following along, and I hope you enjoy my newest pattern! xx Lesley.

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Fuzzy Fix!!!

I have teamed up with one of my favorite Local Yarn Shops, Fuzzy Goat, to create a new subscription box for you!!  We are calling it Fuzzy Fix, and you can find all of the information and how to purchase these amazing boxes by following this link, HERE!

A little sneak peek, I don’t want to give anything away. 😉

These have been so much fun to plan, and will be filled with all kinds of goodies.  With the subscription, you will receive 3 boxes this year, one which is shipping out this month, and two more that will ship out early summer, and early fall!!  Each one will include an exclusive pattern that I designed specifically for Fuzzy Fix!!  They will all be fairly beginner friendly, and I promise to be available for any help and support.

Cadence with Fuzzy Goat will be taking orders through today and tomorrow, so be sure to sign up now!  There are only a few spots left!!

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New blog series :: All about the process!

For awhile now, I have been wanting to broaden my blog to something more than announcements about new pattern releases. I think I may have found that NEW thing!!  I am going to take you through my designing journey, specifically for my newest journey in designing a garment for a collection I hope to release this fall / winter.

Well, this first began when I received a copy of the book, Vogue Knitting: The Ultimate Knitting Book. As soon as I saw this new publication, I KNEW I needed to get my hands on it!  I have had the second version of this book (published in 2002) for as long as I’ve been knitting – over 12 years!  It has been such an amazing resource for me, especially when I was first beginning to design my own knitwear.  I learned different cast on and bind off techniques, as well as how to measure my gauge swatch, and use it to calculate yardage in garment design…just to name a few! It is really the ultimate guidebook to knitting!

Upon opening the book, I noticed that a lot of the core information was the same.  But how much they have added has made this book even more valuable to me!  I immediately turned to the section called “Designing Sweaters” on page 203.  This has been an area of my design portfolio that I feel is lacking, and I have been wanting to take my knit design to the next level. I have designed and published a few garments (Midnight Madness, To The Flame, Starlight Adventure, Primono), but they were all created using unusual modular techniques that were pure experiments for me. I would love to design garments using more traditional techniques, but keeping them interesting and fun at the same time! I can’t even tell you how many books I have in my library about sweater design…..Ok, it’s like 5…but that feels like a lot!  For some reason, it was all feeling a bit overwhelming to me: taking an idea, a thought, a sketch, and turning it into a sweater that is simple yet engaging to knit, and something you never want to take off.  This book has it all in one place!!

The first step of my journey: Finding the yarn and sketching out my ideas. Using the yarn I’ve shown in the photo above and below, I want to design a new sweater to be part of a new collection. Because of the climate where I live, I chose this single-ply fingering weight base to create a lightweight sweater or cardigan that I can wear year-round.  Shown below are Hedgehog Fibres Skinny Singles in colors Concrete (I have 3 skeins total which will compose the main body of the sweater), and one skein each of a Potluck color (which are one of a kind color ways that may not be repeated again), Kimono, and Pucker.

The Concrete color way is absolutely perfect for this collection (I will tell you more about that later), and I planned the rest of the sweater around this color way.  I love the bits of purple and blue in there!! You can see a little peek at my sketch that I’m working on.  At this point, I’m still unsure if I want to create a cardigan or a pullover, but I know that I want it to be worked from the top down, with one-color brioche chevron stripes along the yoke, alternating the brighter colored single skeins.  If I go with a cardigan, I think I will stick with a simple raglan shaping, and if I go with a pullover, I will go with a more circular yoke design.  If you look at the sketches, you can see a bit more of the rest of the collection I’m putting together!  I’m starting with the sweater, because it’s the most difficult and time-consuming of the pieces.

Here is a closer look at my sketch, and a bit of the information covered in this section of Vogue Knitting!!  This was my original sketch for a cardigan with raglan style shaping for the arms and shoulders.  I may end up going this route because I wear cardigans way more than pullovers.  I live in Southern Texas, and I feel like I’m always putting on and taking off layers!

I am still in the very beginning stages of this design, and want to bring you along with me every step of the way.  I will be learning so much, and I hope that you will learn something too!  Next step will be winding up the yarn and casting on a swatch or two.  I am thinking that I will swatch for both versions, to see which I like the best.  Look for a new post after I have completed the swatches, and maybe you can help me make a final decision!! 

Thank you so much for following along with me!!  Please feel free to comment with any questions, and feel free to let me know if you have a preference between cardigans and pullovers!