On the Other Side (of Christmas)

It was an amazing kind of Christmas in my house this year!

All three of my siblings, and pretty much all of their families, were here for the best of Christmas feasts. We put three tables together end to end and had a sit down dinner for 19. Very many hands went into the making of that meal.

In my three bedroom home, I had a total of 11 overnight guests (for three nights).  The photo above is of the small tree I think of as "the children's tree" in my living room. It usually goes in the family room, but this year it and the bigger tree swapped places to make more space where it was needed for dinner tables and air mattresses and gifts and celebration.

I hope that your holidays were merry and bright and full of love!

(Nature) Midweek Meditation

"Everything is made out of Magic, leaves and trees, flowers and birds..."                                 ~  Frances Hodgson Burnette, THE SECRET GARDEN

Indie Design Gift-A-Long

It's that time of year again... time to cast-on holiday gifts... or at least to start planning them. And I know a great place to start!

TATU Socks

The 2015 Indie Design Gift-A-Long on Ravelry began last evening. A group of over 300 knit and crochet designers are offering from 5-20 patterns each with a 25% discount through midnight (EST) next Friday, November 27. There are over 5000 patterns on sale!

You can browse by designer in the Participating Designer Thread.

Or, you can check out these Gift-A-Long Pinterest Boards:

Hats and Head Things
Cowls, Scarves and Neck Things
Shawls and Stoles 
Sweaters and Other Garments 
Hand and Arm Things
Feet and Leg Things
Baby and Kid Things (except toys) 
Toys, Home and Miscellaneous Things
Crochet Patterns

After you get all of your patterns and your gift knitting plans in place, don't forget to join the Indie Designer Gift-A-Long group.

There you will find some amazingly lively and incredibly fun GAL-2015 KAL/CAL's with tons of gift knitting support, some really fun games, lots of friendly chatter, and thousands (yes, thousands) of prizes! The fun goes on and on every day until the end of the year 2015!

Ready, set, GIFT!

Dear Daughter (I know that you have been knitting lately),

And then you sent this photo of your little dog sleeping in a cowl that I made (for you). "For your blog", you messaged. Thanks, my blog could always use a good pet photo!

I know that you have been knitting lately.

You gave me that Honey Cowl project of yours (no project photos) when I saw you about a month ago, and you had me do a little repair work. (It really was not all that bad.)

Did you know that the yarn I gave you for the cowl was the Berroco Ultra Alpaca yarn leftover from the Feldspar pullover that I knit for your dad?

He wore it on Saturday when we went out to dinner while you were home for the weekend.

I cleaned up this pile of abandoned knitting from your bedroom floor where we left it after our abandoned knitting discussion. I ripped out the skinny scarf that you were teaching someone how to knit (and you don't remember who)... and the hat that you started that was coming out way too big.

I know how tough it is for newer knitters to rip out old knitting, but sometimes it puts you where you need to be to move forward.

I have a new hat pattern (I custom wrote) and yarn ready for you when you finish your Honey Cowl. I am looking forward to seeing the finished project. I love it when you knit, but I love you whether you knit or do not knit. Love, Mom.

(PS: Its been almost a year since I have had a new pattern in a magazine, but it looks like I am getting a sock pattern published next year! Yeah!)

Design Release: Seabreeze

  Design: Seabreeze 

Sample Yarn:  Stonehedge Fiber Mills Shepherd's Wool Fine

Yarn Required:  Light fingering weight yarn, 220 yards color A, 150 yards color B

My latest design release, Seabreeze, is a completely reversible, two-color, garter stitch infinity cowl with a knit-as-you-go garter stitch edging. The edging is actually the same one that I used for my Paper Lanterns shawlette design. Both patterns are available on Ravelry and they will be linked indefinitely in a Ravelry 'Pattern Set' promotion...

The patterns are available individually for $5 each. The total price for for both (the set) is $8. If you would like to buy both (right now!) this is a handy link to place them both in your shopping cart (and you will see the discount automatically). For this promotion past purchases will count toward the $8 total... so if you already bought one of the patterns, just by placing the second pattern in your cart, you will see the -$2 discount.

    
(Sorry about all of the promotional stuff. I love Ravelry! If not for Ravelry and paypal, I would not have this opportunity to sell my patterns.)

But now I would really like to let you know a bit more about Seabreeze....

I fell in love with this edging I found in Barbara G Walker's A SECOND TREASURY OF KNITTING PATTERNS. I love the round shapes that I think look like a strand of beads... resulting in a cowl much like a long strand of pearls that can be worn either long-and-loose or doubled-up. Seabreeze embraces my belief that anything is easier to wear around your neck when it is reversible.

Seabreeze is also a great skill-building pattern for an intermediate knitter. The skills that will be new to many are (provisional cast-on), garter stitch grafting, and a thing I call "reversible garter stitch intarsia". I believe that the pattern provides enough detailed instructions for these skills, but look for a tutorial on the reversible intarsia here on my blog in the not to distant future.

Thanks for reading!

Something is coming...& Something is here!

WHAT IS COMING:

I am just about ready to release a new design. It is an infinity cowl that I have named "Seabreeze".

It has been over two years since I knit my "Seabreeze" sample (one of my personal favorites).  I have submitted Seabreeze three different times for consideration to third-party publishers with no success.  I have decided that, now, it is finally time to let it see the light-of-day!

Seabreeze is a completely reversible, two-color, garter stitch infinity cowl with a knit-as-you-go garter stitch edging.  You might notice that the edging is the same one that I used in my Paper Lanterns design.

Seabreeze and Paper Lanterns will always be linked in a buy-one-get-the-other-for-a-discount on Ravelry.  Stay tuned for more details.

WHAT IS HERE:

MY VERY FIRST TRUNK SHOW!  Now through next Saturday October 17, seventeen of my knit design samples will be on display at my LYS Gosh Yarn It! in Kingston, Pennsylvania.

I have to thank my good friend Catherine who works at GYI!  The Carolyn Kern Designs Trunk Show was her idea and she proposed it to the shop manager, Ann, without even telling me.  What an honor it was when Ann asked me if I would like to do this!

During the Carolyn Kern Designs Trunk Show at GYI! an advance copy of my next newest design called Floribunda Cap will be free with a yarn purchase.

BTW, this pattern will also be free to all students taking my Floribunda Class on two-handed stranded knitting at Gosh Yarn It! Saturday November 7, 1:30-4:00.  Last I checked there were still three open seats.  See Ann's September GYI! Blog Post for details on this and all of the upcoming classes at the shop.

NEW Knitting & Unicorn Tails

Over the summer, I spent a good deal of time designing (fun) (yet, challenging) and just knitting (always relaxing).

One day last week, I finished binding off the second of Mr K's 2015 socks, and I finally blocked that little shawl that I named Atmosphere, as well as my latest Paper Lanterns.  And then I realized that I really did need something NEW to knit!

Within 24 hours, I cast on two new projects (using other designer's patterns) (I still do that) (I learn from everything that I knit) (and, sometimes I like to just relax and knit with less of that "thinking" thing having to happen).

First, I cast on a project that I named Shirttail Pullover.  This will be a mostly mindless knit for me.

 

 Pattern: Tongshan Sweater by Kiyomi Burgin

Yarn: Classic Elite Yarns MountainTop Crestone

Then, I cast on a "Silkie Selkie" (a Selkie Sock made with Silkie Socks That Rock) but I was not happy with it.

In the photo above the cuff of the top-down Silkie Selkie sock is OK, but there is not enough contrast between the 'obsidian' and that 'dusk' blue, in Knitpicks Fingering Stroll.  Every sock that I made in the last few years has been a toe-up sock from my own Fingering Weight TATU Sock Pattern.  In this instance, I did eventually decide that I did not want to use this cuff-down pattern by another designer.  (I would have had to modify it by reducing the stitch count.  I found it a bit wide even on size 0 needles, and I refuse to knit with anything smaller than size 0.)  I am going to design a toe-up sock with a gansey type all-knits-and-purls stitch pattern and a band of Fair Isle at the top.

I will use my first skein of Unicorn Tails in 'antique lace' for the Fair Isle.

My purchase of a bundle of Unicorn Tails at Gosh Yarn It! was a bit of a splurge, but I know I will be using them here and there on many projects with great joy!  Hope all of your knitting is happy!  I'll be back soon.
  

Knit Tip: Two Halves -- and a Scale

Last week I took this photo to document the halfway point of my newest Paper Lanterns shawlette.

Paper Lanterns WIP in Frabjous Fibers Mad Hatter

Paper Lanterns is a rather simple, sideways knit, shawlette.  For the first half of the project you have increase rows.  For the second half, decrease rows take their place.

If you think that you might not have enough yarn to knit a two-halves type of pattern as written, but you know that you probably have enough...

Or, if you are using a treasured skein of yarn, and you desire to use as much of the yarn as possible... by making the first half as long and as wide as you can with a minimal amount of wasted yarn...

You will need a scale.

A small kitchen scale like the one that I bought from Amazon in 2010 (still available here) will work quite well.

You should weigh your yarn before you start (as I mentioned in this post).  My yarn weighed 113g.  When I got to the halfway point of the shawlette last week, I weighed the remaining yarn and shot the photo above.  The remaining yarn weighed 58g.  Half of 113 would be 56.5.  This showed me that I did have enough yarn to finish because what remained was more than what was used.  It also showed me that for this particular project, there could be no extra pattern repeats to make a larger shawlette.

Your scale will come in handy whenever you knit a project that has two halves.

I use mine every time I make toe up socks.  Before I start, I take my initial ball of yarn and wind a ball off of it, weighing both, until I get two equal balls.  Mr K likes tall socks.  My scale allows me make them as tall as I like but no taller than the yarn allows.

Fingering Weight TATU Socks FO in Cascade Yarns Heritage Paints

This FO photo of a pair that I knit for him last spring, shows what remains of the two balls that I started out with.  These are the tallest socks that I ever knit.

I currently am knitting Mr K a new pair of TATU socks and I was also at the halfway point with these earlier this month.  Now I am quite far beyond that.

Fingering Weight TATU Socks WIP in Austermann Step 6

I use my scale to check how much yarn I have used (or how much yarn I have remaining) in many of my projects especially when I design new patterns.  It has been a very worthwhile tool in my knitting tool box.

Midweek Meditation

"There are flowers everywhere for those who want to see them."  ~ Henri Matisse

Red Room (Harmony in Red), 1908

Still Life with Geraniums, 1910

Annelies, White Tulips and Anemones, 1944

The Plum Blossoms, 1948

(Please, see some flowers today!)