Ruckle - and a Giveaway

The Fall 2011 Knitcircus Magazine is now live, full of beautiful designs including my Ruckle hat.

Ruckle is a soft, scrunchy hat with folds or puckers knit into the body. Cast on provisionally, it features a clean, turned-hem brim, ruckled main body with alternating tucks around the circumference, and a 10 section spiral decrease crown.
For a closer look at the Tuck technique, you can watch my video tutorial.

To celebrate, I'm having a giveaway with 3 prizes, courtesy of Knitcircus! I will be giving away two Pattern Collections - which include patterns for every design in the Fall 2011 Knitcircus - and a grand prize of one Subscription (one year/five issues of Knitcircus).

Just leave a comment to this post before 12:00 midnight Eastern US standard time on August 31, 2011. Comments will be numbered in the order in which they appear, and a Random Number Generator will determine the three winners.

I'll announce the winners here on September 1, so please check back then.

Meanwhile, we can all think about what to knit first!

Sneak Peek - Ruckle

On wednesday August 24, the Fall 2011 issue of Knitcircus Magazine will be released. Among the articles, interviews and patterns will be one of my designs:

The Knitcircus blog shows a few other lovely things that will be featured. Only 2 more days!

Sailing To Byzantium

I'm proud to announce the release of Sailing To Byzantium, an ebook collection of six hand knitting designs inspired by the art and architecture of ancient Constantinople.

When Malabrigo Yarn invited me to be part of their Freelance Pattern Project for August, I was of course delighted - my favorite yarns! I was assigned the theme of Old Architecture, and the stoney colors of older buildings. A bit of research lead one thing to another, and I found myself enthralled by the turbulent history and striking architecture of Byzantium.

For over 1000 years, the Byzantine Empire stood as a symbol of Christian power in the eastern half of what had once been the Roman Empire, symbolizing a final link to the ancient world of the Greeks and Romans.

Renamed Constantinople in 330 AD by Constantine I, the ancient city of Byzantium remained a center of wealth and power despite its fall to the western knights of the Fourth Crusade in 1203. The future of the city changed forever in 1453, when it was besieged by Sultan Mehmet II and the Ottoman Turks, overrun, and reborn as Istanbul, the capital of the Ottoman Empire.

A city of ancient Roman stonework, early Christian domes, towering Islamic minarets and intricate Ottoman tile and mosaics, Byzantium now stands for a dream of splendor and beauty straddling Europe and Asia Minor.

Byzantine architecture is notable for its stacked shapes; minarets towering over domes, above arches and blocks. The repeating geometric motifs create a strong visual effect, in warm tones of sandstone, clay, stone and lead. The geometry is enhanced by decorative elements of repeating carved mosaics and tiles, often in warm reds and bright azure.

Sailing To Byzantium is also a poem by William Butler Yeats, which represents the metaphorical journey of a man pursuing his own version of eternal life as well as his conception of paradise.
Literature, Art, Architecture and Yarn . . .

Sailing To Byzantium includes three slipstitch colorwork accessories, the Sofya Cowl:

Minaret Hat:

and Lattice Mittens:

Also the Mosaic Socks, knit top-down with heel flap and gusset:

And two shawls, the crescent Selimiye:

and the sideways Iznik:

See more pictures on Ravelry, where they're available individually, and as the collection. 

Utsukushii

It's been secret for a while, but finally I can share my Utsukushii Wrap, which is this week's free featured design in the Classic Elite Yarns Web-Letter.

Utsukushii is a long, rectangular stole knit in Classic Elite Yarns Silky Alpaca Lace. It's cast on at one end and knit with a Japanese Feather lace border on each side of the central stockinette panel. For my prototype I used almost all 880 yards of 2 balls of yarn, which made a nice wrap that blocks to about 22" wide and 64" long.

As I say in my description,

Utsukushii means lovely or beautiful in Japanese, and this lovely stole knit in Silky Alpaca Lace features a Japanese Feather lace pattern framing simple Stockinette panels. The lace undulates gently from side to side, creating a feeling of lightness and movement. Knit at a large gauge, and generous enough to enfold you comfortably, Utsukushii is a warm yet weightless wrap that lends any occasion a touch of loveliness.

Some of CEY's lovely phototgraphs:

The backstory is that when I was asked if I would like to do something for the Web-Letter, I of course said yes - the weekly Letter always has something great, from accessories to home dec to sweaters. And it has 30,000 subscribers! But 880 yards of laceweight takes a bit of time to knit, so I had to move steadily along.

As it turns out, I bound off and blocked just before Worldwide Knit In Public day back in June, so I brought the wrap to Princeton where I met my knitterly friends. They liked it, so I cajoled them into modeling.

I couldn't be happier with how it turned out, and I learned some stuff, too. 1) I can wear alpaca next to my skin. 2) The Japanese kanji or character for utsukushii looks like this:

And 3) I can pronounce it, because I listened to the audio file on this site.

Lace and learning, what more could one desire?