Merry Christmas - and here's a quick free mitts pattern to celebrate!

Lots of us who knit love making handmade Christmas presents but sometimes as a designer it's the worse time of year to do so! I've been lucky enough to get a few commissions which have to be knit over the Christmas period, and had been thinking everyone would have to wear what they got last year again... but my sister-in-law put in a special request for sparkly fingerless mitts to match the cowl I made her last year.

Luckily for her, the perfect opportunity arose as we'd decided to take a quick trip to Heidelberg in Germany this week, and fingerless mitts are one of the things I am very confident of being able to knit on the plane, thanks to my very un-threatening bamboo Brittany DPNs. So the commissions stayed at home, and what turned out to be a very small scrap of leftover sparkly acrylic, plus a bit of Blacker Classic DK, came along instead.

We actually hadn't gone for the Christmas markets (which seems to be what most people come for), but just to spend a bit of time somewhere different. Heidelberg is a pretty little town, with plenty of history, on the river Neckar, a tributary of the Rhine, complete with ruined castle and ancient bridge. Obviously we did visit the markets, but mainly for sausages and Gluhwein. However I did do a bit of shopping, for shoes - and, you won't be surprised to hear, for yarn, from the lovely Wollke 7 in the university district of Neuenheim, where I bought some Isager and some Zitron. But how do you go shoe and yarn shopping and still get it in your hand luggage...

Anyway, my plain fingerless mitts turned out pretty well, and I only had a couple of short flights and a train journey to make them on. So here's my early Christmas present to you; the pattern for the mitts and if you're behind with your shopping, you can still have them done in time for Christmas. You can knit them from leftovers and the size goes up to mansize.


The pattern!


Size: S (M, L). Actual circumference around knuckles 14.5 (16, 18) cm / 6 (6 ½ , 7)” to fit with up to 5cm/2” negative ease

Materials: About 20-25g DK yarn in each colour A & B (or about 40-50g if working only one colour!)
3.25mm / US 3 & 4mm / US 6 DPNs; 2 st markers; st holder or waste yarn.

Tension: 22 sts x 30 rows to 10cm/4” in stocking stitch using larger needles.

Abbreviations:
2x2 rib – k2, p2
cdd – centred double decrease – slip 2 sts knitwise together, k1, pass slipped sts over.
DPN – double-pointed needle
K – knit
K2tog – knit 2 together
M1 – make one st by picking up the strand between the sts from the front onto lefthand needle and knitting it through back loop
P – purl
Pm – place marker
Rep – repeat
Rm – remove marker
Rnd - round
Sl – slip
Sm – slip marker
Ssk – sl 1, sl 1, knit 2 slipped sts together
St – stitch

Pattern Notes
To make a single coloured mitt, just omit colour changes.
I like a garter stitch effect at the top of my mitts. You’re welcome to change to smaller needles & work 2x2 rib for a few rounds if you prefer.
If you want the mitt to go further up your fingers, just keep working in 3 rnd stripes until you’re happy!

When I made mine, I used this method to knit jogless stripes: http://www.craftsy.com/blog/2013/08/knitting-jogless-stripes-in-the-round/

Backwards loop cast on: http://blog.tincanknits.com/2013/12/24/backwards-loop-cast-on/


Pattern (make 2)


Using smaller DPNs & colour A, cast on 32 (36, 40) sts. PM & join to work in the rnd, being careful not to twist.

Work 6 rnds in 2x2 rib.

Change to larger DPNs.

Knit 2 rnds.
Change to colour B & work 3 rnds.

Change to colour A, work 1 rnd.
Next rnd: K1, m1, k1, pm, k to end of rnd.
Knit 1 rnd.

*Change to other colour. Knit 1 rnd.
Next rnd: k1, m1, k to 1 st before marker, m1, k1, sm, k to end of rnd.
Knit 1 rnd.

Rep last 3 rnds (changing colours every 3 rnds) until you have 11 (13, 15) sts between markers.

Change to the other colour & knit 2 rnds.

Next rnd: k1, transfer next 9 (11, 13) sts to holder for thumb. Cast on 5 sts using backwards loop method, k1, sm, k to end of rnd.

Change colours & knit 1 rnd.
Next rnd: k1, ssk, k1, k2tog, k1, sm, knit to end of rnd.
Knit 1 rnd.

Change colours & knit 1 rnd.
Next rnd: k1, cdd, k1, rm, knit to end of rnd.
Knit 1 rnd.

Change colours and knit 3 rnds. Purl one rnd, knit one rnd, then cast off purlwise. Break both colours.

To make thumb – take up the same colour as you have on hold for the thumb, and with larger needles, knit across sts on hold, then pick up & k 7 sts across base of thumb. 16 (18, 20) sts

Change colours & knit 1 rnd. Knit 8 (10, 12), ssk, k5, k2tog (last st of current rnd with first st of next rnd), knit to end of rnd.

Purl one rnd, knit one rnd, then cast off purlwise. Break both colours.
Weave in ends and block to measurements.

Vienna calling...

From one beautiful city viewed mostly in torrential rain to another... I spent last weekend in Vienna, the capital of Austria and former capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Today it's mostly about sitting in elegant surroundings and eating cake, as far as I can tell. I was there because my husband was at a precious metal conference, and although I was on holiday, I did attend various functions involving metals types (they do mostly know how to have a good time, if you can keep conversation off the platinum price, and on another occasion we got not only Edelweiss and the Blue Danube, but also a Falco tribute act - he had 3 songs, who knew?). And by doing to had a stroke of enormous luck, for upon arrival at the restaurant where my husband was hosting a dinner on Saturday night, what did I spot but a very Viennese-ly exquisite looking yarn shop right next door?

Next day was Sunday (which I spent very happily watching these chaps), but on returning on Monday morning (husband safely stowed at the conference, listening to metals chat) I discovered I was luckier than I thought, for Wollewien (Vienna wool) had in fact opened just a week before.

 

 

It's located on what's effectively the ground floor of the Greek orthodox church next door (the other side from the restaurant), hence the Romanesque arches & decorative flourishes.

 

The shop sells what seemed to me to be the full range of Lang yarns plus pattern books (not hugely widely available in the UK, so a real treat) plus a good number of Rowan yarns (less exciting for me, but probably more exotic if you're Viennnese). They also had a really wide range of pretty yarns in the shop's own brand, which provided me with a great opportunity to test out my understanding of German words for different fibres ("Baumwolle" - tree wool - i.e. cotton - was a favourite of mine at school).

 

The shop is simply but stylishy laid out, with wavy shelving echoing the herringbone floor.

 

 

The shop lettering also had a nice Viennese Secessionist/Jugendstil flavour to it, though printing it on wine bottles does not help my habit of spelling Wien (Vienna) as Wein (wine).

 



 

As well as looking beautiful, the shop had lots of nice practical touches, For instance, as well as having sample garments, each yarn had a knitted swatch hanging from the shelf next to it.

 

 

The only gaps in the display... the three colours of Lang Asia I selected as my souvenir of Vienna, hopefully enough for a Jugendstil inspired cowl and mitts design, along the lines of the Seville set in the not so distant future.

 

 



Had a lovely chat with the proprietor, who came onto my facebook page later that morning to say Gruss Gott, and off I went into the rain with my 3 balls of Asia, plus some of their own Zakynthos yarn, made from recycled jeans cotton. It was tricky to make a selection from their own wide range, all named after Greek islands (presumably in a nod to the Greeks next door - the restaurant is also the Griechenbeisl, though the food is traditionally Austrian. And where, I must add, we were treated extremely well on Saturday), but BA's luggage restrictions helped to keep my souvenir shopping in check!

 

 

Now of course I could hardly complete a post about Vienna without a picture of some cake in elegant surroundings, so here's the genuine Sachertorte being consumed (by my husband), along with some Sacher Cuvee, in the Blue Bar at the Sacher Hotel.

 

 



A walk around Edinburgh, and a new jumper pattern

Around this time last year, I took a very short trip to one of the best cities in the world, Edinburgh. The fact I put it in that category is all the more remarkable given every time I go there it rains, and when it rains in Scotland, it doesn't muck about. Visiting Edinburgh, even for a short break, I have to take in 3 things - a great meal (Tom Kitchin's restaurant, this time & last), a pint in one of Rebus's favourite pubs (only managed the Cafe Royal, this time, didn't make it to the Ox) and a dram or two at the Scotch Malt Whisky Society. All of which can fortunately be done indoors!

Anyway, the morning after our dinner at Kitchin, the rain lifted for long enough for a little pilgrimage over to Marchmont. Marchmont had 2 attractions - firstly, it is the (fictional) home of the aforementioned Inspector Rebus, and secondly, it's the home of Be Inspired Fibres which I had been assured by no less a knitting authority than Karie Westermann was very much worth the trip out of the city centre.

So we proceeded first along the Royal Mile, where even the road names make us feel at home - and it's actually spelled correctly:

My Talboys Wrap is doing a good warming job in the photo...

Turning off in the direction of Marchmont, we were then pleased to stumble across this:

Then this chap (and no, David isn't touching the nose).

 

 

The next stop, rather appropriately, was to buy some excellent sparkly Scottie dog Christmas cards in the Shelter stop, then on past the university (where Pollock Halls of Residence reminded me of long ago, when I ran a Pet Shop Boys fanzine & had readers there), across a green sward and into the austere tenements of Marchmont, where I found my way to Rebus's flat.

So, tourism over, I attended to the serious business of shopping for yarn. Be Inspired Fibres is an absolute gem, brimming with stuff I had actually never seen before, and knowledgeably and friendlily run by Mei. And oh, the fibres! Yak! Mink!! Copper!!! The shop received the ultimate accolade from David: "a knitting shop even I enjoyed" (he was especially taken with the Habu metal yarns)

Having indulged myself with the minky-coppery end of things, I had to buy some proper Scottish yarn, and so I found my way to Shilasdair. Their yarns are dyed in colours inspired by the Scottish landscape and, being a devotee of green, I couldn't resist a jumper-sized amount in a colour called Uig Sea Green.

And so, in the nearly a year since, I designed a sweater to suit the yarn, with a simple, wavy lace pattern like the green sea breaking on the shores of the Isle of Skye. Completely seamless, it comes in standard and curvy fit, to give a flattering silhouette to all kinds of figures. I've called it Marchmont Sweater

And the windswept beach it's photographed on... sorry, it's not Skye, or even Edinburgh, but the other end of the country in Whitstable, Kent (though it was doing its best to emulate Edinburgh's weather...).

Photography by David, & tech edited by Michelle Hazell.

Yarn, birthdays, books and food - and a free pattern!

Anyone who's read this blog will have gathered that supporting British wool is very important to me. Our heritage as a great wool-producing nation is ingrained in our landscape, architecture and language. British wool has been in something of an intermittent crisis since the Industrial Revolution ( half sentence summary of substantial chunk of history - try Counting Sheep by Philip Walling for the full story), but in the last few years some dedicated people, with the help of the Campaign for Wool, have been working really hard, and really enthusiastically, to put Britain back on the map as a woolly nation.

Preserving rare breeds - paying a fair price for fleece - spinning British wool in Britain - all of these have for the last 10 years been key aims of Sue Blacker of Blacker Yarns and their milling arm, the Natural Fibre Company. As well as producing their own range of super gorgeous yarns, often from their own sheep, their mill in Cornwall has also been spinning for other producers. This year they're celebrating their 10th birthday and have produced a wonderful yarn, Cornish Tin, in both DK and 4-ply, to mark the occasion.

It's spun from a positive smorgasbord of interesting fibres, each one has some meaning for the company (it's all on Sue's blog about the yarn). There's a natural grey shade and some lovely dyed colourways, each named after a Cornish tin mine. What I love about the combination, which range from the soft and easily-dyeable to more textured and naturally coloured fleece, is the depth and interest it gives to the colour - the little flecks of cussed Jacob's or tough Welsh Mountain give the yarn a distinctive, and very British, character.

I was lucky enough to get sent some - photographed above, in Botallack Blue - to have a play with before the launch, and naturally my thoughts drifted along Cornish lines. Being a Northerner, it's not a county I know too well, but it exists for me in books - not Poldark as far as I'm concerned, but Susan Howatch's splendid historical potboiler Penmarric - and in food. Cornwall makes great cheese, delicious beer, and, of course, the famous Cornish pasty, which is inextricably linked with the tin mines as it was the traditional snack of the Cornish tinminer. The literally mine-proof pastry case protected the wholesome filling, to make sure the miners had enough sustenance to cope with an arduous day at work, and essential to this was the special crimped edge which sealed the sides of the pasty and which is still a sign of a genuine Cornish product today.

You can find out more about the history of this versatile and tasty product from the Cornish Pasty Association, which is also where I learned that the Cornish tinminer's lunchtime snack was called a crib or croust (which I guess must come from the crimped crust of the pasty). Being a knitter, these crimped edges then took my thoughts to cables and the obvious answer to what to do with my Cornish Tin yarn - knit my own pasty!

So what I came up with isn't quite a pasty - it's a fingerless mitt, which in warm, hardwearing Cornish Tin should have the same insulating effect on my hands as the pastry case on the pasty - with a cabled i-cord cast off on both the hands and the thumbs.

You can knit a pair of Croust Fingerless Mitts from one skein of Cornish Tin DK. And, to help get the yarn and the birthday party started, you can get the pattern FREE for the first two weeks! The offer will end at midnight UK time on October 3rd. Just enter the coupon code Penzance when you buy the pattern from my Ravelry shop.

Please feel free to tell people about this offer - but please share this blog post rather than the coupon code, as I really would like people to understand the story behind the yarn and the pattern! I will change the coupon code from time to time during the offer.

And in the meantime if you like a pattern bargain, don't forget my Scarf Season special offer is still on - ten scarf patterns for a fiver - take a look at the previous post for all the details.

Scarf Season

As Leonard Cohen said, summer's gone, and winter's tuning up...

The nights are drawing in and the heating has started coming on again in the morning. On the plus side, what better time of year to start knitting lots of lovely scarves for you and yours?

To help you, I've put together a promotion whereby you get ten scarf patterns - including my new Joni Scarf (the scarf that works from "both sides now") - for just five pounds!

I've included some of my most popular patterns - like the Cricket Sweater Cabled Scarf - so at just 50p per pattern including VAT this really is great value!.

To see all the patterns included in the offer, I've put them in a Ravelry bundle. Just add all 10 patterns to your cart on Ravelry and use the coupon code Scarf2015, or just follow this link which will automatically add all 10 patterns to your cart and add the coupon code.

WHAT'S MORE.... 50p from every Scarf Season set bought will go to Cardiac Risk in the Young in memory of a smashing bloke called James Pettifer - see this page for more information.

The promotion lasts until midnight GMT on October 4th, so get knitting!

"He's defied the odds"

Posted a while ago to tell you about my Cat Walk Shawl pattern which I designed to raise funds for the PDSA charity when our cat, Bluey, was diagnosed with an illness (liver cancer as it happens). Anyway, just a quick update, as that was over 14 months ago now, so we took him into the vet today (much to his disgust) just to make sure all was as well as can be expected. "He's really defying the odds!"  was the verdict. He's now back at home, ordeal over, sat on my lap.

Please take a look at the pattern & make a donation if you want to help other people's pets defy the odds!

The sound of summer

So, for once, here I am introducing a summer pattern on a hot summer day with blue skies outside and Wimbledon on the TV! Endless Summer is a summer infinity scarf, made from Eden Cottage Yarns Theseus Lace in a gorgeous sunsetty colour called Red Kite. It's designed to be light and warm, to carry in your handbag or beachbag and wrap closer around your neck as the evening draws in. It's out in the current issue of Knit Now magazine, and the lace patterns are inspired by sand dunes, seagulls and lapping waves.

(c) Practical Publishing

You may recognise the model, Jade, who won Britain's Next Top Model in 2011.

Rather unusually, this is a pattern with a soundtrack - the name comes from my Beach Boys compilation album - so if you want to listen as you knit, here you go...

Groove Armada - At The River

Jan & Dean - Surf City

Beach Boys - California Girls

Lovin' Spoonful - Summer in the City

Bill Pritchard - A Trip to the Coast


Got another suggestion? Leave a comment!

While I'm at it, here's a couple of recent Knit Now patterns I haven't blogged about, from issue 47, another seasidey one - Sailors Knot Cowl.

(c) Practical Publishing

And from issue 48, Helena Scarf.

(c) Practical Publishing

You can buy the magazine at the Knit Now website

Silly Knit Off

As an England cricket fan, the Cricket World Cup, despite many excellent games not involving us, was not the most edifying of experiences. It's been a relief to get back to red ball, white kit cricket and see us doing rather better, with electrifying performances from Joe Root & James Anderson in lovely Grenada last week. And the welcome return of the "Are Alistair Cook and Jonathan Trott batting for too long?" debate.

During the World Cup I took part in a knitalong in the Ravelry Knit before Wicket group, where cricket and knitting meets, and perhaps it's prophetic that my project really took its inspiration from the longer form of the game, rather than limited-overs-coloured-kit, and specifically, the splendid traditional cricket sweater, as modelled here by the great West Indian cricketer Sir Garfield Sobers.

 



This design has been a staple of the knitting pattern for many years, from this one in the spirit perhaps of Jennings & Darbyshire...

To a slightly racier his'n'hers version.

What all of these have in common of course is the vast amounts of yarn and knitting required to produce one, so I thought it would be fun to use the signature cables & stripes and make a more accessible version, using ribbed cables to make a reversible scarf, and with the stripes giving you a chance to add your team's colours (or just your favourite colours, come to that). Being a little quicker to knit than a jumper, it would also be feasible to kit your family out in them. As the original project was for the World Cup I chose England's colour - blue - for my stripes, and was very fortunate to get yarn support from the wonderful people at Blacker Yarns. I used their British Classic DK wool in white and navy. Blacker yarns are from British breeds of British sheep, and even spun here, so it was very appropriate for a project to support my team (albeit in a doomed cause - perhaps that's a very British thing as well...?). This wool was also great for the project, warm and hard-wearing, and the cables look fantastic.

The Navy I used is also the main colour of my county team, Middlesex, who play at Lord's,

(to prove it, and in order to have a picture of Middlesex fast bowler Steven Finn in this blog...)

...so I took my scarf along to the first match of the season, Middlesex v Notts, for some photography. Thanks to a vastly unseasonable heat wave, my husband informed me that a cabled scarf would look "weird" with the relatively summery ensemble I was wearing, so we persuaded Lord's' venerable pavilion to act as model instead!

When the usual summer chill descends later in the year, perhaps you'll see it on me, maybe at the Ashes or the traditionally Arctic New Zealand test series.

For the first month I am donating all profits from sale of the pattern to Cricket for Change, a great charity which supports various projects whereby cricket helps to transform the lives of young people - have a look at their page & learn about, for instance, the alternative Inner City World Cup!

The rain in Spain...

Now, I've always liked having a birthday in February. Perhaps I'm biased, but it's always seemed to me to be by far the most interesting month, having a weird number of days, leap years, etc, etc. There are two problems, firstly, my birthday is very nearly Valentine's Day, which has given me a lifelong hatred for that event, and secondly, living in England, let's face it, the weather. Having moved further south as life has gone on it's not generally as bad as it was on the night I was born, when father drove through five foot snowdrifts to get my mother to hospital in Yorkshire, but I still tend to find myself craving a little vitamin D by that time of year and try to take a break somewhere a little sunnier.

Last year we settled on the southern Spanish city of Seville, famed for the Seville orange that's used to make marmalade. I pictured blue skies and trees laden with glowing fruit.

As you can see, we got one, but as to the other...

It chucked it down. It absolutely binned it. Seville is a truly stunning city, Moorish architecture and little twisty streets that would be absolutely divine if one didn't keep getting lost in them in driving rain.

Design-wise, as you can see, Seville is a pretty inspirational place.
Buildings are frosted like wedding cakes.

Walls are covered in intricate patterns.

 

 

 

But what did I find myself doing? Head down, rain pouring down my neck, I stared at the pavement. Luckily Seville's pavements happen to be quite diverting. I saw herringbone tiles, chequerboards, honeycomb patterns, all sorts. And as we sat in our lovely hotel room, I sketched them down, and came up with a way of knitting them.

 

That's how my Seville cowl and mitts were born, published in this month's Knit Now Magazine.

 

(c) Practical Publishing

And finally I get to see the colour of those blue skies, thanks to making the sample in Eden Cottage Yarns Askham 4-ply in the striking Damselfly colourway.

 

Talking of Blue, following my last blog post, the Cat Walk Shawl is doing really well and has already raised lots from generous knitters both for PDSA and for other animal charities where some knitters have chosen to donate to a similar organisation in their own country. If you'd like to know how the cat himself is doing, here's Bluey today sat on the top of the sofa next to me:

 

 





Thinking out of the honesty box

Last year I seemed to spend a lot of time on this blog apologising for not being terribly regular. There were a couple of reasons which I didn't fully go into, but which meant I wasn't feeling particularly joyous last year, one of which was my lovely cat Bluey being diagnosed with a serious illness around the middle of last year.

I didn't then, & don't now, plan to go into the details - he is, I am glad to say, still very much with us at the moment and getting all the love, care & spoiling we can give him.

(c) David Jollie

What did give me cause to be thankful, as unexpected vets' bills mounted for various diagnostic tests, was that we're at least lucky enough to be in a position where those were not a showstopping issue - we could be confident that we can make choices for him based on what's best for him, not what's cheapest. I thought about how horrible it must be if your beloved pet was ill and you simply couldn't afford to look after him. Even responsible pet owners can find themselves in that situation, through no fault of their own, and some of the people who most need their pet in their lives - elderly or vulnerable people - are most likely to find it difficult in these situations.

So, it made me realise how important the PDSA and similar charities around the world are - in providing vet care for pets of people in need, as well as affordable pet insurance and advice about pet health.

As part of my support, I did the thing I enjoyed best - designed a knitting pattern! Cat Walk Shawl features cat's paws pattering from centre to edge, cats eye lace and as near as I could get to little cat faces around the edging. It's worked in beautiful Artesano Alpaca Silk Lace, with yarn support generously provided by my friends at Artesano Yarns.

Rather than charge and have any donations go to the tax man, I'm using an "honesty box", and asking knitters who download the pattern to visit my Just Giving page and donate whatever amount they want to the PDSA. I'm also really happy for knitters who would prefer to donate to a similar local charity to do so - but let me know who via a comment on the pattern.

I did sort of manage to get the man himself to model the shawl - see above - but trust me, photographing cats and lace shawls together on windy day is not the easiest.

The donation page has been so successful that I have also set one up for an older charity pattern of mine - Bob's Beanie - which I made to support my friend Alex's fundraising for the British Heart Foundation in memory of her dad Bob. You can donate at https://www.justgiving.com/bobsbeanie

 



Alex is modelling the hat coincidentally sat on the same bench in my back garden as Bluey - she was a rather less mobile model!

Bring me bread, but bring me roses

I have to confess I have always had a passion for seeing my name in print, and these days that's most especially when it's attached to a knitting pattern! (The other option is in the crime pages of the newspapers, thanks to the day job, which is a bit of an unusual combination really). So I'm naturally very pleased to have two patterns in the latest Knit Now -Issue 44 - and as the icing on the cake, it's the Best of British edition. That's great, because I'm sort of a mushy patriotic soul at heart, and because I get to try out the most wonderful British yarns when I'm making the samples.

First up, as part of the British Blooms collection in the mag, is Constance Beret, which is a top-down hat inspired by the classic English Rose, and named after the influential rosarian (isn't that a marvellous word?) Constance Spry.

 

(c) Practical Publishing

  The pattern on the crown of the hat didn't start off as rose petals - it began as a four-cornered version, possibly for a blanket, with a vague nod to Michael Nelson's book A Room in Chelsea Square. But after I'd done the swatch it developed an extra corner, and I realised I had the centre of a rose.

 

(c) Practical Publishing

Love of roses is something I get from my family - we always had gardens full of roses, and I grow them myself now. As a child I remember collecting the petals to make a fairly foul "perfume" (basically rose petals in water). My parents do now actually live in a house called Rose Cottage!

 

The yarn for this pattern is King Cole Masham Double Knit, which I've already raved about in an earlier edition of Knit Now. I can't recommend it too highly. It would make a great jumper as well.

 

Pattern number 2 also has a slightly odd inspiration - basically one of my pattern testers for another design  (Skillion Cowl if you're interested) said how pretty the wrong side of the fabric was, so I made the wrong side the right side for my Joni Scarf. As a matter of fact, I made it the right side as well, because the zig zag design looks equally good from either angle - which is what gave me the idea for the pattern name, Joni Mitchell's great song 'Both Sides Now',

 

(c) Practical Publishing

This one's knitted using Blacker Pure English Merino, which I previous used for my Dovedale set in an earlier edition of Knit Now. I love this yarn - it manages to be both tactile and wearable but also quite firm. Patterns like this one, which are all about shape and structure. really benefit from a yarn with these kinds of qualities. I'm also so pleased to be working with Blacker as they have such a commitment to British farmers and our wool industry.

 

I'm also using Blacker yarns for a project that's in progress, a new scarf design which I'm actually designing-a-long as part of a Ravelry knit/craft-along during the Cricket World Cup. Members of the group from all over the world are working on cricket-inspired projects to support their teams, so it seemed a great opportunity to work on a pattern I've had in mind for a while, a cricket-sweater inspired scarf - squashy cables, the opportunity to incorporate team colours, and ready in time for the (always chilly) start of the first-class cricket season here in the UK. I'm supporting England, so will be working in blue and white, and it's extra-appropriate that it's going to be made out of British wool!

 

Oh, and there's just time to introduce you to Darcy, a new-ish pattern in Artesano Nebula...

 

 

And, even less new-ish, in Artesano Alpaca Heather, Yateley:

 

 

 

Artesano have made all of their pattern support free to download, so enjoy! They's also, rather brilliantly, available in German and Swedish as well.

 

 

A walk around Hanwell (with cowls)

Two things you may have noticed if you follow this blog and look at my designs - one, I love designing a cowl, and two, the wonderful place where I live, Hanwell, W7, in West London, is very important to me! I've been sporadically working on a collection of cowls which will eventually be brought together in an e-book, but are being made available on Ravelry as they're released (anyone who buys a pattern now will get a discount off the e-book when it's available).

I'll also be using the patterns to gradually introduce you to some interesting places in Hanwell, starting today with the Wharncliffe Viaduct. This masterpiece of engineering was designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel as part of his Great Western Railway, and it's also the perfect backdrop for my Harviestoun Cowl.

(c) David Jollie

The cowl is a surprisingly simple design using mock cables and twisted stitches, knitted in Artesano Nebula - it's actually named after a Scottish brewery who make a lovely ale called Bitter and Twisted.

I moved to the rather spectacular underside of the viaduct to photograph my Skillion Cowl, a ribbed cowl with a slant in cosy Artesano Aran.

(c) David Jollie

The viaduct's arches are home to a colony of bats, who sadly didn't make an appearance for the pictures, so for a spot of animal magic we headed to the nearby Brent Lodge Park Animal Centre, Hanwell's own mini-zoo, where we found the ideal co-star for the pictures of the Wakefield Cowl. This cowl is perfect for a self-striping yarn and I knitted it in a gorgeous yarn called Freia Flux Sport, a handpainted yarn I picked up in Loop in Islington.

(c) David Jollie

Mr P the Peacock's fabulous colours set off the cowl perfectly!

There'll be more cowls, and more Hanwell locations, in 2015.