And more presenting...

Firstly, thank you so much to everyone who talked flatteringly about my Stippling blanket in the comments of my last post. :) I'm delighted that people seem to like it! And by the way, if you're curious about the double knitting technique that it uses and are wondering how complicated that is, the magazine issue contains a tutorial on the technique, plus I have a tutorial about the basic concept on this blog right here. In other exciting Stippling-related news, the magazine is having a contest to win the yarn to make it! The contest is open only to UK residents, but if that's you, I would totally go for it - I really enjoyed working with the yarn, and the folks at Crystal Palace Yarns are being lovely by offering four of these prizes.

But wait...there's more: I have another pattern to reveal!

As you may remember, last May, I started work on a lovely little sweater for DD3, from some sparkly pink DK acrylic that the girls gave me for Mother's Day. Soon after casting on for that, I was brought up short by DD2, who was disappointed because she had wanted me to use the yarn for a blanket.

Since I had only 200g of the yarn, I decided to do a blanket knit on the bias, with the edging incorporated as I went. That way, once the yarn was about half gone, I could start decreasing, and be assured of being able to finish the blanket with a minimum amount of yarn left over. I found a nice edging, made up some lace motifs, and away I went.

It went pretty well...

So here I was, with a brand-new blanket pattern and a challenge to design and submit twelve new things in the calendar year...what do you suppose I did next? I looked for a magazine that it would be a good fit for, of course!

I swatched: (really quickly, because the deadline was coming up fast)

And then I wrote up a proposal and sent it in. Fast forward about half a year, and I am now at liberty to speak of the pattern! :) It's called "Leaves and Lace", and it's going to be in the Spring 2013 issue of Creative Knitting, which is set to hit shops on February 12. Here's the official shot of my blanket, courtesy of Annie's:

And here's a more detailed shot which I took before sending the sample off:

Hooray!

Presenting...

I'm delighted to announce that issue #17 of Knit Now magazine contains my 'Stippling' baby blanket pattern!

This design originally came into being early last year, when I decided to make something up for my boss, who was expecting her second baby. Her background is Scottish/Welsh, so I thought something Celtic would work very well. I hit The Book of Kells for inspiration, and decided to concentrate on one of my favourite aspects of that document: the stippling. This is a technique whereby some really beautiful patterns are outlined by a whole bunch of little red dots (which, as I've painted illuminated manuscripts using this technique, takes a lot of time and patience, I can tell you). So I came up with some motifs that looked like Kells-style stippling, and turned it into a double knitted (reversible) blanket. I was very pleased with how it turned out:

The blanket was a huge hit with my boss, and also with the nurses on her maternity ward, who kept threatening to steal it. :)

I submitted it to Knit Now last spring as part of my 12-in-12 challenge, and they were very enthusiastic. They also thought it would look wonderful if one of the yarns had long colour repeats. So we searched high and low for a yarn which:

• had long colour repeats
  
• was soft enough for babies
  
• was machine washable
  
• had at least 50% natural fibre content (this is the magazine's standard)
  
• was aran or worsted weight (the gauge needed for the blanket)
  

This actually turned out to be a very difficult task, but at last we found "Mochi Plus", from Crystal Palace Yarns, who were very receptive and enthusiastic about the project! Their "Plus Solid" yarn was perfect for the second, non-variegating colour (it's the same as Mochi Plus except with solid colours), and we were off:

(Although in hindsight, even though the rainbow yarn looks amazing, the motifs would probably show up more clearly on the variegated side if you used a colourway where the hues were all more closely related, such as 'Georgia Peach', 'Drama', or 'Grateful Grapes'.)

This pattern does seem to inspire covetousness, as Joeli, one of the technical editors for the magazine, has also threatened to steal it. :)

I used a particular cast-on for this pattern that wouldn't fit in the magazine (due to perfectly understandable space limitations), but they put it up on their website for reference. It's a really good cast-on that I've been using in a lot of my double knitted designs lately: link to the tutorial

If you're interested in getting your hands on this pattern, it's sold in shops throughout the UK. Elsewhere in the world, it's less available in stores, but you can order the magazine from their online shop. Much further down the road, I'm hoping the pattern can be part of a collection that I'll be trying to find a publisher for.

I hope you like it!