Katniss

I've released my latest pattern - Katniss. I actually love it lots, though I know I am biased!

Katniss is a striking yet simple and seamless pattern for a functional and fashionable tunic with cabled raglans, optional cabled hood and feature asymmetrical pockets.

Perfect for hunting and gathering, or simply shopping or hanging out with friends.This tunic looks great with jeans or leggings, with sleeves or without and seems to please all girls!

Katniss is a top down seamless raglan, with simple charts to follow whilst knitting the most challenging parts. It has been designed to be knitted using a solid or semi solid colour - specifically yarn by Olive & Emma Designer Yarns

Katniss can be knitted with either 8 ply/DK or 10 ply/worsted, however the fabric of the finished garment depend on the yarn you choose. 8ply/DK will result in a looser fabric with nice drape, 10ply/worsted weight will result in a tunic with a slightly more dense fabric.

Katniss in teen/adult sizes is currently in development and due later this year.

And I must admit, I'm really in love with all the projects my testers knitted - all the modelled ones are here, aren't they all fabulous! Mwah, thank you wonderful testers!

Katniss is being sold for $6USD - you can buy it by clicking this link (though if you check out tomorrow's post you'll see the discount code for June ;) )

Happy Knitting!

xx

Julia

When you are so busy your brain starts to go fuzzy...

You start to proscrastinate don't you? When you have a billion and one things you should be doing, you decide to just muck around? I think I'm reaching the point of overload today, so I thought I'd break the cleaning and tidying in preparation for meeting with a Real Estate Agent tomorrow, along with getting pattern designing brain fuzz as I ready my Katniss pattern for release tomorrow. I also have a plunket appointment to take my 15 month old to and I know I need to fill in his plunket book with something since his 9 month visit. There's a lot I need to add to it, 7 teeth with their appearance correctly mentioned (umm, I may need to fudge this a little), as well as his crawling, his walking, his communcation, his solids eating and now his constant mischief making.

So, instead of doing any of the above, I thought I'd quickly do a blog entry :)

Rachel Booker of FeatherBrush Yarns here in New Zealand recently made and sent this for my David. It's just gorgeous, the colours are fabulous this winter, lifting a grey day. He's had lots of lovely comments about it already.

The pattern is my Little Hoodlum pattern, the stunningly soft and machine washable yarn is Rachel's hand-dyed 8ply from Featherbrush Yarns. She also has a Facebook page here.

See, that was quick right? Now, back to the other fun stuff! All going well I should have a new pattern to blog about tomorrow :)

The Little Rascals - Separated!

It's ok, they're all still talking - but they like to stand-alone these days too.

It's gone from this:

To this:

After listening, reading and responding to many of the people who've knit one of the patterns from my The Little Rascals e-book I decided I would tackle the job of splitting the pattern up. I actually updated it on Ravelry about a fortnight ago, but now when people purchase the pattern they are able to download all the options they'd like. Want to open up the full version with the Watermellish charts and everything? It's still there! But just want to knit a Young Einstein, Little Hoodlum or Hotshot - well you can also download each of those individually too :)

And now you can buy each pattern individually too, though it's a much better buy to buy the whole e-book.

I've got a VERY busy June planned with knitting and designing - watch this space!

A new toy

...or tool I should say. I've been photographing my kids for years now modelling my knitting, but last time I took Penny to shoot some photos of my new girls pattern (more about that another day) I was soooo frustrated. It's hard to tell a 5 year old to move slowly so that the photos aren't blurry, but the straw that broke the camels back was when it's batteries died on me (they'd been recharged especially for the shoot) and I ended up taking photos on my iphone, which ended up better than my actual camera anyway.

So with young children that I rarely photographed (unless it was to model some knitting *blush*) and new patterns waiting for me to write them up we decided it was time to invest in a real camera. And I think everyone I know will be sick of hearing me say it - but I love it.

I wanted to get a few shots of David in his new jersey today. He's quick these days now that he's walking, always keen to get into mischief. But taking photos of a moving object is a piece of cake now.

These are a few of my personal favourites today:

But this one I had to giggle at - I think this is my photo of the day!

This one fits so perfectly with the name and meaning of this pattern currently in development and close to testing. Greyson - son of the grey-haired man.

Little Winifred

I can't believe it's been over 2 weeks since I blogged. I feel like I blog all the time, but I'm guessing that most of those posts are in my head and don't actually make it to my blog.

And then I sat at the computer and thought I'd blog...but had a complete mental block as to what to type. I mean, I've got a few things on the go at the moment, but I'll blog about them more another day.

But I remembered my sister Sarah aka Sezza and how she has recently released a gorgeous new pattern, called Little Winifred. Very current, very practical and from the comments on Rav, very flattering and simple.

And she wrote a gorgeous blog entry about it here too.

Poplar

Introducing my latest series of patterns - The Poplar Collection

It includes a simply written scarf pattern - in 4ply/fingering weight, 8 ply/DK and 10ply/worsted weight

A blanket pattern in 3 sizes - Dolly, Baby (good for strollers and bassinets) and Throw (fits a baby cot or great for a throw in your living room) which knits up quickly in double stranded 8ply/DK

And a quick and easy dishcloth pattern, that also handily doubles as a gauge swatch for the blanket, also knitted in double stranded 8ply/DK

The blurb from the pattern:

"When looking at the result of the lace used in this pattern it reminded me of rows of tall narrow trees, similar to the borders of Poplars often used as farm windbreaks across New Zealand.

This pattern is quick and simple, producing a beautiful looking item. With a very easy to memorise pattern I hope it will become a one you love to knit, wear and use."

With this series of patterns I was aiming for something simple to follow, easy to knit, practical and yet something that others would oooh and aaah over.

The pattern bundle is for sale both via here (see the right hand column and click the link) and on Ravelry for the introductory price of $4USD. Each pattern is stand-alone and can be printed out independently of the others.

These patterns are also license free - which means that you can knit any of them for sale if you'd like. If you'd like me to add you to my list of knitters here on my blog for these patterns then please just let me know your details via email and I'll add you in. I often have people ask me if I could knit them items they see here or for details of custom knitters. If you are knitting for sale all I ask is that you credit it back to my pattern.

Thank you to all those involved in these patterns - to my fabulous testers, Kristen, Shelley, Casey, Margaret, Rachel, Vicki, Adriana, Lynley, Nikki, Emma, Rachel and Kylie. You can see their amazing projects if you click here.

And these photographs were taken by Rachael Brown Photography, she's just amazing isn't she?

Happy Knitting!

xx

J