Skeins Her Way

Design work is still work, and being such, has moved to one of the many back burners I always keep lit, but turned down to simmer. Summers are busy by their very nature, throw in a couple asthma flare-ups requiring hospital stays and they turn into crazy week after weeks that roll into months of trying to get back into a routine, followed by a late summer and fall full of soccer, field trips, and working to get into a new routine, a homeschooling routine, and, well, I find myself having to dust off the pattern writing part of my brain.

I've been writing simple hat, mitten, and fingerless glove patterns whenever I can sneak a few moments and rally the brainpower to engage in the designing and pattern-writing process. Those two things do not line up together all the time, as evidenced by the sheer number of projects that may be destined to remain one-of-a-kinds, in every sense of those words. (The designing and knitting got done, the pattern writing, um, not so much...) The moments and the intentional designing have merged on occasion and I did actually manage to write out a few patterns. There are still better photos to be taken- what I wouldn't do for a nice fat production budget... but this branching out on one's own has to be done with what one has: a decent DSLR, a bit of photography knowledge, a bit of photoshop know-how, friends who know so much more, and models. I have cute models (at least I think so), as long as I'm designing for young people. When I finish the sweater that's mostly in my brain, I may have to turn to my non-union, modeling friend- it's all about connections, I tell ya...

My 1st (free!) pattern for this season is for the Girly Mitts you see here. My girls love when cables look like braids, and I love what my girls look like in braids, so what we have here is a win-win situational knit. Quick and easy to knit up in less than 1 skein of Spud & Chloe Sweater, these mitts are washable, which comes in handy, you know, if you aren't planning on felting yours and then using them on your porcelain doll collection.

I'm planning on making another pair ASAP, with one mod- making them into full finger coverage mittens, which I know most of you knitters could do on auto-knit while reading this blog, but for those that like a bit more direction, I'll add those specifics to the pdf as soon as I can get to it...

Then, there are 2 hat patterns and a mitten pattern just about ready to put in a shop. Yep, patterns for sale, pretty excited about that around here. Husband was asking if I'd made my 1st million yet so he can quit his day job. I told him it doesn't actually work that way, but that I'd see what I could do about that... you know, as soon as I can get to it...

Yeah, so while I work out how to become rich and famous, you could pass the time knitting a few pairs of Girly Girl Mitts for some girls in your life, and then if you want to become famous (I don't think I can help you in the rich department) send me a pic of your finished mitts and I'll add them to some snazzy photo mosaics with links back (if you've got a blog!) in an upcoming post. We'll humor each other by throwing that word famous around, k?

I can't wait to see some of your Girly Mitts! Bring on the yarn!

Happy knitting-

ali

Labels: Girly Mitts, Spud and Chloe