Moss Cable Cowl Neckwarmer Knitting Pattern

On my knitting needles at the moment is a nice pair of socks. 

Handknit socks currently on my knitting needles

I have some knitting patterns nearly to be published but I'm waiting to get the right conditions to take good product photos, and because I live in a house that gets the right amount of lighting only some mornings (usually mornings spent getting ready for work), I find myself sometimes having to wait up to a month before being able to take decent pictures, which was the case for my moss cable cowl neckwarmer knitting pattern, just published earlier this week even though I finished test-knitting it last March!

Proud of my new handknit moss cable cowl neckwarmer

Moss cable cowl neckwarmer posing with my new props 😍

If you'd like to grab a copy of the Moss Cable Cowl Neckwarmer knitting pattern on Etsy, hurry before the end of my sale event that run up to June 2nd 2022, where you can get any of my hand knitted or crochet accessories as well as knitting patterns at a 20% discount 😁.

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Etsy

Ravelry

Lovecrafts

Frogging

Well, already that's not going according to plan! Let's say I'll try knitting and crocheting just some of the items I've planned to do 😅.

In the meantime, check this out: I've just manually wound a 400g ball or worsted weight yarn and my smartwatch recorded this as though I'd walked about 1200 steps (about 1km), so for now I know knitting (or rather frogging) can count as exercise! Knitting is definitely good for you in other ways too 😁.

My aerobics exercise for today

As for how I'm doing on all the knitting and crochet projects I've planned for this year, well I've frogged the scarf that end as mittens on both sides idea (my great genius idea that was going to make me a millionaire 😂) because it just wouldn't work: once I tried it on, the weight of it caused it to keep falling off my shoulders, and I couldn't find a way to make it work without making it look awkward. I guess I'm not going to be a self-made knitting  millionaire yet!

I am converting the pattern as separate matching items: hat, cowl, headband and maybe mittens too, I'm hoping to release the knitting patterns in the next few weeks.

Oh, and also, I know I said I wouldn't buy new yarn this year, but I went abroad for a week, so...

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Wriggles Hooded Cowl Knitting Pattern

As I was going about my day trying to put in a few rows of sock knitting before heading to work this morning, I realised I hadn't written a blog post yet about my recently published Wriggles Hooded Cowl knitting pattern. 

This was originally supposed to be a shawl but I struggled a bit with the shawl design as you can see here. Luckily I managed to convert the design I had in mind into a cowl to which I added a hood, and I think it works quite well:

Wriggles Hooded Cowl

As you can see it's got wriggles that look like cables which are actually NOT made using a cable needle: it's an easy way to create the illusion of cables for knitters who might be uncomfortable with using cable needles.

The Wriggles hooded cowl knitting pattern is available from Etsy, Ravelry and Lovecrafts in English and French languages and now is the time to make some for yourself and to give as gifts for you know when 😉.

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Lace Hearts Fingerless Gloves Knitting Pattern Is Live!

I've finally managed to publish my latest knitting pattern 😁.

These yummy looking fingerless gloves are now live on Etsy, Ravelry and Lovecrafts.

My New Lace Hearts Fingerless Gloves

As always, they are in both English and French languages, so if you happen to buy them, you may want to only print the pages in the language you want to read the knitting pattern in as the PDF is 22 pages long. Both languages are on the same PDF as currently the Lovecrafts website only accepts 1 PDF per pattern.

Why so long? you may ask: that's because I have the pattern written in 3 different sizes this time (my previous mittens knitting patterns are only written in a Medium size as the medium size is designed to fit from teen to female adult size (that includes me;)

3 sizes: Small, Medium and Large

This time I decided that a child may want to wear these cute heart fingerless gloves, and also why not large adult as I know some women may have a larger hand than standard and also some men or trans-female might want to wear more feminine accessories that fit a larger size.

There was a lot of testing, knitting and frogging involved as usual before I was finally happy with the basic pattern, and then some more in order to get all 3 sizes right, but I'm hoping it was worth the extra effort as this means I should now have a basic knitting pattern template for more gloves and mitten designs.

The knitting pattern is written for to any DK yarn (light worsted no.3) but it looks and feels much better in merino wool; just don't forget to block your sample gauge as I find merino can stretch quite a bit after washing!

Close-up of the Hearts Design: I love this!

You can purchase the knitting pattern or my Hearts Fingerless Gloves from the following websites:

- Etsy;

- Ravelry;

- Lovecrafts.

I hope you enjoy knitting these hearts fingerless gloves as much as I do.

Be sure to follow me on my knitting journey while I'll be off thinking of more exciting patterns to share, but first I'll be taking a short break from knitting to do a bit of crochet 😉.

I Love Cables Headband

After 2020 being a year of limbo, and I'm sure I'm not the only one saying this, I wanted 2021 to be different, so I decided that I should get back to creating and selling a bunch of knitting patterns.

It's been a few years since I've created new items for sale: these past few years I have kept knitting, but the items I've knitted were all gifts (to myself as well as to others). The I Love Cables Headband is my first finished product of 2021 and I published the knitting pattern on the usual suspects: Etsy and Ravelry. 

I am particularly proud of my I Love Cables Headband as I designed the cables myself (not without the usual bit of swearing, frogging and re-knitting), those cables are as close as I could manage to make them look like hearts, because you can never have too many heart shaped things coming up to Valentine's Day,  which was the time when I was working on it.

I re-used a little of the same pattern when designing my new cowl, (which I was hoping to have ready before Valentine's Day too but I think I may have overestimated my speed and the amount of time I had available to me 😅), this is still a work in progress but I can already say it's even better than the I Love Cables Headband, up up and away!

Getting Up To Speed

I've been working hard on publishing (at last!) my knitting pattern for the Chain Cable Fingerless Gloves. The knitting pattern is on Ravelry and Craftsy as well as Etsy.

It seems a bit pathetic to have it finished 2 months after I started working on this mitten pattern (you would think it was an intricate design sweater I was knitting), but I have my 3 week-long holiday as attenuating circumstances. Also, to make me feel less guilty of a 3 week holiday, I kept my hands and needles busy with my knitted summer top.

I knitted a lot of wrist warmers before being happy with the pattern, and even then I decided to knit three pairs of these mittens: one with a long wrist, one with a shorter wrist (to try and see if one ball of the merino wool I was using would be enough - it wasn't), and the last in another yarn (a wool / acrylic mix that worked well and only took one ball, even in the long wristed version).

I struggled with the thumb gusset and ended up with 2 pairs of knitted gloves that are not fit to be sold - I would have ripped them and reused the wool if I hadn't been such a dork weaving in the ends so securely - Ripping them may prove nearly as difficult as breaking out from Alcatraz but I'm not giving up on that yet, my priorities are elsewhere right now.

What am I working on now?

This is a crochet Corner to Corner (C2C) blanket I've started doing for my youngest daughter for 3 reasons:
1- She had bought a pack of 2 balls of that wool nearly a year ago and only used a small bit for making crochet chain bracelets; since she tends to get easily distracted and had no idea what else to do with it, she gave it to me as a late birthday gift.
2- She lost her crochet cushion on the ferry between Ireland and France (she just forgot she had brought it in the cabin and realised when it was too late to get it back that she had left it under her pillow - which is probably why we didn't spot it when we were packing our stuff before leaving the ferry). That crochet cushion had been made by her sister and she had paid her for it out of her hard earned pocket money. I could have made another one for her for free but she wanted it made by her sister, and her sister being tired of making crochet cushions, she wasn't willing, so I had to somehow find a way to make her forget her beloved yellow and red cushion.
3- I've wanted to try the C2C pattern for a while, and I thought that was a good opportunity (yes I know that's selfish of me, but you'll just have to forgive me for being human).

At the same time, I'm working on stocking my Etsy shop with more hand knit fingerless gloves and knitting patterns, so here is a preview of my current knitting WIP, which of course is about to be ripped as I made it a bit too small (I think I have knitting OCD):

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Cable Mittens Indecision

I probably don't deserve this as I have been more than slacking lately but the trip has been booked for the last few months and my parents need to see their granddaughters so here we go, heading on the Ferry to France tomorrow!

I thought I would have the pattern for my cabled mittens well published by now, but of course since I'm never happy with "just OK", I've been wasting time (hence the slacking I was referring to in the 1st paragraph) knitting up a few pairs of fingerless gloves trying to make them perfect... And perfect they would be, only for the amount of wool they are using, or perhaps for the yarn I chose to knit the mittens with.

At first I wanted to make some really stylish long wristed fingerless gloves with a chain cable running over the back of the hand: my first mistake was to start with an already opened ball of wool, so of course I needed a second ball to finish the second mitten, and I thought I might get both done with only one ball if I had started with a brand new ball of wool.

Long wristed cable mitten

So I knitted another pair of mittens in a different colour and starting with a new ball of the same brand of wool, this time trying to get the gusset to run over the whole thumb, unlike the first pair where the gusset only appears on the first 8 rows of the thumb, which doesn't look bad, but it could improved; the hand part is a little longer too. Of course I ran out of wool again towards the top of the second mitten. That and the fact that my decreases on the visible part of the thumb may look like a pattern feature, but actually do not look that good.

Long wristed mitten, funky looking thumb (not in a good way)

So I had to try another pair of mittens, making the wrist a little shorter with a long hand (maybe I should have made it a little shorter like for the first mitten?) but not too short so they still look stylish, and this time with a proper professional-looking gusset: this time I think my mittens look good, but guess what? One ball still wasn't enough, even though I only need a little extra. 

Medium wrist cable mitten (not as nice as the long wrist and still using too much of that wool!)

So am I going to ask pattern purchasers to buy 2 balls of wool (which I think is being discontinued anyway) when they'll hardly use any of their second ball for the pattern? I would hate to buy a pattern like this, so I don't think so!

I can still sell my mittens in my Etsy shop, but for the pattern, I'll have to knit up a pair of long wristed cable mittens in a wool with more yardage to get less waste (or 2 balls with less as long as it's an affordable one and very soft): and here goes to once again making changes to my cable mittens knitting pattern!

I'd like to get a second opinion so please let me know which one you prefer: long wrist/medium wrist? Long hand/short hand? (the wool is 100% merino and a dream to work with, a pity it's being discontinued).


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Lace Alpaca Hoodie Cowl Knitting Pattern

For the last 2 weeks I have struggled writing the knitting pattern for the Lace Alpaca Hoodie Cowl I designed last November, and knitting a new one from scratch following my own instructions:

The main reason why I struggled so much was because I waited so bloody long between knitting it last November while scribbling some half French half English notes on a notepad, and realizing while knitting the Hoodie Cowl now that I must have skipped some steps, because I had to do some heavy editing to the pattern I thought I had got right (the shame!)

Lace Alpaca Hoodie Cowl

Anyway, now the knitting pattern is available to buy from my Ravelry Shop as well as Etsy, and it's in French as well as in English (purchasers will receive 2 PDF files: one in each language).

I try not to price knitting patterns too high, but after publishing my last one, I realised that after the Paypal and the Etsy fees, there isn't much left to go in my pocket, so hopefully I will sell a few of those despite the fact that spring is already here and that knitters may be looking for more summery knitting patterns for the next few months; well, the pattern is there to stay, and I will just have to remember to promote it again in the Autumn!

To buy my Lace Alpaca Hoodie Cowl from my Ravelry shop, please click here.

To buy it from my Etsy shop, please click here.

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