Designer profile: Sarah Hatton

A slight twist on Fabulous Pattern Friday this week.

Last week I wrote my weekly FPF post for The Knitter, about Sarah Hatton’s fabulous Classic Cardigan and I was going to do a similar version here, but I felt like that wouldn’t be doing her justice.

So here are my top 5 favourite SH patterns. Drumroll please!

Classic cardigan/ SarahHatton.com

This is from Sarah’s website, which she launched after going freelance. Don’t you just dig that fabric trim?

Honeysuckle/ Rowan 45

via knitrowan.com

Honeysuckle is also available in The Knitter, issue 7 and it’s my personal favourite, knitted in Rowan Kidsilk Haze. If you’re going to make it, it’s worth considering knitting it in the round rather than flat, to avoid having to seam it.

Wallis/ Rowan 38

Batwings rock. don’t they? This one has a simple lace pattern and a great drape. Thanks to JadeBlade for letting me use her fab pic.

Patti/ Rowan Studio 1

via knitrowan.com

How cute is this? It’s in Felted Tweed DK, which has got to be one of my favourite yarns ever. OK, those pleats mean a lot of fabric, ergo a LOT of knitting. But totally worth it. Plus, you can download the pattern for free from the Rowan website. Hurrah!

Embrace/ Rowan Studio 14

I love Fair Isle like you wouldn’t believe, and this is just perfect; reminiscent of all those 40s Fair Isle yoked twinsets, but with a totally modern shape. I couldn’t find a ‘free’ pic of this, so here’s a link to the loveliest version of it I’ve ever seen.

Which is your favourite Sarah Hatton design? Recommendations please!

Works in progress. A WIP confession

Every now and then someone says to me something like: “I don’t know how you fit it all in.”

Which is very flattering, but always gives me a bit of a giggle.

Because from the outside, I may look like I’m getting loads done. But actually, for every finished project that makes it onto this blog, or Ravelry, there are about a dozen in stasis.

Here is my confessional of unfinished objects, a list as long as well, this…

A rabbit in snowflake yarn, still in pieces. A request from Storm. Well, she can have it for Christmas!

A blue dress for Storm – 5 inches knitted.

Another blue dress for Storm – fabric cut out.

Primrose tee shirt for Storm – still in pieces.

Unfinished cross stitch.

Unframed embroidery.

Hearts banner which needs sewing onto ribbon.

Cardigan for a friend’s little boy. In progress so long it’ll have to go to his younger brother, although I’ve done about twice as much as is in this pic!

Cardigan for me.

Mad frayed jumper for me.

Blanket 1 – giant stripey granny square.

Blanket 2 – natural granny squares.

Blanket 3 – sock yarn hexipuffs

A quilt for Storm (I have now pieced half of it, but it’s flipping huge!)

Shawl I probably need to start again due to many dumbass mistakes of utter foolishness.

Sock I knitted 2 years ago which still needs a partner.

Ditto, a mitten I knitted 3 years ago!

Plus, oh, 5 unfinished designs for knitting patterns in various states of progress and swatches for the next season.

I’m writing this at 1am. Now you know why…

Fabulous pattern Friday: Rock Island by Jared Flood

Wow, is it Friday again already? I’ve been a bit slack on the blogging front this week, thanks to, well, staying up til 1am watching the news, but I couldn’t neglect Fabulous Pattern Friday…

(By the way, remember the Beekeeper’s Quilt from last Friday? It’s now at almost 400 projects on Ravelry. Which is frankly INSANE for a two week old pattern!)

Anyway, this week I’m looking at a slightly older design – Rock Island, by Jared Flood, aka brooklyntweed.

Jared has a huge following, thanks to a flair for creating very wearable designs, which are still technically interesting to make. He’s also a talented photographer, and launched a wonderful new yarn (called Shelter) to much acclaim last autumn.

Rock Island is a pretty challenging knit – laceweight yarn, with lace stitches on the right and wrong side of the shawl. But there are heaps of helpful tips on Ravelry if you’d like to make it.

And almost 1,000 people are. Which is pretty incredible.

It’s available as a downloadable PDF for $6, about £4. Money well spent! I can’t wait to see what he does next…

All images copyright and courtesy of Jared Flood. Find more at his website http://brooklyntweed.net/

Read more about this pattern on The Knitter website at lunchtime today.

How to knit lace without having a breakdown…

If you’ve been knitting a little while, you probably know about the trend for knitting shawls. Ooo look, here’s one I made…

Shawls might seem like an old-fashioned thing to make. But think again. Wear a triangle shawl back to front and you’ve got an on trend neckerchief. Zany! Plus lace knitting is interesting, challenging, and you get a lot of knitting out of an 800m skein of cashmere for not much dollar. Mmmmm, cashmere.

But lace knitting isn’t exactly a piece of cake. If you’re a lace virgin you need help. So here are my top tips. I’ll share some of my favourite patterns at the end, so read on!

Bustin’ that stash

I’ve been away for a few days having a much needed break with friends in Dorset. As usual, I took way too many craft projects with me, including this one, and this one, but ended up not doing a lot in favour of finding bits of dead crab on the beach with the little one. Nice.

The yarn for both holiday projects is from the earlyish days of my knitting revival – I bought all of it about three or four years ago. It was the time when I would buy scratchy pure wool to make knee high socks, and a cashmere blend yarn to make a toddler’s coat in moss stitch. Haha. Funny how those never worked out.

After a long wait while I pondered the error of my ways, both yarns have finally found better homes now, the first as part of a stash busting giant granny square blanket…

…and the second as a lovely ruched yoke top from the spring issue of Interweave Knits. Both projects have at least doubled in size since I took these pics.

Before we went away I also found time to finish my Damask shawl and block it properly – I’ll be putting a step by step post about this on The Knitter blog soonish.

The royal wedding was fun.  We went to the beach in the morning (evidence below) and were the only ones bar a handful of dog walkers. We rushed back in time to see The Dress, which was lovely, and yes, like Princess Grace, but no, not at all like the Queen’s – clearly the commentators need their eyes checked!

And hurrah for her choosing McQueen. Dare I say it, but jolly good show! I’ll have some more design stuff to tell you about soon. And quilting too. Yay!