Can we talk about this beauty for a minute? It’s the new Easy Puzzle Blanket (free pattern) by Jake Canton for Purl Soho and it not only looks like it would be spectacularly fun to knit (log cabin forever, please) but would be a great stash buster and a perfect travel project. The sort of thing where a little bit of yarn would go a very long way and the project would grow relatively slowly while keeping your hands busy the whole time. (In other words, it’d take up time, not luggage space.) And I’m still so into the idea of a lightweight square that can function as a blanket or a shawl, folded or not. I’m that person who does not have a stash full of fingering weight yarn leftovers, so there’s that to consider. But I can’t stop picturing possible color combos …
In the absence of a big wrap that I’m really wild about, there’s a thing I routinely do — especially on airplanes. I take the two corners at each end of the thin wool scarf I always have in my bag and tie them together, leaving enough room for my wrists to slip through. That way my arms stay covered as I work or knit or whatever, without the scarf sliding off my forearms. I’ve always wanted the knitted version of this — and have twice been on the brink of casting on Flying Squirrel — but none of the shrug patterns out there ever feels quite right. Until I saw Pasvik, above, a design by Julie Knits in Paris for the new issue of Laine. (Which also contains the Denise Bayron Grace pullover that’s part of my Summer of Basics trio.) I had the pleasure of meeting Julie in Paris, and love the shape and textures on this, and the versatility of how it can be worn. L-o-v-e.
But then at exactly the same time, along comes Dyyni from Sari Nordlund, below, which I’ve been holding my breath for since it first appeared on her IG feed in recent months. It is literally the big wrap of my dreams. Simple (to knit and wear) yet with enough interest (in the knitting and the wearing) that I might actually complete it.
What’s a knitter to do? There may be a mash-up in my future …
In addition to my shawl-collar vest idea and the navy pullover I still haven’t quite sorted out, the other thing I’ve had in mind to possibly knit for myself this year — making alternative use of a sweater quantity of wool in my stash — is a textured wrap. I’ve still never knitted a scarf, but have always wanted to knit a big blankety wrap of one sort or another. Some contenders:
TOP: Holmes Wrap by Michele Wang, pure cabley goodness
MIDDLE LEFT: Ridgeline Baby Blanket by Purl Soho, with just a slight tweak to the proportions (free pattern)
MIDDLE RIGHT: Castlemilk by Cecelia Campochiaro, sequence knitting which could be easily scaled wider
BOTTOM: Heure d’Hiver by Emilie Luis, I’d leave off the fringe and elongate the ribbing
BELOW: En Voyage by Espace Tricot, just shortened a bit
Plus there’s still Julie Hoover’s Wallace from last year’s Favorite New Favorites, which is probably in the lead. But I’m also recalling how much I loved knitting the stitch pattern of my Channel Cardigan, and thinking that could make a lovely wrap as well.
Of all the years, this is one where I feel most dramatically like WAIT! I haven’t even knitted anything from last year’s Favorite New Favorites yet! I’ve gone back to the patterns on that list over and over this year, and several I’ve continued to go on about during 2018, and yet somehow it’s already time to look back through this year’s and pull out the ones I most fervently want to not lose track of.
It was a really good year in knitting patterns, better than I even realized. To scroll back through the year’s New Favorites (which I recommend!) is to witness a lot of ingenuity and beauty, and yet there are loads of things I saved on Ravelry that haven’t even made it onto the blog. (Yet.) Trying to narrow it to the ones I simply admired the most, I was at risk of putting about 40 or 50 patterns into this post. So I decided to limit myself to just 12 patterns for the year: the ones I’d most like to actually knit and have. Which also means this could function as a queue for the coming year — if only people would stop with the new distractions!
BUT FIRST:
Simply based on how many times I’ve typed the words Carbeth Cardigan this year — and the fact that I did cast one on during my flight to Palm Springs last week — it’s clearly the pattern that bored the deepest hole into my brain this year. And then there are the ones I actually made: Grete and Hozkwoz.
I have two chief concerns right now, winter wardrobe-wise, being opposite sides of the same coin: First, how to knit myself a couple of sweaters that aren’t too warm for my climate and work well with my collection of pants. (What shape? What yarn? The internal debate is interminable.) Second, what to do with the assorted beautiful wool in my stash such that it is wearable in my climate. Of the two, the one I’m trying most to focus on is the latter, since it makes use of stash — and specifically of yarn I have because I’m dying to knit with it! So I keep going back to my dickey and what I said about Brandi’s neck pieces — the notion of sewing myself a couple of simple things that would fill in for lighter-weight sweaters (e.g., a sweatshirt instead of a pullover; a kimono jacket instead of a cardigan), and layering them with wool neck accessories that are easier and more flexible to wear than were I to commit the same yarn to a full sweater. Which brings me to Churchmouse’s Two-Point Cowl, pictured above in two different gauges. The simple but effective pattern — which wears more like a wrap than a cowl, and also looks great more bunched up — is easy to adapt to any gauge, making it a good candidate for the variety of yarns I have in waiting. And it’s a great pattern for just letting a good yarn shine.
(p.s. Sorry for my unintended absence yesterday. I was sick all weekend and didn’t get a post written. All better now!)
I’m endlessly amazed at how musicians can be given the same limited set of musical notes and yet come up with an infinite number of new tunes and melodies. I feel a bit the same about these two shawls — oversized rectangular wraps — both of which are based on the simple concept of squares knitted in alternating stockinette and reverse stockinette:
TOP: Ippen Shawl by Claudia Eisenkolb puts two twists on the classic big-basketweave effect: the squares give way to wedges at the center, turning the rectangle into a U shape; and there’s a stripe of color running the length of it that shifts depending on whether you’re in a stockinette or reverse-stockinette block, from a solid line to a ticking stripe [Link updated 11.13, original Ravelry pattern listing was broken]
BOTTOM: Sjal by Antonia Shankland is a subtle collection of nested squares that change scale along the way
I really wish I had the attention span to knit an enormous rectangle — it’s one of the most appealing objects I can think of, and there have been some truly beautiful patterns released lately:
