Kuura

This year's first issue of the Finnish craft magazine, Taito, is a special one for me: not only does it include my new sock pattern but I got to model all the designs! The Taito magazine team came to my town in search of snow and winter. Unfortunately, all we had to offer was melting ice, cold wind and icy rain. Ah, the glamorous life of a model.

What: Kuura / Own pattern

How: Circular needle 2.25 mm

From: La Bien Aimée Super Sock, 70 g

The inspiration for designs was frost and I immediately started thinking of socks with lace flowers. I found this beautiful icy colored Super Sock by La Bien Aimée and cast on.

The socks are simple with a simple lace on top - just the kind most people like to knit. But designing simple socks gets a bit boring so I decided to keep things interesting by writing the pattern in both directions - cuff down and toe up.

Some like to work their socks the traditional way, cuff down. And others prefer the more modern direction of toe up. So the pattern includes both directions and everyone gets to pick their favorite. Or, if you're a bit mischievous like me, you can make a mismatch pair.

I ended up making six socks all together! First, I made my sample pair - only to realize both socks had mistakes on them. The first sock (cuff down), I had made a mistake on the second lace repeat just after the cuff ribbing. The second sock (toe up), I had accidentally purled the middle stitch of the lace all the way. Yep, it should've been a knit stitch. So that's two socks that were set aside to wait for better days. Then, it happened that a dear friend of mine asked me to knit her a pair for their wedding and of course I did that - this time with no mistakes. four socks done. And finally, I had to unravel both of my sample socks and rework them and that gets us to a total six socks for this design.

Kuura socks have this beautiful lace on the instep. Depending on the direction of knitting, there's a little flower just before the cuff or toe. The gussets are purled which creates a fun little design feature.

The pattern in the magazine is only in Finnish but it will be available in English, as an individual download on Ravelry in June. (The horizontal pics are my own while the lakeside photos were taken by the Taito magazine team.)

Budding

I've been looking forward to releasing this pattern! Last fall, I and bunch of other knitters got to have a sleepover at our LYS and during the night, I bought a sweater quantity of Brooklyn Tweed Peerie. I had been wanting to try it out for the longest time but never got around to it - until now.

What: Budding / Own pattern

How: Circular needles 3.5 mm

From: Brooklyn Tweed Peerie, 180 + 37 + 27 g

I'm usually into really muted low-contrast colors but this yellow was calling my name. I got three different colors because I wanted to try designing a color work sweater where the background color changes after the yoke.

I have a somewhat old-fashioned style. I love 40's fashion. I'm so happy when I manage to design something that fits my oldish style spot on but still feels contemporary enough to wear today. I think Budding nails it.⁠

So my sweater quantity turned into a nifty little joyous cardigan with a round yoke full of flowers. The cardigan has long sleeves and a cropped hem. Budding has positive ease yet a close-fitting hem ribbing ending at the natural waist making it comfortable and stylish at the same time. As this is a cropped design, I added instructions for an optional bust dart.

The cardigan is worked in the round and cut open once finished. I know, I know, I can hear your screams of horror all the way here. Steeking can sound super scary but it's quite easy and the sweater will be quite safe. You just need a non-superwash yarn. Woolly, rustic yarns can be re-enforced with crochet while rounder fibres might need sewing machine seams before cutting. And the trick to steeking is that knitted fabric wants to unravel top-down, not sideways. That's why cutting won't kill your new sweater. The pattern comes with a photo tutorial for steeking so do not be scared. I re-enforced my cardigan with couple machine-sown seams and stitched the raw edge into place onto the wrong side. 

I know that there will always be knitters for whom there's no amount of encouragement that  would make them try out steeking. So Budding includes instructions for a pullover version too. I also asked some of my test knitters to make this as a pullover so you can go through their projects on Ravelry to decide if you want to make yours as a cardigan or a pullover. 

You can find Budding on Ravelry and if you use the code FLOWERS, you will get the pattern with 20% introductory discount.

add to cart

I'm also so happy to be able to offer you another code: you can get Brooklyn Tweed Peerie for your own Budding at a 10% discount from Brooklyn Tweed's online shop with the code 'BuddingCardigan' until February 24th. If you use this link, the discount should be automatically applied.