Sandy Shores

I love it that we have a proper winter here in Finland. And what would be more appropriate for that a warm and cosy beanie?

What: Sandy Shores / Own pattern

How: Circular needles 3.75 mm and 4.0 mm
From: Nature's Luxury Town & Country Cashmere, 75 g

I haven't designed a hat for a while but when I fell in love with these gorgeous Nature's Luxury cashmere fade kits I knew right away that I wanted to make a new beanie. I used the Sandy fade kit for my sample - hence the name for the hat.

Sandy Shores is a sweet hat that starts off with a neat tubular cast-on. It takes a couple setup rows but gives the neatest, round cast-on edge. The pattern comes with a photo tutorial for tubular cast-on so fear not.

The hat is adorned with intricate cables and fun bobbles. And of course, a pompom! My favorite thing is that the pompom is attached with a button so you can easily remove it if you need to wash the hat or aren't feeling pompom-y some day.

In my weekly Tea Time over on Instagram, there have been lots of questions on how to make such a perfect looking pompom. There's a simple trick for that. First, I use a pompom maker. It's easier to get a full pompom with that than using a cardboard cutout. But the perfect fluffiness is achieved with a cool trick: once the pompom is finished, hold it over a tea kettle because the hot steam will make the plies of the yarn open up, giving it the perfect fluff. 

I designed the beanie in collaboration for Nature's Luxury's stunning cashmere yarn and you can find kits over on their web shop. They're offering the pattern with the kit. You can also get Sandy Shores as an individual download on Ravelry, LoveCrafts and PayHip. Use the code SANDY to get 15% discount until the end of this week.

Timjami

I've got a new sweater pattern to kick off December.

What: Timjami / Own pattern

How: Circular needle 4.0 mm
From: Tukuwool Fingering + ITO Sensai, 190 + 60 g

I often find inspiration for designing in the yarn itself. That's definitely what happened this time. The Finnish yarn brand, Tukuwool, got two new beautiful green colorways this fall and I fell head over heels for them. This greyish green is called Rohto. What made the colorway especially enticing was the fact that my LYS was full of silk mohairs to pair it up with. I couldn't pick just one so in the end I took three green silk mohairs with me to go with Rohto and started scetching ideas for a sweater.

And so, Timjami came to be. The name is Finnish for Thyme. Timjami is a relaxed, loose sweater worked seamlessly top-down. The design has long raglan sleeves with cute little lace and bobble pattern worked along the raglan seams. The sweater has a  V-neck and a cropped hem with no waist shaping. The sides of the sweater have a bit of twisted ribbing, as do the hem, cuffs and neckband.

The sweater is worked with two yarns, holding the fingering weight main color yarn together with one of the lace weight contrast colour yarns and fading the contrast colour. I worked a couple stripes at the colour change to get a bit of a fade going on but this sweater would work well with clear colour blocks as well. I used three different colours of silk mohair but you can use as many as you like.

I finished my sample in the late summer and I've used it A LOT. Timjami is a very versitile sweater: it goes equally well with jeans and skirts. The best sweaters are the kind that you can pull over any clothes to keep you warm.

The pattern comes with sizes XXS-5XL. You can find Timjami on Ravelry, PayHip and Lovecrafts.

I'm taking part in a Finnish online craft fair this weekend and hence, today on Friday, you can get Timjami and all my pullover patterns for -15% with the code PUSEROPERJANTAI.

On Saturday, use the code LANGANJUOKSU to get 20% discount on all my colourwork designs and on Sunday, the code LANGANKIERTO gets you 15% discount on all my lace designs.

Sleight of Hand

So it's not one but two new patterns this week! It's time for the third and final design of my mini sock collection.

What: Sleight of Hand / Own pattern

How: Circular needle 2.25 mm
From: Wool Me Once Fibers Gold Glitter Sock, 47 g

In the summer, I got the urge to knit socks. The sock fever wouldn't go away with just one pair so I ended up designing a mini collection - all ankle socks with sweet picot trims.

The collection was inspired talented Finnish indie dyers (and my need for ankle socks). I also named all the designs after the colorways I knit them with.

The third and final design in the collection is Sleight of Hand, named after this stunning golden colorway Ochrus Pochrus. I fell head over heels in love with this golden glimmering Gold Glitter Sock by Wool Me Once Fibers. It's got my favorite high twist merino base with gold stellina for a bit of sparkle.

Sleight of Hand socks are worked cuff-down. They start off with a sweet picot edge that is worked with a provisional cast on. The socks are embellished with cables and cute bobbles. The socks are worked in reverse stockinette stitch to make the cables really pop. Not to mention how luxurious the stockinette stitch on the inside feels against your skin. The heel is a simple and fun short row heel.

In fact, all three designs in the collection feature a different heel construction, making this collection an excellent opportunity to practice heels. All three patterns come in three sizes, 64, 68 and 72 sts.

You can find all three sock patterns on Ravelry, PayHip and Lovecrafts. You can buy them individially or as an e-book. If you've already bought Kvartsi and Ripple socks, Ravelry should give you a generous discount for these.