Remember Penuche Twist Socks? That pattern was my first collaboration with Suzan of Barking Dog Yarns. She dyed a faulous caramel colourway especially for that design and we had lots of fun offering the pattern as a KAL in her ravelry group. Now we're at it again! Suzan provided me with some of her BDY Achilles sock yarn in the gorgeous Old Stone Wall colourway and asked me to design another KAL pattern. So.... introducing Lychgate Socks.... The pattern is being featured as the July/August KAL in the Barking Dog Yarns group on Ravelry. A coupon code in the KAL thread allows participants, and other resourceful folks, to obtain the pattern for free until August 31, 2013. Of course, it's also available for purchase at its regular price through my Ravelry shop, on Patternfish and Craftsy, and through this website.
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One of the things I love best about Craftsy is their free knitting mini-courses. These classes are a great way to focus on a particular techinique or topic. You can learn a lot without a huge time commitment and you can watch at your own pace and schedule. And the free price gives you no excuses... sign up now!
The next free Craftsy mini-courses that I'm planning to take are: Know Your Wool: This class promises to tell all about different types of wool and their individual characteristics. It could be really helpful for selecting and substituting yarns for my own designs and other projects. Short Rows: This class teaches a variety of techniques for creating short rows. It should prove useful for the shwal designs that I'm working on now. And if you're into crafts other than knitting, check out all of the other free Craftsy mini-courses by clicking here. I'm tempted by some of the quilting and sewing offerings! Stay tuned for new patterns! I'm feverishly working on several designs to be released soon. There's another sock pattern for one of my favorite indie dyers... imagine twisted stitches, cables and a hint of lace. And there's a shawl worked in two colors of laceweight yarn... floaty and pretty. Can't give away too many details yet.
It's minus 25 degrees Celsius in Yellowknife today, but apparently spring is just around the corner! And so Craftsy is having a spring sale on selected classes. It's a great opportunity to sign up and new something new. And you can view the classes whenever and as often as you want. I've signed up for quite a few knitting and designing classes. Now I just need to find the time to watch them.
Tundra Trails Socks I've just released the pattern for Tundra Trails Socks. These casual socks were inspired by the tundra of the Canadian arctic in autumn. Just like the tundra, they appear deceptively simple but closer examination reveals hidden depth and complexity. These socks are worked from the top down. They feature a simple cable and rib pattern which tranforms into a more elaorate design over the instep. Like all of my sock designs, the pattern consists of charted stitch patterns and written instructions. Caribou at Daring Lake I started these socks while camping at a research station at Daring Lake in the Northwest Territories. The tundra was spectacular with its autumn colors and we were fortunate to see several caribou while hiking on the eskers. It’s that time of year again… snow returns to the Canadian north… so it's time for my annual First Snowfall Sale. Welcome winter with a discount on patterns designed to warm your hands as the weather turns frosty both inside and outside!
I'm offering a 25% discount on the purchase of the patterns for Snow Flurry Mittens, Cordelia Fingerless Gloves and/or Vertigo Fingerless Gloves from October 24, 2012 through October 31, 2012. Offer applies only to purchases through my Ravelry shop using the coupon code SNOW2012. Find details of the sale in the dedicated thread in my Rav group. My KAL pattern for Barking Dog Yarns has now been released. These socks remind me of the fabulous brown sugar fudge that my dad and I make every Christmas Eve. Hence the name... Penuche Twist Socks.
The socks feature an elegant cable pattern interacting with basic ribbing in an offset fashion. They are worked from the cuff down and are mirror images of each other. The pattern is available for free and includes written instructions and charted stitch patterns. Our fudge recipe appears on the pattern page. A few months ago, Suzan of Barking Dog Yarns asked me to design a sock pattern for her Ravelry group’s March 2012 KAL. I'll be releasing the pattern tomorrow. And when I suggested that a warm golden brown color might be nice, she immediately offered to dye a new colorway! The result was Caramel Apple... and it's absolutely gorgeous:
The indie pattern sales feature on Craftsy.com has now gone live! Lots of great patterns are being posted every day. Check it out some time.
I've recently discovered Craftsy.com. It's another crafting website where you can track and share your knitting and other craft projects. The site is easy to navigate and its layout is lovely. A new feature will soon be implemented allowing designers to offer their patterns for sale directly through downloads from Craftsy.com. In the interim, the patterns for any of my original projects posted on Craftsy.com can be purchased through my Ravelry store.
We're into the frigid depths of winter here in the Canadian arctic now, but I've finally released the pattern for Autumn Moon Socks. Time flies - so much for the idea of releasing a pattern evoking a particular season!
These casual socks were designed to take advantage of some gorgeous variegated Indigo Moon yarn that was sitting in my stash and taunting me. The cuff features a pretty twisted edge which is fun to knit and highlights the changing colours of the yarn. The slipped stitch pattern is very simple yet effective in showcasing the yarn. Redtigerdesigns patterns are now available through Hobby Buddies. It's a relatively new British social networking site for knitting, crochet, embroidery and sewing. Check it out sometime!
Welcome winter with a discount on selected patterns designed to keep your head, hands and feet warm despite the frosty weather! To celebrate the return of snow to the Canadian north, I'm offering a 25% discount on the purchase of the patterns for Winterlude Socks, Snow Flurry Mittens, Forest Frost Headband and/or Burlap Bruque from October 24, 2011 through October 31, 2011. Offer applies only to purchases through this website or Ravelry.
Summer is starting to slip away, at least here in the Canadian north. The leaves are turning colour, the evenings are getting cooler, and it's getting dark at night again. Knitting, and especially designing, have taken a backseat to flying and fishing over the past weeks, but I do have one design pending... Autumn Moon Socks!
They're in the test knitting phase over in Ravelry right now, but the pattern should be ready for release in mid-September. Just in time for all the southerners to realize that fall is coming! The pattern for Hippie Heart Socks is now available to everyone! These socks were originally designed for the February 2011 Biscotte & Cie sock club and the pattern was initially available only as part of a kit for club members.
This design project was lots of fun and pushed me to work outside my personal preferences. The colours are super-bright and funky and I love the resulting socks. But I’ll never find the nerve to actually wear them! Anybody looking for a cable extravaganza? Here's my latest sock pattern... Romantic Entanglement Socks! They were a real brain twister to design, trying to make all those cables lace continuously around the socks, but are not all that hard to knit.
Sometimes a bit of relaxing, rather than mentally taxing, knitting is just what a person needs. My latest sock design started that way and ended up as one of my favorites. Quail Trails Socks feature elegant little cables formed by the clever use of slipped stitches. My sample pair is knit in Serendipitous Sock, a delicious merino-cashmere blend by DY3 Hard Fibre Arts. Pampered relaxation at its best!
After hours spent darning my father's supply of size 13 socks, I've turned my attention to my own worn-out pairs. I just can't bear to part with even a single sock, considering the time spent knitting, the cost of materials, and the simple fact that I love every pair. But darning has lost its appeal.
The perfect compromise is to replace the worn sections, which typically seem to be the soles under the ball of my foot, by reknitting. It's a win-win solution... I'd rather knit than darn, I'm using up bits of leftover yarn from the first knitting, and I'm extending the life of my socks. Check out my tutorial page for instructions on resuscitating your own handknit socks! All finished... the pattern for Cordelia Fingerless Gloves has now been released. These gloves are quick and easy to knit. They fit like a dream but without restricting use of your fingers. The pattern is perfect for showing off some special handpainted yarn.
And since someone is bound to wonder... the guitar is a steel Dobro guitar that has been in my husband's family for many years and was recently gifted to him. It's gorgeous and very special, and letting it star in these photos motivated hubby to play photographer. Here's my thrill of the week... Hippie Heart Socks! I designed these cool socks for Biscotte & Cie for its Hippie Girl themed Club Biscotte. The pattern was just released this week. I just love the photo layout that Biscotte & Cie created to display the theme and my socks. These were so much fun to create! The yarn is Felix fingering weight sock yarn by Biscotte & Cie. It's delightful stuff! These socks feature a mosaic stitch stripe pattern, duplicate stitch hearts, and crochet heartstrings... all were a pleasure to work in this yarn. And the colours speak for themselves. These are happy feet!
The decision has been made... they are fingerless gloves. I've got the first one finished and it's adorable! Now it's on to the next phase: pattern writing, more knitting, testing, and photography. In the meantime, I'm running a contest through my Ravelry group to help me choose the perfect name for this pattern. Please excuse the lousy, and thankfully temporary, photography, but here's a teaser...
Hurry on over to Ravelry, join the Redtigerdesigns group, and help me give them a name! I'm in a bit of a quandry today... my latest design doesn't know whether it wants to be socks or fingerless gloves! It's more of an emotional quandry than a practical one. The intent was to create a pair of subtly feminine socks using some simply gorgeous yarn. The problem is that I know in my heart that I don't have enough yarn to make socks. I do have enough for a delightful pair of fingerless mitts. Maybe even enough for a second pair in reversed colourways. But not enough for socks. Choice of accessory aside, here's a peek at the stitch pattern. It combines tiny cables and little slipped stitches in an adorable way. It's one of those rare cases where less contrast is better than more. My first attempt used pale pink with dark brown and just overpowered the cute little pattern. Perhaps it's a good idea not to let this design hide away in shoes! It's -40C outside today, which makes it a great day for mittens! I've finally released the pattern for Snow Flurry Mittens. They're soft and cozy and so very pretty... you'll want to make a pair for all your favorite girls. I've already made them for my sister and my niece and still need to make a pair to keep.
I released the pattern for Winterlude Socks this morning! It's the perfect day for its debut... cold and frosty. The trees look so pretty covered in hoarfrost. These socks are their knitted counterpart. The bobble edging on these socks benefits from a bit of blocking... see my tutorials page to learn how to make your own sock cuff blocker. Coming soon... the pattern for Snow Flurry Mittens! This adorable pair spent a long time in the development stage. It really just needed a few ingenious tricks... using multiple needle sizes within the same round and knitting inside-out. They were finished just in time for a photo shoot during an early October snowfall. Too bad our snow is too dry to make a real snowball! |