Fancy a bit of lace?

In March I was busy again designing for Artesano. This time I used Manos del Uruguay Lace which is gorgeous. Anita and Pixie did all the knitting for me (I was busy knitting the Fyberspates Royal Wedding Shawl).

These patterns are now available from Artesano/Manos del Uruguay stockists in the UK, Sweden, Germany and France. There are several other great patterns in the collection by other designers too.

First is 'Living Doll' which is a cardigan which starts with a leaf lace edging. Stitches are picked up for the body and the leaf lace edging continues up along the front edges. The body of the cardigan is stocking stitch so it's fairly quick to knit. Perfect as a light weight cover up all year round.

Next up is 'Miss You Nights' which is a short sleeved lace top. There is an all over lace pattern which is fairly easy to knit. Perfect summer top which will go with everything.

And lastly we have 'My Pretty One' which is a sleeveless top with lace columns separated by 'fagotting' columns. I love this stitch pattern. This top can be worn as a summer top but I can also see it being worn as a little party top for the pre-Christmas party season.

ETA: I forgot to add this pic last night, I was a bit tired.

A big thank you to Pixie and Anita who did a great job with the knitting and to Rachel who checked the patterns for me. Rachel checked the Serena patterns from the previous post too.

I've got lots of other stuff I should be blogging about but this has been a bit of a weird week. I've finished some pattern writing which I was way behind on. And done some knitting and although I've been busy all week I don't feel like I've got a lot done. I've done a lot of swatching for new designs which is fun but can be a bit weird. Sometimes I can spend hours swatching and end up with nothing to show for it as ideas don't work out and swatches get ripped. that's why during swatching periods i don't feel like i'm achieving anything. When I work on new design ideas now I like to set aside a weekend or a few days to work almost exclusively on swatching for new ideas. If I try to squeeze it in between other knitting I struggle with my inspiration. If I give myself a few days to just think about new designs the ideas seem to flow better. I've got several magazine submission deadlines coming up so I'm hoping to finish my swatching and work on some new ideas this weekend.

Over the weekend or early next week I'll be starting to organise test knitting of some of the patterns in the Easy Lace Collection. I'll be posting pics of the patterns that are ready so far and asking for volunteers to test knit them for me. Next week I'll try to finalise the last few patterns in the collection. My current aim is to have the collection ready by end of May.

I also want to take pics of the Daisy Shawlette over the weekend. I wore it today for some filming i did for our church and I love it. I'll be asking for someone to test knit it for me too. The Daisy Shawlette uses elongated stitches rather than lace stitches although there are some yarn overs and I've been thinking about doing a small collection of perhaps 4 patterns using a variety of elongated stitches. I'll talk more about that next week.

Tomorrow I'll post Pattern Of The Week as it's a while since I posted one so do come back over the weekend.

Have a lovely weekend x

Tough Week

This has been a tough week. I started on Monday with really severe headache, which i struggled to control for the rest of the day. Tuesday I had a great day out with Pixie and Marianne at Spin A Yarn knitting group. It was my best day this week. Wednesday I dyed the Sock Variety and Easy Lace club yarns. Started dyeing some lace too but felt so rough I had to abort the attempt. Thursday I felt rough. Did lots of knitting as I had a deadline but felt too unwell to finish the yarn dyeing . Just rinsing the yarns I did on Wednesday was difficult enough. Friday I thought I was a bit better. Finished the yarn dyeing and did all the finishing and sewing up on 3 1/2 garments. Then we picked Simon up and went to the cinema. Probably my best day but I felt quite unwell in the middle of the day and extremely tired. If it hadn't been for deadline I would have gone to bed. This morning I was up at 7.30 to finish the neck line and weave in ends on one of my deadline garments, which then got packed  up and posted. Came home had lunch and went to bed and slept for 2 hours. Finally feel a bit better now but still tired. Early night tonight!

So to summarise I was in a lot of pain last week, I felt unwell on and off (but can't quite put my finger on it), extremely tired but did have a couple of late nights (11-11.30pm - late for me) and I'm extremely thirsty. I can't get enough water to drink. I normally drink several liters of water every day. I drink no tea or coffee at all. Occasionally have a hot choc or fizzy drink but none this week. Just water, water, water. Still thirsty. Wondering if I ought to go to doc next week.

Enough of that. I did finish my Manos Serena garments and got them in the post today for the deadline on Monday. Photo shoot is next week so it was close and I knew I could not be late. I had help form fantastic knitters Pixie and Anita - huge thank you to you both. i always do my own finishing as I'm a bit fussy about how it's done. It's the control freak in me. LOL. So I spent Thursday evening, all day Friday  and a couple of hours this morning sewing up garments and finishing neck and arm bands. 9am today it was all done and ready to post. I did wonder if I'd make it and I'm so relieved I did.

Here they are all piled up:

Four lacy summery garments knitted in a gorgeous, lightweight, delicate alpaca/cotton blend. Manos Serena will be launched in the UK later this month. It's such a gorgeous yarn. I thought cotton and alpaca blend may be a bit heavy with uneven stitches but this is so lightweight, a fine dk weight with wonderful stitch definition. I loved knitting with it and would love to use it again. I'm even wondering if it'd work on my knitting machine. I have some left to knit a swatch with.

I've felt a bit at a loss knitting wise today. I usually feel like this after a bit deadline. I've lost my knitting mojo a bit. I've been working on a swatch but it's just not grabbing me. I've got a couple of sub deadlines to post on Monday though so I need to get this swatching done. I may fit in a bit of spinning too. My Sweet Georgia Fiber has been taunting me all week. Staring at me, tempting me. I will have to give in to temptation tonight.

Pattern of the week will be posted on Monday. This week's offer, Mountain Peaks, does not finish until Sunday evening, scroll down for details. I'm also planning a big 'Club Parade'. I always forget to show off club yarns, so the other day i dug out all the spare club yarns I could find and took photos. Will take me some time to edit them and do the post. Perhaps tomorrow...

New Manos Silk Blend designs

I'm so excited to share these photos. My fantastic knitter, Pixie, knitted all the gaments and did a fab job, as always. I can't remember how many weeks I gave her to knit them all but it wasn't long. I reckon she knits in her sleep. LOL.

Here's Alice which is a relaxed, cozy sweater featuring a textured eyelet diamond pattern and elbow length sleeves, big collar and deep ribs. The sweater is worked in two pieces. Front of body and sleeves is worked in one piece and back of body and sleeves is worked in one piece. I would love one of these for myself.

Here's Flora, a cropped jacket with elbow length sleeves and a round neckline. This jacket has an all over chevron lace pattern with garter stitch neckband. Perfect for wearing over smart clothes as well as casual jeans.

 Natasha is another cardigan featuring a celtic cable band around the hem of body and sleeves and along each front all the way up to the shoulder. The cable band around them is knitted first then stitch picked up for the body which is worked in one piece to the armhole. The front bands are knitted along with the body keeping finishing to a minimum.

 Sian is a sleeveless top which is worked in one piece with the shoulders joined using a 3 needle bind off. There is a cable panel that runs up the centre of the front and continues up each side of the deep v-neck.

 Charlotte is worked in the round with a circular yoke and has an 'ostrich' lace pattern around them with a smaller version of the stitch pattern around the neckline.

 Sue is a relaxed, comfy sweater with an interesting cable rib. It's loose fitting with long sleeves and a big collar. Perfect to snuggle up in over the wekeend with a good book or your knitting.

This is the first time I've done 6 garments for a single deadline and it was as struggle. I ended up finishing the patterns on holiday in Spain and the garments were all seamed and finished during the week before we went to spain (the week we had Bible Week at church).

Yesterday I was teaching a workshop at Hulu Crafts in Modbury, south Devon. At lunch time I was flicking through some Manos patterns and suddenly thought they looked familiar when I realised they were my designs. It took me longer than it should have done to realise they were mine. LOL. But I hadn't seen the photos yet and they look so different properly styled and photographed.

Hulu Crafts is a great place, btw. Vicky runs it mainly as an online shop but she dos have a show room in Modbury and she's happy for customers to pop in although at the moment she is closed on Saturday. The room is a big, light, airy room with a big table, perfect for knitting groups and workshops. Friday 15 Oct, she's hosting a 'Yarn Tasting' evening which sounds like great fun. I'm teaching some more workshops at Hulu Crafts in November: Professional finishing Techniques and Basic Sock Knitting.

I did buy something yesterday too but I'm so tired now and haven't taken photos yet so I'll share more next time.

New Manos Designs

I've mentioned before the designs I did for Artesano using their new Manos del Uruguay Lace yarn. I've got the official photos now and they're gorgeous. I loved working with this yarn.

First up is Leanne, a lace scarf with a knitted on end borders. The scarf features an easy diamond lace pattern and starts with a provisional cast on. End borders are knitted on sideways afterwards. The scarf takes just one 50 gr skein but you can make it wider or longer quite easily.

Next up is Chloe, a short sleeved delicate top with a round neck line. The lace pattern makes pretty scalloped edges.  By the way, I love the photo of this one. Lyaing on all those hanks of what looks like Silk Blend to me, is my dream. Just look at all those pretty colours.

the last design from me is Adele which is a slightly longer length top with a v-neck and a choice of 3/4 and long length sleeves.  this is my favorite and if I had time I'd love to knit one for myself. Pixie knitted this one and the scarf for me and she did a brilliant job as always. 

I love hte way the designs have been photographed and styled. I've seen the other designs in the collection too and they're all gorgeous. Can't wait to see them in the shops. Not sure exactly when the patterns adn the new yarn will hit the shops but I think it's sometime this month or it may already be in teh shops. Not sure.

I've got lots other things to blog about but they will have to wait till another day. My main priority today is to catch up on e-mails and do as much work on my first crochet design for Inside Crochet as possible. Later this week I'll reveal my new design for Let's Knit and some machine knitting I did this weekend.