Launching!
It has been a wild ride but the book is finally ready to go and launching on September 30th!!! Urban Yarns is having a party at 7pm so I hope to see you there! If you’re not in town you will be able to find the PDF version of the book as well as individual patterns for sale here on the Gourmet Crafter blog, at www.tincanknits.com, and of course on Ravelry. You will also be able to get the physical copy of the book at our etsy shop, I’ll have all the details the second they are ready.
I’d also like to introduce a free pattern from our book, just to whet your appetite. This hat is part of an adorable little set, you can find the sweater pattern in the book, or as an individual pattern on the 30th. You can download the i-heart-rainbow-hat here and if you wanna check out the details on Ravelry you can go here.
Let me take you all through a little of my journey to this fantastic outcome….
A little over a year ago (OK like a year and a half) Emily and I got to talking and we said to ourselves, let’s write a book! We were both already designing knitwear and we were both interested in designing some baby knits so a plan was hatched. We brainstormed and sketched and came up with a tentative game plan. We were well on our way, even with Emily living on the island and me living in Burnaby. No problem, we have email, it’s not too hard to walk on the ferry, and if all else fails there are always long distance phone calls right? No problem.
Then I was pregnant with Hunter and COULDN’T KNIT FOR 4 MONTHS! It was a rough time and knitting made me feel dizzy and ill. So that gave us a bit of a setback. Over on the island Emily was working hard as an architect and our design work hit the back burner for a bit. Once I was back to knitting I headed to the island and after a weekend of more brainstorming and ironing out details things were back on track! Then Hunter was born and Emily moved to the UK, another couple of minor setbacks to the book. We weren’t going to let anything stop up this time though, we kept at it. There was lots more work to do than we originally anticipated and we had to figure out (with the help of Ann) how to publish our book ourselves. There was photographing, re-photographing, knitting, re-knitting, testing, layouts, writing, websites, and much much more. It was overwhelming but Emily kept her head at least.
So that’s our book story and we are finally ready to say: here is our new knitting book, Nine Months of Knitting. It’s full of cute and quirky baby knits and a few knits for the whole family. We hope you enjoy!
Some FO’s
Well, I haven’t had as much knitting time as I would like lately but I have managed to finish a few items of interest! One of the great things about starting 4 lace shawls at once is the great feeling of accomplishment when you cast them all off in the same week! I got to wear a different beautiful, colourful, lacy scarf almost every day this week!
The first 3 were in the sumptuous Cashsilk Lace from SweetGeorgia. The yarn was a dream to work with and as I finished the scarves I started to get a real obsession going. I am imagining a little basket full of lacy scarves in all of the beautiful Cashsilk colours…..the pocketbook may never allow such a thing, but a spoiled knitter can dream can’t she?!
The first item up is my beautiful Sunflower. I have been itching to knit one of Emily’s patterns for what seems like FOREVER and I finally got to it with her beautiful Sunflower Shawl. Call me unimaginative but I felt this pattern would only be true in yellow and of course, SweetGeorgia does an awesome yellow called Saffron. The pattern was very easy to follow and clearly laid out. Well done Ems! I got 3 repeats of the seed pattern and 1 repeat of the leaf pattern plus transitions and edging charts.
The next shawl I undertook was the Shetland Triangle by Evelyn Clark. I am completely smitten with this pattern! It was easy to memorize the pattern and I really like the finished product. The way the pinecones are shaped give it almost a circular look, just beautiful. It’s in the ever lovely Riptide colourway that I am slowly knitting into my life.
Next up is my pretty pink Ishbel shawl in a sock weight. I wanted something pink on the advice of Kathleen at UY and I went with Casbah because it is such a soft sock yarn. The pattern is by Ysolda Teague, whose work I have recently become acquainted with, and I really like the finished product. It might just be me but I had a hard time figuring out how the lace was working, how things were shifting and lining up. It didn’t make the shawl impossible, it just meant I had to consult the pattern more often than I like.
Last is my Ginger coloured Brandywine shawl. I have finished this baby but I haven’t taken any updated photos. This shawl started out quite difficult but it got a lot easier as it went. It was knitted from tip out, instead of from the middle of the top like the other ones. The bottom was a tough chart but I focused on the ferry so not a big deal. Love the colour and the squishy garter stitch in the middle. I was pretty satisfied over all.
Next up: I have a Traveling Woman and a Photosynthesis on the go!
