Designer Roundup Part 2: For the Kids

Continuing my designer roundup today with some of my favorite pattern designers who predominantly design with children in mind.  These are by no means the biggest, most prolific or necessarily most popular designers of kid wear on Ravelry but are some of my current favorites.

First up is actually another New Zealand designer, Justine Turner of Just Jussi.  I have admired Justine's designs for a long time now, she manages to capture practical and interesting all in the same garment.  Another thing I love about Justine is that she has some fabulous boys designs as well as some classic and very feminine girls patterns.  I still think that my all time favorite pattern is the Victoria Cardigan, I have knit this twice now, once as a gift and once for Miss M and I know I will definitely knit more in the future (and that is saying something because I rarely knit a pattern more than once).  I was also lucky enough to test knit the lovely Clipper smock which I adore with it's heart shaped cable detailing, and have knitted Roaring Meg as a gift.   Another I definitely have in my "to-knit" list is the Dolly Mixture Vest, I just need to find the yarn.

Victoria for Miss M

Clipper

Roaring Meg for a gift

Dolly Mixture Vest

Another designer who seems to produce so many gorgeous patterns for both boys and girls is Elena Nodel of Anadiomena Designs.  Elena currently has nearly 50 patterns on Ravelry and I can probably count on one hand the number of those that I DON'T want to knit!  One thing I love about Elena's designs is that I learn something every time I knit one of her patterns.  She uses many creative construction techniques and fabulous cables to keep the interest of the knitter, although there have been times when it is a bit too much for an overtired brain.  I couldn't begin to list my favorite designs of Elena's you just need to go take a look for yourself either on Ravelry or her website.  I have been lucky enough to test knit a few of her patterns so I will just share those.

First Mate Pants

First Mate Hoodie

Undina

Summer Days

Finally for today is Alana Dakos of Never Not Knitting.  Alana has actual got a range of children's and adult designs but it was through her children's patterns that I first discovered her on Ravelry so I have popped her in this category.  We are also lucky enough to have many of Alana's pattern in stock at our LYS and the leaflets are just gorgeous and the patterns so well written and easy to follow.  So far I have only knit the Molly Beret but I am hoping to knit Chloe for Miss M in the very near future.

Chloe

Molly for a special girl

I can't talk about children's knitwear patterns without mentioning Phildar Design.  I first discovered the Phildar mags a couple of years before I discovered Ravelry and they filled my need for 'different' and modern kids patterns, I must admit I do enjoy hunting out more unique patterns sometimes rather than knitting the same thing as everyone else.  I still keep an eye on these patterns and have knit several things from them over the years with many more in the pipelines.  Here are a few of my Phildar creations.

Onesie for Miss M

Cable Jacket for Mr A

Mr A's first birthday vest

A gift

That's my roundup for today.  I'm sure that any knitter that reads this will think of someone that I have missed out today.  I can think of several others myself but simply couldn't fit everyone in.  So if you have popped by for a read then let me know who your favorite designer of children's knitwear is.

Designer Roundup Part 1: Kiwis

I have been thinking a bit lately while browsing Ravelry about how it has changed how I find, choose and purchase patterns to knit.  Not that long ago looking for a knitting pattern meant going to your LYS and flicking through folders or books until you found what you wanted.  Now the first port of call for me is a pattern search on Ravelry with the criteria I am after i.e style, yarn weight etc.  Not only has Ravelry made access to thousands of patterns easy for knitters but it has also meant that more people have a chance to design and publish their own knitting patterns.  Whereas once you had to get published by one of the yarn companies now anyone (who is talented enough) can write a pattern and publish it on Ravelry.  I make that sound oh so simple but believe me having worked with many designers I am well aware of the hours and hours of work that goes into producing a fantastic knitting pattern.

Anyway I thought I would do a bit of a round up of some of my fav designers I have discovered since joining Rav and when I made the list it was quite long so I will start today with the Kiwi designers on the list.  Some of these designers are very local to me i.e in my knitting group, others I know through various online forums and some I know purely by finding their patterns on Ravelry.  So here, in no particular order, are some of my current fav NZ knitting designers.

Starting closest to home my first mention goes to the talented Julia Stanfield who has published the Little Rascals ebook and also the Teacher's Pet pattern.  The Little Rascals ebook contains patterns for a jersey, vest and cardigan all with loads of options including hood, cables, pockets etc.  These patterns are all in sizes nb-10y and to be honest I don't think you would ever get better value from a knitting pattern than this one.  I have knitted a Little Hoodlum jersey for Mr A a couple of years ago and have just completed a Young Einstein cardigan as a baby gift.

Mr A's Little Hoodlum

Teacher's Pet is a super cute wee knitted dress pattern and I really can't wait to have the chance to knit this for Miss M next winter.

Also from our knitting group is Christine Jeffrey who has patterns on Ravelry for socks, a bookmark, a dishcloth, cowl and girls tops.  I was lucky enough to be involved in the testing process of two of Christine's more recent patterns the In Plume Shrug (available in sizes nb-12y) and Daisy May cardigan (available in sizes nb-6y).  Both are just gorgeous, here are my versions of them.

Miss M in her Daisy May

Miss M in her In Plume Shrug

Rachel Evans has published the ever popular Babydoll patterns (Kaia and Paige) as well as the Spring Butterfly cardigan and more recently the Brooklynn and Zach jackets.  A couple of Rachel's patterns I have knitted.

Kaia Babydoll in 0-3m size

Miss M's Paige Babydoll

Kelly Brooker of Knit So Quaint has a lot of gorgeous children's designs published on Ravelry from her March Sister's pinafore series to her more recent Tama and Hine patterns and the fabulous Pueperium Cardigan.  I love the simple lines and true functionality of Kelly's designs and I am thrilled to be doing a test knit for her at the moment.  Until now I have only knit the Amy pinafore but I have plans already to knit the Hine and Pueperium as well.

Miss M's Amy pinafore

Hine

Pueperium Cardigan

Sheryl Greenfield has published many fabulous designs for socks, hats, scarves, shawls and mitts.   I am sad to say I haven't yet knit any of Sheryl's fab designs but I really want to knit her Benji and Bullfrogs and Butterflies hats and also her Garden City Scarf which was designed to pay tribute to the city of Christchurch after their devastating earthquake in Feb this year and also to help raise funds for the rebuilding there.

Benji

Bullfrogs and Butterflies

Garden City Scarf

Finally for now is Julie Gilliver who has published several gorgeous kiddies top patterns.  My favorite of her designs is the Explorer vest which is a fantastic v-necked vest pattern knit seamlessly and is available in sizes nb-16y and also in various yarn weights (8ply to 12ply).  I knitted one of these for Mr A this winter and will certainly be making more, in fact I already have one in mind for a gift :-)

Mr A's Explorer vest

I hope I haven't forgotten anyone although I have a nagging feeling that I have.  I will continue this series over the next few days and I'm thinking I may round off the week with a pattern giveaway so watch this space :-)

My Birthday is Almost Over

Okay so my birthday was actually way back in April but I am still enjoying one of my presents.  When asked what I wanted for my birthday I really had no idea.  Then I decided that maybe some vouchers for our new LYS Holland Road Yarn Company would be good because as mentioned yesterday I have been more or less on a yarn diet while on maternity leave.  You cannot imagine how excited I was to find out that I had a rather large stash of vouchers to spend and now that I have almost run out of credit I thought I would show off what I have purchased.  

My first purchase was a couple of days after my birthday and I came home with the fabulous book of Sock yarn One-Skein Wonders and we all know I have plenty of skeins of sock yarn that I need inspiration for, plus the gorgeous Chloe cardigan pattern by Alana Dakos of Never Not Knitting to make for Miss M.

Next up was some Cascade Superwash in a gorgeous aqua color that I needed for a test knit I was doing for Miss M.  And while I was there Tash managed to twist my arm to take home a skein of devine Fyberspates Scrumptious Lace in the Cherry colourway.

The Cascade became this...

And the Scrumptious Lace will either become one of these patterns for me :-)

Scrumptious Lace in Cherry

Laar by Gudrun Johnston

Wray by Lily Kate France

My next purchase was more Fyberspates Scrumptious this time in Sport weight in Sky colourway.  I adore this yarn, it is a merino/silk blend and so soft with a lovely sheen to it.  I also grabbed some stitch markers in case you were wondering what else was in the picture.

The Sky Scrumptious I think will one day turn into one of these.

Pioneer by kBomb

Finally I have splurged a bit since Tash started stocking buttons by Buttons By Benji, I love them so much.

And I used some of them on this bolero for Miss M.

Now who could think of a more awesome birthday present than that?

Budding Artist

For months now Mr A has been pretty obsessed with all things art and craft.  He has a large box that we keep stocked with paper, pencils, crayons, felt pens, stickers, foam shapes, glue, scissors etc and he will set himself up a wee work station on the kitchen table and keep entertained for hours.
Lately he has mainly been drawing with felt pens and crayons and the details that have come into his drawings of late I find quite astonishing (although I could be somewhat biased;-)).  Here are a few samples of pictures he has produced over the last couple of days.

Can you spot the red flower tree, the person running, a pig with a very long curly tail, the sun, moon, stars, a house and letterbox, a rabbit, rain, a street light and the wonder pets in their flyboat?

I love the foam shape numbers on the letter box int his one and I was told I had to take a picture of this because it's for the Argentina flag on it.  Mr A is also a bit obsessed with flags at the moment since there are so many about with the Rugby World Cup on.

This one has a house with rain on the windows (it was raining when he drew this) and a front and back door, a plant that belongs to the person in the house, someone running and someone walking, a snowman wearing a fluffy scarf, flax plants, a sun, moon, clouds, rain and snow, a pig in the mud and some letters for decoration.
He calls these his "whole wide world" pictures but we have explained to him they are actually called landscapes, in the loosest sense of the term.
Finally there is this picture of a dog (or an artists impression of one) that he drew and then colored in.

Not too bad for a wee boy, and he thought it was the best thing ever when I bought him a box of 30 felt pens yesterday, he can't get over how many different colors he has to play with now :-)  I was told at bed time last night that he was going to draw pictures all day today because if you do that you are a real artist.

Has anyone got any suggestions of what to do with the mountains of pictures he is producing.  He puts so much effort into them I feel terrible throwing them away but we have way too many to keep.

Yarn Diet Fail

Hello my name is Alison and I am addicted to buying yarn :-)  Okay so that's not actually always true, I go through phases of being addicted to buying fabric instead, but yarn is my main downfall.  However while I was on maternity leave my yarn budget was pretty much zero and I actually found it easier than I thought to stick to my yarn diet.  I had a couple of wobbles early on when I 'needed' to increase the proportion of 'girly' yarn in stash after Miss M was born, and have fallen for a couple of cheap destash purchases but recently I have well and truly fallen off the wagon.

Here are the goodies that have arrived in my mail box over the last 6-8 weeks, which in my defense is basically since I started work again (I had to celebrate somehow).
First is my one and only Co-op purchase for the year, so I've been good in that respect.  This is from Lollytree yarn and the colourway is BFF with mid pink trim.

I'm not sure what that will become yet but possibly a Teacher's Pet for Miss M next autumn/winter.

Then I just may have been tempted by the fabulous Morag of Vintage Purls when she destashed the last of her non-superwash yarn.  Considering how often I used to purchase from Morag's weekly updates, believe me this is me being good :-)

I have no idea what any of this will turn into.  I have actually already destashed a couple of these that I knew I wouldn't use and some of it at least will turn into socks for me eventually.  Amongst that lot are both the foreground and background colors for this Bug Out sock pattern which is pretty cool.

via

Next is two skeins of absolutely devine Old Maiden Aunt Merino/cashmere/nylon 4ply in colourway Derelict Daughter.

I already had one skein of this from the OMA yarn club I did a couple of years ago and now with two extra skeins I am dreaming of making myself a carry of some sort and wrapping myself in it's softness.  Maybe one of these patterns? What do you think?

Elphaba Pullover

Vanadium

Making Waves Cardigan

Some Three Irish Girls Springvale Super Merino, worsted weight in colourway Megan, purchased from destash.

And finally I fell for a destash from a friend and now have a whole stack of Bella Baby Layette which is a lovely soft merino/bamboo yarn which will be great for summer knits for Miss M.

See I told you I've fallen off the wagon, just as well there aren't any health risks I know of from having too much yarn.  My disclaimer to this post is that I am still on track to finish the year with less yarn than I started :-)