Designer Roundup Part 3: For Grown Ups

Today I will conclude my wee designer series with some of my favourite designers of clothing and accessories for grown-ups. 
Anyone who knows me at all will not be at all surprised that the top of the list here for me is Ysolda Teague, in fact I have already blogged about my love of her designs here.  The latest offering from Ysolda is her absolutely fabulous and much anticipated book Little Red In The City.  Yes this book contains some lovley knitting patterns but it also contains a plethora of really useful information.  You know how so often books are jam packed with information that you feel should be useful but you never really use?  Well this book isn't like that at all.  I pre-ordered my copy of Little Red and waiting almost patiently for it to arrive in the post.  I am sad to say I haven't had as much time to read it as I would have liked but it goes through everything you need to know about making a garment that actually fits!  You know maybe take some of the guess work out of it and avoid the weeks of knitting only to end up with something that looks like an expensive sack or you can hardly squeeze into?  There is also information on yarn choice and substitution and various knitting techniques.  I can see this becoming my 'go to' knitting reference book.  All that said we musn't forget the patterns and I have definite plans to knit Cria at some stage and probably some of the others as well.

Cria

Next up on my list is Gudrun Johnston of Shetland Trader.  Once again there are many of Gudrun's designs in my knit queue but the ones closest to the top are Laar, Shalder and Moch Cardi.  I am seriously thinking of adding her book "The Shetland Trader - Book 1" to my christmas wish list as well. Although I love the accessibility of downloaded patterns and that I can carry them all around easily in my iPad there is nothing quite like flicking through a real live book and looking at the gorgeous pictures and layout etc to make me really want to knit something :-)

Laar

Shalder

Moch Cardi

One of my most recent designer discoveries on Ravelry is the very talented young designer Lily Kate France of Joli House.  Her designs are fresh, fun and funky and I can't wait to knit Wray which would have to be my favorite so far.

Wray

Finally on this list is Hannah Fettig of Knitbot.  I love the simplicity of Hannah's designs and the drape and shape she can get from the yarn.  I recently finished one of her designs, the Whisper Cardigan, and I know I will be knitting more in the future.  In fact the book that she has just released in conjunction with Alana Dakos who I mentioned yesterday may well be on my christmas list as well.  A couple of my fav designs from Coastal Knits are Rocky Coast Cardigan by Hannah and Gnarled Oak Cardigan by Alana.

My Whisper Cardigan

Rocky Coast Cardigan

Gnarled Oak Cardigan

There are many other designers on Rav who I have discovered as well but the list is way too long and this doesn't even touch things like shawls and socks but it would go on forever.
So what is at the top of your "I really want to knit for me" list?  Let me know and be sure to check back tomorrow for a giveaway along this recent theme of mine.

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.