Life in the Long Grass

Mr. FedEx brought in the boxes from LITLG this afternoon. The colours are amazing. I took pictures of the DK Twist and Haze Lace. I will photograph the other yarns tomorrow.

These are DK Twist. Gorgeous. The first thing I thought of was a Comfort Fade Cardi.

Another way to fade! This open cardigan is super cozy with its garter shawl collar! The Reverse Stockinette makes a stunning canvas to fade on for the most unique cardigan in your wardrobe!! This cardigan keeps me feeling cozy and stylish all in one!

Photos © Andrea Mowry

I think you could work the colours in either direction. Purple at the top or purple at the bottom.

Dusky
Crush
Reflect
Shield

Another project that comes to mind is Hipster.

We have two Hipsters hanging in the store. From Joji

I confess not being able to channel my inner hipster too often… But sometimes I knit pieces like this warn and fuss free shawl and I can feel myself instantly transported to the coolest, little known coffeeshop in town… 

Do you have an inner hipster? 

And if you don’t, do you have a bit of time and some worsted yarn around you? I promise this is the coolest quickest shawl you’ll ever knit. 

I knit this one and would definitely make it again.

And how about Joji's Odyessey Shawl?

Photo © Joji Locatelli

Odyssey is a way for me to give back to the knitting community. 

You can download it for free, forever, but it is not a free pattern… 

The making of this pattern was paid by all of you, knitters, as a community. By supporting me and my family, you are allowing me to do a job I love and I am giving that love back. 

And by supporting I don’t only mean ‘buying my patterns’. Support also comes from all the love you send me with your messages. I couldn’t do it without you. 

Therefore, because you are a member of this community, this is a pattern from me to all of you. 

I started the design of this shawl during a trip to Canada, inspired by the green colors of the landscape. It was the perfect easy project to keep me company on a trip that turned out to be quite an adventure! 

Today, I am again traveling with my family and we feel so blessed and so grateful that we want to send something to all of you, so here’s this Odyssey for you to knit and enjoy. 

Odyssey is a crescent shaped shawl in 3 colors of medium-weight yarn. Medium weight means DK, or worsted, or even Aran! The good news is that you knit it up super fast.Each color section ends with a lace band that features striking big eyelets and wavy texture. 

It works with MANY yarn weights, and with ANY yarn! You don’t need to buy any special yarn for this design. Check your stash and see what inspires you! Or ask us if you need advise choosing super luxurious budget friendly yarns.

The Haze Lace is beautiful.

From the top
Winterview
Dusky
Space Ash
Reflect

New Hand Dyes Coming Soon

I received two exciting emails today about yarn. Steffi at Uschitita has started dying our order. I hope we see it by the end of April. There will be 16 colours in the order including

Bouquet

Doctor Dyery

Mr. Vain

Unicorns Never Die

Viking

Most of these colours are brand new for spring.

The second email was from Life in the Long Grass and an order is on the way. I have the FedEx tracking number and we should see it next Monday.

We have Haze Lace in the order. This is 72% Kid Mohair and 28% Silk. There are 450m on a 50gram skein. Pictured is Haze Lace and Singles in the colour Cactus Moonsoil.

I can't wait to see the Haze Lace. We will have the following colours

Cactus Moonsoil
Crush
Dusky
Harbour
Moorlands
Reflect
Shield
Space Ash
Winterview

This is Dusky. It is a brand new colour. Check out the colours of LITLG Singles that we already have in stock. These will match the colours of Haze Lace coming in the boxes. This could mean another Love Note for me. Or maybe Birds of a Feather (pattern purchased on Ravelry).

Photos © Andrea Mowry

Starting at a single point and growing and shifting from ethereal mohair to silky smooth single ply into a piece that begs to be wrapped up in.

The shawl would look beautiful in Harbour.

Or maybe Reflect.

Winterview?

Shield is beautiful too. Now I can't wait!

Painting Bricks

Photos © Stephen West

Painting Bricks is a splashy semi-circular shawl. Easy garter stitch is combined with stockinette stitch stripes and slipped stitches for an exciting new Westknits shawl project. Two skeins of the main color are combined with contrast colors in West Wool Bicycle. You can add as many contrast colors as you like to paint the bricks with your leftover color pops. 

This is Stephen West's latest shawl pattern called Painting Bricks. You can purchase it on Ravelry.

The shawl can be knit in fingering weight or DK weight yarn.

It was a lazy day with lots of knitting. I'm almost finished the first sleeve on my Throwback. I have a few more rows in me before bed. It will be another early morning in the store - I'm not complaining. Trust me I am happy to work right now. And I'm happy there are mail orders to ship out. I hope everyone likes the pretty yarn they are going to receive this week.

Butterfly

I was finished my post when Candice sent an email. I love her bright colours.

I thought you might be interested in what one of your customers is knitting during the time of isolation. I decided I’d find a pattern that used stash yarn since yarn stores can no longer fulfill orders. It gave me a sense of purpose. I found Luverne. Then, I dove into my bag of fingering and sock yarn and wound up with this. It’s been great fun and an endless source of visual delight. I call this my Isolation Wrap and plan to knit it till our isolation ends or I run out of yarn, which ever comes first. Four days down . . . 

Now I want to make this! In these colours. I love the lime and orange and purple mixed with some grey/beige. I might have to go yarn shopping on Monday 😋I'll share pictures.

You can purchase the pattern for Luverne on Ravelry.

Luverne is a randomly striped, simple chevron shawl with a knit as you go “mock” icord edge. Once established, the two row pattern is easy to remember. The sample shown is knitted in fingering weight yarn, but it can readily be adjusted for a sport or DK weight. Luverne is also a small town in south Alabama, and is self acclaimed to be the “friendliest city in the south”!

I spent some time in the store this morning. While I was there I received a few panicked phone calls. Customers needed colour advice for a new project. The first was for Butterfly.

The shawl uses two skeins of a multi coloured yarn. We used Uneek Fingering for our sample along with a solid fingering weight. Our sample is SweetGeorgia Tough Love Sock. You can also use Hedgehog Sock.

This short row shawl looks lovely in either a long transition mutli-colorway or in placed color OR with bits and pieces from your STASH. 

Instructions are expressed in a new and unique method which I developed and that most American knitters are familiar with. The instructions let you know when you are on the right side or wrong side and gives extensive stitch counts. For some, it takes away a lot of the confusion sometimes found in other expressions of short rows. 

There is a lot of counting and this is very important. It is not a great project to knit while only partially focused in the short row sections. But there is also a lot of plain, garter knitting employed. For every short row section, there are rows in between that are more simple to execute. 

A few pattern notes: 

Pre-reading of this pattern can cause confusion. If it does not make sense when doing this, try casting on and only reading a bit ahead to see if it starts to make sense as you work.

I like this statement. Many knitters come in and tell me that they don't understand their pattern. We start reading the pattern and they are worried about the collar on a bottom up sweater. Or how the sleeves are sewn in. Or how to pick up the stitches for the button band. 99% of the time it will make perfect sense when you get there.

Uneek 3012 with nightshade or violet

Uneek 3019 with iris or Cedar

Uneek 3010 with lollipop or charcoal. Our sample is 3010 with charcoal.

Uneek 3006 with charcoal

Uneek 3008 with Cedar

Uneek 3003 with Kelp

These aren't my best pictures but I was in a hurry. I have my Throwback laid out and I'm preparing to steek.

Before cutting you do a crochet reinforcement. I did it in orange so that you can see what it looks like. When I am ready to cut I will do the reinforcement in the same yarn as the sweater was knit in. Take a look at Tin Can's blog for more information about the crochet reinforcement.

When I cast on my cardigan I added 8 stitches to the pattern. Four on each side of the cut line. I probably didn't need that many but it was better to be safe.

After I cut the extra stitches will be folded to the inside of the cardigan and tacked down.

It's rainy and foggy here so I decided to leave the cutting until tomorrow or Monday. I want to sit at the kitchen table with the sun shining so that I can see better. I'm going to start knitting the first sleeve.

Nurtured

Sarah finished another sweater.

Contemplating that I don't get them all perfect 😂. Love this #nurturedsweater pattern and am going to have to knit it again. I really wanted to use this yarn (Cilantro by Nashua-discounted-destash) but would have preferred a larger size. It was weird the tension came out fine but the yarn is so "spongy" that it bizarrely sucks to your body like an alien being 👽Hard to explain! Anyways, I'll still wear it! 

Are you following Sarah on Instagram? She shows great pictures of her knitting, sewing, cats and travels.

This is an Andrea Mowry pattern called Nurtured. From Andrea

I wanted a cropped sweater with lots of texture that I could throw on over my favorite dresses and tunics or paired with high waisted jeans and skirts! This honeycomb pattern is easy to memorize and rhythmic to knit. This sweater is knit from the bottom up, mostly in the round, with the only seaming being a few stitches at the underarms.

I looked at some of the projects on Ravelry and here are some yarn suggestions
Malabrigo Rios
Cascade 220 and Cascade 220 Heathers
Blue Sky Woolstok
Tosh Vintage will work as well. There is a shipment coming in a week or so. All 'out of stock' colours are in the shipment.

Today I put together some tosh merino light combinations for Fading Point.

This is our store sample knit in a Party Pack from SweetGeorgia.

This is the Fading Point that I knit with Hedgehog Sock.

Beth decided to bake cupcakes yesterday afternoon. Dad came for dinner and after we ate Beth was going to ice the cupcakes. Dad decided that he wanted in on the fun. We've created a monster. There are going to be more cupcakes baked this week.

Something to look forward to. Mark the date - we are planning great things for LYS Day. There will be special LYS Day patterns. Yarn dyers are dying special LYS Day colours. Pop up shops are planned. One is already scheduled with a Canadian bag maker and I'm planning more.

I'm ready to cast off my Throwback. Yarn and scissors should meet tomorrow.