Lee Does Stuff

New pattern: Biratu, a cabled shawl

Cables! Shawls! Cabled shawls! Let’s go!

Biratu is here! Using the same basic construction as Betiko, all modular, no picked up stitches, no seaming, just short rows, increases, and decreases. And cables!

If you like it, and feel up to the possible knitting challenge (it’s not exactly hard, really, just a lot to keep track of!), you can knit the fully cabled version…

…but if you prefer a more simple style, or you want to ease into the design, or you want to use any weight yarn, or get a different custom shape, there’s the simple variation!

The simple one has cables only around the edges, with stockinette and seed stitch worked in the body, and it can be made in any weight yarn with more custom sizing options. My sample here is in Quince & Co Lark worsted weight yarn (3 skeins frost with 1 skein split pea for the edging):

This sample is the medium size, as given in the pattern – the pattern gives small{medium, large} sizes, and then explains how you can get any size you want, and adjust the shape as well, making it longer or deeper/taller, fitted to your shawl style preference.

For the simple variation, you can work the cables from charts or from written cable patterns, your choice.

You can get really different looks depending on your weight choice – my wonderful test knitters made this shawl in weights ranging super bulky to aran to worsted to dk to fingering, for a range of different cable braid thicknesses and fabric qualities. Fun!

As for the fully cabled shawl, that is designed to be knit in aran weight, but it’s definitely flexible. It’s pretty freaking huge, so you can easily make it in worsted and still get a good size cable-tastic shawl. In fact, Maria tested it in worsted just to be sure, and it looks lovely.

My sample is the standard aran weight gauge, in Quince & Co Osprey (3 skeins in storm with 1 skein frank’s plum for edging), in the medium size. The pattern gives small{medium, large} sizes (which are different measurements from the simple variation), but you can basically just keep knitting the main body section until you like the size and choose to stop, or until your yarn runs out.

The shaping of this one is different from the simple variation, as the first couple sections are not adjustable (since they must be a set stitch count for the cables), so the shape will always be fuller/taller, and the whole thing grows outwards in all directions for as big as you want. All the cable designs repeat, so there’s no set end point.

The medium is pretty darn large, as you can see – this shawl, with all of its twists and turns, is meant to be big to show off the cable designs, big and squishy and warm and fun to wrap up in!

The body cables for this shawl are charted only, not written out. A tutorial is included for cabling without a cable needle (and there’s my new video too!) – the cable descriptions are given as right/left, to make more sense without using a cable needle, and I also included cable needle directions, for accessibility to all knitters.

If you follow me on twitter, you may have noticed me crowd-sourcing for cable chart advice… I re-did my chart symbols several times throughout the building of this pattern, and I’m really happy with my end result. This pattern includes lots of uneven cables (not the same number of over and under stitches), which turned out to be really hard to represent with hand-made chart font symbols! Anyway, here’s a snippet (the grey gives some extra help by representing the number of top stitches in the off-balance twists):

Want to take a peek at my design process for this one? Well, I already told you about the chart re-do’s, that was a big (boring) part of creating this pattern, but as for the design itself, that took months of swatching! Oh man, so much design swatching! Here’s a look at my pile of swatches, which doesn’t even include alllll the first tries and ideas which failed and got frogged…

But it was all worth it, because after all the planning through my swatches – figuring out the cable designs, as well as how those cables would relate to the short rows in the construction, and to each other throughout the sections, etc – I was able to make the single samples of each of the two versions, with minimal frogging, and no wasted prototype sample knitting. (If you follow my blog, you know how I ~~usually~~ always have several prototypes to show you, as I work out a design by knitting it over and over!)

So yeah, I’m really happy with this design! It’s kind of outside of my normal design style / comfort zone, with all the intense cables, but I enjoyed designing it, and it was pleasing for me to take an old construction and use it in a new way!

In case you missed the Betiko post, this is part of a collection – there will be two more designs in the future which use the Betiko construction, so you can pre-order that now to get this design, Betiko, and the future slip-stitch colorwork design and lace shawl design. Both of those will also have complex patterns and simple variations included, like this one. (They will be more spread out, released in the later part of the year.)

Oh and in case you’re wondering, Betiko is a Basque name meaning eternal, as that shawl is forever customizable, so I decided to stick with a Basque naming theme for this collection – Biratu is a Basque word for twist or rotate, as cables do.

New leethal knits technique tutorials!

So after I finished all my recent leethalknits.com style/layout updates, I worked on improving my techniques tutorials section… including the addition of video! Yeah I know, knitting tutorial videos are nothing new and I should have started doing it long ago, but now that I have a quick+easy camera I plan to make more…

So I got all set up with an official leethal YouTube channel and uploaded my first video – let’s see if it’ll embed into my blog…

If you can’t see that here, just head to the youtube page or my cabling tutorials page – it’s a 9 minute long how-to on cabling without a cable needle, showing several different stitch counts. Please forgive all the moments of blur and stitches being worked off-screen – it was my first time using my new i-camera so I’m just getting used to it, and I was too eager to get this how-to made so I didn’t want to re-shoot everything over again… my videos will get better with practice!

In addition to the video, I made a new tutorial page for locking in carried yarn strands, while working with stripes over several rows, and/or stripes together with short rows. These are the techniques which are used in my Short Stripes Trio patterns (tutorials are included in those patterns) but they can be used in pretty much any project in which you want to carry yarns neatly along the back side and avoid lots of ends to weave in. The techniques might seem kind of complex at first, but once you pick up the needles and actually do it, it’s quick and easy!

I’ve also added other tutorials over the last several months, which I think I forgot to ever mention in the blog, so I’ll mention them now! I have tutorials for grafting both with stockinette stitch and with garter stitch…

…crochet provisional cast-on (below), and my older tutorials include the aforementioned cabling without a cable needle, twisted stitches, and make 1 increases. (Get to them all here.) If there are any of these that you’d reeeeally like to see a video for, let me know and I’ll see what I can do!

That’s my only announcement for now, but I’ll be releasing my new cabled shawl pattern later this week!

In case you missed it, I now have a mailing list (sign up on the leethalknits home page), so you can hear when I release new patterns without having to check the blog (or twitter, or ravelry…). Hooray!

(More peeks at the new shawl are on flickr if you want to see more!) Happy Tuesday!

Website makeover! Complete with new faq page, mailing list, and more…

There are more changes I’m still working on, but I just can’t wait to show you this huge update I’ve made to leethalknits.com! First, brand new home page:

Above is a screenshot on my big monitor, and below is in a smaller browser window – some of the background photos on the left may overlap too much on your screen, so just hit refresh to see a new photo if you can’t read things.

And now I’ll list all the new things…

Down there at the bottom right you can see that I’m starting a leethal knits mailing list! I’ll only be using it when I release a new pattern (or have some other big exciting news I suppose, but it’ll mostly just be pattern releases), and I’ll basically just link to the blog post for the pattern release, so it’s meant for if you want to be sure to learn about new patterns… I know how hard it is to keep up with blogs these days! (Sign up on the home page.)

New navigation! My patterns were outgrowing my old system, so now you can link from the home page to pages with all head accessories, all neck accessories, all hand/wrist accessories, all other accessories, and all quick knits, so that covers everything, plus I’ve put patterns in multiple accessory categories if they apply (like Game Knitting, Flying V’s, Haka). So you can find everything that way if you want to browse by pattern type…

…and I’ve also majorly updated my all patterns page, so that’s a more convenient way to browse as well. Now, not only are there the thumbnails for every pattern all on one page, but there’s also an alphabetical list of every accessory pattern down the side, plus links to all collections, solo patterns, free patterns, quick knits, all head, all neck, etc… so you can reach everything from this page (linked at the top of the home page).

New faq page! I’ve written up lots of questions + answers that I get from knitters, and/or that I see people saying, wondering, etc, in forums and stuff like that, or just that I want to say an answer for just in case anyone is wondering… it’s a wide variety of things, from “Something is weird with my knitting, this isn’t looking how it should, what am I doing wrong?” to “Can I test knit your patterns?” to “Did you get my email?” to “Where did you get your glasses?”. That last one is literally the most frequently asked question :-p

Also, update to my info page. I’ve added some fun new feedback quotes (they are all taken from ravelry project page notes, so I hope no one minds me quoting them!) – my personal favorite is “the pattern is wicked clevah” -Jennifer in Massachusetts. The other thing there that I’m really excited about is that I made a huge update to my list of shops that carry my patterns – I tripled it, since becoming distributed by Deep South Fibers, hooray!!

Those are the major changes. I made a bunch of minor formatting changes as well… Then, after uploading the update, I checked in with netrenderer to make sure everything looks fine in Internet Explorer, and I learned that I have some major font issues. So, if you’re viewing the site on IE, things won’t quite look how they look above (at least as I’m writing this on Wednesday night). I think it works fine on Chrome, Safari, Firefox, iOS. Anyway, I figured out what the problem was, and it is requiring a huge amount of behind-the-scenes code work to fix it, but it’s for the best since it was a result of sloppy coding decisions in the first place, and now I’m forced to fix things. I’m hoping to finish tonight, so probably by the time you’re reading this it’ll be fixed! The main reason I’m telling you is, well two things, first because all the coding changes I’m making are causing the site layout to change slightly, so the screenshots above aren’t going to exactly match what you see, and more importantly, since I’m making all these changes to every page of the whole site, there’s a chance I might miss something. So if you notice anything weird, especially any text that looks really wrong, please let me know! Thanks, all!

And besides all this, I’ll actually have another big website update happening within the next few days – new technique tutorials! So I’ll blog about that when it’s done, because I’m excited about some stuff I’ve been working on for that 🙂 (I’ll give you a hint… I just got an iPhone, and it has really good video quality!) So, I hope you have fun browsing the site for now, and remember to sign up for the mailing list if you like mailing lists, and I’ll drop in here again very soon!

New and improved Betiko shawl, plus upcoming collection!

The first shawl I designed, back in 2010, was Betiko (on rav), first released as a mystery knit-a-long, then as a long multi-part pattern, with the more simple garter stitch edged version…

…and the customizable pattern, with full instructions for the wavy version (below), detailed instructions for striping in any version, and for plugging in your own stitch patterns for the customizable pattern. All versions of the pattern for any weight yarn, and all custom-sizable… the original pattern, in my old pdf format, was 27 pages long and kind of overwhelming. So, I’ve given the pattern(s) an extreme makeover, re-formatted, lots of it re-written, new diagrams, fully re-edited and condensed into my new pdf format down to 14 pages (still a long pattern, but not as long!).

If you aren’t already familiar with Betiko, I’ll tell you a little more about it. It’s constructed in four modular sections, with no picked up stitches, no seaming, very few stitches cast on or bound off, everything connected with short rows. You start across the top edge, working the sideways edge cast-on technique to leave stitches along the side. Then you start working from those sideways stitches, down into the body of the shawl, working normal short rows to start forming the U shape. Now your base is established, so you start working around all stitches (no short rows in section 3), with lots of yarn over increases, all the way from top edge to edge to fill out the body. Lastly, you knit on a sideways edging around the whole outside, working short rows with decreases to bind off the stitches at the same time. The shawl blocks out to a big crescent shape; the exact shape (wider across, taller, etc) can be adjusted with custom sizing specifics.

If you’ve already made a Betiko, I’ll list some of the changes to the new pdf so you know what’s different now… Small{medium, large} sizes now given instead of smaller{larger}, with measurements for them all (there are still custom sizing notes as well); the customized cabled example is removed from the pdf, since I felt like it just took up unnecessary space and made things seem extra complicated; the diagrams are completely new; a couple changes were made to the actual pattern – wraps are now worked in the short rows in section 2, and the kfb increases in section 3 were removed (they were kind of pointless), and some other minor things. A short rows tutorial is now included as well. There are no longer the separate pdfs for the basic versions, since the new pattern is more condensed.

Now, I know that most knitters have no interest in the whole customizable thing, plugging in your own stitch patterns, planning it all out for all the sections… so, I’m using the Betiko construction as a base for a new collection of shawl designs! You can pre-order the Betiko collection right now (rav link), getting the Betiko pattern itself right away, and the first new pattern, a cabled shawl, in a few weeks. Then, later throughout the year, you’ll receive a slip-stitch colorwork shawl pattern, and a lace shawl pattern, all using the same modular construction.

All three of the new designs will include two versions each, to fully take advantage of the customizable nature of the Betiko construction (but each with their own specific patterns). For the cabled design, there is one fully cabled pattern (with cables worked throughout every section), which is for a set gauge (aran weight yarn) and less customizable with size (there’s a set number of stitches for sections 1 and 2, then you can work the full body section 3 for as big as you want, basically). And then there’s also a simple version of the pattern, with cables only worked around the edges (different designs for top edge and outer edge), which is for any weight yarn, and fully custom sized/shaped as you like. All the cable designs are charted, and then the edge cables are also written out, so if you make the simple version you’ll have a choice to work the cables from the charts or written.

The colorwork and lace designs will have similar versions – each with one complex, set gauge pattern, and then one more simple, any-gauge version. The colorwork shawl will be slip-stitch designs (no stranded colorwork)… I can’t really tell you any more about those future two since they aren’t yet designed 😉 Each pattern will be available individually for $6, or the four-pattern collection is $16.

If you follow me on twitter/instagram, then you’ve already seen these couple of peeks at the cabled design – I’m currently finishing up knitting the second sample, and then it’ll go out for testing and be released in a few weeks, definitely by the end of May. The other two patterns will be more spread out, so if you pre-order the collection, you can expect them further along into the year, a couple of exciting surprises in your inbox!

If you have already bought Betiko at any point in the last few years since it was released (first in mystery knit-a-long form then normally), then you can use coupon code betikoknitter to get the $6 you already paid off the price of the collection (knocking it down to $10 for the three new patterns!)… if the code doesn’t work for any reason (maybe because you bought Betiko with a different email address or rav/paypal account, etc), then just send me a quick email at leemeredith at gmail dot com and let me know the rav username or email that you used to buy Betiko, and I’ll send you a working discount code.

I hope you’re as excited about this collection as I am – it’s been so much fun to revisit the Betiko construction and go crazy with the cable designs in all the different parts! I’ve definitely gone further with cable design in this pattern than I ever have before, I can’t wait to reveal the whole thing!

Final Short Stripes Trio pattern: Robin the shawl!

The pattern was actually released a couple weeks ago, but I wanted to wait until I completed the whole ebook to do the blog post, and now I have! So, not only is the third Short Stripes Trio pattern out – Robin – but the whole set is also now all together in an ebook. The 20 page ebook (which you’ll get when you purchase the whole trio, along with all three individual pdfs) is condensed, one techniques section for all three patterns, fewer pictures, so it’ll take up a lot less space than the three separate pdfs (for tablet/ebook reader storage, that kind of thing). And to celebrate the completion of the Trio, how about a promotion?!

Now through the end of next week (April 19th), you can essentially preview the trio by buying any one of the three patterns, checking it out, deciding if you’re into it, then if you decide you love it and you do indeed want the whole set, you can get that $6 spent taken off the price of the Trio! And it’s valid for previously purchased trio patterns as well! Meaning, for example, if you bought Maurice a couple months ago when it was first released, then you saw Barry and Robin and thought, ah crap I shoulda bought the whole trio, now here’s your chance! You can use this preview sale to get the price of that Maurice pattern taken off the price of the trio.

So, here’s how it works… assuming you’re using your same ravelry account and/or email address to purchase the trio that you used for the first pattern, just add the trio to your shopping cart (through ravelry or my site), and enter the corresponding code into the coupon code box: mauricegibb if you bought Maurice, barrygibb if you bought Barry, or robingibb if you bought Robin. If for some reason this code doesn’t work (maybe you weren’t logged into ravelry when you bought the first pattern, or some other reason), simply send me a quick email at leemeredith at gmail dot com and tell me your rav username or email that you used to buy the first pattern, and I’ll send you a working coupon code for $6 off the trio.

So that’s that, now on to Robin the shawl! I’m so happy with how this design turned out!

It’s for any gauge, but it’s the same pattern regardless of your yarn weight, no swatching needed or math or anything complicated – you just start working at the bottom point, and go up and out and out and out until your shawl is the size you want, or until you run out of yarn!

You can make any size with any yarn weight, in either 2 or 3 colors, and you can get different shapes based on when you decide to finish and bind off, anywhere from a pretty much symmetrical curved triangle shape to a very asymmetrical curvy triangle. The pattern goes into detail about how to get the shape you want, modifications you can make to use up every last bit of yarn, and different ways you can finish, etc…

But don’t let any of that scare you because it’s really a simple pattern once you get the hang of it! Just lots of basic short rows in garter stitch, so you don’t even have to work the wraps together with the wrapped stitches. And a simple yarn over increase pattern along the sides.

There are some techniques used (with full photo tutorials included) for carrying your striping yarns along the back side of your shawl neatly, so you don’t have to weave in all those ends. Once you learn the techniques you’ll want to use them in all your stripy projects!

The two samples I made are in: Stonehedge Fiber Mill Shepherd’s Wool (which I have completely fallen in love with!!) worsted weight (MC is Lime Green, CC is Milk Chocolate) – it used up most of the 2 full skeins, about 457 yards/418 meters total (244 yards/223 meters green and 213 yards/195 meters brown)…

…and Sandnes Garn Alpakka, which is either sport or DK weight depending on where you look (MC is blue #6554, CC2 is pink #4611), and Brown Sheep Lanaloft sport weight (Celery). It used approximately 550 yards/503 meters total – 357 yards/326 meters in the blue MC, 68 yards/62 meters in the green CC1, and 125 yards/114 meters in the pink CC2. So that was 3 full skeins of the blue main color, right up to the last little bit, just barely over one full skein of the pink, and under one skein of the green. And so you know, the only reason I used a different yarn for the green was that I bought the 2 colors in the alpaca yarn, planning to do another 2 color shawl, then I did some more work on the design and decided to have there be a 3 color version, and since i wanted to get started right away I found the coordinating green in the same weight in my stash – I know I should have waited to go back to the shop to buy another color in the same yarn, but alas, I was impatient. I’m fine with how it looks, but I just wanted you to know there’s not some designer-y reason I used the other yarn, so there’s no need to copy me with that 😉

As usual with my any-gauge designs, I had my fabulous testers make versions in all different weights and yarn types, so you can see lots more samples by checking out the ravelry projects – including Valérie’s bulky self-striping version, Kristin’s and Jenifer’s and Lacey’s versions with variegated yarns, Maria’s aran weight version with a self-striping handspun yarn, and Maiya’s gorgeous madelinetosh fingering weight version! (That’s not all of them, just some which are significantly different from my samples – thank you to all my wonderful test knitters!!)

I think that’s all I have to say about Robin – if you are making one of your own, or any of the three Short Stripes Trio patterns, it would be great if you want to post it in the leethal knitters rav group knit-a-long thread! I can’t wait to see more versions in all different yarns and colors and personalities, yay!

Oh one last note… of course I had to name this design Robin, but it’s kind of a bummer name because there are so many Robins in the ravelry patterns database (in pattern names and designer names), so people are sometimes having issues linking up to my Robin, both in rav projects and in forum magic linking. Rav seems to find it easily if you type in “robin leethal” instead of just robin, or “robin-13” since that’s the url name… okay that’s really all I have to say now 🙂 Happy knitting!

East Coast Trip!! Wooo!

Okay so, Robin is out, the third pattern in my Short Stripes Trio (and it’s my first pattern ever to make it into the ravelry hot right now top 5, so it’s been a very exciting couple of days), but I’m here today for a different reason. I will be blogging about Robin in detail in a couple weeks, because…

I’m taking a trip! To New York! And Boston and other east coast cities! Pete has had a job for about 2.5 years now which has involved accumulating a ridiculous amount of flyer miles and hotel points, so he is cashing them out to fly us for free to the east coast, and stay for 8 nights in NYC and Boston for free!!

So, we’ll be hanging out in NY for about half the time, and spending the other half both in Boston and traveling a bit to Providence, and hopefully Portland, Maine, for a day each. Our plans are still fairly loose, especially with the details, like meals and shops to visit, etc, so any recommendations would be appreciated!! Of course I want to visit lots of yarn shops, but since this is a fun trip with Pete, I’ll try to keep it down to just the absolute best shops, and priorities for both of us are used records and books, good vegetarian food, and cool sites to see.

The last time I was in NY was 9 years ago with my mom (when I took these photos), and I loved it so much I actually had plans to move there after college, but those plans fell through, and everything worked out for the best, but I’ve wanted to go back to visit ever since! And I’ve never been to Boston, or Providence, or Portland, or anywhere else up in that region, so I’m supercrazy excited to explore it all and have east coast adventures!

So, I’m way behind on all the preparation stuff. We have a house sitter lined up, and I’ve released my new pattern, but other than those things crossed off the list, everything else is still to-do! I have big plans to make a couple pairs of leggings (using this awesome tutorial by Cal Patch!) and legwarmers (from recycled sweaters), and maybe even a new skirt… but we’ll see what I can squeeze into my weekend hours before we head out way too early on Monday morning! Wish me luck!

Barry the hat! My 100th pattern! (and a celebration sale!)

Pattern #2 of my leethal Short Stripes Trio is out! Barry the hat is for any weight yarn, with lots of options, variations, and modifications, so you can make it your perfect dream hat…

And hey, guess what, Barry was my 100th pattern added to ravelry!! So that’s exciting! So, I want to have some kind of sale-ish thing to celebrate, but since I just had a coupon code sale for my birthday less than a month ago, I’m going to try something different this time. Let’s work together to get more project photos up for my patterns!

You put up a ravelry project page for any of my patterns, with at least 1 photo, or add a photo to a previously photo-less project page, and I will send you a personalized coupon code for 25% off any/all of my patterns! But wait, it gets better! Put up two projects with photos, the discount code goes up to 35%! Three projects, and it goes up to 45%! Whoa there! That’s as high as I’ll go, but if you do put up more, then I’ll send multiple codes (so five projects = one 45% code and one 35% code) and then you can save one for later, or pass one on to a friend!

Ohmygosh and there’s still more! To encourage good photos, I’ll be handing out some additional larger coupon codes for my favorite photos – this will depend on how many there are to choose from, but I plan on choosing my top 3-5 to receive free pattern codes (something like first place gets $12, second place gets $9, third place gets $6). So shoot your things in natural lighting (if possible) and try to get it in focus and all that fun stuff 😉

This deal is only good for a few days – get your projects up by Monday night (west coast time) and you’ll get the codes. I’ll send out the coupon codes on Tuesday (via ravelry message) – I should be able to see all the photos go up on my designer end, but if it’s Tuesday night and you haven’t received your code, you might want to shoot me a message to make sure I saw your project. The discount codes themselves will stay valid for a long time (through the end of the year).

So that’s that, now on to Barry! Barry, like Maurice, has lots of variation options, but in different ways. Barry is written for any gauge, and it’s custom sized to your head by trying it on (or measuring it) while you work the first part sideways. So there’s no gauge swatching necessary, and you can pick out any weight to make any size!

You can close up the sides with buttons, or by sewing up the seam, and you can choose whether to use the same colors as main and contrasting yarns throughout the whole hat, or switch which is which, or even incorporate more than 2 yarns if you want to!

The standard hat is slouchy, but the pattern includes modification instructions for a shorter, non-slouchy size if you prefer:

There are also full instructions for making the garter stitch variation, like the red and blue one:

This hat is worked modularly with short rows, no picked up stitches, and no seaming if you make the buttoning version. A yarn-carrying technique is used which prevents the need to break the contrasting yarn and weave in a zillion ends, so the pattern includes a step-by-step photo tutorial for that, as well as instructions for other techniques used.

The hat is a bit on the complex side, as far as hats go, but it’s not hard, as long as you trust the pattern, read the notes, and just take it one step at a time. It goes quickly since the first section takes the longest, and it grows bigger as it moves along, and then the second section rows get shorter as the hat grows, so it speeds up and then you decrease in for the crown and it’s finished, bam! It really is a fun knit!

If you want to know details about each of my samples, they are all in the ravelry project pages – the main yellow sample is in wonderful Anzula For Better or Worsted; the self-striping+tweed is Classic Elite Liberty Wool and Berroco Blackstone Tweed (but I don’t recommend using these exact 2 yarns together because the weights differ too much – see project page for details); the garter stitch sample is Alpaca with a Twist Baby Twist; the short bulky sample is Brown Sheep Burly Spun and handspun. Also check out my fabulous test knitters’ versions in the project pages, great hats!

Which reminds me, even though all my samples are a little bit on the girly side, this hat design is totally gender neutral, as you can see with Maiya’s fantastic Barry for her man, love it!!

Oh yeah, and you can wear the buttoning version different ways by unfastening some of the buttons (do the same with the seamed version by leaving a slit at the bottom when you sew it closed)…

Barry is part of my Short Stripes Trio, along with Maurice, and I’m currently working on Robin, so if my in-progress prototype goes well then I’ll start posting some preview shots (on twitter/instagram/tumblr) soon. (The whole trio is $12; each pattern solo is $6.)

If you are knitting any of the Short Stripes patterns, come post about them in the knit-a-long thread of the leethal rav group! Okay, that’s all I can think of to say about Barry. I hope you like it! Happy knitting!!

Rose City Yarn Crawl and what I’m up to these days…

Hey Portland people, and everyone traveling to Portland for this weekend’s Rose City Yarn Crawl, I want to let you know I’ll be making a few appearances throughout the weekend and I’m excited to be a part of this whole thing! Yeah!

Besides having some patterns in the prize basket mix, I’ll be having trunk show events at both Twisted and Wynona Studios! First, on Thursday afternoon 12:30-2:30 at Twisted, I’ll be part of a co-trunk-show with my good buddy and designer extraordinaire Star Athena! I’ll have with me lots of assorted leethal knits pattern samples, and I’ll be there to answer questions, explain how my crazy things are constructed, talk about anything you want, etc, yay!

Then later on Thursday, I’ll be at Wynona (in Oregon City) to bring in trunk show items and to hang out at the Thursday night knit night 5:30-7, so come by there for some casual knitting times and recycled yarn shopping! “Recycled yarn shopping?”, you might be thinking… Yes! Wynona specializes in recycled yarns, so my Remixed patterns are a perfect fit! All my Remixed samples which were made from recycled yarns (which is most of them!) will be on display throughout the yarn crawl weekend, and print format versions of all Remixed patterns will be available! (Print format Remixed patterns are a brand new thing, by the way, so if you happen to work at a yarn shop or want to tell your LYS about them, they are available wholesale through Deep South Fibers! /end side-note.)

And then, on Saturday 4-7 I’ll be back at Wynona for the official Remixed trunk show event! So I’ll be hanging out, available for questions, to explain pattern stuff, talk about my use of recycled yarns, etc… I hope you can make it to one or more of these events!!

(All of those above photos show pattern samples which will be at one or both of the trunk shows!)

And for all of you lovely readers, I want to show you a peek at what I’ve been working on lately! If you follow me on twitter/tumblr/instagram you’ll have seen some peeks at the next design in the leethal Short Stripes Trio – Barry!

I’m now finishing up the final sample, with yet another variation, and I’m hoping to release the pattern 1 week from today, if all goes well. I won’t talk about it in detail here, but here you can see a few of the different options and how it’s super versatile, like Maurice.

If you love what you see here, you’ll automatically receive this pattern the moment it’s released if you get the whole Trio (on ravelry here), which will include Maurice right now, and Robin will be the final pattern in the future. All stripy short-rows accessory patterns. Yum!

We’re doing a Short Stripes Trio knit-a-long over in the leethal ravelry group (which has just surpassed 800 members, woo!), working on Maurice now – you can come and go at any time, post photos of patterns from the trio as you make them, and we can all knit short rows and stripes together, fun times! Some beautiful Maurices are being made!

And with that, I will leave you to get back to my work on Barry!

Convertible cowly sweater vest made from recycled sweaters!

I made a thing! My now-functioning studio made me itchy to make stuff, so the other day when I should have been working at the computer all day, instead I did a little digging through my reclaimed sweater stash, and made this! What is “this”? It’s a convertible cowl-neck sweater vest slash cowl slash shirt slash skirt…..? It’s a simple concept that I came across on pinterest/ravelry and have been eager to try out ever since!

First, to give credit… that pin which first introduced me to the idea had no source (the original wrong source led me to the pattern-less rav project page which helped me reverse engineer the shape; I’ve since edited the pin source and description), so I did some reverse google image searching and found that the pin image is a garment by Elementum, and can be seen in this video (4:40 minutes in).

A major design element of the inspiration garment is that it’s oversized – the baggy size is part of what allows it to be worn comfortably in all the different positions. Well, I wanted to try the idea, immediately, with what I had on hand. And what I had on hand were a couple of fitted-sized sweaters. So my version is the same concept as the inspiration, but fitted, for a pretty different look. (I plan to make another in the future, appropriately oversized.)

Also, one of the sweaters I had in my recycling stash had a kangaroo pocket, which I thought would make the garment even more awesome, right?! Well, sort of; it also makes it less versatile. So, don’t necessarily follow my every move with this tutorial – if you want the most convertible, comfy finished result, then go for big sweaters with no pockets. If you like mine exactly as it is, find a fitted sweater with a kangaroo pocket and you’re good to go!

A few more words on what to look for in your reclaimed sweaters… Sweaters knit seamlessly in the round would be ideal, but are rare to find at thrift stores, as almost all mass-produced sweaters have side seams. Seams aren’t a huge problem, but the more clean / less visible the seams, the better your garment will look worn in all the different possible positions. (It would also be easier to make without seams.)

Your two sweaters should be as close as possible to the same width – if one is a bit bigger than the other, then the slightly bigger one can just have slightly bigger arm-hole parts, not a big deal. But the closer in width, the better. As for gauge / stitch count – if you have two sweaters in the same gauge, the same width, for the same (or extremely close to the same) stitch counts, excellent! This would take some serious thrift store luck to happen though. Probably, the two sweaters you use will be different gauges, for different stitch counts. You’ll just need to do a little math to work decreases around the smaller gauge one so that they end up with similar stitch counts, it won’t be too hard.

A couple last notes – if you’re not a knitter, you can do this project without any knitting, by sewing everything together instead. It won’t be as neat, but it will work. Stitch around the armholes carefully so no stitches unravel, and sew the edges together (instead of grafting) securely, so everything stays together and nothing unravels.

If you are a knitter, and you’d prefer to just straight up knit this entire thing, that should be easy enough! You can see the shape here, a big tube with two big holes. Go for it!

Lastly, if you feel guilty using perfectly good sweaters for craft materials, then look at thrift stores for sweaters with stains or holes… flawed old used clothing at a thrift store is unlikely to be bought and appreciated by normal (read: non-crafty) shoppers, and if you craft with it, you’ll be giving it a brand new life! Crafting with reclaimed materials from thrift stores is a win-win for everybody, the way I see it! It’s not like there aren’t plenty of clothes still remaining on the racks for shoppers in need of cheap duds.

Now, on to the tutorial!

You need:

2 reclaimed sweaters, which are not felted (this means you can see the individual stitches, and will be able to unravel them and knit with them), as close as possible to the same width (around the body, under the armpits) – for my sample, one sweater is stockinette, and the other is ribbed; this worked nicely, but is not necessary, they can both be stockinette or both be ribbed (see notes above for sizing info)
scissors
2 circular needles, sized to work with the sweater gauges
paper and pencil, and a calculator, to figure out and make note of your numbers
a yarn needle for grafting

(I used a weirdly shaped sweater which had already had one arm removed for another project, and a sweater from my crafting stash that I got super cheap from a thrift store because the previous owner had sloppily cut the collar off to give it a scoop neck.)

Start by cutting straight across each sweater under the armpits. To make the right shaped garment, one tube should be shorter than the other; my orange sweater happened to be significantly shorter than my grey sweater, so I just cut under the armpits of both. If they are the same height, and/or if both your sweaters are big and oversized, cut one of them further down so that it’s shorter than the other. (Exact measurements are up to you!)

If cutting across stockinette stitch fabric, turn the sweater inside out, as it will be easier to cut perfectly straight across using the reverse stockinette stitch lines as a guideline:

Now you have 2 knit tubes, hopefully the same width, one a bit (or a lot, your choice) taller than the other (kangaroo pocket optional):

For each tube, stretch it out, to loosen up the stitches, then unravel the top 1 or 2 rows. You’ll end up with a pile of little yarn bits, as a result of cutting across, and the top row may have been snipped into accidentally. I find it’s easier to get the stitches onto the needle if I unravel 2 rows – those little yarn bits tend to stick in there when you rip out the first row, then they generally fall out with the second row. Once you’ve unraveled a row or two, and are left with a clean line of live stitches, slip all those stitches onto your circular needle.

Be careful to pick up all stitches in the seam area so they don’t end up unraveling later – you’ll probably need to do some extra snipping or fiddling around to get every stitch on the needle. If you end up taking out part of the seam stitching, that’s fine, as you can re-seam it up when you’re weaving in all your ends.

Hold on to the yarn strands that you unravel, as you’ll use them to finish the armholes and graft. You can also rip out a couple rows worth of yarn bits from the unused part of the sweater, if you need extra yarn.

Here’s when you’ll have to deal with stitch counts and gauge issues… I didn’t take photos of this part for my project, and it’ll probably be different for you anyway, so you’ll just have to figure it out for yourself with your particular sweaters. My fine-gauge orange ribbed sweater happened to be almost exactly twice as many stitches as the chunky grey sweater, making the math easy for me – I doubled up the yarn (held 2 strands together) and knit around, decreasing all stitches, for one row around the orange sweater, k2tog every stitch. It was 2×2 rib, so I k2tog the 2 knits, then k2tog the 2 purls. I could have k2tog the knits and p2tog the purls, but since I knew it would be grafted in stockinette, I just knit all the decreases. I did this at a loose tension, so it wouldn’t pull in. If you don’t luck out with such as even ratio of stitches to decrease, decrease evenly around one tube as needed to give your two tubes close to the same stitch count.

Now you’ll need to do a little math. First, you’ll need to figure out how big you want your armholes, and therefore how big your connected parts will be. The armholes should be big enough for your head to fit through, so at least 22 inches or so around, stretched. Each tube will have a line of stitches bound off for each half of each armhole. Make sense? So, each bind-off section should be approximately 11 inches (or more) across. (My sample, because the whole thing is so fitted, has smaller armholes – approximately 10 inches across each part, stretched, and juuuust barely fits over my head.)

Count all the stitches across, from seam to seam. Usually the stitch count will be slightly different on one side from the other – write everything down. My notes as I worked are shown below. My orange tube had 79 stitches on one side, 75 on the other; my grey tube had 71 stitches on one side, 69 on the other.

Determine how many stitches will be joined – the stitches not in the armholes. In the above sketch, this is x (x is the same on all sides of both tubes). This measurement depends on your total tube width, but it should be somewhere around the width across (when laying flat) minus 11 inches or so (armholes)… or somewhere near 2/3 of the total width. If your stitch counts for each side are all odd, choose an odd number, if they’re all even, choose an even number; if they are different, then you’ll need to adjust by having slightly different armhole bind-off stitch counts as needed. I decided my joined stitches would be 43 stitches (odd number).

Now, for each side (4 sides total – 2 tubes, 2 sides each tube), subtract the joining stitch count from the total stitch count, and then divide each of these numbers in half. (You can see in my notes, 79 minus 43 is 36, in half is 18; 75 minus 43 is 32, in half is 16, and so on.) These numbers are your bind-off stitch counts for each side of the armholes.

If you like algebra, then using the labeled sketch above, you need to find y and z values for each tube (different for the 2 tubes). x is your joining number (which you just decided) – so, total stitch count on the y side, minus x, divided by 2, is each y; total stitch count on the z side, minus x, divided by 2, is each z. y + z is the total armhole length (for the one tube – the y+z numbers for the two different tubes added together makes total armhole circumference stitch count).

Now that you know the stitch counts, make the armholes. On the first tube, with needle points at the seam, looking at the wrong side, slip the correct number of stitches to begin first armhole – slip the number that corresponds with the side you’re on. (Eg: with my numbers, if I’m slipping into the side which has 71 stitches across, then I need to slip 14 stitches for that section of the armhole. Or, using the variables, if you’re slipping into the y side of the tube, then slip y stitches.)

Knit across all armhole stitches – so, knit to seam, then knit correct number of stitches on other side of seam. (For mine, if I slipped 16 stitches, then I knit across those 16, then I’d continue knitting 18 on the other side of the seam. Using the variables, if you slipped y, then knit the y, now knit z.) Now bind off those just-knit stitches, loosely, purlwise – I recommend the decrease bind-off method. *Purl 2 together, pass just-purled stitch back onto left-hand needle without twisting it, repeat from *.

Repeat this for all 4 armhole parts, slipping stitches around the circular needle to get from one to the other. Keeping those center live stitches on the needle for the next step…

Now you should have two tubes that look like this, all 4 of those rows of stitches between bound-off parts with the same stitch count:

All you need to do now is graft those live stitches together, for a nice, clean join! If your tubes’ sides each had different stitch counts from each other, join the two sides which had higher stitch counts, and the two sides which had lower stitch counts. Hold the 2 rows of live stitches together, needles parallel, wrong sides facing, and thread some of the extra yarn (whichever is the more sturdy, less breakable yarn of the two) onto a blunt yarn needle – try to use a length of yarn at least 4 times as long as the line of stitches.

Head over to my (brand new!) full step-by-step photo tutorial in my leethalknits.com knitting tutorials for grafting instructions.

Once that’s done, on both sides, all that’s left to do is sew up any holes you might be left with (around the seams, maybe), and neatly weave in all those loose ends:

And here is my finished piece, shown inside out and folded sideways, and then right side out after washing:

And all the ways I can wear it! The standard way places that kangaroo pocket kind of awkwardly… I can pull it down when I put my hands in it:

The length is better with the cowl neck around my shoulders:

It’s a better look with the pocket hidden in back (proving that the pocket wasn’t the best idea…)

I love it as a cowl!

And then some of the other ways the inspiration piece was worn… I didn’t even bother photographing it worn upside down, since the small, fitted orange section as the body looks ridiculous. It doesn’t work so well sideways, because of both the pocket and the fit (or in the kind of halter top style):

But, because I made mine smaller and fitted, it can be worn a couple extra ways – as a skirt:

…and as a weird tube sweater thing, haha. I had fun playing around with the different ways.

Anyway, conclusion on my end, try again with bigger sweaters and no pockets, and it should be awesomesauce. If you use the tutorial to make your own, I’d love to see it! I have this flickr group that I tend to forget about, but you can stick a photo in there to share! Happy crafting!!

New pattern: Maurice! A third of the Short Stripes Trio!

New pattern, and new collection concept! Today’s cowl pattern – Maurice – is part of a pattern trio, with the second and third patterns on their way within the next couple months…

This idea developed when I started brainstorming about a design concept that I wanted to play with in different ways, but not let one single design get too out of control complex, like I can tend to do sometimes. I wanted to try to steer myself to design slightly more simple patterns, so I figured if I planned three different designs around one idea, then I could really explore that idea, taking it in three different directions. Three seemed like the perfect number, enough room to play around, but not too many designs so that I’d get bored with the idea by the end.

I’m loving the trio concept so far. I actually first started on a completely different trio, when the concept originated, which is still in the works, but then I got sidetracked by wanting to play with short rows and stripes, and the leethal Short Stripes Trio was the first to actually come to be!

So, there will eventually be three accessory patterns, for three different objects, each featuring short rows and stripes. There will be some overlap with techniques and themes, but the three designs will definitely stand out on their own… and chances are, if you like this first one, you’ll like all three!

The way the trio collection functions is: Maurice is currently available, alone for $6, or as part of the trio for $12. Buy the whole trio now, get Maurice immediately, and have Barry and Robin delivered straight to your inbox as soon as they’re released. (All three patterns will be $6 individually.)

And yeah, with the naming, “trio”, get it? I’ve done way too much brainstorming about future trio pattern names!

Moving on to Maurice specifically… as you’ve been seeing, it’s a cowl that can be made in three different versions – narrow, wide, and long loop. All the versions can be small, medium, or large, and there are lots of detailed modification notes for making any size you want in any gauge you want. The pattern is written for a recommended gauge of aran weight yarn at 3.25 sts/inch, but you can use the mods to use any yarn you want!

The striping pattern is designed to stripe between two colors in each section, and you can stick to the same two colors for the whole thing, or switch to new contrasting colors for each section. The narrow cowl and long loop versions have two (symmetrical) sections, and the wide cowl has three (asymmetrical) sections. There are also modification notes for working with colors in different ways, if you want to really do your own thing!

There are also photo tutorials included for carrying yarn neatly between short rows, and switching yarns to avoid holes. Once you get the hang of that stuff, after going through the repeat pattern once or twice, it becomes a really easy, quick, fun knit! I had no problem making 5 samples because they were such fast moving tv/movie knitting projects, and I’m not a fast knitter. (Actually I made 6, because my first pattern for the long loop version wasn’t right, but I liked the wrong sample too much to frog it – I’ll put that up as a rav project after I weave in the ends and take photos…)

I made samples of the narrow version in small and medium, the wide version in small and large, and the long loop in small; a bunch of awesome test knitters made a wide variety of different versions, several with modifications, so check out the rav projects to see those! Thank you so much, my fantastic testers!!

That’s about all I can think of to say about Maurice… the yardage estimates and other details are all listed on the pattern page. I’m currently working on the second trio pattern and I’m really excited about it – I should be to the point where I can start showing you sneak peeks (on twitter, instagram, tumblr) within a couple days!

(If you’re reading this by February 11th, my birthday coupon code is still valid, so you can save 31% off Maurice or the whole Short Stripes Trio!)