Friday, July 18, 2014

Intro: Dreap

Another inside look at the second pair of designs of the Enchanted Garden ebook:

Dreap  (Gaelic meaning: climb)

The ivy trellis stranded colorwork pattern is fun and playful. As the ivy climbs along one side, the trellis climbs the other. The infinity scarf starts with a provisional cast-on. The stranded color is worked in the round with purl edge to allow the scarf tube to lay flat. Ivy shows on one side and trellis on the other. The mittens fall in line with the same theme. The cuff is a simple one-by-one rib, but the yellow is introduced to give a little pop of color and for the budding flowers that grow. These buds are applied to both pieces after completion with modified embroidery technique called the French knot.

dreap-sketcj

Sketching for my patterns has become a true passion for me. My ideal photo shoot will be to mimic this pose. Although It wont happen because while in the middle designing this pattern I came to harsh reality that a double thick color work infinity scarf would set the wearer on fire and also make it too bulky to actually wear comfortably. So, ultimately the pattern became a cowl instead. Yes, the knitter can customize the pattern by adding more length, if they so choose.

Friday, July 04, 2014

Dreap Swatch

The next 2 patterns for the Enchanted Garden ebook are designed in this color scheme:

Dreap-colorpallet

This yarn is the Knit Picks Wool of Andes Sport that comes is a wide selection to choose from. When I started working with this yarn it was giving me all kinds of problems. Yet it wasn't the yarns fault. When working two colors in stranded knitting you need to increase your needle size to accommodate the for the extra bulk. I was so much happier once I went up a needle size.

See, even designers sometimes have 'Duh' moments. Yeah, I had to rip back 6 inches of work, but ultimately the yarn was happy and so was I.

Here is a snippet of the swatch:

Dreap-swatch-sample

Love these colors together! Kind of makes me swoon just a little. There was some design alts right in the middle of this project, which you'll here about next time.

Happy Knitting!