Merry Christmas, Joyeux Noel, Happy Hanukah, Blessings, or however your culture may celebrate or note the passing of the Winter Solstice. I have noted that most of the celebrations involve gifts. So here is my gift to you. For the month of December and until Midnight of Jan 1, 2026, the Arrow Slouch will be available for free on Ravelry.
A beautiful yarn and a simple repeating lace pattern combine to make this soft slouch. The Arrow pattern repeats up the hat to the crown shaping. This creates soft points and folds as the stitches decrease to the optional I-cord Finish. The pattern repeat is small enough to offer a multiple of sizes so you can pick the head circumference and depth that best suits you. The size shown is a X-large on a medium head.
The Arrow Lace pattern grows from a knit3, purl3 ribbing that is deep enough to offer a nice contrast to the lace pattern.
Pattern is both written and charted.
The yarn shown is WOOLFOLK TYND! It is a gorgeously soft merino and just begs to be knit into something soft and Oh so touchable! Just like the Arrow Slouch!
Knit Happy
Lynette
Does your tea need a Seasonal Cozy? Cozy Bells is waiting for you to knit.
This the beginning of the Christmas Season for many of us. Especially those of us in retail. As I work at my LYS I need to get my Christmas Mojo in place and be ready to help those who need my help, either with gifting ideas or help in sorting out problems with finishing those special things.
I love this time of the year. It doesn’t matter what you celebrate or how you celebrate, most cultures celebrate the Winter Solstice in some way. Christmas, Hanukah, Kwanza, Soltice or Saturnalia, they are celebrations of joy and sharing! And an acknowledgement that the longest night of the year has come and gone. So every year I like to share a pattern through Ravelry or here on the blog (now that I know how! LOL!) So here is my gift to you free for the month of December and running through early January!
I was thinking about this and realizing that for the Southern hemisphere this will the shortest night of the year! Still any excuse to celebrate is a good one!
I thing that Cyclone is a good basic hat pattern. Not too fussy, will look effective in alsomost any colour and it notes the kind of year that many of us have had! Chaotic and cyclonic. So I made it my Christmas pattern. It will be free for the month of December and going into early January.
The stitch pattern is a fairly straight forward mosaic stitch. I love mosaic stitching because you are never working more than one colour at a time! No carries! Because of the size of the mosaic pattern there is really only one size, but notes are included to adjust the size a little up or down to accommodate larger or smaller adult/teen size heads.
Just to be different there will be a couple of free patterns this year. I turn sixty-five this month as well. So I am going to celebrate that too! And no, retirement is not part of my plans. After all, I am already working at what I love. So, I would like offer up another pattern for free for the month!
Cozy Bells is a tea-cozy designed to celebrate Christmas every day of the Year. The bells will jingle softly as the tea is poured and your tea will remain warm for quite a white! I recommend printing this pattern in colour as there are many how to pictures to go along with the embellishing.
Life has been rough for the bulk of the year so I am seizing this moment to share some joy! I hope that you like the patterns and will take this opportunity to try them out.
On a sad note, Sophie, our beautiful beagle passed away last week. She was thirteen and had lived a good life. She was always happy, tail wagging at every greeting and never, ever, passed up a treat that came her way. She was loved by all who knew her and never met anyone she didn’t like. She is missed every day.
At work we are starting to organize our ideas for next years classes. And I am going to offer up a “Year of Hats”. A series of workshops, each one about a hat, or headgear of some type. There will be different weights, different techniques and yarns to work with. Quite a few are already done. There will be a blog post, maybe next weekend, all about this project.
I am really excited about the turquoise item below – the technique is colourwork slip stitching! You a never working with more than one colour! I am working with several colours of Patagonia Organic Merino. Wouldn’t it look great with the drops done in a hand-dyed yarn? What do you think?
I am also going to resurrect a few of my older projects. Things that I really want to finish – either patterns or projects. A mixture of both! You can see that I am setting up my New Years’ resolutions as I work my way through this!
Squared Away Blanket – I umm started it before Logan was born, 9 years ago. Maybe next year….And I really want to get back to my Dress.https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/knit-a-dress-with-meAnd these gloves – there are so many patterns I need to finish!A Sweater for me…A new use for reinforcing yarn…
I am playing with a new yarn – Cedre, by Waxwing Yarn Co.. This is an all Canadian endeavor. The yarns are sourced and scoured in Ontario. Then they are spun in Quebec.
Cedre is a woolen spun single, I would call it a solid 4-ply in weight. It has a lovely roundness to it and is very springy. I am putting it through its paces while working this mini poncho. I started with a 2.75mm and have settled on a 3.75mm for the body. The stitch definition is crisp, even at this needle size and I can hardly wait to finish this project. I want to see how it reacts to blocking.
OK, life here has been a bit chaotic! How about where you are at? Here are a few Sunday ramblings to share.
I have been productive though. Jingle Gnome Chapeau and Mittens is up on Ravelry. One of my students, Christine, brought in her finished Chapeau! I love her colour choices!
And this morning I added the Turbulence Beanie to Ravelry. Use the code Turbulence to download the pattern for half price! The code is good until midnight October 31/24.
It started as I was rummaging through my stash and stumbled upon this lone skein of Ancient ArtsSuperwash DK Merino, in the Water Lily Colourway! Apparently I needed to knit this skein, like right away! Because I could see the finished beanie, before I even started! I am really loving the results.
I know that it is a bit early to start thinking about Christmas. But a great many knitters I know think about Christmas ALL year long! What we are going to knit and who we are going to knit for! So here I am knitting something for Christmas.
Though it certainly doesn’t look much like Christmas right now. The skies are grey and the rain is pouring down. I have a beef soup stock simmering on the stove and I am thinking about making some shortbread cookies… So maybe it doesn’t need to look like Christmas to think Christmas thoughts!
I working on a Christmas Tea Cozy for my last class before Christmas! I have just started the basic body. I think that it is going to be so cute! I can see it with a poinsettia and holly and berries, maybe some small ornaments on the top….
Have you started thinking about Christmas?
Are you a tea drinker? Maybe you need a new cozy? Maybe a Christmas Cozy? Or even a Dancer Cozy? That pattern will be coming soon! It is almost complete!
Be Well, Knit Happy, Winter is on its way! With many knitting opportunities just starting to show on the horizon!
Would you like to learn how to knit a tea cozy like this?
I love to knit tea cozies.
This is a different yarn from the usual. Ray Gentleman, whom I work with, challenged, suggested, put an idea out there about creating a West Coast Cozy with the Prairie Sea Fusion from Custom Woolen Mills.
The idea stuck in my head and I had to knit it out!
So, if you take the class you will make this charmer of a cozy. You will also learn how to strand the yarn in the proper way for a West Coast knit. Oh and look at that fringe! Learn how to finish the cozy with the fringe on top…
This is The Dancer Cozy. I am quite enamoured with it.
A few years ago I started designing with the Cowichan style of wools. Nowadays that includes Briggs and Little Country Roving, Prairie Wool and Prairie Sea Fusion by Custom Woolen Mills. At the store we were always being asked for the Cowichan patterns, which were really the old White Buffalo and Mary Maxim patterns, not the true West Coast patterns. Those are the intellectual property of the original knitters.
I try to create patterns respectful of the past and the present motifs of the West Coast. They reflect my lifetime of living, mostly on the Coast but also in northern Canada and Malaysia. The OOkpik childs set is based on a childhood memory, a small stuffed snowy owl that my father had given me, named OOkpik. I designed and knit that set for my Grandson. The Standing Tall Gauntlets are based on memories of the gauntlets I wore when living in Northern Manitoba. You needed that extra heavy layer over the basic mittens or gloves – it was cold up there!
The Dancer Cozy reminds of both the Button Blanket dances of the West Coast and the Shadow Puppets of the Malaysian Peninsula. The shapes are both stylized and simplified, taken right down to suggestion and imagination.
The Spirit Bear will be my next sweater pattern release in the Salish Sea Collection.
