Le Tissier Designs

Of Larks and Linnets and Flying Fingers

Tag: knitting

  • It’s Sunday

    It’s Sunday

    So it must be a good day to release a new pattern. Meet Pinecones Cowl. A fast and easy knit for you or for a gift. Infinitely versatile and can be used to try out a new technique – pooling.

    The pooling cowl is for me! My favourite colours all in one easy to wear piece. A rare photo of me (I never like pictures of me). wearing the pooling cowl.

    Elise and I got together this morning for a quick photo shoot! In the rain! But it was fun and went well. I love to photograph my knits in different lights and at different times of the day. Morning light, on grey days is my favourite, there just seems to be a freshness about it – the colours seem to come out better.

    The simpler version of the Plumier stole knit with Handmaiden Flyss.

    We were getting pictures of the Pinecones Cowl and of the Plumier Stole, a new pattern that will be ready in two or three weeks. There will be two versions. One version, a little simpler, was knit with Handmaiden Flyss and my favourite version, which is a little bit more challenging but I love the effect. Knit in two colours of BC Garn Bio Shetland. The lace patterns used are all Shetland in origin, my favourite style of lace if I had to pick a favourite! Really I haven’t met a lace pattern that hasn’t called to me in some way! LOL!)

    Plumier Stole – knit with BC Garn Bio Shetland – the colours are little brighter than reality.

    Today we are going to pick some rhubarb from the garden and I am going to make rhubarb strawberry pie – a favourite around here. How do you like your pie? Do you prefer it plain or serve it with whipping cream or ice-cream? We go both ways in our household.

    Rhubarb from the garden and purchased Strawberries. It should be the perfect temperature come dessert time.

    Well the pattern is up on Ravelry and the kettle is on for tea. The pie is out of the oven and I am ready to sit down and knit for a couple of moments before I contemplate making dinner.

    What’s for dinner at your house? Today I am cooking a roast. Sunday I always try to cook something that will produce enough leftovers for at least one meal – keeps life easier after work.

    Be well and Knit Happy!

    Lynette

  • Memories Shawl

    Memories Shawl

    Memories last forever – even when we don’t want them too! But the good memories, the ones you never want to lose, never want tarnished or never want shadowed, are the ones we cling too!

    Memories Shawl is to celebrate those memories – a gift from a special friend to commemorate an important event. A visit to an amazing yarn store while on Vacation; with a yarn you had never seen before in a colour that just made you drool! We all have those yarns in our stash! I will remember the event and the people I met every time I wrap myself in the Rhinebeck Shawl.

    Rhinebeck Shawl

    Memories Shawl is designed to take advantage of multiple skeins of yarn. Maybe two skeins that are similar or two the same, or three the same. Some of those skeins might not show lace as well as we want – the pattern in these shawls is small and repeating, perfect for a highly coloured yarn. It is the edgings that need to be more subtle. They will set off the body of the shawl – in all its coloured glory.

    Rhinebeck shawl was made with a larger skein of hand-dyed yarn so the body is bigger and the lace edging is more intricate, because it was for me and my love of lace knitting.

    The B.C. Shawl is smaller and celebrates where I live! Something I know you can all relate too. Most of us have a place that means more to us than anything – a place in the past or the right “now” place.

    B.C. Memories

    The B.C. shawl was made with smaller hanks of yarn and was embellished with buttons. You know how much I love embellishments. But you can knit it plain, the knitting itself is fairly simple and not a bad option for a beginning lace knitter with a little experience under their belt. The edging gets its impact for the sharply defined edge and pop of colour – not an intricate lace pattern.

    The Memories Shawl is the latest release in the ebook – Just Playing Around.

    Be Well and Knit Happy!

    Lynette

    It was a good week, making more memories.

    Night Sky this week at bedtime.
  • Another Sunday, Another Pattern

    Another Sunday, Another Pattern

    Meet the Big Leaf Maple -Cowl and Toque. Knit with Handmaiden Flouf, on big needles – they are a quick and fun knit.

    Both items are knit in the round and from the top down. The big leaf stitch is a type of drawn stitch and the post here has a video that I did to show how to knit the stitch.

    Just Playing Around will be available at half price for just another evening. By around 9:00am pacific time the price will revert to the full price of $24.00.

    It has been a wonderfully sunny weekend here and I have spent a lot of time in the back Garden. We spend a lot of time here in the Summer.

    Where do you spend a lot of your Summer Time, well your free time anyway? On your Deck? In a your Garden? In a park? Out in the woods? We all have our favourite places, I hope to share some of mine with you!

    Be well and Knit Happy!

    Lynette

    Another pattern to be released soon! Elise and I had some fun with a photo shoot this morning.

    Crystalline
  • Drawing the Big Leaf

    Drawing the Big Leaf

    Video is approximately 3 min long. Watch and learn how to “draw” the motif for the Big Leaf Maple Cowl and Hat.

    Big Maple Cowl and Hat is worked in a “drawn” stitch in that the contrast yarns are drawn through an eyelet pattern created in the rows or rounds before the contrast colour is introduced. I was really taken with this technique as it creates another layer of colour over our base.

    This technique is some times called knitting into stitches below, though I think that drawn stitches better describes the technique as we are not really creating stitches, just loops. The yarn used is not really knit to begin with, just pulled through holes in our knitting and then knit together to gather and close the stitch.

    There will be a few more patterns in the Just Playing Around Ebook that will feature this stitch.

    Heading into Fall

    It always amazes me how much certain knit stitches can look like like flowers, or leaves or other natural shapes. Norah Gaughan really explored that concept in her book Knitting Nature.

    The Big Leaf Maple is a species of Maple that we see on Vancouver Island. I see it on all of my favourite walks and at all times of the year. It is truly a beautiful tree at all times but its leaves are immense – more than 12 inches across and perfectly formed, just as nature intended.

    This stitch was just a stitch until one day I saw it as a maple leaf now that is all I can see. I hope that you see it too!

    Turn on your speaker as you watch the video and you can hear my explanation as I knit and a little cursing as I correct myself!

    Be well and Knit Happy!

    Lynette

  • #Never Not Knitting

    #Never Not Knitting

    Is a hashtag that I use all the time, because, you know, I knit all of the time! LOL!

    As a crafter I really appreciate the hand work of other makers, like this gorgeous Pear Wood bowl by Terry Marshall of Bowled Over Woodturning. Sorry he is not on the Internet, but his bowls can be found at Mad About Ewe Fine Yarns.

    Not a yarn bowl, but a notions bowl, something to keep all my bits and bobs in line. Made of Pear wood with brass filings filling a crack in the bottom of the bowl.. Very cool..

    This week I have been working on the eb00k, Just Playing Around. and today I added two hat patterns to the book. Just Playing around is still available at half price until May 14th or 15th.

    Practically Perfect and Perfectly Practical, a aran weight simple cap that is a free download for all. Knit with Noro Kureyon.

    And Medieval Star, a classic toque with a romantic brim. Knit with Drops Alpaca Boucle and BC Garn Loch Lomond GOTS.

    I started a pooling project for the Just Playing Around ebook as well. Have you ever tried pooling – it is deliberately setting up your hand-dyed yarn to stack and form columns of glorious clear colour.

    Pooling with Llama Lace and Pine Cone lace pattern.

    Jana, my test knitter has finished her version of the stole, Plumier 2 and now I need to finish my version, Plumier 1! No rest for the wicked. Plumier 2 is knit with Handmaiden and Fleece Artist Flyss in the Tourmaline Colourway – look for this pattern to come out sometime early June.

    BC Garn Bio Shetland GOTS for Plumier 2. I am well into the second half, but still have about 2-3 weeks of knitting left.

    So that is what I am up to! What about yourselves? I hope that you are all making up a storm of things to eat, wear and share!

    Be Well and Knit Happy!

    Lynette

    A beautiful Pink Dogwood Bloom to celebrate this glorious Spring Day.

  • Flat Iron Hat and Mitts

    Flat Iron Hat and Mitts

    The third pattern has just been added to my Ebook – Just Playing Around.

    Flat Iron was knit with Ancient Arts Lascaux Fine Fingering. This heathered yarn adds a great depth to the cabled pattern. I like this yarn so much that you will see another hat in the collection knit with the same yarn.

    Lascaux Fine / Lascaux Fine 50’s – 25% Manx Loaghtan/75% Punta Arenas Wool

    Lascaux Fine 50’s – 175 meters / 192 yards per 50 gram / 1.75 oz skein

    Lascaux Fine 100 – 350 meters / 385 yards per 100 gram / 3.5 oz skein

    Gauge: 25 – 30 sts / 4 inches (10 cm) US 1.5 – 2.5 or 2.5 – 3.0 mm

    Lascaux Fine is a delightful blend of heritage and modern sheep fibre spun into a 2-ply fingering weight yarn which is perfect for stranded colourwork projects.

    The heritage breed sheep is Manx Loaghtan, found only on the Isle of Mann, and the modern breed is the Punta Arenas from South America. The natural colour of this yarn is a light brown, so it has a heathered undertone when it is dyed, and although it looks rustic, it actually knits up exceptionally soft! This is a great yarn that feels wonderful against the skin, making it suitable for garments like mitts, sweaters and even lace shawls!

    Note: Lascaux has it’s own unique colour palette due to the natural colour of the yarn. 

    Ancient Arts
    Flat Iron Hat – knit with Ancient Arts Lascaux Fine
    I played around with the photo to really highlight the shading of the yarn witch did affect the colour somewhat!

    The hat and mittens make a great set and take only one skein of yarn.

    Be well and Knit Happy!

    Lynette

  • Just Playing Around

    Just Playing Around

    Today is the release date of the Just Playing Around E-book.

    This is an ongoing project with a new pattern or two being released every week or so. The focus is on playing with our stash yarns – or lets face it – that new yarn that you have just fallen in love with.

    There will be patterns and small articles about the yarns we love. We will be exploring techniques that use up odd balls of stash and those bits of beautiful leftovers that we just couldn’t throw away.

    Techniques will in include stranded and fair-isle knitting, mosaic knitting, textural knitting, lace knitting and and a few embellishment knitting styles including working with beads or buttons, three dimensional shaping and embroidery style knit stitches.

    Projects will include a couple a lace shawls, a vest (maybe two), several hats, cowls, shrugs and mittens.

    There will be two projects released this week. A stranded hat called Flower Power – my personal nickname for it is “Mod Squad”, and an older shawl pattern of mine called Peace, Love and Understanding.

    Both projects focus on using stash yarns, usually single hanks or smaller quantities of yarn that we just couldn’t let go or mini skeins that we loved but don’t know quite what to do with.

    If you have a collection of bits and pieces of fingering, sport, dk, worsted weight, chunky or bulky yarn in your stash, you can knit a hat or a pair of fingerless mittens or any number of small things that can be knit with the yarns you pull from your stash. And we all have that collection.

    I hope that you like what you see! A sneak peak at some of what is coming.

    Be well and knit happy!

    Lynette

    Neck Point Nanaimo, Morning Walk
  • It’s Been a Long Haul

    It’s Been a Long Haul

    I know we are all saying it, but I am going to say it anyway – I am so tired of Covid!

    The First Camellia of the Spring

    March was a bad month, My computer died, several files were corrupted. I lost all my contacts, all my original pattern charts. I had to re-load the pattern program but that didn’t remake my original charts. Many Thanks to StitchMastery for their help. I felt totally frustrated and overwhelmed for a while. I even didn’t feel like knitting.

    I am, I think, back on track, much more my normal self. April is turning out to be not too bad!

    Good morning from Maffeo Sutton walk way sometime last week.

    For those of you who were at the Mad About Ewe Retreat 2020 – Diamonds are a Knits Best Friend – please contact me re receiving the finished, fixed and updated pattern.

    I took this last week off of work and knocked a couple of things off of the too do list.

    I finally released last years Retreat patterns – they are half price on Ravelry until April 21, Diamonds are a Knits’ Best Friend. Use the code Retreat2020.

    We built and filled two small raised garden beds and we are going to finish off the brick paths in the herb garden I started quite, ahem, a few years ago (never did finish the bricks then). No plants as yet, it is still a little chilly but next week I am planting spinach and pea seeds. I like to cook, maybe it is time to grown a few fresh vegetables to add to the table.

    I rested, went for a few walks, read a little and planned at lot. I may or may not have knit a little!

    We were walking at Morden Colliery Park yesterday morning – what a gorgeous walk. The weather was perfect. There were still raindrops on the Trilliums, and the happy Skunk Cabbage was in full bloom. They have just finished a bit or restoration on the tipple – well worth the time.

    So …..what’s next?

    I am working on another e-book. This one about colour and texture, working with hand-dyed yarn, stash busting and various takes on those themes. The projects will include hats, shawls, fingerless mittens, cowls, a vest, and a tea cozy. The techniques will include cables, stranding, lace work, embellishing with beads and buttons, knitted embellishments in the form of fancy stitches and of course full on three dimensional knitted embellishments. Tea Cozy anyone?

    The focus will be on Stash Busting to use up either single hanks of yarn, or single hanks paired with other single hanks. Stash busting up bits of left over colours in the same weight. Stash busting odd balls of yarn in unusual colours or textures for special effects.

    What are the most prolific odd balls in our stash – well in my stash – they are the hand-dyed yarns. The absolutely gorgeous colourway that you fell in love with or were gifted with or have for what ever the reason, it sits in your stash waiting to be used, maybe one of these patterns is the perfect one!

    There will of course be exceptions! And you know that the first rule of stash busting is that you generally have to purchase more yarn! LOL!

    As well as the patterns there will be a couple of written articles about the yarns we could be using and about the techniques I am sharing – so I am expanding the scope of my efforts to include some real writing – I will try not to bore you all!

    Be well and knit happy!

    Lynette

  • A New Pattern on the Way!

    A New Pattern on the Way!

    Why knit one hat when you can knit three?! I have really been loving knitting hats lately! And I can’t seem to stop – though I have this new idea for another shawl niggling in the the back of my mind!

    I love the new wools I have been playing with, BC Garn Bio Shetland and now this new one from Ancient Arts Yarns, Lascaux Fine. I knit up a little cabled hat this week, I think that I am going to knit up some co-ordinating fingerless mittens as well!

    Lascaux Fine is an intriguing blend of Manx Laoghtan wool and Punta Arenas Wool. Manx is an old breed – lots of horns and brown toned wool. Punta Arenas is a new breed and is a merino variant.

    Together they create a wool that handdyes with a heathered brown undertone. Very rich and deep colours that blend beautifully!

    Aren’t they wild?

    Flatiron – cables and twisted mini cable flat ribs. Check out the brown heathering.

    The colour is very hard to capture with a camera, it is really more green than blue. But I think that you can see the richness. Ancient Arts is having a sweet giveaway of this yarn right now on facebook and instagram. It is open until midnight tonight!

    There was no baking this weekend. I did contemplate brownies, maybe next weekend. But the knitting, and the Superbowl (a great excuse for knitting) won out.

    I am working on another hat in the bio shetland (this will be my third hat in the Bio Shetland) and I really want it done for next weekend – its called Valentino for obvious reasons – but why is it when you set yourself a deadline – everything conspires to make sure that it will be a challenge. My next move on the hat will be frogging the last 7 rounds. Such is life.

    Valentino under construction – before ripping back!

    It was a gorgeous day yesterday we went walking at Divers Lake. They have done a lot of work there recently. The Cedar walkways were so fresh and aromatic, they added a lovely scent to the air. Blackbirds were singing and darting from tree to brush and the ducks were just hanging around. There were squirrels overhead scolding us as we walked by and the air was crisp! I love the marsh right now, the dead growth is just as intriguing as new growth, sometimes more so!

    I hope that you had a great weekend as well. What were you up too? Were you knitting, sewing, baking, or something comepletely different? Are you a walker? Or a more serious hiker when a glorious day shows up?

    Be well and knit happy!

    Lynette

  • Another Week, Another Hat!

    Another Week, Another Hat!

    February is usually Retreat Month. Not this year – above is Kiwi Cove Saturday morning on the Retreat Weekend 2 years ago – perfect knitting weather.

    Instead of working on my Cathedral Sweater sleeve or the Serenity Waves Shawl edging – both of which are so close to being finished! I chose to work on another Bio Shetland hat, another fact finding exercise you might say! And I am very happy with the results. This one is called Dahlia. So Called for the beautiful floral crown.

    I have a thing for floral crowns. I have a thing for flowers. I am not particularly good at growing them. I am not much of a gardener. I find things that survive my somewhat indifferent skills and go with them. The basic rule is that I do try to find plants that either flower, or I grow herbs I can use in the kitchen.

    I surround myself with my mothers floral petit points and have collected a multitude of the floral “posies” made by Ainsley, Denton and Staffordshire. Flowers quite simply, make me smile, make me happy. They are small things that I note and enjoy, their colours, shapes and scents are all part of the lexicon of things I find enjoyable.

    I hope to have the Dahlia pattern up on Ravelry next weekend.

    I was really happy with the way the Classic Lapel Vest fit. It is just the right length and fit for me.

    I am short with a 44 inch bust and a little more weight than is good for me, but the vest is still flattering.

    Now to write the pattern for more sizes than my own. It will have to be a bit of a formula pattern I think. A few basic sizes and lots of information on making it for yourself.

    Today I am baking a classic lemon layer cake with blackberry jam in the middle and lemon icing all around. It is really just a white cake with lemon extract instead of vanilla extract and fresh lemon peel thrown into the dry mixture. Lemon icing is also simple butter icing (soft butter and icing sugar beaten together) with lemon juice instead of vanilla and milk. This makes the icing very tart and it tastes like lemon candies. Yuummm! If I am being fancy I will candy up some lemon slices to decorate the top!

    Ready to ice the sides. I noticed that I put the bottom layer down upside down – so the jam is oozing more than it should. I think that i will have jam in my icing, and I did!

    I love to cook and bake which is why I carry a few pounds to many. It also runs in the family, most of my cousins also love to cook and bake. And we all love to eat good food! Food is one of lifes’ most basic pleasures and with Covid rules dictating life all around we need to take pleasure where we can!

    I am still feeling the need to start something new so today I am going to start a shawl in some new yarn from The Small Bird Workshop.

    These are non superwash, Island grown Babydoll Southdown wool fibre, blended with Kamloops area mohair and sourced silk (70/15/15) fingering weight yarns. There is no more of this particular blend left, but a small bird told me that she is working towards having more next year.

    This yarn was milled at That Darn Yarn Mill, Kamloops.

    I am really looking forward to starting this project!

    Have you anything new on your needles? Or pulled out a long overdue project? Something for you to wear? You know that often what we make for ourselves is the last thing we finish as we are always knitting for others! Be kind to yourself and knit or finish something that is just yours!

    Be Well and Knit Happy!

    Lynette

    PS – Did you see the moon this week? Simply stunning.