Le Tissier Designs

Of Larks and Linnets and Flying Fingers

Tag: pattern writting

  • Long Weekend – Colours of the Fall

    Long Weekend – Colours of the Fall

    It was a very productive, very busy long weekend here. We were Grand-dog sitting and I was working on a pattern. We binged some tv and generally had a quiet weekend.

    In the past I created the charts for my patterns with the Word program on my computer. I beat it into submission (maybe it beat me into submission! LOL! ) and learned how to create charts for cables and colourwork. I considered it an Ok system, not perfect, but serviceable!

    A few years ago I discovered Stitchmastery and It is much more than serviceable! Stitchmastery is a software tool for designers that allows the designer to create beautiful charts. The learning curve was a bit of a challenge at first. It still is, but I am learning more about what Stitchmastery can do every time I use it!

    So this weekend i decided to work on a set of charts for my next release in my Salish Sea Collection, Spirit Bear! The transfer is going along fabulously. I took the biggest chart, the back, it required 4 pages to create with word and took it down to one page using Stitchmastery! I was so thrilled with those results! The rest of the pattern will go much faster as I learned all the shortcuts as I worked on the back chart!

    Maybe I will finish the rest of the charts for Spirit Bear off this coming weekend!

    We walked the dogs, Sophie, our 13 year old beagle and Alfie, my daughters 3 year old, at a beach every morning this weekend, Piper’s Lagoon, Neck Point and Departure Bay beach. Every morning was glorious – grey and foggy and sometimes even a little wet! The tide was out and that gave the dogs so much beach to run on every morning. It was a great start for them and for Tom and I.

    Check out my walk around Neck Point on Sunday, always one of my favourites. We were there around 7:00am. See the beauty of the fog, the soft greys of the sky and the colours of the foliage. See how calm the sea was. It was a beautiful morning.

    A profusion of Turkey Tail Fungi!
    My favourite view in the park, always!
    The skies might be varied shades of grey but check out the mix of fall colours in the foliage.
    The poA lone eagle in the distance
    The point at Pipers Lagoon and Shack Island through the fog.
    More fall foliage!
    Beach debris.
    I do love the Fall foliage! I never seem to tire of the shades the nature creates, just by changing the temperatures!

    On Monday I made a blackberry pie with some frozen berries. It was like a little bit of Summer had come for a visit!

    We still have five batches of berries frozen for pie. It will keep the Winter at bay.

    How as your long weekend? Was it productive? Or was it lazy? It is sometimes hard to decide which is best!

    Happy Knitting

    Lynette

  • Creating Order from Chaos

    Creating Order from Chaos

    Where to go next? My life has pretty much been on hold or in chaos for the last few months. I haven’t had the energy or time to do more than touch at the edges of any of my projects. But I think that is changing…

    I still need to tidy my workroom – the chaos there really does mirror my mind. So today I am going to work around the edges and make a start. I am trying to convince myself that it not really as bad as it looks.

    My main desk – computer and printer and lots of little bits!

    So…. what does your workroom look like? Do you have a workroom? Or a corner on the couch? Do you work best in Chaos? Or are you a neat and tidy person, everything needs to be in place or your mind is distracted?

    I know I work best in chaos! But not this much! Here I don’t know where anything or everything is! So time to fix it all!

    Desk area before
    Desk area – getting there

    So yesterday I made the start. I was wrong, it really is as bad as it looks. Today I worked a little more. In the pictures it really doesn’t look like a lot of improvement. But I can see and feel the difference. Books are on the shelves, samples are separated from stash and I can see what needs to be shifted and maybe even where it may be shifted to!

    By next weekend it will be a new room! I must admit I am cheating a little, some of the stash has found a new location, but most of it is just going back to where it belongs.

    Cupboard area – before
    Cupboard area – getting there.

    I am working on a new stitch pattern. Something a little different, a drawn stitch pattern, one that pulls yarn through stitches already knit to create a new pattern on top of the stockinette stitches. I am calling this stitch “Feathers”. I have seen something like this or maybe even this stitch online. The technique is familiar to me as I have worked drawn stitches before. My patterns Big Leaf Maple and Jacobean are both worked with drawn stitches.

    Drawn stitches are a fabulous way to embellish your knitting. They can be worked on any weight of yarn and use up those bits of left over yarn that we collect as we finish bigger projects. The basic pattern will be written for Fingering weight, Worsted weight and Chunky weight yarns. I am going to create a great basic pattern that will create hats for the whole family!

    Did I mention that beads might be a possibility!?

    I umm, also fell in love with a baby bonnet idea I had and it has sort of high jacked the basic knitting until it is done – but it is going to be OH so cute!

    So Knit Happy – keep chaos at bay!

    Lynette

  • BOLDLY Star Tweed

    BOLDLY Star Tweed

    I love working in my LYS!

    When new yarns come in my brain sets off all sorts of ideas of what to do and when to do it and what should come first! I pull out my stitch libraries and pore over the options trying to find the perfect stitch to show off the new yarn that has captured my imagination.

    Star tweed is a stitch pattern from Barbara Walker’s first stitch library, and it is an easy, repeating, 2 colour slip stitch pattern. Knit in a very bulky wool the tweed is a bold statement that can show off any two colours beautifully! Can you see it in two shades of grey? Or maybe a bold black and white?

    • Boldly Star Tweed
    • Why Not a Headband
    • Warm Cowl
    • Big Bold Mittens
    • Package Deal

    I am featuring this stitch in my new pattern Boldly Star Tweed. Star Tweed is a basic Winter Set, Hat, Mittens and Cowl. The Cowl is small which also makes it a great headband. The complete set can be made from 2 skeins of Estelle’s new yarn – Eco Scandinavian Bulky. Making it quick to knit and economical. I used a range of needle sizes – 6.5mm and 8.0mm for the mittens and 8.0mm and 10mm for the hat and cowl. The Eco Scandinavian Bulky worked up fabulously on any of the needle sizes I tried.

    Eco Scandinavian Bulky is a thick and squishy, super bulky yarn made from 100% organic Scandinavian Wool and is GOTS certified. Its single ply construction has great stitch definition, feels soft next to the skin, and let’s you knit or crochet beautiful projects super quickly!

    Hand wash cool, lay flat to dry.

    The Eco Scandinavian Bulky lives up to its’s name. It is soft, bulky, with a slightly uneven texture that works up quickly. The yardage is very generous – it seems to go on forever! I just kept on knitting and there is still some left over!

    Boldly Star Tweed will be available on Ravelry in a couple of weeks.

    How to work the star tweed stitch.

    Star tweed is a slip stitch and wrap style pattern. it is worked over 4 sts. Stitches are made and moved (dropped over) on every other row. The rows in-between the working rows are knit plain. Note – the first 2 sts of every working row will be slipped forward or back so that the pattern is offset. See pattern for full details.

    slip the first st, find the yarn that runs between the slipped st and the next st on the left-hand needle
    make a new st by knitting into the space below the running yarn.
    pull the yarn through to form a st., slip the next st.
    knit the next st and then lift the first slipped stitch over the next 3 sts.
    drop the lifted stitch onto the knitting.
    knit the 4th st, repeat from

    What do you think? Ready to give it a try? I will post again when the pattern goes live with a code to allow you to purchase the pattern at reduced price!

    In the meantime – Happy Knitting!

    Lynette