Free Knitting Patterns, Instructions, Projects & Designs.

Kari’s scarf is done. Hooray! I enjoyed everything about this project. The Cables & Lace Rib pattern is from knit1 Magazine‘s Winter 2007 issue. I love that the pattern is reversible, with both sides being pretty.

Just as the name suggests, one side features cables with lace ribs on the other.

Call me fashion backward, but it took me a while to get used to brown being such a popular color. Now I love it! I used Mission Falls 136 Merino Superwash. I always admired Mission Falls’ 1824 Wool, and am so glad they came out with this great DK weight in the same fiber. It’s soft, holds the stitch definition well and drapes nicely. It comes in so many beautiful colors, I’m tempted to start right in on another project. Another scarf? A nice top? (Daydreaming away….) Ok, back to the scarf…  I used US#5 needles for the project, and it ended up being 6″x71″.

   Merry Christmas and lots of love to Kari!

I’m making this scarf for my wonderful niece Kari. She pored over my scarf patterns and selected one from Knit1 Magazine’s Winter 2007 issue. It was part of a nifty article by Charlotte Quiggle about reversible patterns. Kari chose the “Cables and Lace Rib”.

I duly cast on to play with the pattern. Which brings me right away to the head-banging issue of finding errors the hard way. I always think its me. I hope that it wouldn’t take you as long as it took me to figure out that 4 does not equal 5. The pattern says the pattern is a multiple of 9 st + 4. But the ending stitches clearly have to be 5. I just couldn’t make it work! I went online to see if they published a correction. When I couldn’t find one, I still had doubts about whether 4 = 5. After an embarrassingly long time, I altered the pattern and voila! it has been a joy to knit ever since.

Here’s the cable side:

Here’s the lace side:

And here it is in its reversible glory:

A footnote is that I let knit1 Magazine know about the error I found. The publications and/or designers are ususally grateful to find out their boo-boos so they can post corrections.

I’m so glad you’ve discovered my website! My hope is that you’ll find my blog postings, links, and patterns to be sources of inspiration for your own knitting. I’ll be writing about projects I’m working on, tips that I’ve found to be helpful, and best of all the process of designing patterns.

Pattern designing is the most exciting area for me personally (other than that wonderful race to the finish we all feel as we near the end of a project)! It’s a miracle the way a tiny germ of inspiration winds its way through the design process to become an actual thing. After much trial and error, I send my pattern off to my wonderful tech editor. I think I’ve sent it to her perfect – surely this time I’ve corrected all the errors before they’ve gone out! But noooo. There are always changes I need to make to get the pattern right. I want to make sure that anyone buying a pattern from me is getting the best, most accurate pattern I can possibly create. So I also send the pattern and yarn off to a test knitter who makes further suggestions and refinements.

With cool weather coming, you might enjoy knitting my “Gentle Stripes Scarf”. You can download it for free from my pattern store. I made the scarf at a time when I was making a lot of long flights. I wanted something simple, easily transportable, and pretty enough to keep me entertained. The simple stitch pattern was easy to remember, and the Karaoke yarn changed colors nicely. I hope you’ll find it as soothing to knit as I do!