Craftwork, the Octopus. Free Knitting Pattern.
Hey, so my friend, Amy Lou, is opening an awesome DIY/Maker/Classroom/Art space in Somerville, MA called CRAFTWORK SOMERVILLE; and she asked me to teach Knitting 101!
Since new knitters like a project they can show off with their brand new skills, I created a new beginner pattern for you to try.
I would like to introduce you to Craftwork The Octopus.
It’s a sweet little octopus to help people learn how to Cast On and Bind Off fearlessly. Knitters are always worried that they are working their stitches too tightly or loosely, and this project lets you do either and the results are that the tentacles simply curve and sway making your octopus look unique.
And it’s a free knitting pattern for you to try.
The idea came from knitting the “Nuvem” shawl by Martina Behm. I wrote a blog post about it. I had two lovely skeins of yarn, one with twice as much yardage as the other. I racked my brain for a way to distribute the colors evenly without doing regularly spaced boring stripes, but I also didn’t want to run out of the pretty multi-colored yarn before I got to the ruffle edge. Pacing around my home (yes, I truly paced while thinking about this), I spotted two decks of cards on my shelves and, voila, perfect: an easy to carry, easy to randomize, easy to count way of controlling which colorway to knit the next row with.
I have a list of design ideas I am getting out into the world. My first labor of love was the police box shawl, but Hoo*bert is NOT necessarily an easy knit. So I really wanted to get a fun accessible pattern out there next. I used the two to one idea that I knit my Nuvem with, but I wanted to add different stitch patterns depending on the face value of the card. The test knitters all said they had fun knitting it wondering which card would come up next and how it would look next to the previous row. Shuffle can be done with solid colors, or you could knit it with a solid and variagated, similar shades or bright contrasts, it all works. My first shuffle was done with solid worsted weight from Harrisville Designs (they liked it). My second Shuffle was knit from the two ends of my slowly changing color Loop handspun, and I kinda love it.
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Went to Rhinebeck in October, saw many Lanesplitter skirts including my friend Christina’s.
So comfy that I feel like I’m getting away with something.
Rhinebeck 2012, a set on Flickr.
A photo journal of my bus trip from Boston to Rhinebeck, NY for the Sheep and Wool festival.
I went on a group ski trip to Italy and got sucked into knitting when I saw all the beautiful yarn they had there. I bought a few skeins, then spent 45 minutes in my hotel room trying to remember how to cast on. I had tried to learn how to knit the year before, but what I came up with I don’t consider a project… so this is my first.
This yarn is so soft. I had enough left to have a go at the hat. I didn’t know at the time that stockinette stitch would curl, so I ended up with a roll up hat, which I’m still not happy with. I bought some white Lamb’s Pride bulky yarn locally to go with the Italian yarn.