Okay, so I have not blogged in ages, but it has been a really busy spring! My self published book is getting so close to being done and I am really thrilled with how everything has gone. The title is Landing and it will have 8 top down sweaters by me and 4 accessories from guest designer friends. The print copies are on schedule to be available early Fall and I will be offering it for pre-order before then. But I promise I will write more about all that soon!

Now to catch up on new designs:

Today I am releasing a sweater that I have already worn a ton and the yarn still looks new! The sweater is called Reed and the yarn is Bluestocking by String Theory. Love, love, love this yarn.

Reed is a top down pullover with a simple little lace panel up one side on the front and back and an offset patch pocket.

I also recently had a design come out in Knit Red, a book devoted to spreading information about heart disease prevention. You can read more here- http://www.stitchred.com/aboutUs.asp

This sweater that was named Cowl Neck Vest is a cardigan version of my pattern Idlewood.

I also released a new double side cowl, one side is stockinette stitch in one color and the second side is a lace and twist cable pattern in a second color, it is named Rivulet.

This cowl comes with me everywhere!

AND, Wool, book 3 with Quince and Co and Melissa LaBarre was released! Yay! I love working with these ladies and the styling and photography are always impeccable!

Here are my 3 designs:

Julieta, an open cardigan with each side worked from sleeve cuff to center back and then joined with a 3 needle bind off. There are little shell details at the cuffs and a garter stitch collar.

Lavina is a lacy tee with fun “sleeve” details worked in beautiful Tern yarn. I am so happy with the way this one came out.

And the third is Brisha Shawl, a shawl worked from end to end with a garter stitch body and lace edging. The shaping takes place in the garter stitch section as to not interrupt the pretty lace pattern.

You can see Melissa’s beautiful designs for Wool 3 and more on her blog here- http://www.knittingschooldropout.com/

Thank you for visiting, it is back to work for me, I am slowly getting caught up and will be back to blogging more frequently!

All the best,

Cecily

I love laceweight cardigans for Spring/Summer knitting and wearing!

I just released a new pattern in Windy Valley’s Australian Merino, a super soft, strong yarn that provides amazing drape and wonderful stitch definition. The name of the design is Starling and it is an open cardigan worked in one piece from the top down with a bit of ribbing at the back waist to add shape. The simple lace collar is picked up after the body is knit.

You can find the pattern for Starling available for purchase through Ravelry here: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/starling-3

And you can find Windy Valley Australian Merino yarn here: http://www.windyvalleymuskox.net/australian-merino.html

 

Last week I released another cardigan knit in a laceweight yarn called Floating. Floating is worked from the top down in one piece with worked in buttonbands and lace details as the bottom of the fronts.

You can find the pattern for Floating available for purchase through Ravelry here: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/floating

Looking for the yarn for Floating? You can find the yarn on the cone at Webs here: http://www.yarn.com/webs-knitting-crochet-yarns-weight-lace/webs-weaving-yarn-jaggerspun-zephyr/
2 ounces = 1 skein

Thank you for visiting!

C

Everything has been photographed now for my in progress book and I thought I would do some posts about the people that I am working with and why I chose them.

Choosing a photographer was by far the easiest part of the entire process. There was no question in my mind, no need to research anyone else, it had to be my lovely, talented, knitting designer and incredible photographer friend, Carrie Bostick Hoge.

Carrie has such an amazing eye for composition and keeping it simple while showing off knits. It is silly how much more I like my knits after I see her photos of them.

Here are some examples of her work from past shoots:

Photo for Liesl Cowl designed by Carrie.

Photo of Rocky Coast designed by Hannah Fettig for Coastal Knits.

Photo of Idlewood designed by me.

And all of the photography for Quince and Co.!!!! Here are just a few-

Photo of Avery designed by Melissa LaBarre

Photo of Alaria Shawl designed by Leah Thibault

Photo of Briggs Street designed by Dawn Catanzaro

Photo of Alys Cardigan designed by Bristol Ivy.

For more of Carrie’s photography, check the Quince and Co site here- http://quinceandco.com/store/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=2

And her beautiful, beautiful blog here- http://swatchdiaries.blogspot.com/

I bet you can now see why choosing the photographer was so easy!?!

I’ll  be adding some more posts along this line as we lead up to releasing the book in September.

Thank you for visiting,

C

To celebrate Valentines Day I am having a 20% off sale on all my Winged Knits patterns, simply enter the code KNITLOVE when checking out through Ravelry.

The sale begins now and ends Thursday February 16th at midnight EST.

Happy Valentines Day!

xoxo,

Cecily

In the fall, Carrie and I took a sewing class from Z Fabrics. I am now no longer afraid of sewing machines. It used to seem that if I stepped with in a foot or two of one, it would break, but not any more! I am in fact so confident now that I decided to sew skirts for much of the styling for the self published book I am working on.

Here are the ones that I have made so far-

They are all made out of 1 or 2 rectangles with a casing to add elastic at the waist. I got Brett Bara’s book – Sewing in a Straight Line and used one of the skirt patterns as a starting point. I used fabrics of all different weights and lined some with a very light weight fusible interface (one of them I lined with a much heavier interface to make it poof out!) and made them in different lengths and with different amounts of fabric for the gathered waist.

As a very, very novice seamstress, and even though I still can’t actually sew in a straight line,  I highly recommend Brett Bara’s book – Sewing in a Straight Line the projects are fun and easy.

Hmmm, what to sew next!?!

And off we go! The first of 2 photo shoots for the self published book I an working on is done. Everything went incredibly well and I am so excited to get the photos from Carrie! She is a genius and Mandy, the model, was so easy to photograph and such and absolute pro.

We were able to get 7 pieces photographed, which means that we only have to shoot 5 more at the second shoot at the end of next month. The remaining pieces are almost done, just a collar left to knit for one of them. So, I am feeling very good about our schedule. (My deadline to have the books shipping by is October 1st)

Here are a few behind the scene shots from the shoot

This is what my clothing rack looked like before the shoot and I am super happy to say that it was completely empty by the end of the shoot!

And this is the prop table that I had set up, you never know when you need to add some color or silliness to a shot.

This is me asking Carrie ” How is the light, can we shoot this here?”

Ethan was a fantastic help and switched between light reflector holder and behind the scenes photographer, furniture mover, meter payer, and all around best guy!

This has been a such a busy week, I’m off to play catch up now!

Cecily

This Saturday, January 21 st, 2012, I will be at Another Yarn in Winchester, MA with Sarah Dimond (The Plucky Knitter) and her amazing yarn and Thea Colman (Baby Cocktails) and her amazing patterns!

For more info about the event and Another Yarn, here is a link- http://www.facebook.com/pages/Another-Yarn/233680413340670?sk=wall

I designed a reversible cowl for this event and released the pattern today, it only takes one skein of Plucky Primo fingering!

Winchester Cowl

Last week I also released a sweater pattern in Plucky Primo Worsted called Oakwood.

Oakwood is worked from the top down in one piece with waist shaping and optional patch pockets.

(Photo by Carrie Bostick Hoge)

I also released a cardigan named Chalet.

Chalet is worked from the bottom up with set in sleeves knit in Hazel Knits DK Lively.

(Photo by Carrie Bostick Hoge)

I’ve got to get back to work finishing up the the pieces and styling for the self published book I am working, the first of 2 photo shoots is drawing near.

I hope to see you at Another Yarn this weekend!

It has been quite awhile since my last blog post, but all for good reason. We moved to a wonderful old house in Portland right before the holidays ! I am still in the process of unpacking and catching up on work,  but I wanted to put up a quick blog post about 2 new designs and my self-published book adventure.

On Wednesday, two of my designs were released-

Katrine from Quince and Co

I designed Katrine to wear to Rhinebeck. I knit a size larger than I normally would so that I would be able to wear it as a jacket over another sweater to keep warm. I worked a cowl neck so that I could button it all the way up if the weather was really chilly and leave the sweater open during the warmer part of the day. Because I started it really late and Rhinebeck was getting close, I knit Katrine in Puffin from the top down so that I could work it for as long as I had time to. Puffin knits up up so beautifully and super fast, Katrine kept me very warm and cozy and you can hardly tell that I wore it a ton!

Photo by Carrie Bostick Hoge

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And Graham from Brooklyn Tweed/ Wool People 2

Graham is a cardigan that is worked from the bottom up with set in sleeves and fun and distinctive, but really easy to work, cable panels. It is not too frequently that I design a piece with cables, but Shelter is just too perfect for cables for me to resist! I added pockets to keep with the relaxed feel of the cardi and a collar that can be buttoned all the way up and be worn as a cowl neck. I am thrilled to get to be part of such an amazing collection of designs, I highly recommend checking out the Wool People 2 look book on Jared’s blog here: http://brooklyntweed.net/wp2lookbook.html

You can also see all the designs from Wool People 2 on Ravelry here: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/sources/brooklyn-tweed–wool-people-vol-2/patterns

Photo by Jared Flood

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And an update about my self published book project, the swatches!

So, the book is going to have 8-10 sweaters designed by me and 3 accessories from guest designers. The number of sweaters is “to be determined” until we figure out how many patterns we can fit in the number of pages that I can afford. About 60% of the pieces are completely finished and the first photoshoot is going to be at the end of this month! So very exciting!

I hope that you all had a very wonderful holiday season and a happy new year,

Cecily

Welcome to Wool, book two, the second e-booklet collaboration from Melissa, Quince and me!

Wool, book two features patterns for 4 top down sweaters and a hat.

From Melissa-

Gladys: A perfect lacy hat

And Madigan: A top down round yoke pullover.

From me-

Sophia: A top down open cardigan with a reversible cable and garter stitch collar.

Irina: A top down, cowl neck pullover.

Eva: A short sleeve, tunic length pullover with simple colorwork details.

We love working with Quince! I hope that you enjoy Wool, book two .

Wool, book two is available for purchase as an e-booklet collection here: http://quinceandco.com/store/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=2_27

I think that by now you may all have already heard about (seen it? bought it?) the wonderful self published book by Hannah Fettig and Alana Dakos, Coastal Knits. If you do not yet know about Coastal Knits, I am thrilled to be the one to introduce it to you! I am sure that you will love it as much as I do.

Coastal Knit features 5 sweater patterns and 5 accessory patterns, half designed by Hannah and half by Alana. However, this is not only a beautiful collection of patterns, Coastal Knits also, in words and photos, takes you to beautiful places on the East and West Coasts of the US. You see, Hannah lives in Maine and Alana lives in California and this book definitely offers wonderful knits for those on each coast, and everywhere in between.

It was tough to narrow them down, but here are two of my favorite pieces in Coastal Knits:

The Wildflower Cardigan designed by Alana is a wonderful easy to wear shape, with beautiful decorative edging and POCKETS!

And Rocky Coast by Hannah- a top down, open, cabled cardi, what could be more perfect!?!

To see all of the beautiful designs in Coast Knits, click on this link: https://www.coastalknits.com/patterns.php

The patterns in Coastal Knits are wonderfully written, the photos are incredible, and the layout and graphics are perfect. I am very much impressed with and inspired by Coastal Knits and I think that you will be too.

Thank you for visiting and I hope you get your copy of Coastal Knits soon;)

Cecily