Sorry been a bit quiet.

Last week was half term and as such was spent at home catching up on the housework, painting the house ( while it was still dry) and doing the 101 other things that you never seem to have time to do when you are working.

The test knit carries on. It is amazing how I can design a pattern, carefully matching up all those yo’s and decreases and yet when I come to actually knit the thing I’m finding mistakes all over the shop.

I am sure I am not the only designer who suffers like this, and after all that is what a test knit is for, to test the pattern and find the mistakes, but sometimes I look at my charts in Knit Companion and all the annotations and highlighted patches where I have found mistakes and wonder what I was on when I charted the design :-).

Seeing as I have no current knitting progress to show I guess we are in for another Throwback Tuesday.

This time I have chosen the summer 2014 design from the mystery KAL’s based on the book The Wind in the Willows. ” Poop Poop!” said Mr Toad.

Knitted in lace weight, this was one of the first patterns where I collaborated with one of my test knitters, who prefers capes to shawls. Carolyn took my original circular design and “converted” it to a cape design that is knitted back and forth, rather than round and round in circles. It is a great idea, because to be honest while circular shawls look spectacular and are easier to knit with no purl rows, but they are not the easiest thing to wear. We offered the cape option as an extra to KAL participants.

Here is the original

  

This one is knitted  in Unique Sheep Chasca lace weight , which is 100% alpaca on 3.25mm needle. This particular version was knitted in a single colour ( natural) but most of the knitters on the KAL used gradiance colourways like this one in Eos ( merino/ silk mix)

  
This is the same pattern, but basically with a split in it and a little bit of a rewrite, missing out the centre motif, so as to create a collar section that will curve around the nape of the neck. This one is is Marici (100% silk)

  

As you can see not only does the  pattern look different with the split, but it also looks very different in the different colourways. This is one of the reasons I love these KAL’s. Everyone uses different colours and it is great to see my designs with so many different variations.

You can see even more versions and even buy the pattern to make you own here, should you wish to.

http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/wind-in-the-willows

All the ones seen on Ravelry are knitted in Unique Sheep lace weights of various types, but you could use any laceweight yarn you like, though I am rather partial to their gradiance colourways, and I do include instructions on where to transition in the patterns. You will need about 1000 yards to be in the safe side if you are using a single colour.

Right! Enough procrastination! Back to the test knit so I can get something else onto the needles that I can actually show you ;-).