Because of Reverie Yarn, Décor & Gifts’ Puppy Love Party, I wanted to create a sample out of one of the yarns they were planning on stocking, Basenji. I decided to knit the Echo Flower Shawl because of its versatility; the shawl can be knit in various sizes with one skein of Basenji. The pattern was a fantastic challenge, encouraging me to try out new techniques and stitches. It comes with two sizes, shoulderette and shawl, but can easily be adapted to any desired size. I decided to knit the shoulderette in Running Dog Nebula.

Echo Flower Shawl was designed by Jenny Johnson Johnen, who is a yarn dyer and designer from Sweden. It was her first design, and she did a brilliant job.

“This shawl was inspired by Estonian lace and especially the beautiful shawl, Laminaria, by Elizabeth Freeman. This shawl also shares the blossom stitch with that shawl. The border is inspired by various designs but mostly I had a mental picture of how I wanted it to look so I tried to transfer that mental image to a chart – and yes, it came out exactly the way I wanted.”

The pattern begins by casting on with a small crocheted cast on, and quickly goes into chart work. The first chart sets out to increase the stitch count by using “2 into 9”, which is a stitch used throughout the pattern. The premise is to knit 2 (or later, 3) stitches together, and without dropping the stitches after knitting, yarn over and knit the stitches again, repeating until 9 stitches are created. This stitch creates what appears to be a blossoming near-half circle flower design, which, when repeated throughout the shawl, is mesmerizing. The second chart continues on with this pattern, growing the shawl as it goes.

The border charts are set up oddly, but after a bit of consideration they make sense; it has one chart that is split up into 3 pieces for the sake of space. The edging goes tremendously faster than the body of the shawl does, but comes with one potential setback: nupps. This was the first time I had encountered this technique, and I’m happy I learned it. Nupps are similar to the “2 into 9” stitches as they are 7 or 9 stitches knit into one stitch, but in the next row, they are all purled together, creating a tight little ball. Many people, including I, have difficulty purling them together without losing any of the stitches. I tried a few different techniques: one with using only the knitting needles, and another using a beading crochet hook to grab the yarn to pull through the stitches. I found using the crochet hook method to be easier, and overall, more successful than using just the needles. What’s pleasant is that if one does not like to create nupps in their shawls, the nupps can easily be replaced with beads for a similar (and more shiny) effect.

Finally, the edge chart is a satisfying conclusion to the shawl: it limits the amount of nupps and mimics the body chart in the floral design. The bind off uses 2 strands of yarn which creates the illusion of a thicker edge.

The pattern is very well written, but a small word of warning: it only comes in chart form, not written form as well. I found that adding extra stitch markers in between the pattern repeats helped to keep me in check, rather than relying only on sight and stitch count. Despite the challenges of this pattern, I absolutely treasure the result; the shawl is delightfully light and squishy, and I’ll be happy for it to cover my shoulders when the weather gets cooler.

Also, the best part of this pattern: It's free on Ravelry.

When dealing with nupps, do you prefer to create them, ignore them, or replace them with beads?

Norwegian Elkhound & The Warm & Tingley Mitts & Headscarf

I recently had the pleasure to have knit from the Needles and Artifice collection by The Ladies of Mischief. The publication (from Cooperative Press) carries twenty-three beautiful patterns and has an ingenious layout: it's not just about the patterns, but also tells great stories to tie them together.

Gentle ladies and kind sirs: welcome to the world of Needles and Artifice, where corseted Victorian fashion gets an energized infusion of punk.

In this fantastically playful take on steampunk knitwear design, the Ladies of Mischief offer not only 23 original patterns, but also a high-flying, busk-snapping adventure that plays out across each chapter.

Pull on your goggles and spats, knitters: you’re in for a wild ride.

I was originally looking for a pattern for interesting fingerless mitts to knit a sample from Norwegian Elkhound (colorway Sirius), and came across the Warm & Tingley Mitts, a pattern from the collection. The pattern was designed by Heidi Kunkel, who, besides for designing beautiful patterns like this, has an Etsy store featuring her amazing pottery.

What made this a perfect choice for a sample is not only the beautiful cabling, but the fact that with one skein of Norwegian Elkhound makes two mitts and a headscarf and still have yarn left over. In terms of yarn structure, the more plies a yarn has, the more round it is, and rounder yarns show off cables better. Because Norwegian Elkhound is four plies, it makes beautiful cables. What I did not yet know was the most important part: how ridiculously quick and fun this pattern would be!

I was able to knit both mitts and the headscarf within 3 days, which makes it a great pattern choice. for gifts; I'm sure if I had a dedicated day, I would have easily knitted all of them within 8 hours. It's also extremely versatile because of how it's sized: the ribbing on both the mitts and the headscarf ensure that they will fit most, if not all adults. The pattern recommends a size 9 needle, gauge depending, and worsted weight yarn.

The mitts start off with a 2:1 ribbing, then go into the cabling chart. There's no written version of the chart in the pattern, which, since I prefer knitting from charts, was fine. The bind off was a picot bind off, which creates a surprising and fun texture at the edging. The thumb is called "an afterthought" in regards to the technique and is added after the mitt is completed.

The headscarf starts off with a normal cast on and features short rows for shaping the garment. The short rows in this pattern don't come with the normal "wrap" instruction; rather, they purposefully leave holes in the fabric for a button. The cabling on the headscarf coordinates with the cabling on the mitts, but isn't exactly the same. The difference between the two cable patterns is that the headscarf pattern has the design wider, which better fits the wider garment. The final addition is a button, which is always the most fun to choose.

This set of patterns was a tremendous amount of fun to make, and knitting it with the Norwegian Elkhound was a treat! I had only done swatches with that yarn before, but the soft, squishy texture and beautiful stitch definition made me not want to put it down. I've always selected my yarn bases carefully, and it's rewarding to finally knit a full-sized garment with them and find that I absolutely made the right choice.

How do you decide what yarns to use with which patterns? Have you ever made a really bad choice, or an absolutely perfect one?

Announcement: Fiber Hound is now going to be sold at its first yarn store, Rêverie~Yarn, Décor & Gifts! The store is located in Goshen, Indiana, and is around 40 minutes from the Fiber Hound dye studio. I'll be sharing more updates about when there will be stocked there soon! For better updates, don't forget to follow Fiber Hound on Facebook!