If the weather forecast is right, summer will be back for another round with temperatures around 30°C next week - so why not rerelease a pattern perfect for knitting on hot days? The Mantilla Stole is such an airy, lightweight project, knitted in a lace weight yarn on rather large needles in Shetland Lace motifs.

The stole is not only the perfect accessory for a chilly summer night, but it is also an eye-catcher when worn with your favourite outfit in the cooler season. Depending on the yarn blend and the colour, it goes with your favourite casual outfit just as well as with elegant evening wear.

Since today, the pattern for the Mantilla Stole is available from my Ravelry store, here: Mantilla Stole.

Look what I found deep down in my knitting basket: 4 hexagon modules for the Persian Dreams blanket (pattern by Jenise Hope ) in Cascade Yarn Heritage I started back in, hmm, January 2016.

For once I was honest with myself and realized that I'll probably never finish it. But what to do with the already finished hexagons? To pretty to frog, leave alone throw away. So why not turn them into two pillow cases? No sooner said than done.

Since I want my pillow cases to be bigger and square, I added about 16 more rounds in a colourwork pattern and then added corners in main colour only.

I think it looks pretty good and I can't wait to see them finished.

From suffering from the summer heat to the first autumn storm in less than a week - not really happy that there might be a lot more of this grey, rain and 'ugh!' ahed. So some cheerfulness is definetly needed...

Like a new pair of socks in happy colours. Say hello to my Whirling Socks.

The socks are knitted form the cuff down, mainly in intarsia in the round technique. They are a great project for small amounts of yarn leftover from other projects, since for a pair as shown only about 25 g of fingering yarn in five colours are needed. The same colour is used for cuff, heel and toe and the same four colours are used for the stripes. But you can, of course, use as many colours as you like to use up smaller amounts of yarn.

The pattern includes three sizes to fit leg circumference 17.5 (20, 22.5) cm [7 (7.75, 8.75)”]. It comes with a detailed tutorial with pictures to explain the intarsia in the round technique.

As of today, the pattern is available form my Ravelry store, here: Whirling Socks.

Aaaaannnd - another pair of Chained Mittens jumped of the needles. This pair in Malabrigo Yarn Arroyo in colourway Pocion and I already know who is going to get these. Together with a matching hat and fortunately only for x-mas... since the hat is no more than a brim at this time and it already went on the 'must finish one day' pile thanks to some new pattern ideas on my needles...

I know, I know, it is still summer in the northern hemisphere and here she comes again with her winter wolies. But I 'm sure it's cold enough for mittens somewhere and also, we knitters like to be prepared, don't we? It doesn't make a lot of sense to start knitting the moment you need warm accessories and also, it's never to early to start the gift knitting and therefore: Say hello to my brandnew patterns: Chained Mittens and Chained Hat.

The patterns came to life, because I have this fancy for highly variegated yarns, especially the ones by Malabrigo Yarn are always so hard to resist - although I know that I usally love the look in the skein, but I am at loss what to use them for. So when looking for a pattern to showcase the beauty of variegated yarns without the yarn overwhelming the stitch pattern, I found that slipped stitches do the trick. And why not have them swirl in chains all around the project? No sooner said than done.

The mittens are knitted from the cuff to the top and there are individual instructions for both mittens depending on which direction the 'chains' slant. However, thanks to the thumb gusset which emerges neatly in Stockinette stitch between two of the chains and the way the top of the mittens is worked, each mitten can be worn on either hand (picture above with the thumb gusset at the palm of the hand, picture below with the thumb gusset at the back of the hand).

The mittens pattern includes four sizes: XS, S, M and L to fit hand circumference of approximately 16.75 (18.5, 20, 21.5) cm [6.5 (7.25, 7.75, 8.5)”].

The matching hat is also knitted from the brim to the top; optionally it can be embellished with a pom-pom. The hat pattern includes three sizes: S, M and L to fit head circumference of approximately 46.75 (50, 53.25) cm [18.5 (19.75, 21)”].

Each of the items requires one skein of sport weight yarn with a yardage of approximately 305 m (334 yds) per 100 g. For my samples I used oh-so-soft Malabrigo Yarn Arroyo  in Arco Iris ( one of the charming features of handpainted yarn: they are both the same colorway even though they look so different in the pictures).

The patterns are available individually from my Ravelry Shop: Chained Mittens and Chained Hat. Should you like to knit the set, both pattern together are available at a discounted price (see pattern page for details).

Happy knitting!

You know why it takes so often long before I get round to re-publish patterns from magazines? Because I need to take new pictures… and that can be a pain sometimes. The weather is wrong, there isn’t anybody around to take pictures or to model the things, the season isn’t right (no fun to take mittens pictures  at the height of summer) and truth be told, sometimes I’m plain too lazy to get dressed up for pictures… So it was just fab that my niece offered to model some of my shawls!

Of course, it had to turn into an extremely hot day on which you don’t even want to wear the airiest lace shawl, but thanks to the location we picked in the forest it was bearable. And my dear husband was not only our driver but also gave the 'clown' to make the model act silly and laugh so that I was able to get some really natural pictures. 

Although sometimes I forgot that it was about my shawl and not about tattoos or my niece’s baby belly…

Never mind, we had a great evening out, a lot of und and even the ‘non knitting’ pictures are adorable.

... work, but not to knit. :) Really, the temperatures these days are quite something and we decided to not do  any renovation work today. So I retired to the coolest room in our house and what else could I keep myself busy with than with knitting? I picked up this long neglected WiP and now that I get to see more of the pattern I can’t stop anymore…

I think I’ll really like this new pillow case and who knows, it might be finished before temperatures return to a bit more normal.

Yes, I know it’s weird I show you all this ‘winter warmers’ during the summer, but I am so proud I finally worked on my long neglected patterns from magazines, so here we go: Chequers Brioche Scarf, also previously published in Love of Knitting.

The scarf is knitted in two colour brioche, always with one colour at the time. The placement of the lighter and darker colours form ‘blocks’, so that the scarf gets an all-over checked pattern.

My dear husband will be happy that the pattern is finally re-released (because he was eyeing the sample quite a while but wasn’t allowed to take it from my office yet) and should you wish for a Chequers Scarf in brioche knitting for yourself or a loved one: the pattern is now available from my Ravelry Store, here: Chequers Brioche Scarf.