New pattern: Curvy Moon

Curvy Moon is a beautiful garter stitch shawlette accentuated with stripes and wavy border. Curvy Moon drapes lovely around the neck and shoulders. The shawl is knitted sideways seamlessly. This is a great beginner project and a nice relaxing project for the experienced knitters. The design used very little yarn (165 yards of each color of 5ply/sportweight) while still giving a shawl of generous size. This is a great project for utilizing the leftover yarn from the stash. Choose your favorite colors and have fun knitting Curvy Moon.

Pattern can be found on Ravelry or my blog. 

I am running a promotion on this pattern right now.
The pattern will be sold at $3.50 (30% off its regular price) until Monday, April 14, 11pm Pacific time. After that date it will be sold at its regular price of $5.00.

Happy knitting,

Diana

New Pattern: Leto.

Leto is my new design. This was very spontaneous project. I made up this stitch pattern myself, although I am sure it is nothing new. I like the slight zigzag effect it gives to the stripes. The finished scarf has no bias at all. It was quick and fun knit. The colors made me smile and reminded me of summer. “Leto” is summer in Russian.
This can work as a scarf, stole or a throw for my couch :-))

 The pattern is available on my blog and Ravelry.

I am running a promotion on this pattern right now.
The pattern will be sold at $2.00 (50% off its regular price) until Sunday, March 9, 11pm Pacific time. After that date it will be sold at its regular price of $4.00.

Happy International Women’s Day! Warm wishes and Peace to all :-)))

 Happy knitting,

Diana 

New Design: Etude in Stripes.

~Etude~ is a musical composition written solely to improve technique. Often performed for artistic interest.

I love the color combination of grey and yellow and wanted a simple cardigan with yellow and gray stripes for a while.  I also wanted to practice knitting seamless top-down raglan construction. I have originally started to work on this project 5 month ago by  using single strand of each yarn. I was not completely happy with the way it was coming out…a little too thin and flimsy. However, I loved this color combo a lot and decided to give this cardi another go by knitting with 2 strands of each yarn and designing my own cardigan instead of "Amiga" pattern I originally started.

 
Project called " Etude in Stripes" and can be found on Ravelry.
Yarn:
Grey:  2/14 Alpaca Silk by Valley Yarns ( Lace / 2 ply 80% Alpaca, 20% Silk)
Yellow: Supersock Lace by Cherry Tree Hill ( Lace / 2 ply 100% Merino )

I love how this cardigan turned out and the whole process of knitting it. It took a little longer then anticipated, since I took some time to work on my “Layered” shawl design, but it was an easy and unproblematic knit. Basic top-down raglan construction. Sleeves knitted seamless to the armholes and then knitted flat and seamed. I do love seamless everything, but came to realization that it is much easier for me to knit sleeves flat after separation for the sleeves and the body.

 I loved both yarns used in this project. Knitted both of them in 2 strands. Variegate yellow yarn (Cherry Tree Hill Supersock Lace) knitted up makes some lovely stripes. I think this type of yarn is perfect for stripes and make them come alive due to all the shades of the yarn. Alpaca silk from Valley yarns is a wonderful yarn too. The finished cardigan feels very silky and soft to the skin. I really enjoyed knitting this cardigan with the lace yarn held double. I will knit this way in the future for sure, because there were very few loose end to hide (lace yarn just comes in one big skein) and also the whole project cost was just $30.00 :-))

Happy Knitting,

Diana