Celebrate with 40% off my designs

Eeek, I've turned 40! 🎉 Actually I love birthdays, and the number doesn't really bother me. I fully plan to still get as excited as a 6 year old when I'm 94 - perhaps with just a bit less jumping up and down. As part of celebrations I'm offering 40% off all the patterns in my Ravelry pattern store for just 40 hours. No coupon code required, just add the patterns to your cart and you should see the discount automatically applied.

THIS PROMOTION HAS NOW FINISHED. MANY THANKS FOR ALL YOUR SUPPORT!

Whether you fancy a hat...

(Top to bottom: Lullington, Arncott, Puffin Apple)

Or something a little larger...

(Top to bottom: Redlynch Shawl, Porlock Socks, Sonning)

My patterns are normally £3.50 for accessories and £4.95 for garments, so with the discount they become £2.10 and £2.97 respectively. The promotion will run from midnight on April 26th (start of day - timezone London) for just 40 hours. No coupon code is required, the prices on Ravelry will show automatically with the discount when you add them to your cart. Promotion applies only to patterns sold from my own Ravelry store: Jen Arnall-Culliford Designs.

Please do spread the word if you'd like to. 

THIS PROMOTION HAS NOW FINISHED. MANY THANKS FOR ALL YOUR SUPPORT!

Happy knitting!

P.S. 40 sounds so grown up. I don't need to actually BE grown up do I?

Cross-Country Knitting Volume 3

PUFFINS!

I recently spent a few days up in Scotland with the wonderful Kate Davies. We had such a great time, and it was the perfect antidote to what has been the toughest few months of my life. We went for walks with gorgeous Bruce.

And worked on a book for next year (I can't wait to tell you about that... but not yet!).

And we went out to Inveruglas with Tom, and he photographed us at An Ceann Mòr in our latest Cross-Country Knitting collaboration - bird inspired accessories...

Kate has designed the magnificent Murmuration Scarf. It's just stunning.

And I got carried away by puffins...

And designed the Fufnip Hat (above) which features puffins around the sides, with a crown inspired by a kaleidoscope of beaks with a central eye.

And these Fufnip Fingerless Mittens which use the same puffin motif. The silhouettes are created by stranded colour work knitting, and the single full-colour puffin is added by embroidery at the end. 

We had a great giggle on the photo shoot (I am incapable of being serious at these things!). And Tom did a magnificent job at capturing the joy of the shoot.

We even found some wild blackberries and blueberries to nibble on. It was a wonderful afternoon.

After the shoot we headed up to Bridge of Orchy, where we went for a wander, and tried to dodge the midges, before having a slap-up meal at the hotel there. It was amazing. Thank you Kate, Tom, Bruce and Jesus for a wonderful break!

If you fancy some birds of your own, then head over to Ravelry, where you can buy the Cross-Country Knitting Volume 3 eBook containing all three patterns as well as an essay by Kate on the inspiration of birds. The eBook costs £5.95 

Or you can purchase a print copy directly from MagCloud for $12.00 by clicking on the link below.

New design: Wee Bruton Hoody

Can you believe how adorable these two are?

© Fergus Ford

Sofia and Toby are wearing the latest designs in the Cross-Country Knitting series, Wee Bluebells and Wee Bruton respectively. You may remember our first Cross-Country Knitting adventure that we published just over a year ago (how the time has flown!), well this time the challenge was to design a child's version of one of our adult sweaters...

Kate and I have different but complementary styles, and as soon as we started talking about the project, I knew it would be my Bruton Hoody that got a fresh look. Kate chose to scale down her popular Bluebells cardigan from the wonderful book, Yokes. She's kept the same pretty bluebell motif, from that point when the flowers start to go over and point skywards, but reworked the sweater to a more child-friendly cardigan. Sofia is wearing the age 2 size, and sizes are available from 1-12, but you should definitely check the actual finished sizes in comparison with your intended recipient - kids vary in size ENORMOUSLY!

What a cutie!

I had been of a mind to design a child's version of the Bruton Hoody since it was first conceived. As I worked on the original I had ideas about making a mini-version for my nephew James. Well, it's only taken a couple of years, but Wee Bruton is now here! The adult's hoody is worked in Excelana DK, but to keep the proportions of the Bavarian twisted stitch motif, I have scaled the Wee version down to Excelana 4ply. Both yarns are a joy to knit with, and there are some limited edition colours available in the 4ply at the moment, if you're quick!

When you purchase Cross-Country Knitting Volume 2, you not only get the patterns for Wee Bruton and Wee Bluebells, but also a lovely essay by Rachel Atkinson exploring the significance of childhood handknits. Spoiler alert, there are pictures of Kate, Rachel and me as kids in handknits along with that article! It's a great read. Thanks for joining us on the CCK adventure Rachel!

Kate and I were overjoyed when Fergus Ford (the brother of the TURBO Felix) agreed not only to photograph but also arranged our fantastic models for us. Fergus has really captured the exact look and feel we were hoping for in these beautiful pictures.

If you'd like to know more about Kate's design, head over to her blog to read more.

You can buy a copy of Cross-Country Knitting Volume 2 from Ravelry for £5.95 

 Or alternatively, you can buy a print copy from Magcloud for $12.00

Thank you so much to Kate for persuading me to keep my toe in the design world. I love editing, but it's also great to have the adrenaline rush that publishing my own designs brings. I really enjoy working with you! Here's to the next CCK adventure...

An interview with Kate Davies

I can't believe that I will have many blog readers who aren't familiar with Kate Davies' phenomenal knitwear design, as well as her awesome writing on textile and fashion history. If you haven't met her before, then do head over to her website and catch up! I've been working with her for a few years now, and it is always a blast. I cornered her to ask her some questions about designing Machrihanish, and you can read my answers to the same questions over on her blog.

Jen: Where did you start when planning this design?

Kate: I knew immediately I wanted to make a well-fitting Fairisle vest for this project, and the start of the process was all about the stitch pattern and yarn shades. I began by charting up a pattern, and playing around with it until it had achieved a nice visual balance.

Next I played around with colour. I actually spent several days messing around with the charts that were eventually used for Machrihanish, drawing up the basic repeat in Illustrator; swapping out various yarn shades; and getting a sense of how different colours would work together over a large area. 

As he was going to be the recipient of the vest, it was very useful to have Tom on hand to give some input on the shades I was playing around with. I repeatedly drew up charts for him, and his “I like the green” or “too much blue in that one” meant that together we came up with a final colour-scheme that both of us really liked. I started with nine shades, but narrowed the palette down to six. I then swatched the chart to see how everything worked together, and after swatching made a few minor alterations to the repeat.  

It is very important for me to work things through properly at this stage as my natural design instincts are a bit spontaneous and impulsive. Generally, if I have a design idea, my immediate instinct is to Make It Now! Though I think that instinct is part of why I love designing so much, and that good things often arise from it, sometimes it is important to rein it in: to step back, and think all aspects of the process through properly. So though I am always eager to get on with a project, I also find charting and swatching very contemplative and satisfying. 

Jen: How did you go about choosing yarn for the design? How much did you swatch?

Kate: I have a bit of an obsession with Jamieson and Smith Shetland Heritage yarn at the moment, and really, it is the obvious choice for a traditional Fairisle design such as this. It is actually very different to a lot of Shetland yarns, which tend to be woollen spun, and fuzzier. Shetland Heritage is worsted spun, so the finished fabric has a beautiful smoothness to it, and the colours in its palette are all very saturated and high contrast . . . in short, it is a yarn that works perfectly for this design. I love it. I knitted one large swatch, which was created just as the finished garment is: in the round, with a central steek. I changed needle sizes several times on the swatch so that I could gain an accurate sense of how the fabric would behave when worked at different gauges, and what gauges would work best for the finished garment (which is worked at two gauges: a simple way of adding shaping to the waist and torso). The swatch is there first and foremost to allow me to make gauge calculations for grading, and to finalise ideas thinking about the fabric of the garment, but it can also help me make useful design decisions as well. In this case, I cut the steek on my swatch without reinforcing it in any way, and picked up ribbing from the steeked edge. This was useful in telling me how the yarn would behave when cut, and allowed me to decide how I’d work the steeks on the finished garment. I then worked the ribbing into a V, which meant I knew exactly how I’d work the neck edging long before I got to that stage. 

© Kate Davies

Jen: Is knitting your design an essential part of the process for you?

Kate: I do like to knit my designs whenever possible as there are often things about the process that I find useful when writing and grading the finished pattern. If I understand the garment from the inside out then I know I create a better, more “knitterly” design. I knit the Machrihanish sample, and, as well as enjoying the process of creating the garment, the act of creating it meant that I was also able to make crucial adjustments to the pattern which hopefully make things clearer for the knitter! It isn’t always possible to make every sample, though, and like you I am lucky to be able to work closely with a knitter of superlative skill: Melanie Ireland. Often Mel and I will knit two samples from a pattern I’ve written, and have quite different ideas about how to improve it for clarity and ‘knittability’. I know I’m a better pattern writer because of Mel. 

Jen: What are your aims when you write up the pattern?

Kate: My ultimate aim when designing is always that the knitter finds the pattern clear, straightforward and enjoyable to work from. I particularly like using numbered steps in my instructions - this helps the knitter find where they are immediately, tells them what is about to happen, and is also really helpful in locating a point in the pattern if they ever want to ask me a question about it. Sometimes one is too absorbed in ones own methods to see the wood for the trees, as it were, and I particularly like working with you because you will always tell me if an instruction isn’t quite clear, and we can then think about how to improve it. My style has evolved from my personal knitting practice and has some odd hybrid elements that are perhaps idiosyncratic.. . . I think in inches rather than centimetres; use terms from the US and UK interchangeably, and insist on doing some things of which I know you mildly disapprove Jen, such as using lower case letters in my abbreviations. But I was happy to let some of these stylistic idiosyncracies go as we forged a happy path between our two pattern-writing styles for this project. . . . and now you have embraced BIND OFF, I intend to work on bringing you round to saying GAUGE rather than TENSION. I confess I also like a pattern to be aesthetically pleasing, and to work well on page. As you well know, the “look” of my charts is one of the things I can get pernickety about! 

Jen: Were there any challenges that were specific to designing a man’s garment?

Kate: I had knit several sweaters for Tom previously, so was used to thinking about the differences in designing for at least one masculine torso. I wanted to give the knitters the option of tapering the garment to the waist, as shaping is so very, very rare in men’s patterns - though most men’s sweaters are rectangular - not all men are! This was the first time I’d graded a man’s pattern, and I spent a lot of time thinking about proportion, which was certainly challenging, though interesting. My main concern when knitting the sample was whether Tom would like it. . . . Happily, all the planning and thinking paid off as it fits well, and he loves it. Hurrah! 

Thank you so much Kate for asking me to create this eBook with you. I can't wait to see what you come up with for our next challenge - I guess this means that I need to keep designing for a bit longer... (It's TENSION!!) :D In the meantime, here is the Ravelry buy now link for Cross-Country Knitting Volume 1 (£5.95   ) and we have now published the print edition with MagCloud, where the price is $12.00. Just click on the badge below.

New Design: Bruton Hoody

Many thanks to everyone for the purchases, kind tweets, Ravelry favourites, Facebook likes and all of the other ways that you have spread the word about Cross-Country Knitting! Kate and I are overwhelmed by the response. You can pop over to Kate's blog, to read more about her design, Machrihanish.

Today I'd like to talk a bit more about my design, Bruton...

© Jesse Wild

The twisted stitch cable panel comes from a stitch pattern in Maria Erlbacher's wonderful Twisted-Stitch Knitting book. I love this book, and could happily work through the stitch patterns in turn! All of the right side knits are twisted (and wrong side purls), which gives a particularly well-defined snake-like appearance to the cables. It has the added interest of crosses on wrong side rows, which requires a little bit of concentration, but since these only occur on 12 rows in the hoody (and another 12 in the swatch - where you can practise), it's not too onerous. I really wanted this pattern to be interesting, but not too challenging!

© Jesse Wild

I love it when a pattern has a clever trick or two to teach me, and I hope that some knitters may find this to be the case with Bruton. To create both the pocket openings, and the sleeve holes, you work on fronts and back separately, but I've used two cunning tricks to enhance things. Firstly I've incorporated TechKnitter's handy trick to avoid a weak point where you separate the fronts from back. I've searched for the precise link, but my search-fu is for once failing me. Never mind! There are SO many amazing hints and tips over there, that it's worth a proper visit, if you're not already familiar with her work.

Secondly, you don't have to break and rejoin the yarn when you finish one section and start again on the next. I know that many people aren't too bothered about weaving in ends, but this is such a clever technique as it also saves you some time later! I first came across a similar process when editing a Courtney by Nick Atkinson for The Knitter, and I've taken the idea and reworked it for my design. In Nick's pattern, once you've knitted a strip, you crochet your way back down the side of the strip to return to the next set of stitches. In the Bruton Hoody, you pick up the stitches ready to work the pockets (and later sleeves). This enables you to work your way back to the next section, without having to break and rejoin. And better still, you then have your pocket and sleeve stitches all set and ready to work once you have finished the body!

© Jesse Wild

Excelana DK is a brilliant yarn to work with. The yarn was developed by Susan Crawford and John Arbon. What a team! Susan and John created the yarn for Susan's vintage designs, but it's equally amazing for  modern designs too! Here is some information about the wool from their website:

Excelana is a 100% British wool, spun from the fleece of the Exmoor Blueface, which live on the moors of North Devon. A cross between the Exmoor Horn and the Bluefaced Leicester, the fleece of the Exmoor Blueface creates a lustrous yarn with a soft handle, great stretch and excellent stitch definition, affording the knitter a pleasurable knitting experience.

I can but agree that it really does have wonderful stretch, stitch definition, and softness. Jim (aka Veuf Tricot) has been wearing his hoody non-stop since we finished the photoshoot in April last year (I told you this has been in the works for a while!), and it's wearing REALLY well too. Just what you want if you have spent time knitting a garment for someone special!

 

© Jen Arnall-Culliford

You will notice that I've slipped in a few pictures of me wearing the Bruton Hoody... I'm resisting the temptation to outright steal this from Jim. But the temptation is STRONG! So if you find that once it's knitted, you can't bear to part with it... Just don't let on that I said you could!

© Jesse Wild

To purchase Cross-Country Knitting volume 1 for £5.95 head over to Ravelry, or just click on the buy now button: 

Cross-Country Knitting Volume 1

I have been bursting with excitement about this project for a LONG time, so without further ado, I present to you Cross-Country Knitting Volume 1.

Kate Davies and I have been knitting friends and colleagues for a few years now. We work at opposite ends of the country, but through the wonder of the internet, we have bonded over our joint love of knitting, cake, birds, TV shows and many other things. In fact there is really only one topic that we won't ever see eye to eye on... She's a tea lover, and I can't function without coffee. These are the differences that cement a friendship, I'm sure you will agree!

We decided that it would be fun to do a design project together. Something to work on together, where we could showcase our different, but complementary, design styles. We set ourselves the brief of designing a men's garment (Tom and Jim both being fans of knitwear!) that we would want to knit and that they would want to wear. These are not always compatible desires, are they?

This pair of garments is what we have come up with. Kate has designed a magnificent Fair Isle Tank Top, with a contemporary sleek shape, and beautiful traditional OXO motifs: Machrihanish

© Kate Davies Designs

And I designed Bruton Hoody, knitted using the delicious Excelana Luxury DK (more on that in a day or two...). Jim has a few well-worn zipped cardigans, and I wanted to design something slightly more interesting, but still wearable. I've long had a love affair with Maria Erlbacher's beautiful Bavarian twisted stitch patterns (more on that soon too...), so I settled on a panel running up the front, with the cable just below the shoulder. The construction of this hoody uses some cunning picking up stitches to avoid having too many ends to weave in! It's knitted in one piece from start to finish, with the pockets and sleeve stitches picked up as you go. Tricky to explain, but very, very simple to do! I've named my hoody Bruton, after the Somerset town where Jim was at school.

© Jesse Wild

Many thanks to Corben Storey for modelling my hoody, Kim Hobley for knitting the sample, Susan Crawford and John Arbon Textiles for providing the Excelana DK for the sample hoody, and Jesse Wild for photography!

In Cross-Country Knitting Volume 1 you will find patterns for both hoody and vest, plus a feature article by Jim (aka, the inimitable Veuf Tricot) on the perils of giving and receiving hand-knits, and a cut-out-and-keep Cross-Country Knitting gift tag to attach to your finished work (if you can bear to part with it!). The eBook is now available for £5.95 via Ravelry , and the print booklet will very shortly be available via MagCloud.

Kate and I will be blogging in further detail about our designs tomorrow (or thereabouts), and if you come back at the end of the week, there will be an interview with Kate for your enjoyment! To keep track of our Cross-Country Knitting journey, you can also bookmark our website: www.crosscountryknitting.com

New Patterns: Cutcombe and Alcombe Socks & a SALE

Where has this sudden burst of productivity come from, I hear you ask? Well frankly I have no idea, but these patterns have been in the works since this time last year, so it's been brewing for a while. It has just taken me until now to get them laid out and tech edited (thanks again Rachel Atkinson!). Keep reading for details of a pattern sale and random gifts!

The first design is called Cutcombe, and is a top-down sock pattern featuring a clever helical stripe pattern with slip stitch spirals. An afterthought heel is worked, allowing you to keep the spiralling stitch pattern consistent right to the end of the foot.

The two socks are mirrored, and the stitch pattern works best when you use a solid colour paired with a more colourful variegated or self-striping yarn. Both Cutcombe and Alcombe use one ball of Schoppel Wolle Crazy Zauberball combined with a ball of Lang Yarns Jawoll, but you could of course use any combination of suitable sock yarn that you fancy.

I first used this stitch pattern in a spiralling sock pattern that I designed while working on The Knitter. Since that toe-up pattern is no longer available online, I'm delighted to have given it a whole new lease of life with these two top-down designs. It was another of those ideas which just arrived in my head with very little warning. I had enjoyed discovering helical stripes, thanks to a post on Grumperina's blog, and before I knew it the first pair just emerged from my needles. Sometimes it's hard to explain where design inspiration comes from, isn't it?

I bought 100g of each yarn which gave me enough to work 2 pairs of Cutcombe socks - reversing the colours for the second pair. The helical stripe technique is explained in detail, but is actually addictively simple to work. It's one of those things that when you read it through looks like it might be tricky, but as soon as you try it you wonder why you hadn't thought of it before!

The second design is called Alcombe and is also a top-down sock, this time with a standard heel-flap construction and plain stocking stitch foot. The legs feature the same helical stripe pattern with slip-stitch spirals. 

I know that many sock knitters love socks as they can almost work on auto-pilot once they have established the pattern on the leg, so I thought that it would be handy to have a pattern using a heel-flap, since that is the most popular sock construction out there. The only "downside" to using this is that you lose the consistency in the colour gradation from leg to foot, and can get quite a step in colour at that point. I don't particularly mind this feature in these socks, but if it bothers you, then the Cutcombe Socks might be more your cup of tea!

Many thanks again to Jesse Wild for brilliant photography - all the pictures in the blog post are © Jesse Wild. Thanks also to Kim again for awesome sample knitting and helping me to get to the bottom of the perfect yarn/shade combinations. Both patterns were expertly tech edited by Rachel Atkinson - thank you!

As a celebration of this surge in productivity, I'm running a buy one, get one free promotion on all of my self-published patterns and eBooks. Simply add two patterns to your Ravelry cart, and it will automatically give you the cheaper pattern for free! The discount is applied before you go and pay at PayPal, so don't proceed to PayPal unless you can see the discount has worked! You can see all of the eligible patterns and eBooks in the Jen Arnall-Culliford Designs Ravelry Shop (the Cloudy Apples eBook is not eligible as it was published jointly). This promotion will run until the end of the day on Monday 17th March 2014 (GMT - London). Go and enjoy!

New Pattern: Lullington Hat

Do you remember that ball of Toft Ulysses that I bought at Unravel the other week? 

Well it had some pretty clear ideas about how it wanted to be knitted up...

I cast on this hat at the start of last week, and it had the ends woven in on Thursday morning. Not a single rip back. Not a tinked stitch. Designing never happens like that for me. This is a yarn with a personality and opinion!

I've been wanting to get my hands on a ball of Toft Ulysses for a while. My lovely knitting friends Kate Davies and Rachel Coopey have both been singing its praises to me, and I find myself in total agreement with them. I can't speak highly enough of the  yarn. It is sturdy and firm, but OH so soft! The stitch definition is outstanding, and it really does make a fantastic squishy hat. I think it would look brilliant with the addition of one of Toft's fabulous alpaca pompoms as well...

It wouldn't be a post-shoot blog entry if I didn't include an amusing shot of me pulling a face for the camera! Thank you Jesse for always making me giggle in front of the camera. You really are a brilliant photographer.

I love the spirals of decreases on a hat crown.

My heartfelt thanks go to Rachel Atkinson (technical editing) and Jesse Wild (photography - all shots of me are © Jesse Wild), both of whom fitted me in to their busy schedules, and were happy to work around the school run!

It has been a week full of knitting-related activity, so keep your eyes peeled for more patterns in the next few days! Along with an EXTREMELY exciting collaboration, which has been a long time in the works. Happy knitting all!

New Pattern: Redlynch Shawl

I'm delighted to launch the first of my autumn knitting patterns - the Redlynch Shawl.

Inspired by the need for something to layer with long-sleeved T-shirts, or blouses, but not too heavy, Redlynch is named after a very pretty Somerset village. It's technically a cape or capelet, but I find that a rather off-putting description for a garment that I wear heaps and heaps. I tend to think of it more as a large shawl that doesn't need wrapping around your neck. You just slip it on and it stays put!

Redlynch is knitted in SMC Select Highland Alpaca Fino, which is a blend of 50% alpaca and 50% wool single ply yarn. I would describe it as a light 4ply weight yarn (it has 250m per 50g), but Ravelry has it down as a sport weight. It blooms nicely, so is a versatile yarn. You could certainly substitute anything between a 3ply and sport weight yarn, depending on how light you would like your Redlynch Shawl to be.

The shawl is knitted in a wide rectangle, before dividing into two halves to create the neck opening. Each half is worked on separately, and then joined together either by grafting (which gives the neatest finish) or by casting off and sewing the two ends. The neck and body edgings are then picked up and an i-cord is knitted on. The lace has patterning on both RS and WS rows, and the finished repeat reminds me of pairs of wings.

© Jesse Wild

We took these photos back in April on a fun shoot with Jesse, and some help from my great friend Maz. She never stopped making me giggle, so thank you for ensuring that I had genuine smiles all day long Maz! Many thanks also to Kim Hobley and Rachel Atkinson for sample knitting for me. You are stars!

Here is all the technical information you might need:

This design was first published in The Knitter, Issue 45 under the name Vita, but the rights have now reverted to me, and I'm now releasing it for the first time as a single pattern download.