Hello! Welcome to those of you who found me last weekend thanks to the lovely Julia. I hope I won’t disappoint! It’s Bank Holiday Monday here in the UK (a 3-day weekend, basically). I haven’t enjoyed weekends very much since I left school (whatever happened to saturday night?). For a start, I always get the urge to order yarn on Friday evening, just when I’ll have longest to wait for it. Then if I decide to go to the library, or to the supermarket, it’s always extra crowded. And then the internet is always so quiet (where do you all go? sniff). Besides, I’m not going to stop “working” just because it’s not a “workday” for most people! But well, thanks to Julia and the Twist Collective, this weekend was devoid of its usual tedium, and I was bouncing around in excitement instead. So welcome! :)

It’s another grey day here, but I hope you’re making the most of your long weekend (if you have one) to do some knitting. I felt like something quick and cosy yesterday & found this in my stash. I love Colinette so much. This is One Zero in the colourway ‘Banwy’ (I wish their website still had those charming blurbs, remember those?). I found myself driving (well, being driven) through Banwy the other day, but unfortunately we didn’t have time to stop and scout out the Colinette workshop. Anyway, I absolutely adore this colourway (though no photos can do it justice), in particular the inky blacks that look like they’ve been dripped onto a light mossy green pool. Welsh slate, mossy rocks, tenebrous woods, and (this is pure genius) the rosy glow of morning sunshine on limewash. How did they do it? How did those clever Colinette dyers manage to put all this in a yarn?

You really don’t need to work hard to show it off. Sometimes the simplest thing is the best: stocking stitch (stockinette for Colinette, you might say). Wide and loose cowls seem to be in fashion this winter, but I like mine to actually keep my neck warm! And this is the perfect width for that. It’s jolly tricky taking photos of yourself with a manual focus 50mm lens, by the way.

There were so many sixes in this pattern, I decided to call it the Sixes Cowl, maybe it’ll make it easier for you to remember if you decide to knit one.

Simple Instructions for the Sixes Cowl

You might just be able to squeeze a cowl out of one hank of One Zero, but get a couple (or 6) just to be sure.
Gauge is also a bit tricky since One Zero is a thick & thin yarn, but mine is approx. 12 sts / 19 rows to 10cm/4in of stocking st.

Using 6mm 60cm circular needles,

Cast on 66 sts & join to work in the round.
Work in 1×1 rib for 6 rows.
Work in stocking stitch for 30cm / 12in (or however long you desire).
Work 6 rows in 1×1 rib.
Cast off in rib.
Weave in ends (my cowl is still umbilical).

Easy, eh? Look at that sweet wobbly cast off! Because of the uneven nature of the yarn, your stocking stitch will have gentle waves. I recommend you enjoy it that way, rather than trying to block it flat. If you need help with circular knitting, read All About Circular Knitting. And did I mention you can wear it either way out?

Just in case you haven’t got any One Zero handy though, and you can’t bear the wait, how about having a picture of it to warm up your desktop? You can download a large copy of the photo above from Flickr, which should shrink to size when you apply it to your desktop. If it doesn’t work though, let me know your screen resolution & I’ll see if I can whip up some specific sizes. :)

P.S. I was very tempted to call this ‘Cawl’ (pronounced ‘cowl’), which is a hearty Welsh soup made with leftovers. Just the thing after a long damp walk. But then I thought (cowls being addictive) that maybe I’ll knit another cowl to call Cawl, what do you think? ;)

Don’t you love looking through books of stitch patterns for knitting inspiration? I often keep a few next to my bedside and flick through them before I fall asleep. Stitch patterns are a brilliant opportunity to practice, learn new techniques, and begin to solve the mystery of how stitches create different fabrics. They’re often a good starting point for designs too, especially if you don’t yet have the time or expertise to discover your own.

I’ve selected six stitch patterns to highlight knitted texture, lace, and ribbing, and because I wanted to make this booklet extra useful, each of the stitches is photographed on the right side and the wrong side (I haven’t seen this done before, but I wish more publications would adopt the practice), and I offer additional tips and advice to help you on your way.

Whether you’re a beginner or a bored expert, I think you’ll enjoy The Little eBook of Knitting Stitches. I’m offering it as a free gift to subscribers of the Laylock mailing list. The subject of the mailings will be ‘better living through knitting‘, emails will only be sent once or twice a month, and of course I will never spam you or share your information. Nevertheless, if you’d really rather not subscribe, write me an email & I’ll send you the PDF file anyway. Just because. :)

Sign up below (or here), and leave your comments below that to let me know what you think of your small gift. Happy knitting!

If you follow Laylock on Twitter, you may already have seen that I’m holding KniTwit Wednesday every week. The idea is simple: I tweet knitting patterns that are less than 140 characters. You can then knit them, re-tweet them (just add ‘RT @laylock’ to the beginning of the pattern I tweet and people will know where you found it), or write your own succinct little patterns so I can re-tweet them. I’ve written a few of the patterns already and find it a great thinking & knitting challenge, so I strongly urge you to give it a go!

For convenience I’ll link to all the KniTwit Wednesday pattern tweets here:

1. Knit Bracelet (Re-Tweet)
2. Lace & Shell Scarf (Re-Tweet)
3. Dishcloth (Re-Tweet)
4. Shawl (Re-Tweet)
5. Scrunchie (Crochet) by @DesignsbyKN (Re-Tweet)
6. Pencilcase (Re-Tweet)

If you find my free Knit Love gift tags, and Bird Labels useful, and fancy making your own, here is an .svg file of the blank care symbols. I made these using Inkscape, which is a great open source vector graphics program. If you need some guidance using Inkscape, The Knitting Penguin has started an excellent series called ‘Inkscape for Knitters‘ which will teach you enough about Inkscape to use this .svg file. She’s clearly put a lot of time and effort into the series, so please take the time to thank her.

The blank symbols are public domain, so feel free to use them as you wish! Enjoy!

I’ve also been playing around with knit “patterns” of another kind recently, and they developed into these gift tags. Small hearts and kisses in stitches & knitting needles. Like my birdy labels, and the labels that come with the Houses Slipover, they have empty care symbols that you can fill in according to the yarn you’ve used for your gift. The tags are now licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales License, but I would like to ask that you link to this blog post rather than directly to the PDF. Thank you & I hope you enjoy them! :)

A few tips:

• Fold & glue the tags before cutting them out. Less cutting!
• I find the tags are firm enough when printed on regular printer paper & then folded, however, you could also print them on card. Check your printer manual for help.
• You could fold the tags, but leave them unglued & use the inside for extra space to write your message.
• Punching holes in the right spot takes a bit of practice! ;)
• You could also use these tags to label swatches!

Have you seen the new KnitLove collection?

The countryside is as beautiful and muddy as ever. I can hear my latest batch of neighbours being unloaded as I write. Baa-aa. I’ve been hanging out with the forsythia & the magnolia, and I’m terribly behind on everything, so if you’ve been waiting for a reply or a package from me, don’t give up hope!

Also, I realised yesterday that my feed somehow broke, so you may have missed my last post. It should be fixed now, but if you didn’t subscribe through FeedBurner, you may have to resubscribe. Have a lovely long Easter weekend! Eat lots of chocolate & don’t forget to take your camera with you!

It has taken me ages to get around to blogging this, but the Laylock website is finally up! I’m quite pleased with the way it looks at the moment, and can’t wait to fill it up properly.

In anticipation of Easter (which is on the 12th of April this year), I decided to re-relase my Chick Egg Cosy pattern as a PDF, with extra instructions. It’s been getting a lot of love on Ravelry, with over 200 faves! :) I gave all of the original chicks away to friends, so I had to knit another couple to photograph. Here they are, modeled by real eggs. They even had some adventures, before I gave them away too. You’ll notice the second chick posing in front of the Twitter main page. That’s because he’s a Twitter bird! If you’re a Twitter fan too, hop over and follow me, then knit yourself a few blue egg cosies. They’ll keep your egg warm in the morning while you tweet, tweet, tweet.

Thank you so much for all your excellent suggestions regarding the postcards. The Random.org random number generator chose #1! So congratulations to LittleWit, I’ll be sending you a package very soon!

I was very interested to hear that CraftyCripple, Vanessa, and StephCat prefer notecards. Like Tekopp, I find postcards very versatile, easy to stick on the wall, or pop into a package without fiddling with envelopes. Not to mention cheaper to post! I can see the arguments for notecards though: they can be stood on a shelf, and they are more private. Either way, I love StephCat’s idea of using them in knitswaps. To this end, as Sarah suggested, the ‘nature’ cards will be grouped separately to the ‘knitting’ cards, and I will take care to make them “generic” enough to be useful for a variety of greetings.

Having said that, until I do some notecard-printing research, the first batch of cards in the shop will be postcards. I will try to get them up sometime next week. Thank you all once again for your comments!

The Houses pattern is nearing completion, so I thought I’d show you the little gift that will come with it. Printable pictures you can use as gift tags or for your own records. Just like the birdy labels I posted earlier, they have garment care symbols that you can fill in yourself.

The new website is also coming along, slowly and quietly like the snow, and a very cold summerhouse has decided my next project for me. Wait and see!

I have written up my solution to the little challenge I posed in Playing Houses as a PDF. I hope you enjoy it! It’s a very quick knit and I think quite sweet. If you think of any more solutions, please don’t hesitate to post them. I’d also love to hear how you get on with my explanation (it’s far easier to execute than to explain, believe me!).

Log Cabin (PDF)

If you are at all interested in the world of knitting or crochet, I hope you have already heard of the amazing Ravelry. Knowing that I’m part of the best web community out there, and that most tech geeks probably don’t even know it is pretty cool, so I wanted to have a nice big Ravelry button to link to my profile. While I was making it, it occurred to me that it might be neat to be able to offer your readers a link to the RSS feed of your profile page. I don’t suppose many people are aware that you can do this, but it’s a great feature! Another huge thumbs up to Casey and Jess!

These were all made with Inkscape. I thought drop shadows looked a bit messy at smaller sizes, so I didn’t add any, but if anyone wants them, I can make some versions with drop shadows too.

The .zip file includes:

• Round icons in .png format, in 7 sizes.
• Round feed icons in .png format in 7 sizes.
• Square icons in .png format in 6 sizes.
• Square feed icons in .png format in 6 sizes.
• All icons in vector format in 1 .svg file.

Updated as of 1 December 2008: The .zip file now also includes a handy readme.txt file to tell you how to use the icons!

Enjoy!