Winner + Designer Spotlight: Boo Knits

Our ongoing Designer Spotlight feature allows us to get a glimpse of what drives them to create.

Today, we interview Boo Knits. Bev is a knitter of shawls predominantly, and she has an avid obsession for beautiful yarns, beads and knitting needles. She lives in mildly moist but beautifully green England.

When did you learn to knit/crochet?
My aunt tried to teach me when I was a child but gave it up as a bad job when I just couldn’t hold my yarn properly. I still don’t! Many, many years later I taught myself with the aid of books, YouTube and a fair bit of trial and error to find the easiest way that worked for me.

What are your favorite projects to design?
I love to design shawls and have designed a couple of scarves/stoles but that doesn’t mean that that is all I will ever design. I have something different on the needles at the moment and we will have to wait and see whether it will become a pattern or not. I love the fun of designing and knitting lace – the playing with pattern and texture is mesmerizing.

Diamond Fizz by Boo Knits

A lot of knitters are intimidated by lace knitting. What are some of your fool proof tips for success with lace projects?
The most important thing is as simple as read the pattern. Read it again. Make a cup of coffee. Read the pattern. The answers to many of the questions I get asked are already in the pattern. Another useful tip - Stitch Markers! Stitch Markers are your friends, they are not a sign that you are new, less than able, cannot count, they are there to help keep track of your stitches and pattern and to help to make sure you don’t get to the end of the row only to have to tink back to put something right at the beginning. The finer your stitch markers the better, especially with lace knitting as some of the thicker markers can leave a mark in your knitting that looks like a ladder. These often disappear after blocking but not always and prevention is better than cure.

Many of your designs use beads; do you have any tips or tutorials to help knitters who are new to this technique?
Using beads is much easier than anyone would think. I would definitely recommend the better-quality beads on the market and particularly like Miyuki, Toho and Matubo – they have nice, smooth, large holes to get your yarn through. I almost always use their Size 6 Seed Beads and Size 5 Triangles on lace as the smaller beads simply get lost on anything heavier than cobweb. All of my patterns have the beads placed on the stitch individually. This ensures that the bead sits nice and straight on the stitch rather than sitting on a slant which happens when the beads are pre-strung.

There are many ways to apply a bead; with a tiny crochet hook, dental floss, a specially designed beader or, my favourite way, using a cro-tat hook. I load beads onto about six cro-tats at a time and stand them up in either a small vase or a jar of beads so that I don’t have to keep reloading. This means it is much quicker to finish a row with beads on and is less fiddly than only having one bead at a time.

Somehow it is smoother to apply beads when you have several on your hook. Just pop your stitch onto the loaded cro-tat, hold your hook at about 45 degrees with your stitch taut (at about 90 degrees from the hook) and push the bottom bead gently. The top bead should just pop onto your stitch and you are then ready to work the stitch as directed in the pattern.

What is your absolute favorite Knitter's Pride product, the one you would HAVE to have if you were stranded on a desert island?
As a lace knitter, it would have to be blocking wires and t-pins – an absolute must for anyone knitting shawls! I am sure, if stranded too long, they would become really good multi-purpose tools too.

Moonflower by Boo Knits

I have a MKAL starting 1st May called Just Be You. The shawl has been designed in conjunction with Lichtfaden for Sabine’s Meridian Pure Silk yarn. Just Be You is a crescent shaped, beaded and worked from the top down in a heavy lace weight yarn 660m/110g.

Sabine’s love for colour is evident to all and we talked at length about a style and influence for the design. Wave-Gotik-Treffen (WGT) is a gothic music and fashion festival held every year, for the past twenty-five years, in Leipzig, Germany.

With a Victorian picnic in the park, readings, theatre performances and medieval markets as well as the huge number of music events it is the biggest festival of its kind anywhere and is considered the ‘Mecca’ for cybergoths, metal heads, steampunks, neo-Victorians, dark romantics, dark electro, industrial and medieval fans.

Thousands of people descend on the city wearing the most amazing outfits – people attend alone, with friends or with their entire family and travel the world over to take part and experience this week-long event that is always a friendly, tolerant and trouble-free festival. So, whether your style is Victorian Lady, Gothic, Steampunk, or Jeans and T-shirt – Just Be You!

This shawl is a celebration of all of us, whoever we are, whatever we are and wherever we are – that we accept ourselves and others without judgement. Choose your colour and wear your shawl with pride and love and be true to yourself.

If you cannot wait until 1st May to cast on, then there are lots of other patterns available to try. Rum and Cola and Spritzer are brilliant for those new to lace, Voodoo and Spellbound would be great for anyone wanting something with more detail and Wintersweet, Danse Macabre and Temptress would be perfect for those with more experience. There really is something for everyone.

Winner
Congratulations to Connie K., this month's giveaway winner! We will contact you to arrange for the delivery of your prize. Thanks to everyone who entered this month's giveaway! 

Giveaway + Designer Spotlight: Susanna IC

August is a great time of year to give lace knitting a try! Our previous blog posts focused on lace knitting tools & techniques and blocking your finished project, and today we are excited to spotlight a fabulous knitwear designer who is known for stunning lace designs (and more): Susanna IC. 

After nine years in Europe, Susanna IC now lives deep in the heart of Texas with her husband, two sons, one guinea pig and countless balls of yarn. Besides a background in fashion design, she has a Master’s degree in art history and a Bachelors’s in studio arts, all of which continue to inspire her knitting. Her designs have appeared in numerous online and print publications, such as Interweave Knits, Jane Austen Knits, Twist Collective, Brooklyn Tweed’s Wool People, and Knitty. You can view all of Susanna's designs here on Ravelry and keep up with her latest creations on her blog at artqualia.com.

When did you learn to knit/crochet?

My grandmother was a great knitter; she taught me how to crochet when I was five and she wanted to teach me how to knit as well, but she was left-handed, and I just could not figure out how to mirror her movements and make the stitches with my right hand. Fast forward to when my older son was six months old and I had a little extra time on my hands while he was sleeping. I thought that making adorable baby sweaters would be fun, so I decided to give knitting one more try. I picked up a how-to knit book and instantly fell in love.

How did you get started designing?

My first swatch was the back of my first baby sweater, which in a way was my first knitted design as well. Learning to knit alone from a book, I did not even realize that there were detailed knitting patterns to follow, so I just sort of made it all up as I went along. I have a background in fashion design and I’ve sewn all my life, so the designing part of knitting came naturally. Few years later, after I added some of my original projects to Ravelry, people asked about them and I wrote a few of them up as patterns. Next, I’ve sent out design submissions to several publications and they were accepted and everything just took off from there.

Pyropa shawl pattern, from Knitty First Fall 2016.

What are your favorite projects to design?

Looking at the majority of my designs I guess you would say that I live for shawls. Well, that’s true, I absolutely adore creating shawls of all sorts, but I really love all kinds of knitting - lace and cables and texture, accessories and garments, simple and complex. I absolutely love the moment of inspiration, which can come from anywhere - nature, books, movies, yarn color, etc. After that, watching the vision come to life on the needles is exhilarating and blocking lace is always a wonderful surprise. I even like the math of knit design. I guess I really do love the entire process, including ripping and reknitting.

What is your absolute favorite Knitter's Pride product, the one you would HAVE to have if you were stranded on a desert island?

I learned to knit on straight needles and for several years I did not use anything else because I did not realize how limiting the straight needles were. It was only after I decided to try colorwork in the round that I discovered interchangeable circular needles. I purchased the full set of the original nickel plated needles and I’ve never looked back. The needles are durable and very smooth with tapered tips that are perfect for intricate lace as well as cables and texture. I love how versatile and fast they are, and I use them for all types of yarn. Over the years, I’ve added many extra tips to my collection in the sizes I use most often because I usually have several design projects on the needles and I don’t want to wait for the correct needle size to free up.

Mina shawl, available on Ravelry

Many knitters might be intimidated by the thought of knitting lace. How would you convince someone to give it a try? 

I think that knitting lace is like any other knitting and anyone can do it; it’s really just knit and purl stitches combined with a few decreases and increases, which create interesting patterns depending on how they are placed. That said, any new technique can take some time to master and, as the saying goes, a little practice goes a long way. The first lace shawl I’ve ever made took me a while because I had to concentrate on every stitch; however, that same shawl would be a quick project now.

To get started, you’d want to choose a simple lace pattern with a short repeat, about ten to twelve stitches, so that the stitch sequence can be easily memorized. Look for a pattern with resting rows; this means that the right side patterned rows are separated by purled wrong side rows. If you’d rather not jump directly into a project, a small swatch of a few pattern repeats can help you learn the stitches and the sequence in which they are combined. Also, knitting lace does not necessarily mean lace weight yarn, so if you find lace weight yarns too fiddly to start with, you can use a fingering or sport weight yarn instead.

Rhodora shawl, from Twist Collective Spring/Summer 2016

What are some of your foolproof tips for success with lace projects?

When reading lace charts for the first few times, it can be helpful to color code the stitch symbols so that you can easily identify all those similar-looking symbols. Removable highlighter tape or sticky note placed on the chart can be great help in keeping track of the row you’re currently working on, and placing stitch markers on the needles to separate the pattern repeats will help you keep the stitch count correct. These are just a few ideas that helped me when I started knitting lace. Give it a try and in no time you will be creating masterpieces.

Belarra shawl, from Twist Collective Spring/Summer 2014

Giveaway
This month, one lucky blog reader will win a set of Knitter's Pride Knit Blockers! To enter, leave a comment on this blog post sharing the name of your favorite Susanna IC pattern (click here to view them all on Ravelry). Be sure to also include your Ravelry ID or email address so that we can contact you if you win.

We will randomly select the winning comment to announce here on the Knitter's Pride blog on Friday, August 26. Good luck!

Tutorial: Wet Blocking A Lace Shawl

In our previous blog post, we shared tips, tricks and tools to successfully knit a lace project (click here if you missed it). On today's post, we'll share how to finish your project with professional results.

There are a few ways that you can finish your project - using steam, spray blocking or wet blocking. Most knitters and crocheters have a personal preference for one or the other, and today we'll focus on wet blocking a shawl project (though our instructions can be used to wet block just about any finished project). You can view a tutorial for spray blocking a lace project here on our blog archive.

First, assemble the supplies you'll need: a small basin or tub, no-rinse wool wash, a few fluffy towels, tape measure and Knitter's Pride Blocking Mats, T-Pins, Wires and Knit Blockers.

Fill the tub or basin with tepid water and a small amount of your wool wash. Gently add your finished project and immerse in the water for about 10-15 minutes.

Carefully remove your project: this is where a no-rinse product comes in handy, because you don't have to risk felting by washing out the soap. Instead, allow the water to drain out as you take care not to wring it. Lay it flat on a dry, fluffy towel and gently roll up to squeeze out excess water. Repeat, using a fresh towel, if necessary.

Most hand wash instructions say "lay flat to dry," but for a project which requires specific dimensions or features a stitch pattern that looks best once it has been blocked in a certain way, this is the most crucial step: your project will take whatever shape you dry it in, so if you toss it on your blocking mats and leave it be, it will dry - wrinkles and all.

Begin with a straight edge; for some shawls, it might be the top, or in the case of this tutorial, the midline. Secure this straight edge with Knit Blockers, using the tape measure to make sure that your shawl has the dimensions listed in the pattern.

From here, begin to secure the borders of the shawl with wires, T-Pins or Knit Blockers. You have a lot of options here, and what you choose to do will depend on the type of project you have made. In this case, we use Knit Blockers to secure the top edges, then show two options for securing the lace border: on the right, blocking wires are threaded through the points of the border and secured with Knit Blockers every so often, and T-pins are used on the lace border as well. On the left, the lace border has been secured using only T-Pins (each one is circled in yellow so that you can spot them a little easier:

Allow to dry, then enjoy wearing your creation!

Winner
Congratulations to patricialonnie, you have won this month's blog giveaway! We will get in touch with you shortly to arrange for the delivery of your Nova Platina Cubics Deluxe interchangeable set.

Be sure to add our blog to your reader for more great tutorials, designer interviews, and giveaways!

Essentials of Lace + Giveaway

Happy New Year! We're looking forward to an exciting year filled with non-stop crafting, learning and sharing. There is no shortage of new knitting and crochet techniques to try, and we hope our products will help you on your journey this year.

This month, we'd like to share some of our favorite tips and tutorials for knitting and crocheting lace projects. First, you'll need to be comfortable reading (and working from) charts. While it's true that several patterns will include both written and charted instructions, many patterns include only charts due to space constraints or designer preference, so it's a good skill to have under your belt!

Luckily, there are plenty of free tutorials available in the knitting blogosphere: Wisehilda Knits, PicnicKnits, and Wendy Knits all have shared very informative posts on this topic. You can find even more via Google, Youtube and Pinterest, too - isn't it nice to have options?

Having the right tools is another important consideration. Many lace knitters prefer sharp needles and metal tips which allow the stitches to glide freely and quickly. We recommend trying our Karbonz or Nova Cubics needles for your next lace-knitting project, or our color-coded Waves hooks if you're planning to crochet your next lace project. Stitch markers can also help you keep track of pattern repeats or where you need to increase or decrease as you work.

The real magic is in the finishing, however! Blocking your project properly will enable the lace pattern to open up, causing a dramatic transformation for many projects. This is where blocking wires come in handy: they can save you time and effort in blocking your project out to a specific shape. Patterns featuring scallops or points can especially benefit from blocking wires, though you can also use them to easily create a straight edge on just about any project. You'll need T-Pins to get the job done, and in general, blocking is much easier to do if you have a soft surface such as our new lace blocking mats.

There is an excellent article about the ins and outs of blocking here in the Knitty archives, but in our next blog post, we'll show you how to block a lace project step-by-step using Knitter's Pride products.

We'll also be giving away a Lace Blocking Wire Kit to one lucky reader! To be eligible, simply leave a comment on this post telling us your craft-related new year's resolution; be sure to also mention your Ravelry ID or email address so that we may contact you if you win.

The Knitter's Pride Lace Blocking Wire Kit contains several stainless steel wires in various lengths (15 total), 20 rust-resistant T-pins and 1 measuring tape!

We will randomly select a winning comment to announce on our next blog post on Friday, January 24, 2014. Good luck!