Indie June Sale at Loveknitting

Every June, the UK knitting site Loveknitting celebrates independent designers and their contributions to the fiber arts. There are blog competitions, designer features, plus a great big Indie June sale.

Those of you in the U.S. might be more familiar with Ravelry than with Loveknitting. The two sites both are great platforms for finding patterns, discovering new designers, and sharing your finished projects. One difference: Loveknitting offers supplies as well. While browsing patterns you can also get needles, crochet hooks, notions, and yarn. So it's kind of a "one stop shop" for everything you might need for a project.

Five of my most popular patterns are discounted $1.50 during the Indie June sale:

Pomegranate

Birchleaf

Shallows Mitts

Meadow Road

and Hop Brook

Lots of patterns are on sale—from baby items to shawls, socks, sweaters, and more—by many, many talented designers. 

If you aren't yet acquainted with Loveknitting, the Indie June sale is a great time to explore the site! Maybe you'll find inspiration for your summer and fall knitting—while also supporting independent designers like myself. The sale and other Indie June activities continue through June 30.

Selfish Knitting KAL Starts Friday

This Friday—New Year's Day—the second annual Blue Peninsula Selfish Knitting KAL begins. I hope you'll join us—it's a chance to slow down after the holiday bustle and knit something special for yourself. 

We have some lovely prizes this time: a skein of Elemental Affects Cormo Fingering (at 550 yards, it's just right for Hop Brook or another fingering weight project); 2) a pretty set of Lavender Hill Knits stitch markers; and 3) a Ravelry "sheep mistake" pouch. (What's the mistake? The first "l" is missing from Romeldale.)

The KAL runs from January 1 through Sunday, February 7. Any of my designs are eligible, and you can make more than one if you're feeling ambitious.

I'll also be releasing a new cowl pattern Friday. Since it will be my first pattern of 2016, and it's being published on the first day of the New Year, I'm calling it Erste (which means "first" in German).

More about the cowl soon ... but if you're wondering whether you've got suitable yarn in your stash, here are the details: you'll need 300 yards of sportweight yarn and a US5 24-inch circular (or size needed to produce a gauge of 5.5 stitches per inch in stockinette). I used Plucky Knitter Traveler Sport—a luxurious blend of merino, silk, and yak that begs to be worn around the neck.

Last but not least, the Yarn + Pattern Giveaway for projects posted in the Blue Peninsula FO thread ends Thursday, December 31. Don't forget to post your FOs to be in the running for a free pattern and a skein of yarn (your choice) from End of the Row Yarns.

I'd better get back to editing cowl photos now. Hope you have a fun and safe New Year's Eve!

Beautiful Beginnings

The Blue Peninsula Neckwear KAL is off to a a great start—lots of beautiful projects are on the needles. Everyone's making good progress, especially on Hop Brook, which is probably the most popular pattern in the KAL. 

I'm really enjoying seeing the range of colors being used—and the yarns, too. It's always instructive and inspiring to see how a design works with different yarns. Today I thought I'd share just a few of the KAL project photos, with links to the knitters' project pages. 

Jenny's using a tonal sock yarn, Knit Picks Stroll, which is working really well for her Hop Brook (shown against a backdrop of her own beautiful weaving):

Another Missouri knitter, Elisabeth, is also using sock yarn (Classic Elite's Alpaca Sox) for her Hop Brook:

Connie's Hop Brook is knit in Twin Canyon Fingering from Lost City Knits:

And Brennee's Hop Brook is knit in her own hand-dyed yarn (End of the Row Yarns), a blend of alpaca, silk, and linen:

Other patterns are seeing some love, too, among them Streusel, Shallows, and Conklaree.

For her Streusel, Ruth has chosen Handmaiden Fine Yarn Sea Silk in the orchid colorway:

Susan is using the Periwinkle Sheep yarn she won in the Hulst KAL this summer for her Shallows cowl:

(I have a soft spot in my heart for this beautiful Atlantic colorway. It's the same one I used for my Hulst socks.)

And for her Conklaree, Dana is aiming for a bigger, cozier wrap by using a worsted weight yarn—Cascade 220 Heathers in the Crushed Grape colorway:

This "Gallery of Beautiful Beginnings" is just a peek at the KAL projects—see more using the hashtag #bpnk2015 on Instagram or Ravelry.

Friday, October 2 will be "Free Pattern Friday." Throughout the day I'll randomly award free patterns to posts in the KAL discussion thread. All you have to do is post (as often as you wish). 

The Blue Peninsula Neckwear KAL continues through October 15, and you can join anytime. At the end, yarn and other great prizes will be awarded to finished projects in the FO thread. Hope to see you!

New Pattern: Hop Brook

Introducing Hop Brook, a scarf/shawlette named after a lovely brook in my hometown. With its relaxing garter stitch and not-too-complicated lace, Hop Brook is the perfect end-of-summer knitting project. It's now available in my Ravelry, Craftsy, and Etsy shops, and at Loveknitting as well.

Pattern: Hop Brook, by Bonnie Sennott

Yarn: Elsa Wool Cormo woolen-spun fingering in light grey

Hop Brook's elegant, tapered crescent shape results from gradually spaced increases and decreases in the garter stitch portion of the scarf. Like my Streusel scarf, it is worked from one end to the other, with no grafting or short rows. The pattern includes instructions for making it longer or shorter, and the stitch patterns are provided both in charts and in row-by-row written form.

This was my first time knitting with Elsa Wool Cormo and it certainly won't be my last. This beautiful undyed yarn comes from purebred Cormo sheep in Colorado and Montana. It is a good, honest yarn that's a pleasure to have on the needles. Its softness makes it ideal for anything worn against the skin.

Hop Brook is the fourth pattern in my 2015 All You Need Is One collection of designs that require just one skein of yarn. When you purchase the collection (available only on Ravelry), the PDF is automatically updated in your Ravelry library each time a new pattern is released. One more pattern will be added to the collection this fall; at $16 for five patterns, it's a great deal!

In conjunction with the second annual Neckwear KAL, I'm offering a discount on Hop Brook through September 10, only on Ravelry. Enter the coupon code NECKWEARKAL at checkout to get 25% off.

I hope you'll join us for the KAL! Last year's was lots of fun, so we're doing it again. The Blue Peninsula Neckwear KAL starts Thursday, September 10 and ends Thursday, October 15. Whether you're knitting something special for yourself or gearing up for holiday gift giving, it's going to be a fun, low-pressure KAL with some nice prizes (including a skein of Elsa Wool Cormo!).

The scarf takes its name from a brook in Amherst, Massachusetts. On a very hot Sunday earlier this month, I took a break from creating the pattern's charts to go for a walk on the local bike trail. When I passed a little sign for Hop Brook, I stopped and realized I'd never gone down that particular path before. So I did, and within five minutes came upon this beautiful view:

And just like that, I had found the name for my scarf! Goes to show, it's good to take breaks when you've been working a lot (especially on Sundays!) and to head down unfamiliar paths once in a while.

 As always, thanks go to my sister Jenny for her expert tech editing. Couldn't do it without her! 

Thank you very much for reading.