Hana Coasters

One of my best knitting friends is a designer who has a completely different - gorgeous - knitting and design style (susstrickart: you can follow her on Ravelry or Instagram). She creates exquisitely tailored garments with beautiful details, while I prefer bold geometric patterns in smaller pieces or accessories.. She recently said that it would be funny idea to cooperate - in that I would do some sort of flower motif that would be placed in the context of a well-finished garment ... and that got me thinking. So, I started to try out different ideas to knit square-shaped flower motifs and finally settled on this one.

Since this is a lovely little project on its own, I decided to publish this flower motif ("stand alone") as a pattern.

These motifs can be used as coasters - or (similar to crocheted granny squares) be embedded into bigger projects.

 

The knitting pattern for these is available via

• Ravelry
• Payhip
• Loveknitting (soon)

Until June 15th, 2025 you can get an introduction discount of 25% with coupon code "HANA".

The pattern PDF is 8 pages long and contains 

• written row-by-row instructions for knitting this hat – including eight photos of the different stages and explanations on
• a pattern chart 
• short photo tutorials for the following techniques (that are needed to knit these pieces)
• provisional CO with a crochet hook and how to undo it
• grafting in garter stitch
• short rows with wrap and turn and picking up the wraps 
• intarsia knitting 
• weaving in yarn while carrying it (backwards and forwards)

The following materials are used to knit these pieces

• EITHER: in fingering weight yarn
• yarn in two colours – a total about 6 grams (less than 25 metres) per coaster – about 15 metres for each colour
• 2.5mm knitting needles 
• a crochet hook of about 2.5mm (for the provisional CO)
• OR: in Aran weight yarn
• yarn in two colours – a total of about 15 grams (less than 30 metres) per coaster – about 15 metres for each colour
• 3.5mm knitting needles
• a crochet hook of about 3.5mm (for the provisional CO)
• scrap yarn of roughly the same weight as size than you knitting yarn
• a tapestry needle for grafting and to weave in ends

I knitted these pieces in two yarn weights:

• In fingering weight yarn the finished pieces measured 9.5 cm (edge length). The gauge (in unstretched garter stitch: 5 sts gave 2 cm in length and 5 ridges gave 2 cm in height.
• The pieces knitted in Aran weight yarn measured about 13 cm edge length. Here 11 sts gave 5 cm in width and 11 ridges 5 cm in height.

The photo below also shows that the piece also looks alright on WS because of the techniques (intarsia and carrying the yarn along).

Neon Scarf

For me, this is a bit of a long-run pattern: In the beginning of the Corona pandemic I bought some neon coloured sock yarn in an attempt to do something out of my (color) comfort zone. At the time I didn't know what to do with it, it was just something vaguely adventurous to me. So I started to knit a big shawl without a clear final idea. I tried, ripped back, (re-)calculated row/stitch numbers, tried again etc. In the end five parts of this (10 part) piece were knitted twice, before I was happy and the it was finished in April 2023. And then it took a little while to make sense of my notes, to write it down as a pattern and ask a friend to knit one of these.

The result is a colourful shawl, in bold neon colours that are reminiscend of the 1980s. It is also a lovely mixture of colours, textures and knitting directions, i.e. a bit of a challenging knit and NOT a beginner pattern.

The knitting pattern (PDF) for this shawl is available via

• Ravelry
• Payhip
• Loveknitting (soon)

You can get a 25% introduction discount with coupon code "NEON". Discount ends March 7, 2025.

The pattern PDF is 25 pages long contains

• written row-by-row instructions – 15 in-process photos (9 of which showing how to do the outside zigzag-edge)
• a description of the general construction
• charts of three parts of the shawl
• short photo tutorials of the following techniques – needed to knit this shawl
• pick up and knit stitches from the edge of your knitting
• pick up and purl stitches from the edge of your knitting
• short rows with wrap and turn – and picking up the wraps
• knitted cast on

To knit this shawl you need the following materials:

• a total of 2065 metres fingering weight sock yarn in four colours (I used Zwerger Opal Uni Solid, colorways Black, Neon Pink, Neon Green and Neon Orange)
• 790 metres of the main or background colour (MC, black in the title picture), i.e. 185 grams of fingering weight super wash
• 510 metres of the first contrast colour (CC1, pink in the title picture), i.e. 120 gram of fingering weight super wash
• 340 metres of the second contrast colour (CC2, green  in the title picture), i.e. 80 grams of fingering weight super wash
• 425 metres of the third contrast colour (CC3, orange  in the title picture), i.e. 100 grams of fingering weight super wash
• 3mm circular knitting needle – as long as you possess (since the last row is about 2 metres long, your knitting will be scrunched up, anyway :)
• three short 3mm knitting needles, I used needles from a dpn set
• (optional) 3.25mm circular knitting needle to knit the last bind off and the I-cord edge – and to make it  a bit stretchier
• stitch markers might be useful as a counting aid when you want to make sure that you have a certain number of stitches – especially when there are more than 200 sts on your needles; as a thrifty solution you can use slip knots made from scrap yarn
• yarnstoppers to prevent stitches from falling off your needles while knitting the zigzag-edge (ordinary rubber bands will do nicely)

A version in more muted colours without the zigzag edge

Size and Gauge: In garter stitch 13 stitches gave 5 cm in width, and 13 ridges (26 rows) 5 cm in height – this was measured on a blocked piece. The finished piece measures about 200 cm in width (wingspan) and about 88 cm in depth.

Wrong Side view