You know what I find myself wanting most at this time of year, when the grey Northwestern winter feels like it will never end?

Color!
This is the New Traditions Afghan, which I designed hoping to soothe the post-holiday winter blues. At this time of year, I always need a little bit of extra cheerfulness and a shot of color is a surefire way to provide that! The geometric blocks themselves, which borrow their star motifs from traditional quilt blocks, are bright and colorful, while the borders between them are worked log- cabin style (which is another quilting technique that has long been used by knitters–or did quilters borrow it from us??) in a neutral palette.
I loved designing a piece that owes debts to two different craft traditions, and I loved that I got to use my math background in working out the geometry of the quilt blocks! …

Hi Everyone!
We have been working on improving our tutorials, reorganizing them in a logical way, making them easy to search and navigate, and adding more content. Now if you click on the tutorial tab in the Knitting Community, you will be redirected to the new tutorial site. Here is a link.

We now have over 100 tutorials, and I have tried to curate them so you can find exactly what you need in categories.
Just starting out? Check out the Beginner category, which will show you all of the techniques that you need to get started, without overwhelming you with more specialized or advanced techniques that you don’t need quite yet. Or if you are working on a specific project, like your first sweater or hat, click on the Projects category and you will find all tutorials you need that are related to that specific project. Working on …

The past few months I’ve pretty much just working on projects for other people & last week I decided I needed to do something quick for myself…which turned into 2 quick projects, which turned into 3! All were slouchy hats – I think I may need an intervention! 🙂
First was Ysolda Teague’s Ripley pattern (Ravelry link)

Took just a little bit over one hank of Swish Bulky in Garnet Heather. Man, this yarn is so soft & fun to knit with. I changed up the pattern a bit – I did just a regular 2×2 rib band instead of the band called for in the pattern…mostly out of laziness. I went down to a size 8 needle & I’m very pleased with the fit…not to mention the warmth!
Then I had some leftover Gloss HW in Jade from a scarf for my guy’s mom & decided I needed another …

I must admit, there’s something about foxes that I think is totally adorable. I think of them as ‘puppy kittens’. Just too cute! So, when we were all throwing ideas back and forth about what would make a cute stuffed animal, it just had to be a fox! When I went to swatch to get gauge for Roxy Fox, I couldn’t stop. I ended up with most of Roxy and both her pups.

What I love about these little guys is how they showcase a really cool quality of Suri Dream – its fluffiness. What’s interesting about Suri Dream, though, is that when knit at a tighter gauge, it doesn’t look that fuzzy at all. The stitch definition is pretty remarkable, considering what it looks like in the ball!

Even though that’s the right gauge to keep the stuffing in, it wasn’t ‘foxy’ enough. …

This was just way too much fun to design!

Kerin and I collaborated on the Land and Sea Playset kit, and it was a realy treat, since this is exactly the kind of toy my brother and I loved as children! I wrote the patterns for the pickup truck and taxi cab (brought it back to my New York routes with a real yellow checkered cab!) and Kerin did a great job on the sailboat and happy choo choo train! These are all knit out of soft, washable shine sport.
I wish we had a recording of the squeals of delight when these samples came back into the office–I think everyone reverted to childhood for a minute as we all got down on the floor and pushed the little toys along the roads and tracks on the playmat:

The playmat is a downloadable pattern I …