Tuesday, November 4, 2014

News and older tales....

just realized that i didn't keep the promise to post right after our "meeting" at Frankfurt airport....shame on me (but i think you know me already quite well and this is no surprise)

we had some incredible hours together....when i saw Jo sitting at the table in this italian coffee shop at the airport it was like a reunion of good old friends...not faint-hearted at all, we saw each other and the minute later we were in each others arms ;)
there was a lot of giggling and laughing, loads of yarn and coffee and way too less time (but we will meet again...sooner than we both hoped for ;))


seams that the upcoming season will be filled with neutrals and blue (hahaha...)

in the meantime (while Jo was travelling around the world....Helsinki, St.Petersburg...)I did some knitting (haha...how extraordinary ;)


seashore was released 2 weeks ago, after a wonderful test-KAL
with some outstanding ladies who never get tired to help me with testing my patterns
you can see all the incredible "seashores" they made during the test here in the test thread

finished a quick in-between-testknit for Justyna (Lete)
to practice my still not-good-at-all stranding skills....
because i signed in for 2 colorwork designs for Swans Island...
 
col.natural/beige and dark blue


aaaaand my first (yes there will be a second one...) pattern for Yarn Stories is live!
I did the sample in early august and need to confess that i didn't like the colour they picked for my design, but......it looks so freaking cool on this beautiful model!!!!

 photo: yarnstories


photo: yarnstories


this is such a lovely batwing-sleeve jumper.....need to knit one for me too!!!!! maybe in orange? or yellow? or toffee?
they carry some beautiful colours! go and check them out here 

for today i need to leave...need to do up a parcel (sample of the first colorwork design for Swans Island)


looks pretty good, right? 


take care out there

love,

isa m. 





Sunday, October 5, 2014

Gretchen

our dearly beloved "Bittersweet" was released this week!!!!!
finally!!!!!!!!! 

 

get your copy of the pattern here 
 
a simple but flattering top down raglan sweater with some cute eyelet increases down to the rounded hem... you might want to check out the glorious FOs of my dear testknitters here in the test thread
 
this one was the very first sweater i did in cooperation with Swans Island. I was overwhelmed by these wonderful colorways and impressed by the softness of their yarns (feels like knitting butter!) when i got some samples of their yarns early this year and it happened that the ideas came off my mind in no time
(2 kids sweaters will be published soon and currently we work on a colorwork collection....)

want to see a little sneak peek?????


this new yarn (all american fingering - Swans Island Yarns) feels like a little teddy bear and covers beautifully my lacking stranding skills (hahaha)
stay tuned, I will need some testers for this one aaand for another soon ;)

but now to some exciting news...i fear that they are not as exciting for you as they are for me...cannot think of other things the last days and today my heart goes out to....Joji
I will meet my dear Jo tomorrow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
after years and years knowing each other, we finally have the chance to meet in person, for me that means to get out of bed tomorrow very, very early in the moring...to take the train (I rarely take trains, so this is an excitement itself...hope i do not get lost...) to Frankfurt and spend the morning with Jo until she has to leave for Helsinki, isn't that cool?

Cathrin of WalkCollection (cwc on ravelry) and Melanie (mairlynd on ravelry) will join us too - bet we'll have a wonderful day together

i swear, i will come back soon to tell you more about a dream that will come true ;)

love,
isa m.
 
 

Monday, September 15, 2014

SEASMOKE...and a giveaway

...some of you might remember this


we did the test for this amazingly cute open-front cardigan within the hottest days of summer and today i finally have some exciting news for you:

Seasmoke will be released tomorrow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
is released ;)
pattern page: audrey-cardigan

to celebrate the release of the first design i did for and with swans island yarns the company is generously offering a sweater quantity of their yarn for a seasmoke-release-giveaway

everyone who buys the pattern will be entered and the winner will be picked after 7 days

so be prepared for tomorrow ladies ;)

love,

isa m.

Sunday, August 31, 2014

....and the last part (testknits)

ok, ok....again it took more time than I thought to get back to this little blog (shame on me....)

here is the last part of the testknits i did


pattern. xanti by Hanna Maciejewska
yarn. unknown fingeringing weight from cone (merino blend)

did mine with cap sleeves and an A-Shape rather than waist shaping, also omitted the contrast colors for the hems

 
 

pattern. forever-more by Justyna Lorkowska
yarn. wollerey-schura-silk held together with holst-garn-titicaca

no major mods, i only added 1 short row section to each half of the shawl due to a slightly tighter gauge.


  

pattern. cathedrale by polo sylvie

i'm still in doubt that i can wear this bright colour....
 

pattern. zippety by Hanna Maciejewska
yarn. midara-angora-2 in light grey + holst-garn-coast---uld-bomuld in col. marlin (which resulted in an adorable, stunningly perfect greyish blue!!!!)

some mods to make this more "me"
shorter body
shorter zipper at the side "seam" (no front zipper)
no front pattern - plain St st for mine ;)
broken rib pattern at the sides from underarm to bottom 

...

still so much work to finish (deadlines over deadlines...)
but we currently do a testknit for this one in the group


and i need to say, this is so much fun (no pressure, no obligations, pure designers heaven - relaxing and fun)
after all the designs i did for companies, mags, books (the most of them secret ones with release dates later this year or in the beg of the next year)....testing the ones for self-publishing makes me feel like "coming home"

love,

isa m.



 

Monday, August 11, 2014

Plucktember coming soon

i am happy to offer a 30% discount on all of my self-published patterns from today until august 30!!!
please use code plucktember2014 to get the discount!


maybe ...a hint of summer, westbourne or ravello?



go and grab your favorites ;)

happy plucktember everybody

isa m.

Sunday, August 10, 2014

testknits part 2

....the  harder i try to keep the promise to post more regularly the less time i have to do so...

nevertheless,....here is the second part of the (latest) testknits i didn't show here

dessine-moi-un-mouton is a lovely light weight jumper, seamlesss, worked from the top down with raglan increases to shape the yoke.
an easy-peasy textured pattern makes it special and keeps you interested while knitting



love the stripes (and the texture) of this one!
but i think i need to redo the bottom and add a little length to this beauty, because i still feel uncomfortable wearing this cropped sweater

pattern. dessine-moi-un-mouton by LaMaisonRililie
yarn. holst-garn-supersoft-100-uld (you'll need 7 different colours) 


the next one is another winner designed by ankestrick (aka fallmasche on ravelry) 
light weight, colourful, extraordinary - just love it!
had a hard time choosing colors....so many possibilities...


you can wear this one inside out, or the other way round ...it's beautiful in every way ;) i already have a second one on my needles ;)

pattern. holsten by Ankestrick
yarn. holst-garn-supersoft-100-uld (shown in col. iced, clementine, bleached white)


the next one was a very special testknit i did for my dear Jo

a worsted version of her beloved boxy  
she published the pattern for this one on her birthday...as always i completely forgot to send her a gift for this day...and so i did a little embroidery to the back of my worsted boxy (...guess she loved it ;)



i did mine without the double garter part on the shoulders, also picked up my stitches for the sleeves and the neckband from the WS to highlight the "seams"....aaaand i did a 2-color version, just for the fun of combining colors ;)

pattern.worsted-boxy by JOJI
yarn. malabrigo-merino-worsted (shown in col. polar morn and ravelry red)

...need to go back to my knitting needles now (have to keep some tight deadlines for some new designs for fall)

hope you all have great days

love,
isa m. 

 

 

 

Friday, July 18, 2014

...it's been a while....

some of you know it already....i am still alive ;)

busy as always i couldn't find the time to come back to this little blog and tell you what's going on....sorry

so many testknits, new designs, collaborations with yarnies and yarn companies, the house renovation and the move (!!!!!) back to the house had eaten up my time...

you won't believe it (i do not believe it myself!)...since this last post i made 16 other projects...what???? 16????
not counting the ones i didn't already put on my rav project page...

so what to do now
..think the best will be to start telling you about them and trying to keep up posting until i have shown you all of them ;)

ok, so here we go:
i did a lovely lila (just because i couldn't resist, when Carrie released this fantastic pattern)

 

pattern. lila  by Carrie Bostick Hoge

a wonderfully written, easy peasy bottom-up raglan sweater with an adorable and flattering shape, just love it and will do anotherone in wool for autumn (..if i ever find the time to knit all the things i'd love to ;)

 ...

next was a testknit i did for lilo
i didn't finish in time (...sometimes i am an awful testknitter, right?), but i can say, that this also looks so cool with short sleeves (hahaha!)

 

pattern. askia  by Cailliau Berangere
yarn. unlabled Sockyarn doubled

changed the neck increases to make it wider, no other mods (so far...)

...

the next and last for today was this beauty

 

this is such a beautiful, romantic cardigan (don't know how she does this again and again...Jo is a genius!)

pattern. old-romance  by Joji Locatelli
yarn. handdyed by me (fantastic color, isn't it ;)

some minor mods to make it mine:
no contrast color for the lace insets
shorter body
slightly a-shaped
picot bind-off

....i will be out for hiking this weekend (...aaaand for celebrating a good friends 40th birthday), so i won't be able to continue with this update before next week..

do i hear someone laughing???? 

anyhow i can try, right ;)


all the best and take care

love,

isa m.
 

 
 
 

Sunday, March 23, 2014

KC and WalkCollection

...finally the pattern for KC [Kynance Cove] is published!!!!
i had so much fun with the testing ladies (...and it's way easier
to launch a test in my ravelry group, than thought ...;)
Thank you, Ann for pushing this through ;)

please, please check out all these wonderful, fantastic, uber beautiful, amazing,.....projects 
i cannot say how much i loooove every single one of them!!!!



Cathrin from WalkCollection will have a shop update today 9 pm,
with adorable yarn kits (with pattern) for pre-order

the yarn kits are up, go and grab your yarn here in the shop

maybe you'd like to have a very first look ????








...aaaaand there will be a KAL (what???? a KAL!)in the group
starting 04/01, ending 05/31 and as this is the first KAL i host, everyone (YES! everyone) who finishes by the date will win a free
pattern (all of my patterns are eligible)

so come on ladies (and gents, of course ;)
join the fun here in the group 


have a great day

isa m.








Friday, February 28, 2014

....more stripes

don't know how to explain my love affair with stripes
i think i am addicted!!!!

last december Cathrin from WalkCollection offered me to use
her yarns for a new design - i sent her some sketches and we
decided to go with a casual, striped (....how extraordinary ;)
henley that matches her wonderful BFL dk 

then the hardest part of the work took part - deciding on colors!!!!

i had several combinations in mind, like:

  • hey grey - pebbles - chartreuse
  • sand - straw - pink candy
  • secret - powder - masala

but finally we went with

  • cement - tobacco - moana


and i absolutely loooove how this turned out.

the yarn itself is a pure pleasure to work with. soft and sturdy
with excellent stitch definition...and though i had so much other
things to do, this sweater went off my needles in no time...

my lovely testknitting ladies are currently testing this beauty
 - you can see some very, very promising sneak peeks in the 
testing thread of the group

while writing this post a thought crossed my mind.....
there are a few (maybe a little more..) testknits i didn't show
hmmmmm....i really need to get a better organization...

we'll see, maybe i can show these the next days  ;)

isa m.



Thursday, February 27, 2014

new wool ....and a new hat

lately i got to test some little gems - lucky me!
i recieved a bag full of luscious skeins from lamana yarns
and in addition their new pattern booklet 


the yarn shown above is called cusco , 100 % pure alpaca and comes in a beautiful range of 28 (!!!) colors


again .... the little girl in me wanted .... pink!






this hat is just too lovely (pattern is in this booklet)- soft and cozy (touching this yarn is like touching a cloud...though i need to confess, that i never touched a cloud so far...hahaha!)

...there are some other yarns to try out in the bag...


first pic: perla a wonderful cotton/alpaca/silk blend
second pic: piura lace weight pure alpaca (soooo soft!)
third pic: nuro a worsted weight cotton/merino blend (...maybe a little too heavy for my taste)

 
and last: nazca a bulky weight merino/alpaca/polyamid blend
(there is already a sweater in my mind...we'll see...)
i need more time! that's the one and only thing that's true
...don't know how to get all those ideas out of my head
there are way too many for one knitters life!!!!







oh, and i would love to invite you all to join my new group.
a new group? yes, a new group! - finally there is a group for my designs at ravelry!!!!

i will announce test calls there, we could do KALs or just hang around and chat....

have great days out there

isa m.

Friday, January 17, 2014

monte rosa....a collaboration with De Rerum Natura

this was a lot of work...
and it was sooooo worth it ;)

let me introduce monte rosa to you


this cardigan was created in collaboration with De Rerum Natura
(Solenn was adventurous enough to believe in me....)

more on the classic side with its cables and lace pattern, this cardigan features a modern and funny contrast coloured trim that will give you room to play with your favorite colour combinations.

the multinational testing-KAL was again so fun and pleasurable
and i want to thank my lovely testing ladies:
you all are incredible! this wouldn't have worked without you!!!

a few words about this wonderful yarn.
gilliatt is a pure woolen yarn of french merino, produced in an ecological way - i highly recommend it - it is a pleasure in every way... to knit and to wear
go and get yourself some skeins here

also exclusively available in the shop:
the french version of the pattern

hope this little baby will make its way across the globe
it's always incredible and amazingly cool to see my ideas
beloved all over the world...



hugs and kisses
isa m.