Who is in the mood for drawing and painting?
Who wants to play with yarn and colour?
Imagine a fun and yarny colouring book experience: But with absolute freedom of abstraction.

If, like me, you are a bit bored of the usual motifs used in Fair Isle knitting, Norwegian colour-work or traditional embroidery throughout the world and want something you created by yourself, you can get inspiration from any shape or form around you - try to see the lines and surfaces in an abstract design.
There are so many different ways that colours can interact with each other that go beyond what we already see in knitting..
​..but I digress...
​let me start at the beginning:

​Now, by looking at the early 20th century perfume bottle, I had my answer:
​I allowed myself to get influenced by the delicate scrollwork pattern from the label design and played with it to create an interesting motif that also provided a gradient of colour, deliberately set up to go from light to dark. I'd like to think that you can still see a bit the influences of Art Deco and Japonesque elements that were the rage when the perfume was launched!

This pattern tries to explore stranded knitting by tackling the subject with a different approach:
Mitsouko wants to explore something a bit more experimental, large-scale and conceptual.
The idea is mostly influenced from abstract large scale paintings in general, while only the specific interpretation is drawn from the famous scrollwork pattern. 

You can knit this Mitsouko pattern as is and I have prepared charts that match three standard sizes to create these colour interactions with your yarn and colours of choice.
But if you’d like to go a bit further and be a bit experimental and unleash the abstract designer or graphic artist inside, I have also provided empty charts in three sizes for you to play with, without having to bother to do all the math or think about construction.

​This could be a design or drawing of your very own. You can customise this hat while getting an excuse to doodle… and get to unleash your (inner?) kid!

So how would this work? Well you can choose something you want to make as a pattern. Like me, you can allow yourself to be inspired by any form you find intriguing. You could blow up and digitise a photograph that has interesting colour interactions. You could take up crayons and have some fun. You can blow up a segment of a design you like or even a lace design and transform it into colour-work. You can also give the provided charts to your friend, child or loved one and have them come up with a colour design for a unique custom knit they have put their own creativity into.
And then you can knit their custom-motif up for the perfect gift... a project that came out of your very own creative collaboration.
You can use this as a fun experimental place to try out something new. Take a walk on the design side, or the fashion side and come up with a fresh take on your knit-work for a truly one-off hat nobody else has – this way, you are the master of your project.

...If on the other hand you prefer taking the safe route and also don't like the spirals of the original Mitsouko? Then, well... then Mitsouko's Lover is for you...  

Mitsouko's Lover is the cheeky name of the "minimal and simple" striped version which is probably more unisex and easy to wear than Mitsouko, although this all depends on personal style anyway. For this version I tried the Ovelha Negra Victoria yarn for the first time and it really is an absolute joy to work with!

The longer ribbing and slightly larger body of the actual shape of all versions can be worn slouchy or tucked in for a more elegant beanie effect. You get a dense and warm hat, that is still light and easy to wear and to take with you, since it is knitted in fingering weight yarn.

Find the pattern on this site or go to ravelry.
(Until midnight of 23 of January 2018 (CEST), you automatically get a 20% discount)​
Also stay tuned to find out about some news out of Italy.... a surprise collaboration with Unfilodi knit house that will interest all Italian speaking friends and many more...

Since the whole hat pattern is so adjustable and open to personalisation, it is the perfect project to have a fun and interactive KAL together with other colour-drawing-exploring knitters - or to get some help in deciding on how to combine one's own ideas of design, motif and colour - or to just show off different versions from clean-cut minimalism to totally out there, baroque styling!
Check out the ColourOutsideTheLines knit-along (or KAL in knitter's terminology) to find out more...

Click on the Banner above to open up the KAL page and participate in this fun game!

In the last weeks I had to reconsider my knitting-needle "organisation": My "system" wasn't working anymore. Circulars were everywhere and although I tried to keep them from tangling up with each other by storing most of them in their original sachets, they were also starting to show their age and tearing up. It was extra hard and quite unpleasant to try to find anything in my big mess of a bag...

It might look like an innocent, elegant silk clutch from the outside, but beware - the inside holds the best tool for all of us slightly neurotic and archive-maniacs knitters out there:
Pockets... Labels,
TABS!
In this organisational wonder you get 21 labelled pockets, plus another 3 plain pockets. 
​All of them do have a flap and they are about 15cm x 10,5cm big, which makes each pocket large enough to hold about 3 (smaller sized) needles comfortably.

The half sizes stop at 6,5mm, so that there was no pocket provided for my 7,5mm circular (the labelling goes from 1,5mm (000US) to 12mm (17US) by the way). There are even quarter sizes for the smaller needles, which I do not use at all - so I thought that I could put stickers on the existing tabs to personalise the labelling according to my own needs and together with the pockets that do not have labels, I can still find my stuff at one glance and have all of my needles together in one case.

While the pocket organisation is most practical and welcome, the main star of this case is of course the fabric! When I first saw it, I thought that it is made out of pure silk - but no, the material is called “Poly Silk” and as I found out with a quick google search, Poly Silk is essentially polyester and silk - it is a mix designed to make the silk more durable, easy to wash and wrinkle resistant. So you get the gorgeous look of silk and hopefully the durability and resistance of polyester with this material. 
Sounds good to me (who always walks around with wrinkly clothes, if they aren’t knit-wear… my knits are perfectly blocked, always!!! But everything else, not so much).

The colour I have is called “Seafoam” and it is a wonderful, vibrant, light venetian green. I especially love the different hues the silky fabric provides and I have the impression that it will age gracefully by getting lighter at the edges and make the rich texture of the weave come out even more. On the website there are quite many different colours to choose from, depending on the model and there is also a big choice of different sized needle cases for interchangeables, straights, DPNs or crochet hooks. I also think that I saw some lovely project bags over there, but I tried to ignore them for the time being.... 

But what I love the most, is the fact that these cases aren’t produced by a big international company but by a small business based in Seattle, which seems to be working ethically with the people that produce those handmade bags in Vietnam.

There is so much more info you can read about the DellaQ shop and the quirky owner Della in her about page (or you can also check her out on instagram). Her blog “The Knitting Bag Chronicles” features also a lovely post that introduces the Vietnamese sewers and the workshop she is working with.

Now I am off to find a different solution for my DPNs, since I guess that my old Cath Kidston straight case (although very cute) will be too cumbersome to take with me when travelling…

For the dimensions, offered colours, price and other info about the cases, check out the DellaQ shop.
My case is this one: The Que Grand Circular Needle Case in the colour seafoam

Today is the day!!
The day a new yarn-baby has been pushed out into this great big world for us to caress and to love.... the Maai Yarn of Shibui has just been released!!!!

I am considering myself extremely lucky to be one of the few that had the opportunity to try this baby out before... I got a very generous sample by post and couldn't resist in casting on immediately for a new project (the hat from my last post), leaving my overflowing to-do list completely untouched.
It is this soft and beautiful!

In the same generous bag I got some other beautiful samples... Here you can see an array of different yarn bases in the same gorgeous colour "mineral" - I really want to use them all together in a project to showcase their differences and subtle variations. 
The idea of mixing yarn bases is very popular with Shibui and by looking at all the different hues and textures that one gets in the same colour, I totally understand why!

...Of course I had to order some yarn for my next dream projects, too! I am afraid that only by looking at the incredible pictures on the Shibui site one can't help but wanting all of the lovely beauties they have on offer...

But back to the main idea for this post... I wanted you guys to see and feel for yourself the beauty that is called Maai and I thought that a give-away of a skein of this little wonder is in order: 3 persons that comment on this post will get one skein send to them by post.
A little present from me and Shibui!

To make the whole thing a little more fun I thought of a little game: You just need to continue the sentence of the one person that commented before you. It can be completely irrelevant or stupid, whatever you like. Hopefully we get one extra long ridiculous sentence written by all of us in the end...
... and 2 skeins in the colour "Poppy" and one skein in the colour "Blueprint" will be sent out to three different destinations each, when the time is up.

The winners will be drawn by a random generator 2 days after this post goes live and I will announce the winner at the bottom of this little article when the moment has come!
(I will also write an email to the winners to ask about postal addresses - which can be anywhere in the world - no restrictions!).

So... let's start the game!
Who will be the first to start the sentence???

Update on 17th September:
The three winners have been drawn!!!!
(I used a random generator for this difficult task... )

CONGRATS to the lucky winners!!!
Thank you everybody for playing!!!
The long sentence you guys wrote is really fun, sometimes very poetic and quite dreamy... with unicorns and elephants making unexpected appearances!
I loved reading through it and every new comment made me smile!!!!
I couldn't wish for more inspired readers!!!!!
:)
I will write an email to each of the winners right now, to ask about where to send the yarn!!!

Summer is almost over... well, not exactly here at the Mediterranean coast with a new heat-wave arriving shortly, but in theory the summer months are coming to their end in the northern hemisphere!
My summer was quite stressful - that's the main reason I have been so silent lately on the blog. 

I had some knitting related mishaps: My first sample for a magazine submission decided that it didn't want to have stripes and the darker colour bled into the light coloured striping... it bled all over the place and the whole project was ruined in minutes - after weeks of work!
All of this had to happen on a Saturday night - and I found myself searching frantically on the internet for yarn shops that offered express shipping...
(I had to reknit the whole thing immediately since the deadline-clock started ticking louder and louder while my nerves were getting tighter and tighter).

Well, I can inform you, that there are none! At least I didn't find any online shop that would ship express internationally with a guaranteed arrival of the yarn in a couple of days...

Thankfully I remembered Rachel, the owner of the UK based yarn shop Tangled-Yarn, whom I "met" on the wonderful knitting forum ravelry and I wrote her a freaked out message, telling her what happened and asking her if she would be able to send me the yarn immediately, like... NOW!
Rachel answered on Sunday morning (!) and she had already researched all the possible shipping methods and told me exactly what costs how much and when it would arrive and...
...well, to cut the story short: she totally saved my butt!!!!

So 2 days after that I held the yarn I needed in my hands (and maybe even a little more than I actually needed, I mean... since you pay for express shipping you need to take advantage of it, don't you?)

But for the project I needed to start as quickly as possible I chose my trusted old friend: Coast yarn from Holst. I am a little Holst fanatic, I admit it freely - but I just knew that this yarn would neither loose any colour nor provide me with any other bad surprises...  
I re-calculated and re-knitted everything in just under a week....
...and now I can breath again!

I sadly can't show you anything of the project in question - hopefully you'll see it next year (if it doesn't get lost on the way or anything else).
But I can and will say a huge thank you to the lovely yarn-shop owners out there, that are life saviours whenever a stupid knitter messes up and who listen to all our woes and..
well, provide us with the loveliest yarn ever!
THANK YOU Rachel!!!!!!

...you hold the package you recently ordered, full of knitting related goodies!!!

No, it wasn't yarn this time (but I am waiting for a shipment of some lovely wool, too... I am addicted to internet shopping, I know)!
This one is probably even better: I bought knitting accessories..... striped project bags, a fancy Japanese yarn clipper and a statement tote from Fringe Supply Co!

Isn't the little black yarn-clipper cute? I like the simple "mechanical" no-nonsense look of this one... makes me feel very accomplished when I cut my yarn with gusto!

And although I really didn't need another handbag for my overflowing collection, I had to have this tote! I mean, as a die-hard-knitter one has to share one's conviction and show that we knitter mean business wherever we go...

But the main reason for my internet-hunt was the need for a representable project-bag! I had a cloth drawstring bag that I lost somehow and soon found out that it was a really bad idea to keep your knitting without any protection together with all the other random things that accumulate in a large handbag (you know what I am talking about: The Miss-Marple-Effekt of opening a handbag and shoving all kind of meddled clutter on the table). 

I always admired some really beautiful handmade project-bags, where you can store your knitting while on the go without having your yarn and needles all over the place. But most of the ones I found were a little bit too flamboyant and overly decorated for my taste....
 
The ones I got are called Bento-Bags and apparently they can be used as lunch parcels, too... 
or indeed for whatever else you need to keep secure in your handbag. For my part they will have the one and only honourable job to exclusively house my precious WIPs! 
They come in different sizes to hold small project like socks up to whole garments together with lots of yarn! I am thrilled!!!!!

Aren't they cute? Such an easy and practical design... I noticed that I like simple and clean lines with an unfussy shape that's easy to use. 
And Fringe Supply & CO has just this aesthetic that I love!!!
So... now I definitely need to go somewhere just to sport my new tote with my WIP neatly packed in it's lovely project bag, where it belongs!

How about meeting up - you and me and other friends - and having a long and nice chat, while knitting together in a cozy shop full of wool......?????

Sounds nice, doesn't it?
Well... if you are in Berlin this month - we can definitely do something about that!

On two Saturdays (the 17th and the 24th of May) we will have 4 hours to meet, discuss, learn, chat and knit together! You will get my e-book "Shaken, Not Stirred!" and we can work through the pattern, start the project and mix and match our own cocktail side by side and needle by needle...

There will be new, detailed material and tutorials on the different techniques used in the pattern and we will work everything out together in German (or English or both... whatever you guys prefer).

The whole event will take place in lovely Berlin (at the bouclé shop) in the Nassauische Strasse 11-12, 10717. You can call Gabriele to book a space or to get more information about the whole workshop (Phone: 030-81853014) or you can write to [email protected].

I am so excited to actually meet (like really physically meet) you guys.... there are so many ravelry connections and cyber-friends that I have made over the last couple of years - and now I will be able to see and talk with some of you!
This fact alone makes me EXTREMELY happy... 
but anxious, too.... I am feeling a little bit like an adolescent on a first date with a pen-pal!
haha...

I found some new indy-yarn that really does make a difference:

The lovely squishy and incredibly soft yarn that you see here is called Rosy Green Wool.
It's guaranteed 100% organic merino wool, sourced in Patagonia, then spun & environmentally friendly dyed at a small family business in the UK.

But it's not only the great quality that makes this yarn different!
It is one of the rare merino wools that is certified by the independent, international Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS) for it's organic quality, it is machine washable (!) and the colours are not only gorgeous, but also made out of organic dyes that are not harmful: neither to the person that wears the finished object nor to the environment.

On a much more serious note though: Rosy did tell me something else, that I have never heard of before and that disturbed me immensely... As every other industry today, mass yarn production has quite some horrible secrets that are hidden from the consumer, too!

On her website Rosy explains:
"During my research I discovered many interesting but also alarming facts, from the painful mulesing that Merino sheep have to suffer to the large quantities of chemicals and pesticides which are normally used for yarn production. But unfortunately I could not find any organic wool which offers a verifiable guarantee that such things do not occur during the production and which is also really soft and not only available undyed. After what I had found out, it was simply impossible for me to continue knitting with such yarns and feeling good at the same time. The only solution: to produce a yarn myself which would meet all of these criteria."
Read more about how Rosy felt compelled to make her own organic yarn line on her site (in English) or on her blog (in German).

Do you know this sensation? When it's cold and grey outside and you step into a warm and beautiful shop full of soft, cozy, beautifully coloured yarn... the moment when the door behind you shuts and you stop in utter wonder and amazement - feeling like a kid in a candy shop!

I was blown away by the sheer amount of luxurious yarn on display! Even the tiniest corner of this sunny shop had something wondrous to see, touch and admire....

... the little shop is filled with loveliness displayed in the most beautiful way ....

"Die Mercerie" has so much to offer: not only the gorgeous choice of famous yarns from every corner of the world, cute buttons and tools, but it also serves the best Latte Macchiato and tasty cakes here in Munich....

... and that's the best idea ever: a beautiful  yarn shop with a friendly and convivial atmosphere, where you not only buy the most gorgeous tools of the trade but also have lots of fun using them. Right there on the spot!!!!