After having gifted a very special hand-knitted item to a beloved receiver, the most dreaded thing for a knitter to hear, is: "Oh... it's so cute, I love it - but I have to admit that I never wear it because it really doesn't fit / is too big / much too long / not really my size...! Well, thanks anyway"
- I had the pleasure to hear something similar after asking my mother if she wears the ShellSock in yellow I gifted her about a year ago. I made her this pair because she liked the ones I did for myself (based onthis free pattern here), but I never saw her wearing the socks, when I visited.
So... after wondering why she didn't tell me sooner and without me asking about them, I immediately started "The Operation ShortSock".
It's nothing groundbreaking in terms of newness or innovation. No, it's simply a cut-and-graft shortening of the sock's foot-tube. But since many knitters seem to be afraid of such "invasive treatments" and since I thankfully remembered to take pictures during "surgery" (a rarity in my case), I thought that I might show you the complete procedure below - step by step - and maybe it will seem less daunting to some! It's the idea of cutting that frightens more than the act itself, believe me.
​
So - first of all we had to do an evaluation-field trip: Mum tried on the sock and we established how much exactly we would need to shorten it, so that it'll fit comfortably.
​Try to keep in mind here that the fabric is elastic and that it will stretch a bit, but avoid to take out too much and make a sock that will be too snug and tight. Just fold over a section, try it out and mark the extent that needs to go.

Then I cut into one stitch of said contrast round in white (the first round of the section we intend to remove right above the needle of the toe area) and proceeded to take the whole round out stitch by stitch until the toe was separated completely from the rest of the sock.
You can click on the pictures to see a bigger version of them, if you like.

Then I found the tail of the grey main colour and just unraveled it until I got bored... and grabbed the cute little scissors I have from fringesupplyco to quickly cut all the excess away - without of course hurting any of the stitches already positioned on the needle - or myself - or others... 

Then the fun part began: The actual grafting and re-connecting of the toe to the foot! If you are one of those knitters that fear this step, rest assured that it is not at all hard to do. You just need to take your time and keep an eye on your tension, while following a good tutorial, if you don't already know the grafting mantra "knit, slip, purl... purl, slip, knit" by heart.

After neatly hiding all tails and such, the old-new shortened sock was ready to be worn for the first time and it successfully had been saved from a dark and boring life in the sock-drawer!
Both me and my favourite knit-recipient were quite glad about it...
You are welcome, mum! 

On an incredibly hot day this past June, I strolled around the former industrial district in Athens and stumbled upon a rare gem: A happy marriage between Art and Fiber.
It was the very last day of an exhibition called Chroachym by Chrysanthi Koumianaki, as I read on the front door of the old Mentis factory - so I walked inside.

Chrysanthi Koumianaki, a greek artist, collaborated and got inspired by a small scale brocade factory called Mentis in Athens - which today houses the Centre for the preservation of traditional textile techniques of the prestigious Museum Benaki in Greece.

The brocade factory opened in 1867 to dress King Otto, the first King of Greece’s shortlived Monarchy. Later the factory's production expanded as a silk factory and it became one of Greece’s most famous producer of passementarie - the embellisments that decorated courtains of couture houses, traditional costumes, theater production and even army wear for over half a century. Today it survives as a reference to a by-gone era, less as a necessary production line but as a symbolic gesture, a cultural and historic heritage site.

Wonderful tassels, cords and edgings fill up the space everywhere and can be admired in midst all the industrial beauty of the old machines and tools. And there, right between the busy silk heaps, there are Koumianaki's delicate floating pieces of work: Intertwined, as if they always were a part of the setting. Listening with feminine attentiveness and speaking to us about the factory in a poetic and soft voice. Her work asks us to see the factory’s particularities - to see and to hear them anew, as they truly are - and that IS Art in my opinion. It makes people think and feel and challenge and decide and observe.
Making us more "human", I guess - and I love this feeling, even if I encounter it seldom!
Thank you Chrysanthi for this experience.

Since most of my own pictures are from the factory/museum itself, you can see more of the actual exhibition here, on Chrysanthi's site.

Just as a general side note: I have to mention here that I don’t take the word “Art” lightly and that I myself have never applied it, when referring to knitting, spinning or weaving. I also have to admit that I am always cringing when I read or hear this new linguistic construction called a “Fibre Artist”…
But I digress... this is quite a huge subject and we can discuss it in the comments or in another moment, if you wish.

Anyway, ranting or musing aside… in this very specific instance there was something happening that truly resonated with me and that for the first time gave the words “Fiber Artist” a meaning that rang true - even in my personal strict, narrow and very specific view of fibre and art!

Gilda... The film Rita Hayworth was most famous for.
The 1946 Hollywood drama with this one immortal scene: Featuring a dancing and singing, alluring Gilda and one looong glove!

Now my take on Gilda has not much in common with the sleek and provocative, red-haired pin-up Rita... But it features long fingerless gloves too, and I would love to think that it would be Rita's choice for a Gilda-esque casual and chill out day in autumn or winter...
... the dancing and singing is optional, of course!

Finally the extra large stripes give the whole design a more youthful and modern take, while tiny accent stripe allow for a fun play with colour.

To further enhance the striping of this design, different material has been chosen, so as to have a slightly mat fabric for the patterned stripes and a smoother one for the Stockinette sections. Both yarns are of light fingering weight and very affordable, while offering a vast choice of colours and extremely good quality: Mabel & Ivy Supersoft and Mabel & Ivy Coast yarn.

The producer of the Mabel&Ivy label, Tangled Yarn, are offering kits for this pattern, which include all the yarn you’ll need to knit your sweater (with the option to purchase the needed amount of yarn - with or without arm-warmers - to complete the look)!
The GILDA Kits are available on the tangled-yarn site for a limited time: Until October 20th 2016.

There is a new bug in town and it's a fun little cardigan with lots of special details!

I have been working on this design since last fall and I am so happy that finally I can share it here with you. There was a lot of thought put into the whole coordination of all the different aspects, and if you like I can tell you some things about them:
We have a prominent textured bottom half that features a fairly easy stitch pattern to give an effect that is reminiscent of old brocade, which I absolutely love. 
Then there are the folds of course - two smaller ones at the front and one that draws all the attention at the back side. These are held in place without distortion by a contrast coloured slip-stitch band right above them and they are responsible for the quirky shape, since they drape at all the right places and counterbalance the fitted top section with instant ample volume.

It was the shape of the lower part of the body that made me think of colourful scaraboid wings and surprisingly I found that they looked good on human bodies, too!
Of course there were some knitters that were a little afraid that it might not look as good on their larger sized projects, but since I like to take these differences in body shapes in account for the larger sizes (as far as this is possible in standard sizing and pattern writing), I was able to reassure most of them. We discussed that a darker colour at the bottom part (or a single colour at both top and bottom sections) can result in a slimmer looking version. Further the length of the cardigan would be crucial to achieve a different style, as also the choice of the yarn quality of course, since a drapier yarn falls differently than a stiffer one.

​Shetland is a rustic and matt yarn, that will soften after washing and bloom nicely to fill any possible gaps in your knitting. This makes it quite suitable for stranded knitting, fair isle or other colour-work.
It is available in 22 beautiful colours. Most of them do have a subtle heathered quality that looks great in simple stocking stitch, too.

My fancy-lacy-fun socks were started ages ago... and I found them in a forgotten project bag last month. As it happens so often, I fell in love with the stitch pattern all over again and finished them in no time... and even worked a second pair since.
I thought that you might like them too, so I wanted to share this little sock with you.
Mind you, it's not a complete pattern with multiple sizes. It's a recipe style thing - where you get the numbers for a European size 38 foot and some pointers on how to adapt the pattern for another size.
I hope that you like it!

You can find the ShellSocks recipe/pattern for online viewing by clicking here 
(I am sorry that there is no option to download the PDF at this time, just the possibility to read it via the blog. Free patterns get pirated and sold quite often it seems and I wouldn't like this to happen).
​Make sure to check on the tips below before you start:

The STITCH PATTERN featured in this sock design is having yarn-overs before a purl stitch and before a knit stitch. Often you find that the yarn overs that are worked before the purl stitch end up to be much bigger in size than their sisters before the knit st and that results in an uneven lace fabric.
There are two ways to remedy that, depending on the look you like:

1. if you like small yo holes on both sides, then work the yo before the knit stitch as usual (from front to back) and the yo before the purl stitch from back to front. This will result in a twisted yo, that needs to be worked tbl in the next rnd.
2. if you like larger yo holes on both sides of the decreases (something I prefer for my socks, to make the lace design pop out more), then work both yo’s normally (from front to back), only give some extra slack to the ones before the knit stitch. You can achieve this by pulling the already worked yo a little bit forward with your index finger, while working the knit stitch.

Choose the best option depending on your own knitting style (if you are a tight or loose knitter) - or try both out to see what suits you best.

As you probably know already, I always like to design simple stitch patterns that are easy to memorise and where one can quickly find back into the repeat, even after having left the project quite urgently in the middle of the row, repeat or stitch pattern.

In this pattern I use my favourite HEEL CONSTRUCTION that I like best in terms of fit and which is fairly quick to do: A gusseted short row heel, worked with german short rows.

The Shell stitch pattern has double decreases that tend to pull upwards and that can warp the stocking stitch stripes at the heel. This is why we end on the patterned row, just before working the heel. That way, when resuming working all around in pattern at the leg again, we continue with knit rows over the heel section in the next rnds, to avoid distortion on the striped heel.
This tip can be handy in all sock patterns with similar lace pattern repeats: You might want to make sure that the knit rnds of a stitch pattern (one that has stocking stitch rows in between decrease/yarn over rows) will be positioned right above the heel section.

Finally if you need more tips on AUGMENTING SIZE for this recipe, you can check out the notes on the second pair I knitted for my mum in size 39 here on my ravelry project notes here.

It's been a year now that my cardigan pattern MarlOn was released in the wonderful amirisu winter 2015 issue! The gorgeous Japanese knitting magazine gave me back the rights to the pattern just recently and so it was able to join it's sisters here on my blog. 
It is still available through ravelry of course - I just changed the layout of the English PDF pattern to the "rililie-approved-version" you all know (with yoke charts and so on).
The Japanese translation remains in the original amirisu layout though, since I wouldn't dare to touch it. Yes, my Japanese is non-existant... and sadly will remain so for quite some time!

The first couple, narrower stripes are quite at home on the delicate collarbone-area while they progressively get "fatter" towards  the larger neck backside, as you can see above.

And then there is all this play with using denser and spaced out, fine and larger stripes to enhance the feminine body of an otherwise classic cardigan shape. This is all achieved by following a specific marled sequence and the use of 2 strands of yarn throughout.
"MarlOn" is all about having fun in choosing one's very own, unique colouring!

(and no, I haven't cut my hair - these are all pictures from when I finished the cardigan 2 years ago... just before sending it away from home, to far away Japan!)

An immense thank you to the lovely girls at amirisu for the excellent collaboration!
Starting today, you can find the pattern PDF in English and Japanese for direct download, either here on this site, or as before on ravelry.

Just a quick shout-out to let you know that....
It's my BIRTHDAY!!!!
and...
That I am holding my annual Birthday-Sale like every year, the only time where you can get each and every one of my self-published knitting patterns at a 20% discount (only on my website here or on ravelry)!
The sale ends October 14th at midnight Central European Summer Time.
(check this site here to find out what time this would be in your own local time zone).
 

I am sure that you all have experienced similar indecisiveness when knitting your own garment:
Do I want a pullover or a cardigan?
Will I go for long or cropped?
Boxy fit or siren-style waist shaping?
Long or short sleeves???

I just wasn't able to choose which length I preferred, since the sleeves do change the whole look of a garment so much. I couldn't decide if I wanted to counterbalance the wider bands of the body with playful short sleeve-cuffs in the same colour - or if I wanted to enhance the texture of the shoulder stitch pattern by adding a longer sleeve. One that would end with a new take on the body stripes without really copying them...

The result is a pattern that proposes both versions - longer, ¾ sleeves or short ones - so that I am leaving you guys to answer this (oh, so very hard) question for me!
Choose what you like best (or what your climate is suggesting to you) and go for either the fun short or the sophisticated ¾ length.

The detail I love most in this design though, is the textured slip-stitch pattern on the shoulders and sleeves. It really is a very simple stitch and easy to memorize, but with such an interesting result when paired with classic (or not so classic) stripes!

Probably the number one question that knitters ask me, is how to tighten up the last double-stitch when working German-Short-Rows in the round. This final turning point from the last short row - the last double-stitch to be worked when starting knitting in the round again - is slightly turned to the other side and ends up big and funny looking when it's knit as usual.

Insert the right needle (or an extra DPN needle if it's easier to handle) into the right leg of the stitch, that is positioned 2 rows below the first stitch on the left needle (as shown above)...

Work like this towards the left, stitch for stitch and carefully move the extra yarn from one stitch to the other and let the yarn travel to the side in this way. The idea here is to try to pull out a tiny bit less excess while working each stitch, so that your pulled-out loop gets smaller each time because every stitch "absorbs" a small fraction of the excess until it is all gone. You don't want to end up with all the length on the left side of your double-stitch and just transport the huge stitch itself from one side to the other. 
What you need is to have this extra loop of yarn distributed all over the 3-5 stitches towards the left, or until it isn't visible anymore (it doesn't need to look perfect at this stage).

On the picture on the right, where I have continued knitting about 4 stitches more, you can see clearly that the big double-stitch has been transformed into a normal sized stitch, while the extra length of yarn has been "incorporated" into the smaller stitches to the left, making those stitches larger in size and the difference between all of them less pronounced.

There are other methods where you are working this last short row stitch differently as the others before, to "make it behave" (sometimes by knitting each leg of the ds together with other stitches, for example).
I am personally not a big fan of this idea - even if it might be quicker to work.  It can distort the stitch more if not done right, make the fabric pull in at that point instead of letting the natural flow of the stitches open up during blocking, leave the smaller stitches in their tiny misery or add bulk to a section where we want to keep things nice and flat.

2. Eliminating larger stitches, even after having completed the project:
Good news is that you can manually repair the tension to get rid of all big, distorted stitches in your knitting - not only the short row double stitches discussed here - but also when you have strange laddering going on in magic loop knitting, strange holes near the underarm cast-on in top down knitting or the occasional giant stitch making an appearance.
If you already have finished and blocked your project and you still want to get rid of any stitch that looks too big, or if you still find that the above tip didn't yield a perfect result, even after blocking, this "Post-Production" process will surely be of interest:

You will need a smaller sized needle, good lighting and some patience to make this work:

I find that we knitters sometimes forget that we are just working with sticks and a long length of string, which makes up a fabric of interlocked loops. A fabric that one can influence at any given time by shifting the amount of length in the finished surface - during but also after knitting.
This fact actually opened up a whole new way of thinking to me; on how to handle my knitted fabric and to understand a lot of things about the flow of the stitches in knitting.

As I said the logic behind all of this is really simple - too simple maybe and not at all dramatic - but it does the trick every time: With just a little patience and an even tension, all "non-conform" stitches, ugly double-stitches or other unwanted distortions in our knitting can be successfully remedied and persuaded into shape.

I am sure that this isn't the only way to eliminate this kind of problematic stitches - it is the way I prefer for years now and I am very happy with it because it allows me the freedom to repair any unevenness that might have escaped me during knitting.
But maybe you have another method that works better for you?